1. The early years of the history of the Bahá’í Faith are defined by Shoghi Effendi as the Heroic Age, an age that began with the Báb's declaration of His divine mission in 1844 and continued through the ministries of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It was an age characterized by vicious persecution of the Faith's twin Prophet-Founders and Their followers. It was a time of hardship but also of glory, for the brightness of dawn dispelled the dark of night, and Bahá’u’lláh's voluminous writings set forth the pathway to a divine civilization that would ensure peace and prosperity for all by offering the means for individual spiritual transformation and the final unification of human society. Bahá’u’lláh urged the kings and rulers of His time to recognize and partake of this gift. None heeded His call, assuring that He would not see His own promises realized in His lifetime. After Bahá’u’lláh's passing, the small community of believers was entrusted with bringing His world order into reality.
2. To build a new world order would be a hopeless task indeed had Bahá’u’lláh not given His followers a means to ensure its realization. In His will and testament He established a Covenant, unprecedented in religious history, that would protect and shelter the Bahá’ís by preserving the continuity of divine authority through a never-ending link to God's will for humanity. Through this Covenant Bahá’u’lláh passed leadership of the Bahá’í community to His eldest son and appointed successor, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in turn perpetuated this Covenant by designating, in his will and testament, the twin institutions of the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice as his successors.
3. With ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's passing in 1921, the sun set on the Heroic Age of the Faith, and a new age began: the Formative Age, an age destined to precede and prepare the way for the Golden Age of the Most Great Peace, the emergence of a global commonwealth, and the fulfillment of Bahá’u’lláh's holy vision of the oneness of humankind.
4. During the Formative Age, the strength of the Covenant would not only protect the Faith from schism but also provide for its florescence. Upon Shoghi Effendi, his eldest grandson, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid the mantle of the Guardian of the Cause of God. Under his leadership during the First Epoch of the Formative Age, spanning the years 1921 to 1946, the seeds of the Bahá’í Administrative Order that Bahá’u’lláh had planted and that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had carefully nurtured began to sprout. Guided by the Guardian, the Bahá’í community established the primary stages of its expansion—slowly building in all continents the local and national institutions that would facilitate the spread of the Faith to the entire world through the execution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's Divine Plan. That Plan was the blueprint carried forward by Shoghi Effendi as he initiated the first of many systematic teaching plans implemented and carried out during his stewardship of the worldwide Bahá’í community. These successive plans, beginning with the first Seven Year Plan in 1937, were directed at establishing Bahá’í communities in every country in the Western Hemisphere and deepening the roots of already existing communities.
5. These teaching plans continued throughout the Second Epoch of the Formative Age (1946-63), culminating in the Ten Year World Crusade from 1953 to 1963, which summoned the twelve existing National Spiritual Assemblies to unite in a focused effort to spread the Faith to all corners of the globe. The Crusade opened 131 new countries to the Faith, achieving a complementary increase in the diversity of the Bahá’í community and expanding the number of National Assemblies to fifty-six. These successes were matched by the evolution of the Administrative Order and the simultaneous development of the Faith's World Center in Haifa. Auxiliary Boards were introduced and the International Bahá’í Council was established. The Hands of the Cause of God, an institution created by Bahá’u’lláh, came into its own through the appointment to its ranks of souls of remarkable character and capacity, to carry out its purpose of propagating the Faith of God and protecting its unity.
6. Shoghi Effendi's unexpected death midway through the Crusade in 1957, however, deprived the Bahá’ís of their source of divine guidance and their beloved Guardian. At this moment of despair, the Hands of the Cause of God, whom Shoghi Effendi called the "Chief Stewards of Bahá’u’lláh's embryonic World Commonwealth," heroically arose to lead the community to complete the plan laid out by Shoghi Effendi and to establish the Universal House of Justice, the second of the "Twin Successors" of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The House of Justice, whose members Bahá’u’lláh described as the "Trustees of the All-Merciful" and the "Deputies of God," was now entrusted with the fulfillment of Bahá’u’lláh's Covenant with humanity that His guidance would never cease. The Second Epoch closed with an International Bahá’í Convention that summoned the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies from around the globe to elect the first Universal House of Justice.
7. The international Bahá’í community, with the Universal House of Justice now at its helm, entered the Third Epoch of the Formative Age (1963-86), a span that would take it through the next twenty-three years. Those years witnessed a growing maturation of Bahá’í administration and of the abilities of Bahá’í communities, the creation of the Continental Boards of Counselors and the International Teaching Center, and the continuing development of the Auxiliary Boards. The Third Epoch called the Bahá’ís of the world to a higher level of functioning that would be consistent with expected vast increases in the community's size and diversity, its emergence as a model to humankind, and the extension of its influence. Indeed, the Third Epoch witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the number of adherents to the Faith. It also introduced the community to pursuing projects of social and economic development, thereby signaling readiness for a profound advance in both its scope of activity and the concomitant sense of its own identity. The injunction of the Universal House of Justice at the opening of the Epoch—that the Bahá’ís, through study of the Word of God and dedicated service, "show to the world a mature, responsible, fundamentally assured and happy way of life, far removed from the passions, prejudices and distractions of present day society"—was bearing precious fruit.
8. The Fourth Epoch of the Formative Age was proclaimed by the Universal House of Justice in a letter to the Bahá’ís of the World dated 2 January 1986, its inception marked by a "new development in the maturation of Bahá’í institutions." The overall aims and characteristics of the ensuing Plan were to be established by the Universal House of Justice, but for the first time it was stated that "national goals of the next Plan are to be largely formulated by National Spiritual Assemblies and Boards of Counselors." The Six Year Plan that followed (1986-1992) included among its main objectives the vast expansion of the numerical and financial resources of the Cause, increased availability and use of Bahá’í literature, a worldwide demonstration of the Bahá’í way of life with a focus on education of children and youth, extended involvement in the needs of the world, and the pursuit of social and economic development in well-established Bahá’í communities. This was followed by the Three Year Plan (1993-96); the momentous Four Year Plan (1996-2000); and the Twelve Month Plan (2000-2001), which propelled the Bahá’í community into the Fifth Epoch of the Formative Age.
9. Messages of the Universal House of Justice, 1986-2001: The Fourth Epoch of the Formative Age offers a collection of messages from this period that tells a compelling story of a religious community maturing internally while externally emerging further from obscurity and solidifying its reputation in the world as a community concerned with unity, peace, and justice for all humanity. The closing years of the twentieth century were a period of tremendous turbulence in the world, witnessing upheavals of nations and peoples worldwide. The Bahá’í Faith penetrated parts of the world long closed off to Bahá’u’lláh's healing message, and the people of those countries joined in the dedicated application of Bahá’u’lláh's teachings in society. The disorder and chaos in the world appeared in sharp relief to the hard-won victories and joyful triumphs of a community clearly in the ascendant.
10. This volume compiles letters, cables, telexes, and electronic messages sent to Bahá’í institutions and individuals. The patient and loving guidance of the Universal House of Justice is evident in all of the correspondence here as it advises and comments on matters of personal morality and social responsibility, tackling such subjects as nonviolence in families, sexual morality, the nature of Bahá’í elections, and the Covenant. Readers will also find guidance on publishing, on Bahá’í scholarship, on presenting Bahá’í perspectives in public fora and on the Internet, and on cooperating with international organizations, as well as strong statements on issues such as apartheid, individual rights and freedoms, and the necessity of protecting the environment. Throughout the volume, one tragic thread passing through the narrative is the severe persecution of the Bahá’í community in Iran, whose members were oppressed, harassed, arrested, and even executed for their religious beliefs. The Fourth Epoch also saw the momentous occasion of the Holy Year commemorating the centenary of Bahá’u’lláh's passing and the inauguration of His Covenant. This anniversary was marked not only with two historic international gatherings but also with the publication of the English translation of Bahá’u’lláh's Most Holy Book, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, whose laws will form the basis for the promised Golden Age. Other notable results and achievements were the inauguration and steady progress, despite financial hardship, of the Mount Carmel Projects to erect edifices for the administration of the Faith at its World Center and to set off the Shrine of the Báb within a series of terraced gardens stretching from the foot of Mount Carmel to its summit. The outward signs of these physical structures were paralleled by the continued development of the functioning of the Auxiliary Boards, the Continental Boards of Counselors, and the International Teaching Center; by a steady increase in the number of National Spiritual Assemblies; and by the inauguration in 1997 of the institution of the Regional Bahá’í Council in many countries. Also chronicled here are evidences of increasingly effective engagement with the wider community, from the local through international levels, on critical matters of the day.
11. Beyond these stellar achievements, the Fourth Epoch will be remembered in Bahá’í history as the period in which the Universal House of Justice led the Bahá’í world to a new stage in its collective effort to achieve the long-sought goal of systematic, large-scale, and sustainable expansion and consolidation. In announcing the Four Year Plan (1996-2000), it wrote: "The next four years will represent an extraordinary period in the history of our Faith, a turning point of epochal magnitude." The rapid evolution of the Bahá’í community in the ensuing years amply justifies this assertion. The new phase of evolution grew out of the experience of the preceding three decades, during which victories in the teaching work around the globe vastly expanded the Bahá’í community but also proved to be unsustainable and unable to bring into being capable local Bahá’í communities. Experience was demonstrating the need for systematic, widespread, and formal training for the purpose of raising up "large numbers of believers who are trained to foster and facilitate the process of entry by troops with efficiency and love." Expansion and consolidation could thereby become reciprocal parts of one self-sustaining process. In its Riḍván message to the Bahá’ís around the world, the Universal House of Justice called for the development of a "network of training institutes on a scale never before attempted." The single aim of the Four Year Plan was a significant advance in the process of entry by troops. The individual, the community, and the Bahá’í institutions were each called upon to play their unique part. The training institute for the systematic development of human resources was to become the engine for this process.
12. It would be almost ten years later, in December 2005, that the Universal House of Justice would announce that the "elements required for a concerted effort to infuse the diverse regions of the world with the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh's Revelation have crystallized into a framework for action that now needs only to be exploited." The messages in this volume presage the gradual emergence of each of those elements and document the foundational steps on which this framework rests.
- — NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF THE UNITED STATES
