George Townshend (Bahai)

George Townshend (born June 14, 1876 in Dublin , Ireland ; † March 25, 1957 there ) was an Irish-American clergyman. He was a Bahá'í and one of the twelve hands of the Cause appointed by Shoghi Effendi on December 24, 1951 . He was the first consecrated Christian priest to break his vows to become a Bahá'í.

Life

Townshend studied Classical Literature and English at Hertford College , Oxford and graduated in 1899. On his return to Ireland he worked for the Irish Times and for the Irish Bar and received a law degree.

He then emigrated to Provo , worked as a missionary to the Mormons and Indians, and was ordained an Anglican priest in Salt Lake City in 1906 . In 1909 he taught at Salt Lake High School. He then moved to Sewanee , Tennessee , and became an assistant professor of English at the University of the South in 1912.

Although he had accepted American citizenship, he returned to Ireland in July 1916 and took the position of assistant pastor in Booterstown, County Dublin . Townshend learned about the Baha'i Faith when a friend from Sewanee sent him some brochures with words from Abdu'l Baha . Around 1918 he began to write with Abdu'l Baha. Townshend married Anna Sarah Maxwell in 1918.

He spent many years near Ballinasloe , County Galway . There he was from January 1919 as pastor for Ahascragh and from 1933 as archedeacon for Clonfert . His son Brian was born in 1920 and his daughter Una in 1921.

In 1926, Townshend Shoghi Effendi offered to revise the English translations of Baha'u'llah's works. Shoghi Effendi gratefully accepted the offer. The collaboration lasted 18 years and began with the Hidden Words . Townshend believed he could use books to gradually influence Church leaders and bring the whole Church to the Baha'u'llah faith.

His first book was the popular and well-selling prayer and meditation book "The Altar on the Hearth" from 1926, which emphasizes the progressive revelation of God and a new spiritual civilization. Although it does not directly mention the revelation of Baha'u'llah, according to Shoghi Effendi, it is imbued with the Baha'i spirit. Some content appeared again in 1952 in his book "The Mission of Baha'u'llah". His next work "The Promise of All Ages" appeared in 1934 under a pseudonym and openly deals with the progressive revelation of God, the mission of Baha'u'llah and the statements of Christ that refer to this day of God.

The book The Heart of the Gospel, published in 1939, explains history as a spiritual development and examines the doctrines of the gospel that have been overlooked by theology . Although he sent hundreds of copies of the last two works to clergy in Ireland and received some benevolent reviews in the newspapers, no one in the Church accepted his message.

At the World Congress of Faiths in London in 1936, Townshend Shoghi Effendi's declaration “Baha'u'llah's draft for a world society”. As a result, Townshend publicly identified with the Baha'i faith. Nevertheless, for family and economic reasons, he had to wait eleven years before he could formally leave the church. Townshend was elected canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral and moved to Dublin. There he spoke about Baha'u'llah in a sermon in June 1940.

Townshend wrote the introduction to Shoghi Effendi's book, God Passes By , which was published in 1944 on the occasion of the centenary of the Declaration of the Bab and which reports on the events of the first century of the Baha'i faith. He also checked and edited the God Passes manuscript.

Townshend retired in 1947 and formally left the Anglican Church . At the same time he became a member of the Baha'i Fellowship and wrote the pamphlet "The Old Churches and the New World Faith" for all Christians, which was distributed to 8,122 people in the British Isles , 5,000 in Australia , 2,000 in the United States , 4,000 in Canada and was sent to an unknown number in Egypt and Germany . However, the response to this campaign was low. The Old Churches and the New World Faith was also published in The Bahai World (Vol. XIII) and in German . The first local spiritual council of Dublin was also the first of Ireland and was founded in 1948 by Townshend and other Baha'i.

He spent the last decade in a small bungalow in Dundrum near Dublin. Shoghi Effendi appointed Townshend to the hand of the cause of God in 1951. As a matter of fact, he rendered Shoghi Effendi numerous services, particularly in the field of writing. Shoghi Effendi considered him the best writer the Baha'i have. In 1953 Townshend took part as representative of Shoghi Effendi together with his wife at the International Baha'i Teaching Conference in Stockholm . There he gave a speech on the sufferings of Baha'u'llah and their significance, which was published in The Bahai World (Vol. XVI). Townshend finished his work shortly before he died of Parkinson's in 1957, the German translation of which is entitled "Christ and Baha'u'llah". Because of his illness, he was supported in writing by his two children. Shoghi Effendi described this book as the crowning achievement of Townshend.

Works

• George Townshend: Christ and Bahá'u'lláh . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK 1966, ISBN 0-85398-005-5 .
• George Townshend: Christ and Bahá'u'lláh (3rd edition) . Bahai-Verlag, Hofheim-Langenhain 1981, ISBN 3-87037-032-7 .
  • 4th revised edition 2012, ISBN 978-3-87037-500-3 .
• George Townshend: The Heart of the Gospel . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK 1951, ISBN 0-85398-020-9 .
• George Townshend: The Promise of All Ages . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK 1972, ISBN 0-85398-044-6 .
• George Townshend: The Bahai World, Vol. XIII . Ed .: George Ronald. Haifa 1970, ISBN 0-85398-099-3 , pp. 1169-1174 .
• George Townshend: The Bahai World, Vol.XVI . Ed .: George Ronald. Haifa 1978, ISBN 0-85398-075-6 , pp. 635-637 .
• George Townshend: The mission of Bahá'u'lláh and other literary pieces . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK 1952, ISBN 0-85398-495-6 .
• George Townshend: Abdu'l Baha, the Master . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK, ISBN 0-85398-253-8 .
• George Townshend: The Old Churches and the New World Religion . Bahai-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1964.

literature

• Barron Harper: Lights of Fortitude . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK 1997, ISBN 0-85398-413-1 , pp. 238-248 .
• David Hofman: George Townshend, a life . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford, UK 1983, ISBN 0-85398-126-4 .
• Brian Townshend: The Bahai World, Vol. XIII . Ed .: The Universal House of Justice. Haifa 1970, ISBN 0-85398-099-3 , pp. 841-846 .