The Bahá’í World : Volume 2 : 1926-1928

IT has been the general characteristic of religion that organization marks the interruption of the true spiritual influence and serves to prevent the original impulse from being carried into the world. The organization has invariably become a substitute for religion rather than a method or an instrument used to give the religion effect. The separation of peoples into different traditions unbridged by any peaceful or constructive intercourse has made this inevitable. Up to the present time in fact, no Founder of a revealed religion has explicitly laid down the principles that should guide the administrative machinery of the Faith He has established.

In the Bahá’í Cause, the principles of world administration were expressed by Bahá’u’lláh, and these principles were developed in the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, more especially in His Will and Testament.

The purpose of this organization is to make possible a true and lasting unity among people of different races, classes, interests, characters, and inherited creeds. A close and sympathetic study of this aspect of the Bahá’í Cause will show that the purpose and method of Bahá’í administration is so perfectly adapted to the fundamental spirit of the Revelation that it bears to it the same relationship as body to soul. In character, the principles of Bahá’í administration represent the science of co-operation; in application, they provide for a new and higher type of morality world-wide in scope. In the clash and confusion of sectarian prejudice, the Bahá’í Movement is impartial and sympathetic, offering a foundation upon which reconciliation can be firmly based. Amid the complex interrelations of governments, the Movement stands absolutely neutral as to political purposes and entirely obedient to all recognized authority. It will not be overlooked by the student that Bahá’u’lláh is the only religious teacher making obedience to just governments and rulers a definite spiritual command.

In this brief analysis of the several features of the Bahá’í system of administration the purpose is rather to place in the hands of the believers themselves a convenient summary of the available instructions than to clarify this aspect of the Movement to the non-Bahá’í. Until one has made contact with the spirit of the Bahá’í teachings and desires to cooperate whole-heartedly with their purpose, the administrative phase of the Movement can have little real meaning or appeal.

At the time of the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the organization was fully defined but not yet established among His followers. The responsibility for carrying out the instructions was placed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá upon His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, to whom was assigned the function of “Guardian of the Cause.” Obedience to the authority of the Guardian was definitely enjoined upon all Bahá’ís by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, but this authority carries with it nothing of an arbitrary or per-