The Baháʼí Faith in the Marshall Islands begins after 1916 with a mention by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, that Baháʼís should take the religion there. The first Baháʼí to pioneer there arrived in August 1954 however she could only stay until March 1955. Nevertheless, with successive pioneers and converts the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly in 1967 in Majuro. The community continued to grow and in 1977 elected its first National Spiritual Assembly. Before 1992 the Baháʼís began to operate state schools under contract with the government. Middle estimates of the Baháʼí population are just over 1,000, or 1.50% in 2000.
Early days
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, head of the Bahá’í Faith from 1892 to 1921, mentioned the Marshall Islands among the places Baháʼís should take the religion to. He wrote a series of letters, or Tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916–1917; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh of the Tablets mentioned taking the Baháʼí Faith to the Marshall Islands and was written on 11 April 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 — after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu. These Tablets were translated into English, and published in Star of the West magazine on 12 December 1919.
(Tablet 7) "A party speaking their languages, severed, holy, sanctified and filled with the love of God, must turn their faces to and travel through the three great island groups of the Pacific Ocean — Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, and the islands attached to these groups, such as New Guinea, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Philippine Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, Bismarck Archipelago, Ceram, Celebes, Friendly Islands, Samoa Islands, Society Islands, Caroline Islands, Low Archipelago, Marquesas, Hawaiian Islands, Gilbert Islands, Moluccas, Marshall Islands, Timor and the other islands. With hearts overflowing with the love of God, with tongues commemorating the mention of God, with eyes turned to the Kingdom of God, they must deliver the glad tidings of the manifestation of the Lord of Hosts to all the people. Know ye of a certainty that whatever gathering ye enter, the waves of the Holy Spirit are surging over it, and the heavenly grace of the Blessed Beauty encompasseth that gathering."
Beginnings Marcia Steward (later de Matamores Atwater), was a pioneer and named a Knight of Baháʼu'lláh for being the first to move to the Marshall Islands. Steward was born in Pasadena, California in 1904, and embraced the Bahá’í Faith in 1938 and was eager to pioneer before the conclusion of the first Seven Year Plan (1937–1944) of Shoghi Effendi, who the appointed successor of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Marcia Steward first settled in Santiago de Chile. She continued to serve across Latin America for a number of years as plans proceeded for the religion. See Baháʼí Faith in Chile, Baháʼí Faith in Costa Rica. By July 1947 Atwater was appointed secretary of the Central American Teaching Committee with one of its goals to facilitate a shift in the balance of roles from North American guidance and Latin cooperation to Latin guidance and North American cooperation. The process was well underway by 1950 and was to be enforced about 1953. While she was deciding where to serve next a cable from Shoghi Effendi arrived asking Atwater to try to get to the Marshall Islands sometime between 1 April and 2 May 1954. His cable reached Atwater on 16 April and by 20 April she was in Washington DC. Immediately after World War II the islands were administered for about 6 years by the United States Navy. When the Trusteeships under the United Nations were formed, the Marshall Islands became part of the Trusteeship of the Pacific (which included the Caroline, and Mariana Islands as well as the Marshall Islands). The United States was given the authority to administer this Trusteeship by the United Nations. The Marshall Islands were the site of nuclear bomb tests, the Marshall Islands were tightly closed to any guests unconnected with government work. At the time she had a contract with a publisher and hoped to be self-sufficient after finishing her book. By 9 May she informed the then Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, Horace Holley that she had permission to enter the islands and was awaiting her Navy security clearance. Atwater was able to secure a visa to travel there because of excellent connections in Washington D.C., and got her original three-month pass renewed because of the same contacts. Maintaining the appearance of wealth and ease which accompanied her family's position in the U.S., she was actually, by the time she went to the Marshalls, completely without independent income, and was deputized by the United States National Spiritual Assembly with some help from the National Spiritual Assembly of Central America. In July 1954 she left Hawaii, finally, for Japan, and then sailed from Kobe to the Marshall Islands, arriving in Majuro, capital and largest city of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, on August 7.
While there she was invited to a reception in honor of a visiting U.S. congressman from Colorado where she recited, upon request, some of her "poetry of Majuro," after which the congressman asked for copies. Marcia wrote to Virginia Breaks in the Caroline Islands that most of her good friends in the Marshalls were Catholic or Jesuit priests, remarking, "this is probably natural, since I lived in a Latin-American Catholic environment for so many years." Breaks said that Atwater seemed to "greatly enjoy" her time on the islands, and "she was apparently given government housing." Marcia hoped to stay on in the islands although she was very ill during her last two months there, but she was not given another permit. She was able to stay until March 1955. During that time she taught the religion, traveled to various atolls, fulfilled some press commitments which were subject to the District Commissioner's censor but which had, in the end, been helpful in securing her visa; and she tried to get some Baháʼí information translated into Marshallese. The nature of her illness is unknown, as is the story of all her activities there, since the report she wrote was lost and she evidently never had the strength to re-write it. After leaving the islands she suffered from a debilitating skin ailment, of which she wrote, "A terrible affliction has me almost ready to be locked up: I am quite horrible to behold...." She felt her skin problem was caused by radiation burns from atomic testing on the Marshalls, but this could never be proved, and she tried unsuccessfully to collect compensation from the U.S. government.
The Marshall Islands, vacated for several months when it became necessary for Atwater to leave, was replaced by another Baháʼí pioneer, Betty Klaas, from Honolulu by August 1956. By 1960 there were no pioneer Baháʼís but by 1964 there is mention of a group of Baháʼís there. The first Local Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Majuro was elected 21 April 1967. This is also the first Local Spiritual Assembly to be formed in the Trust Territory of Micronesia. Its members were Jack Peter, Elsie Heran, Ninam Reran, Brad Hollinger (pioneer), Kim Lang (pioneer), Tataka Arawatau, Betra Heran, Harlan Lang (pioneer) and Pencil Heran. In 1972 a regional spiritual assembly of the North West Pacific Ocean was based in Pohnpei covering the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands.Communities in the Asia-Pacific Performing Common Theology and Cultural Diversity on a 'Spiritual Axis' by Graham Hassall and William Barnes.
A second local assembly was elected in "Laura" in 1975. In 1976 the first spiritual assembly on Santo Island, in the Kwajalein Atoll, was announced January 1. All the teachers involved in the formation of this assembly were Micronesians. The activity evolved under the direction of the national teaching committee of the Marshall Islands, with the help of the Spiritual Assembly of Ebeye Island of the same atoll.
Growth across the nation Following international conferences on the promulgation of the religion in Hong Kong, 26–30 November 1975 and Auckland, New Zealand, 19–22 January 1976 a Marshallese conference was held later in January. In March 1977 four Baháʼí communities gathered and had a picnic to discuss the upcoming first National Convention and the importance of Local Spiritual Assembly elections. Thirty-five Baháʼís and their children were present.
Hand of the Cause Collis Featherstone represented the Universal House of Justice as witness to the convention and election in April when the National Spiritual Assembly of the Marshall Islands was elected. Among the national assembly's first goals assigned by the Universal House of Justice was a goal to "Open the remaining major islands of the Marshalls to the Faith and greatly increase the number of believers." By the end of 1977 two new assemblies are in Ajeltake and Arno Arno Lukej which were elected bringing the total in the Marshall Islands to nine.
In February 1979 the National Spiritual Assembly of the Marshall Islands reports "The major islands that are uninhabited: Toka, Ailinginae, Rongdrik, Jemo, Bikini, Erkub, Bokak, Bikar." In the same report, Rongelap Atoll is listed as having a Baháʼí group, Ujelang Atoll is shown as an isolated Baháʼí and Enewetak Atoll as well is shown to have a group. In March the Department of Secretariat at the Baháʼí World Centre writes to the national assembly saying, "It is noted that there are only two major inhabited islands not yet open to the Faith -- Mejit and Ailuk, and it is hoped these will soon be opened." By the summer of 1979 there were 15 more local assemblies, 42 localities, a temple site, endowment land, three local centers, and two revised translations of a prayer book.
In August 1983 the national assembly report states "Atolls which have no population and therefore are not to be considered under any teaching plan are as follows: Ailingae, Bikar, Bikini, Bokaak (Taongi), Erikub, Jemo, Knox, Rongerik, and Taja." A note is appended by the national assembly to this same report reads: "Note: Though one of the larger islands of the M.I. atolls, Rongelap is largely radioactive, with no population."For more information on movements of populations and drifts of radiation see A second note, in reference to Ujelang Atoll, reads: "Note: For a time uninhabited, there is a report some people may have returned." A former Peace Corps member who had worked on Lae Atoll in 1969-71 as an elementary school teacher returned in 1984 as a Baháʼí and managed to introduce the religion on a few atolls where no natives had yet joined the religion. She stayed in the Marshall Islands as a pioneer until 2000.
Multiplying interests accelerate