How We Became Baha’is by Priscilia Hofert
“How We Became Baha’is” by Priscilla Hofert, August 17, 2022
I was always interested in other religions and never felt that they were wrong or evil. John and I were raised in the United Methodist Church which had started out when we were young as two separate churches, Methodist
and Evangelical United Brethren (EUB for short), and they united when were adults. John’s mother was a most faithful Churchgoer and took John and his sister to church every Sunday. My folks seldom went to church, though my mother as a child went to church regularly. We never prayed except sometimes before dinner to “say grace.” My grandma gave me a prayer, “Jesus Tender Shepherd hear me, bless this little lamb tonight…” which I memorized and said at bedtime by myself.
When John and I met and John was finishing his PhD at the University of Wisconsin we did not go to church at all. But after we were settled in New York City we went to a nearby Presbyterian Church in the Bronx, where we lived in student housing at Albert Einstein College of Medicine while he took his post-doctorate. We both sang in the choir there.
We moved to New Rochelle to an apartment, joined the Methodist Church, and again sang in the choir. I met a member there who had been a missionary in Africa and was very active in a peace movement called Women Strike for Peace, where we signed a letter to President Johnson to stop aiding the war in Vietnam. That was Nov 1962. By March 1963 this group invited me to join in a peace march in Manhattan against the war in Vietnam. From this experience I learned how the news could be slanted. It showed marchers who were young “beatnik types,” and never showed our group or any people who looked well dressed and knowledgeable. The parade was so long that the parade permit was over before we even got near to Central Park. So the numbers they gave did not include all those who had not reached the park. It was interesting to see, as we marched along, how much hate was exhibited by the people watching the parade. In this case the police presence really protected us.
That year we asked our minister, whom we admired, to give a sermon about United Nations Day. After his sermon, half the congregation called him a Communist. Also they were planning to build a new church as the present one was to be torn down for urban renewal. When it was suggested that we join a smaller black church, no one would even consider such a move. One of the ladies whom I had thought was for race unity said that once a house was inhabited by black people, no white person would buy the house.
In 1966, we moved to Omaha, Nebraska where John became a professor of biochemistry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). We visited churches and found none to our liking. So we joined a house church that was for peace and race unity, until it was suggested that we burn down a school to get publicity for our cause. We immediately left that church!
John was reading the local newspaper and saw an ad saying that the Unitarian Church was hosting a Baha’i speaker. Now, we had heard about the Baha’i Faith only because of the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, just north of Chicago. We had grown up in the Chicago area and had seen the picture when the building was dedicated in 1953. But we really didn’t know much about it. One of our relatives said “It’s just a combination of all the religions.” We decided to attend. At the end of the service, after the Baha’is said prayers and gave a speech, we were invited to see a documentary about the Faith entitled “And His Name Shall Be One,” filmed by CBS for the series “Light unto my feet.” It impressed us greatly. We could see that the Baha’is were integrated and supported the United Nations. John loved that the black man said he loved the Faith because it had so many books of scripture, and I loved it because at the end of the documentary they interviewed the lady who was the Baha’i representative to the United Nations. Her smile and her sparkling eyes were most impressive to me.
So we attended Baha’i firesides and holy days for two years until, in February of 1970, we enrolled as Baha’is. For John, the quotation “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues” convinced him that he should become a Baha’i. For me the idea of progressive revelation was the key, as well as their support of the United Nations. We both were most impressed that the Baha’is of Omaha were a very integrated and diverse group. The more we read about the Faith the more thrilled we were to be members. Two months later, at the annual election of Local Spiritual Assemblies around the world in every community with nine or more members, John and I were elected to serve. The other Assembly members were black, Persian, old, young, rich, poor, educated, less educated and all wonderful!
After serving on the Local Spiritual Assembly of Omaha for two years, we decided during the Fast of 1972 to pioneer to Council Bluffs, Iowa, a city across the river from Omaha. Amazingly, we bought a house and settled in just one day before the time for the formation of a new Local Spiritual Assembly, by joint declaration. Among the nine was Sophie Hays, who was in her 80s and had been a Baha’i since she was 16. Her parents were also Baha’is. When Sophie declared, as far as I know, they were the only Baha’is in Iowa. More about Sophie in another sketch. Two days later we had a house full of friends from Omaha come and join us to celebrate.
We both served on the Assembly. John also served on the Summer School committee and District Teaching Committee. Many firesides and gatherings were hosted at our home. When our two boys entered their teenage years, three Baha’i boys moved into our town. What a bounty that was! They were the only Baha’is in the whole high school. Two of them even lived with us for a short time when their parents moved away. Brad Rishel and Hannah Rishel hosted youth group meetings about once a month and during holidays. Since Baha’is lived on either the west or the east side of Iowa, they met in the middle. John would drive them there and do his work at a motel during that weekend.
By 1994 we were thinking of pioneering to China. So we signed up to go with a group of mostly California Baha’is on a visit to China. It was a very diverse group. There were children who sang a Chinese song and English song, and professionals–a dentist, an OB doctor, and John, who gave a talk about the newly developing curriculum called Problem Based Learning. In another city I gave a talk about Baha’i Education, which was to take place at a college, but since it fell on the anniversary of Tienanmen Square, the event was moved off campus and only faculty were present. We visited five cities and a Buddhist Temple where the leader gave a beautiful story about Buddhist teachings.
We came home convinced that we would move forward. We settled in Tianjin, China a city of nine million people, in August of 1997. China then was just emerging from its closed-door policies. It was the old China. As the years passed it became the new China.
I remember a lovely Chinese professor who asked me to come to talk with her graduate students, who were all hoping to study in America or Canada, so they wanted to practice their English. It was a group about six people. I asked them to tell me about a person they admired. I was really surprised when one of them said he admired Mao Zedong. By then, in America, we knew how awful he had been. But at that time students touted the party line that Communism was the best and so were its leaders. Another time when I was lecturing someone sneezed, and I replied, “Bless You.” After class this sweet soft-voiced little student said in a whisper, “Mrs. Hofert what did you mean when you said, “Bless You?” Well, then I knew what culture shock was, for sure, because if you grow up with no God, how can you say “God Bless you” or “Bless You”?
In looking back, I am sad to say that China swallowed the idea of American materialism hook line and sinker. What was once a city with bicycles is now an incredibly crowded city of cars. When we came, people rode bikes and the street by our university had five wide lanes for bicycles on each side and a strip of green lined with big trees, and a small lane for cars and buses. There were no traffic lights, so vehicles just oozed through the intersections, and taxi drivers were most cautious in dealing with bikes and pedestrians. Campuses had bikes crammed together, hundreds in a space that would hold maybe fifteen cars. They already had good mass transit but they bought the idea that to be progressive you had to have a car. And now they have such severe pollution that the people suffer intensely. What a pity!
We lived in China for 11 years, coming back to the USA, to Atlanta, Georgia where our son Dan lives, in 2008. Since both our sons, Dan and Andy, have two children and two sets of grandparents, we became known as Grandma China and Grandpa China. Luckily, the Faith is now standing on its own in China. There is no need for pioneers at this time. One of my students who became a Baha’i is living in Beijing and working on starting a preschool teaching virtues. I was able to talk with her on Face Time.
In Atlanta we joined a group called Senior University, where I gave a course on World religions inspired by the book “Founders of Faith,” as well as a twenty-minute Power Point presentation about ‘Abdul’-Baha. We were a part of the Dekalb County North Local Spiritual Assembly. During the past fourteen years, our county has formed four cities, therefore much of our membership has been placed in those towns. We lived in a condo and for many years before the Covid virus, I would host tea parties with older women I have met at our condo. Thus bonds of love have been formed.
John passed away September 1, 2020, from a blood disease. Even though it had been many years since I had emailed my Chinese Baha’i friends, I sent them the news of John’s passing and an invitation to his memorial service a year later, on October 1, 2021, on Zoom. Several joined on Zoom and others sent wonderful remembrances of John. Other friends who came in person included John’s college roommate and wife, who are Baha’is in Tennessee.
There is still a very warm part of my heart that goes out to the dear ones we taught and got to know in China. It was while there that we started Ruhi classes. Before that we had a series called Building a Better World that we used.
Now with Covid, communities are doing most things on Zoom. That way it is possible for me to reconnect with people I have known in Iowa as well as those dear Baha’is who have scattered far and wide.
Dear Priscilla, I am so glad finally to have read what you wrote here. Brad and I appreciated your family’s wonderful memorial service for John, on Zoom. Thanks for your details on Iowa Baha’i youth retreats. You and your sons could probably add more to the sketch I just submitted on the subject–It isn’t yet posted. I’m glad to read about China also and that “the Faith is now standing on its own in China.” I often wonder… with news of the Faith in China not being made public. In 1992, I accompanied Joanne Marian, our 9 year-old daughter Heidi, and other women to Shanghai for a large conference aimed at intercultural exchange of ideas and information on certain topics. I really felt tugged to pioneer there, but that obviously didn’t come to pass. With fond memories and love, Hannah