April 27. On this date in 1995, the Universal House of Justice
addressed a letter regarding the development of a Bahá’í theocracy and the separation of Church and State.
The Universal House of Justice
Department of the Secretariat
27 April 1995
[To an individual]
Dear Bahá’í Friend,
Your
email of 19 February 1995 addressed to the Research Department was
referred to the Universal House of Justice. In it you quote two phrases
which appear in a book
you have recently read, and which seem from the context to be citations
from Shoghi Effendi. These phrases are “Bahá’í theocracy” and “humanity
will emerge from that immature civilization in which church and state
are separate.” You ask whether these references
can be authenticated and dated. We have been instructed to send you the
following reply.
A
reference to “Bahá’í theocracy” is to be found in a letter written on
behalf of the Guardian to an individual Bahá’í on 30 September 1949.
This reads as follows:
He
thinks your question is well put: what the Guardian was referring to
was the theocratic systems, such as the Catholic Church and the
Caliphate, which are not divinely
given as systems, but man-made, and yet,
being partly derived from the teachings of Christ and Muḥammad are in a
sense theocracies. The Bahá’í theocracy, on the contrary, is both
divinely ordained as a system and, of course, based
on the teachings of the Prophet Himself.
The
other passage does not comprise words of Shoghi Effendi, although its
purport was approved by him. As you yourself have since discovered, it
can be found in
The Bahá’í World, volume VI, on page 199, in a statement
entitled “Concerning Membership in Non-Bahá’í Religious Organizations,”
about which the Guardian’s secretary had written on his behalf on 11
December 1935: “The Guardian has carefully read the
copy of the statement you had recently prepared concerning
nonmembership in non-Bahá’í religious organizations, and is pleased to
realize that your comments and explanations are in full conformity with
his views on the subject.”
The complete paragraph in which the words appear is as follows:
In
the light of these words, it seems fully evident that the way to
approach this instruction is in realizing the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh as an
ever-growing organism destined
to become something new and greater than any of the revealed religions
of the past. Whereas former Faiths inspired hearts and illumined souls,
they eventuated in formal religions with an ecclesiastical organization,
creeds, rituals and churches, while the
Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, likewise renewing man’s spiritual life, will
gradually produce the institutions of an ordered society, fulfilling not
merely the function of the churches of the past but also the function
of the civil state. By this manifestation of the
Divine Will in a higher degree than in former ages, humanity will
emerge from that immature civilization in which church and state are
separate and competitive institutions, and partake of a true
civilization in which spiritual and social principles are at
last reconciled as two aspects of one and the same Truth.
You also ask how these statements could be reconciled with Shoghi Effendi’s comment on page 149 of
Bahá’í Administration, which appears to anticipate “a future
that is sure to witness the formal and complete separation of Church and
State,” and with the following words in his letter of 21 March 1932
addressed to the Bahá’ís of the United States
and Canada:
Theirs
is not the purpose, while endeavoring to conduct and perfect the
administrative affairs of their Faith, to violate, under any
circumstances, the provisions of
their country’s constitution, much less to allow the machinery of their
administration to supersede the government of their respective
countries.
A
careful reading of the letter dated 6 December 1928 in which the
Guardian’s comment about the separation of Church and State occurs would
suggest that, rather than
enunciating a general principle, Shoghi Effendi is simply reviewing
“the quickening forces of internal reform” that had “recently transpired
throughout the Near and Middle East,” and enumerating a number of
factors that impinge on the development of the Faith
in those parts of the world.
As
for the statement made by Shoghi Effendi in his letter of 21 March
1932, the well-established principles of the Faith concerning the
relationship of the Bahá’í institutions
to those of the country in which the Bahá’ís reside make it unthinkable
that they would ever purpose to violate a country’s constitution or so
to meddle in its political machinery as to attempt to take over the
powers of government. This is an integral element
of the Bahá’í principle of abstention from involvement in politics.
However, this does not by any means imply that the country itself may
not, by constitutional means, decide to adopt Bahá’í laws and practices
and modify its constitution or method of government
accordingly. The relationship between the principle of abstention from
involvement in politics and the emergence of the Bahá’í State is
commented on later in this letter. In the meantime we can quote the
following extracts from letters written on behalf of
the Guardian in response to queries from individual believers, which
indicate that the relationship is an evolving one:
Regarding the
question raised in your letter, Shoghi Effendi believes that for the
present the Movement, whether in the East or the West, should be
dissociated entirely from politics. This was the explicit
injunction of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.… Eventually, however, as you have rightly
conceived it, the Movement will, as soon as it is fully developed and
recognized, embrace both religious and political issues. In fact
Bahá’u’lláh clearly states that affairs of state as
well as religious questions are to be referred to the Houses of Justice
into which the Assemblies of the Bahá’ís will eventually evolve.
(30 November 1930)
The Bahá’ís
will be called upon to assume the reins of government when they will
come to constitute the majority of the population in a given country,
and even then their participation in political affairs
is bound to be limited in scope unless they obtain a similar majority
in some other countries as well.
(19 November 1939)
The Bahá’ís
must remain non-partisan in all political affairs. In the distant
future, however, when the majority of a country have become Bahá’ís then
it will lead to the establishment of a Bahá’í State.
(19 April 1941)
A
proper understanding of all the above passages, and of their
implications, requires an acceptance of two fundamental principles for
the exegesis of Bahá’í Texts.
The
first, which derives from the Covenant, is the principle that the
writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Guardian are thoroughly imbued with the
spirit of the Revelation
of Bahá’u’lláh and intimately linked with the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh
Himself. This principle is clearly expounded in two paragraphs from a
letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer on 19
March 1946:
Whatever
the Master has said is based on the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. He was
the perfect Interpreter, had lived with Him all His life; therefore what
He says has
the same standing, even if a text of Bahá’u’lláh is not available.…
We
must take the teachings as a great, balanced whole, not seek out and
oppose to each other two strong statements that have different meanings;
somewhere in between,
there are links uniting the two. That is what makes our Faith so
flexible and well balanced. For instance there are calamities for
testing and for punishment—there are also accidents, plain cause and
effect!
Bahá’u’lláh
has given us a Revelation designed to raise mankind to heights never
before attained. It is little wonder that the minds of individual
believers, no matter
how perceptive, have difficulty in comprehending its range. It is the
words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Guardian which elucidate this vast
Revelation and make clear the manner in which different statements
relate to one another and what is implied by the Revealed
Word. Without the bright light of the Covenant, this Faith, like all
those before it, would be torn to pieces by the conflicting opinions of
scholars applying limited human reasoning to divinely revealed truths.
The
second fundamental principle which enables us to understand the pattern
towards which Bahá’u’lláh wishes human society to evolve is the
principle of organic growth
which requires that detailed developments, and the understanding of
detailed developments, become available only with the passage of time
and with the help of the guidance given by that Central Authority in the
Cause to whom all must turn. In this regard one
can use the simile of a tree. If a farmer plants a tree, he cannot
state at that moment what its exact height will be, the number of its
branches or the exact time of its blossoming. He can, however, give a
general impression of its size and pattern of growth
and can state with confidence which fruit it will bear. The same is
true of the evolution of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. For example, we
find the following illuminating explanation in a letter written by
Shoghi Effendi to the Bahá’ís in America on 23 February
1924:
And
as we make an effort to demonstrate that love to the world may we also
clear our minds of any lingering trace of unhappy misunderstandings that
might obscure our
clear conception of the exact purpose and methods of this new world
order, so challenging and complex, yet so consummate and wise. We are
called upon by our beloved Master in His Will and Testament not only to
adopt it unreservedly, but to unveil its merit
to all the world. To attempt to estimate its full value, and grasp its
exact significance after so short a time since its inception would be
premature and presumptuous on our part. We must trust to time, and the
guidance of God’s Universal House of Justice,
to obtain a clearer and fuller understanding of its provisions and
implications. But one word of warning must be uttered in this
connection. Let us be on our guard lest we measure too strictly the
Divine Plan with the standard of men. I am not prepared to
state that it agrees in principle or in method with the prevailing
notions now uppermost in men’s minds, nor that it should conform with
those imperfect, precarious, and expedient measures feverishly resorted
to by agitated humanity. Are we to doubt that the
ways of God are not necessarily the ways of man? Is not faith but
another word for implicit obedience, wholehearted allegiance,
uncompromising adherence to that which we believe is the revealed and
express will of God, however perplexing it might first appear,
however at variance with the shadowy views, the impotent doctrines, the
crude theories, the idle imaginings, the fashionable conceptions of a
transient and troublous age? If we are to falter or hesitate, if our
love for Him should fail to direct us and keep
us within His path, if we desert Divine and emphatic principles, what
hope can we any more cherish for healing the ills and sicknesses of this
world?
Pending
the establishment of the Universal House of Justice, whose function it
is to lay more definitely the broad lines that must guide the future
activities and
administration of the Movement, it is clearly our duty to strive to
obtain as clear a view as possible of the manner in which to conduct the
affairs of the Cause, and then arise with single-mindedness and
determination to adopt and maintain it in all our activities
and labors.
At
this time we have the benefit of many subsequent interpretations by
Shoghi Effendi and also the initial guidance of the Universal House of
Justice, which will continue
to elucidate aspects of this mighty system as it unfolds. In striving
to attain a “clearer and fuller understanding” of the World Order of
Bahá’u’lláh, we need to contemplate the operation of the Bahá’í
principles of governance and social responsibility as
they persist through changing sets of conditions, from the present time
when the Bahá’í community constitutes a small number of people living
in a variety of overwhelmingly non-Bahá’í societies, to the far
different situation in future centuries when the Bahá’ís
are becoming, and eventually have become, the vast majority of the
people.
The
Administrative Order is certainly the nucleus and pattern of the World
Order of Bahá’u’lláh, but it is in embryonic form, and must undergo
major evolutionary developments
in the course of time. Certain passages in the writings on this subject
establish matters of principle, certain ones describe the ultimate goal
of the Most Great Peace, and certain of them relate to stages of
development on the way to the attainment of that
goal. For example, in this familiar passage in His Will and Testament,
‘Abdu’l-Bahá states:
This
House of Justice enacteth the laws and the government enforceth them.
The legislative body must reinforce the executive, the executive must
aid and assist the legislative body so that through the close union and
harmony of these two forces, the foundation of fairness and justice may
become firm and strong, that all the regions of the world may become
even as Paradise itself.
In response to a question about the “government” in the above passage, Shoghi Effendi’s secretary wrote on his behalf, on 18 April 1941, the following clarification:
By
“Government” … is meant the executive body which will enforce the laws
when the Bahá’í Faith has reached the point when it is recognized and
accepted entirely by any particular nation.
The
same relationship between legislature and executive is expressed in the
well-known passage in “The Unfoldment of World Civilization,” showing
how one principle
is applied over successive periods.
A
world executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the
decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world
legislature,
and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole commonwealth.
In relation to other international institutions, the Guardian has given the following guidance:
Touching
the point raised in the Secretary’s letter regarding the nature and
scope of the Universal Court of Arbitration, this and other similar
matters will have to be explained and elucidated by the Universal House
of Justice, to which, according to the Master’s explicit Instructions,
all important fundamental questions must be referred.
In his letter to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada written on 27 February 1929, Shoghi Effendi stated:
Not
only will the present-day Spiritual Assemblies be styled differently in
future, but they will be enabled also to add to their present functions
those powers, duties, and prerogatives necessitated by the recognition
of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, not merely as one of the recognized
religious systems of the world, but as the State Religion of an
independent and Sovereign Power. And as the Bahá’í Faith
permeates the masses of the peoples of East and West, and its truth is
embraced by the majority of the peoples of a number of the Sovereign
States of the world, will the Universal House of Justice attain the
plenitude of its power, and exercise as the supreme
organ of the Bahá’í Commonwealth all the rights, the duties and
responsibilities incumbent upon the world’s future superstate.
Complementing
these words are the Guardian’s repeated and forceful requirement that
Bahá’ís strictly abstain from involvement in politics. This requirement
has far-reaching
implications for the method by which Bahá’u’lláh’s Administrative Order
will evolve into His World Order. We can consider, for example, the
well-known passage in his letter of 21 March 1932 to the Bahá’ís in the
United States and Canada:
Let
them refrain from associating themselves, whether by word or by deed,
with the political pursuits of their respective nations, with the
policies of their governments
and the schemes and programs of parties and factions.… Let them affirm
their unyielding determination to stand, firmly and unreservedly, for
the way of Bahá’u’lláh, to avoid the entanglements and bickerings
inseparable from the pursuits of the politician,
and to become worthy agencies of that Divine Polity which incarnates
God’s immutable Purpose for all men.…
…
Let them beware lest, in their eagerness to further the aims of their
beloved Cause, they should be led unwittingly to bargain with their
Faith, to compromise with
their essential principles, or to sacrifice, in return for any material
advantage which their institutions may derive, the integrity of their
spiritual ideals.
As
one studies these words, one begins to understand the processes at work
in the gradual unfoldment and establishment of the Bahá’í System.
Clearly
the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth is a “political”
enterprise, and the Teachings of the Faith are filled with “political”
principles—using the
word in the sense of the science of government and of the organization
of human society. At the same time the Bahá’í world community repeatedly
and emphatically denies being a “political” organization, and Bahá’ís
are required, on pain of deprivation of their
administrative rights, to refrain from becoming involved in “political”
matters and from taking sides in “political” disputes. In other words,
the Bahá’ís are following a completely different path from that usually
followed by those who wish to reform society.
They eschew political methods towards the achievement of their aims,
and concentrate on revitalizing the hearts, minds and behavior of people
and on presenting a working model as evidence of the reality and
practicality of the way of life they propound.
The
Bahá’í Administrative Order is the “nucleus and pattern” of the
divinely intended future political system of the world, and undoubtedly
non-Bahá’í governments
will benefit from learning how this system works and from adopting its
procedures and principles in overcoming the problems they face.
Nevertheless, this Administration is primarily the framework and
structure designed to be a channel for the flow of the spirit
of the Cause and for the application of its Teachings. As the Guardian
wrote:
It
is surely for those to whose hands so priceless a heritage has been
committed to prayerfully watch lest the tool should supersede the Faith
itself, lest undue concern for the minute details arising from the
administration of the Cause obscure the vision of its promoters, lest
partiality, ambition, and worldliness tend in the course of time to
becloud the radiance, stain the purity, and impair
the effectiveness of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.
The
gradual process of the evolution of the Bahá’í Administrative Order
into the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh has been described by Shoghi Effendi
in many of his writings,
as in the following excerpt from his letter of 30 April 1953 to the All-America Intercontinental Teaching Conference:
This
present Crusade, on the threshold of which we now stand, will,
moreover, by virtue of the dynamic forces it will release and its wide
repercussions over the entire
surface of the globe, contribute effectually to the acceleration of yet
another process of tremendous significance which will carry the
steadily evolving Faith of Bahá’u’lláh through its present stages of
obscurity, of repression, of emancipation and of recognition—stages
one or another of which Bahá’í national communities in various parts of
the world now find themselves—to the stage of establishment, the stage
at which the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh will be recognized by the civil
authorities as the State Religion, similar to that
which Christianity entered in the years following the death of the
Emperor Constantine, a stage which must later be followed by the
emergence of the Bahá’í state itself, functioning, in all religious and
civil matters, in strict accordance with the Laws and
Ordinances of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy, the Mother-Book of the
Bahá’í Revelation, a stage which, in the fullness of time, will
culminate in the establishment of the World Bahá’í Commonwealth,
functioning in the plenitude of its powers, and which will
signalize the long-awaited advent of the Christ-promised Kingdom of God
on earth—the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh—mirroring however faintly upon this
humble handful of dust the glories of the Abhá Kingdom.
In
answer to those who raise objections to this vision of a worldwide
commonwealth inspired by a Divine Revelation, fearing for the freedom of
minority groups or of
the individual under such a system, we can explain the Bahá’í principle
of upholding the rights of minorities and fostering their interests. We
can also point to the fact that no person is ever compelled to accept
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and moreover, unlike
the situation in certain other religions, each person has complete
freedom to withdraw from the Faith if he decides that he no longer
believes in its Founder or accepts His Teachings. In light of these
facts alone it is evident that the growth of the Bahá’í
communities to the size where a non-Bahá’í state would adopt the Faith
as the State Religion, let alone to the point at which the State would
accept the Law of God as its own law and the National House of Justice
as its legislature, must be a supremely voluntary
and democratic process.
As
the Universal House of Justice wrote in its letter of 21 July 1968 to
the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States:
It
is not our purpose to impose Bahá’í teachings upon others by persuading
the powers that be to enact laws enforcing Bahá’í principles, nor to
join movements which have such legislation as their aim. The guidance
that Bahá’í institutions offer to mankind does not comprise a series of
specific answers to current problems, but rather the illumination of an
entirely new way of life. Without this way
of life the problems are insoluble; with it they will either not arise
or, if they arise, can be resolved.
Two
quotations from the writings of the Guardian bear particularly on these
principles of the rights and prerogatives of minorities and of
individuals. In
The Advent of Divine Justice is a passage which is of fundamental significance for Bahá’í constitutional law:
Unlike
the nations and peoples of the earth, be they of the East or of the
West, democratic or authoritarian, communist or capitalist, whether
belonging to the Old
World or the New, who either ignore, trample upon, or extirpate, the
racial, religious, or political minorities within the sphere of their
jurisdiction, every organized community enlisted under the banner of
Bahá’u’lláh should feel it to be its first and inescapable
obligation to nurture, encourage, and safeguard every minority
belonging to any faith, race, class, or nation within it.
As
for the protection of the rights of individuals, there is the following
translation of a forceful passage which appears in a letter from Shoghi
Effendi to the Bahá’ís
of Iran, written in July 1925, in relation to a situation involving a
Covenant-breaker:
…
the mere fact of disaffection, estrangement, or recantation of belief,
can in no wise detract from, or otherwise impinge upon, the legitimate
civil rights of individuals in a free society, be it to the most
insignificant degree. Were the friends to follow other than this course,
it would be tantamount to a reversion on their part, in this century of
radiance and light, to the ways and standards
of a former age: they would reignite in men’s breasts the fire of
bigotry and blind fanaticism, cut themselves off from the glorious
bestowals of this promised Day of God, and impede the full flow of
divine assistance in this wondrous age.
All
Bahá’ís, and especially those who make a profound study of the Cause,
need to grasp the differences between the Bahá’í concepts of governance
and those of the
past, and to abstain from measuring Bahá’í institutions and methods
against the faulty man-made institutions and methods hitherto current in
the world. The Guardian graphically stressed these differences in his
letter of 8 February 1934, known as “The Dispensation
of Bahá’u’lláh”:
The
Bahá’í Commonwealth of the future, of which this vast Administrative
Order is the sole framework, is, both in theory and practice, not only
unique in the entire
history of political institutions, but can find no parallel in the
annals of any of the world’s recognized religious systems. No form of
democratic government; no system of autocracy or of dictatorship,
whether monarchical or republican; no intermediary scheme
of a purely aristocratic order; nor even any of the recognized types of
theocracy, whether it be the Hebrew Commonwealth, or the various
Christian ecclesiastical organizations, or the Imamate or the Caliphate
in Islam—none of these can be identified or be
said to conform with the Administrative Order which the master-hand of
its perfect Architect has fashioned.
Among
the many complementary Teachings in the Faith which resolve the
dilemmas of past societies are those of the unity of mankind on the one
hand, and loyalty to
the Covenant on the other. As already mentioned, no one in this
Dispensation is compelled to be a Bahá’í, and the division of humankind
into the “clean” and the “unclean,” the “faithful” and the “infidels,”
is abolished. At the same time, anyone who does choose
to be a Bahá’í accepts the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and, while free
expression of opinion within the Bahá’í community is encouraged, this
cannot ever be permitted to degenerate to the level of undermining the
Covenant, for this would vitiate the very purpose
of the Revelation itself.
One
of the major concerns of the Universal House of Justice, as the Bahá’í
Administrative Order unfolds, will be to ensure that it evolves in
consonance with the spirit
of the Bahá’í Revelation. While many beneficial aspects of human
society at large can be safely incorporated into Bahá’í Administration,
the House of Justice will guard against the corrupting influence of
those non-Bahá’í political and social concepts and
practices which are not in harmony with the divine standard.
The
House of Justice appreciates your concern about such a fundamental
issue, and asks us to assure you of its prayers in the Holy Shrines for
the confirmation of
your services to the Cause of God.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
