Dr. Will van den Hoonard
Presentations by Dr. Will van den Hoonard
This is a synopsis of the presentation by Dr. Van den Hoonard. Due to time constraints for that evening's presentations scheduling, he reads from his paper's abstract:
Richard Gagnon begins by offering the audience a chance to ask questions. The first one (is inaudible) and directed to Dr. Will van den Hoonard. The issue is holding competing world views within the Bahá'í community. Some see the Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í world as one: the ‘Old World Order’ with the ‘New World Order’ if you will; others see the Bahá’í view as unique and in sharp contrast to the non-Bahá’í world. For example, “Many are called but few are chosen.” The point is to show that all are not equal. For each perspective there is a counterpoint.
Papers were presented by Dr. Rapoport (''The Redemption of Science'') and Dr. Thomas ("Poverty and Racism in Urban America") Dr. Livezey then presented a paper on "The Role of Human Rights Organizations.'' This recording is the Response to those presentations from Dr. Robert C. Henderson, secretary of the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly, and Dr. Will C. van den Hoonaard, a professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, Canada.
Joint presentation Drs.Mahmoodi and van den Hoonard.
Dr. Hoda Mahmoodi begins this presentation: "The divorce between personal and social values in contemporary society is a fundamental obstacle to achieving human unity. This paper examines the causes and consequences of that separation and explores the possibility of the Baha'i position for rectifying this problem." She accounts for the first 12 minutes. The remaining 12 minutes are presented by Dr. van den Hoonard who explains that Baha'u'llah designated specific insitutions for the preservation of unity in the community.