Yes, they are the best known. So, who else has a chance to be noticed and get enough votes? The best way is to get appointed to the ITC.
(Hooper)
Dunbar was born in
Los Angeles, California,
United States. He worked as an actor on stage and screen, making films with Columbia, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Twentieth Century-Fox studios, and was a member of the Screen Actors' Guild of America. In 1958, he left Hollywood to take up residence in Central and South America, where he taught arts and English as a second language, and set up a graphic design business. However, his primary interest during those years was volunteer work as a teacher and lecturer for the Bahá’í Faith.
Dunbar was a member of the
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Nicaragua from its inception in 1961 to 1963, when he represented that Assembly at the first
International Convention in Haifa, Israel. Subsequently, he was appointed as an
Auxiliary Board member for the Protection of the Faith in the Americas and served from 1963 to 1968, and then as a
Counsellor for the Protection and Propagation of the Faith from 1968 to 1973, also for the Americas. He took up residence in Israel in 1973 when he was named as one of the founding members of the
International Teaching Centre. Dunbar worked as a member of that institution for fifteen years, until he was elected to the
Universal House of Justice in
1988. On January 6th, 2010 it was announced that he would retire
In the 70's, my Baha'i friends told me about Hooper. They said that he went to an Indian village with the intention of teaching the Faith to them. But it was how he got accepted by the villagers is what's important. This is what I was told... The chief passed a bowl of some animal's blood to Hooper, and he drank it. Whether the story was true or not, I don't know, but at the time I believed the Baha'is were honest and would not be telling me things that weren't true. So, anyway, by Hooper doing this he was accepted by the Chief and allowed to teach them about the Baha'i Faith. I forget, but maybe the whole village became Baha'is. But I'm not sure.
But since then, he did everything that was needed to move up the ranks. So, even though Baha'is don't allow electioneering, in a way, the candidates are well known. And probably they are well deserving. But it's not like just anybody is going to become that well known to get elected or appointed to anything in the Baha'i Faith. The only negative I'm concerned about is that it is conservative, and possibly authoritarian, people making it up through the ranks. Oh, and here's another UHJ member's story....
(Stephen) lived in Minnesota in the United States where he practiced as a psychotherapist. He also worked as an organizational consultant and lectured at the Metropolitan State University in St. Paul in his professional career.
[1]
In 1976 Birkland was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member and served in the role until 1993 when he was appointed as a Continental Counselor on the Board for the Americas as a vacancy had been left by appointments to the
International Teaching Center.
[2][3] He was reappointed for a full five year term as Counselor in 1995,
[4] and reappointed in 2000 and 2005.
[5]
In 2008 Birkland was appointed to the International Teaching Center and moved to the Holy Land to serve on the body.
[6] In 2010 he was elected to the Universal House of Justice in a by-election held due to
Peter Khan and
Hooper Dunbar retiring from the body.
But Birkland might be someone who is
too authoritarian...
In the Winter 1997 issue of Gnosis magazine, an article was published titled, “Baha’i Leaders Vexed by On-Line Critics”, detailing the tyrannical acts of the Baha’i leaders of the time and their attack dog, Stephen Birkland.
He went after several well-known Baha'is for taking part in some group called
Talisman...
Talisman's initial core group of participants with scholarly and literary backgrounds included Juan R. I. Cole, then-director of the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan and now professor of history there. Two participants were publishers: Anthony Lee of Kalimat Press, a Baha'i publishing house; and Steven Scholl of White Cloud Press, publisher of the annual "Common Era: Best New Writings in Religion" and other interfaith-oriented titles.
Beginning with a dozen or so subscribers, Talisman grew in the first year to more than a hundred, most of whom were not academians. After eighteen months of existence, Talisman became the focus of a series of investigations ordered by authorities at the Baha'i World Center in Haifa, Israel.
Liberal scholars on Talisman scrutinized several aspects of current Baha'i theology and administration, including the exclusion of women from the Baha'i governing body, the Universal House of Justice, even though Baha'i claims to teach the equality of the sexes. Academians familiar with source documents debated whether or not Baha'u'llah had intended this exclusion, and advanced textual arguments in favor of reconsideration.
The key-word here is "liberal scholars". Those in leadership positions in the Baha'i Faith had the power to shut down and get many of these people to resign from the Baha'i Faith or be labeled covenant-breakers. Birkland was the one that the UHJ sent after them. I know it doesn't bother you, but it bothers me. And is one reason why I doubt and question the Baha'i Faith.