Anna Schmanna

You heard it here first: Anna’s Presentation is boring! What? Allow me to explain.

What the Bahá’í World has come to know as “Anna’s Presentation” is excerpted from Ruhi Institute Book 6, Unit Two, Sections 6-19, and is the brainchild of Dr. Arbab and perhaps his associates, distilled from the experience of Bahá’ís around the world. It is the idealized, comprehensive unfolding of the Faith through the vehicle of a fictional, remarkable, well-nigh unbelievable seventeen-year old as expounded to her Catholic school friend Emilia. (“Well-nigh,” since the Faith actually does sprout such prodigious youth.) The style of it is reminiscent of Plato’s Republic in that one person is expounding while the other(s) merely give laconic assent to its inexorable flow. From the turn of this Gregorian Millenium this presentation has been increasingly touted as the teaching tool sin qua non in the mounting crescendo of emphasis on direct teaching. We now have full-colour booklets replete with gorgeous photography, flip charts, and power point presentations, and Anna is the rock star of the current Five-Year Plan.

But whoa, just a minute. Occasionally we go overboard in our enthusiasm. In some quarters it is recommended that those going forth to teach memorize it in toto and regurgitate it when we find receptive souls. First of all, we are not selling the Faith like Encyclopaedia Brittanica so we’re not giving a prefabricated spiel that has a proven track record, and secondly, in difficulty it is roughly equivalent to memorizing Act II, Sc. 2 of Hamlet. And most importantly, giving it in its published form is like listening to deadpan comedian Steve Wright recite The Tell-Tale Heart – boring! The Institutions of the Faith have lately recognized this, and are encouraging the believers to animate their renditions with their own personal zeal for the Faith.

So why do we use it and what is its value? It really answers the question, “How do I teach the Faith -- what do I say?” Most of us in introducing the Bahá’í Faith to a person unfamiliar with it choose certain aspects of it we are comfortable with, the principles or the history or the community, for example. Or else we say things that are perhaps meaningful for us, but give little glimpse of the big picture, such as, “For me it is about hope.” Or perhaps even more commonly, “I finally found a religion that teaches what I have always believed.” Over the years I have been time and again taken aback by the things that have come out of Bahá’ís mouths, having no context or connection to the virgin listener, such as the Infallibility of the Manifestations, stories of the martyrs, personal reminiscences of meeting a Hand of the Cause, their own struggles with a particular Bahá’í law, or some other matter that requires considerable groundwork. Few of us give a comprehensive view, the skeleton of the entire colossal edifice, which would in the course of a few or even a single meeting, give a seeker a sufficient overview to decide whether his own soul has connected with it. How many of us have encountered the same seekers at firesides month after month, year after year, who still have little grasp of the “fundamental verities” that lie at the heart of this glorious path to God? And this is the genius of Anna’s Presentation, that it gives a panoramic view of this vaaaaaaaaaaaast ocean.

So yes, we ought to internalize this guide, and then be prepared to talk about the Central Figures with the love we have for Them, the Administration with all the reverence and obedience we have for its Institutions, the laws, the worldwide community, the core activities that prepare souls to usher in a new age of humanity, the mighty socially transformative principles, the Covenant, Progressive Revelation, the beautiful prayers and majestic words of the writings, and our central passion for teaching in our quest for the holy grail of uniting all of mankind.