Transcript:Peter Khan/Constancy and change
| Transcript of: Speaking on Constancy and Change in the Bahá’í Faith (2010) by |
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[0:05] Dear friends, it's a great pleasure for me to be here tonight and to be able to address you on a subject as fascinating to me as the issue of balancing constancy and change. As many of you are well aware, the interplay between constancy and change has been a major issue in each of the religions of the world in recorded history. It has been at one and the same time, a source of strength to a growing religion and a source of fatal weakness to each of the great religions of the world, of the dispensations of the past. Each religion has at some point in its development had to confront, where should be the balance between constancy and change? Their failure to adequately address this issue has led to their decline. Today, at this stage in the early years of the Baháʼí dispensation, we now face that challenge. Conditions have developed, we have progressed through the Heroic Age of the Faith, we are now into the Formative Age of the Cause, and the question of how to find the correct balance between constancy and change confronts us. And it is this issue that I wish to address tonight.
[2:11] Let me begin by illustrating the issue through a very brief reference to some of the characteristics of the present world condition, and then the Bahá’í response to them. There are of course a great many distinguishing characteristics of today's world, and we could spend the entire time attempting to do a meticulous analysis of them. I simply want to draw attention to certain distinguishing characteristics of what I perceive to be pertinent issues in today's world. The first is the tendency of an increasing proportion of the world's population to regard religion as irrelevant to the issues of practical life. Irrelevant to the world of nuclear energy, of the climatic change, of computers, of nanotech, and the like.
[3:26] It is not to be unexpected that people find religion irrelevant to these present day conditions because the religions with which they are dealing were designed to deal with the conditions of the Mediterranean world of 2,000 years ago, or the Arabian world of 630 A.D.
[3:56] A second characteristic of today's world is what I would call moral inversion. And by that I mean, that forms of conduct which Baháʼís regard as improper, have in the present day become accepted as normal and appropriate. For example, sexual conduct of various forms. The act of adherence to principle irrespective of consequences which is so central to the Bahá’í teachings and the Bahá’í ethics, is now regarded as odd, unusual, and improperly rigid. Trustworthiness, integrity of speech, the avoidance of falsehood, are regarded as out-of-date, irrelevant, and not appropriate to the common world of business, of commerce, of negotiations between people. A concern for the welfare of others has become regarded as utopian, as hopelessly idealistic, as unsuited to the present day. These are examples of what I see to be a condition of moral inversion.
[5:36] Another characteristic is that computer technology and all the things associated with it, has while bestowing undreamt of advantages to the development of society, and in our case, to the operation of the Baháʼí community, that computer technology has brought with it some unfortunate side effects. One that concerns me greatly is the rise of inexperience in studying texts which require repeated reading and contemplation to be understood. We have inadvertently trained the people around us to only find palatable things that can be reduced to text messages, to one sentence, to one phrase or two or three phrases. This, of course is quite appropriate in many circumstances, but it raises the challenge of how will people grow to be socialized to deal with those texts such as in our sacred writings which require repeated reading, deep contemplation, back-and-forth studying, thinking about them at great length in order to be comprehended if they grow up on a diet of brief, succinct text messages.
[7:21] We have also, inadvertently through the rise of this highly beneficial technology, we have inadvertently devalued and decreased the capacity of people for real-life social interaction with others, with friends, and strangers. What's fascinating to Janet and myself to ride the Metro in Washington, D.C. just a couple of weeks ago, fascinating to observe a carriage full of people, each one preoccupied with his cellphone. Whereas normally there would be a certain degree of interaction or social intercourse between these people one meets casually on the street, in stores, in restaurants and supermarkets, on the Metro and all. Now we are creating a society in which people are increasingly resorting to the cellphone whenever they have time, whenever they are alone. So those of us who come from other countries, who are in many ways like aliens descended from Mars, find ourselves puzzled to be walking the streets of a great city like Washington and seeing people proceeding along the pathway, apparently chattering to themselves. At first I do say, "How odd is this?" And then you realize that in fact, they're engaged in conversations of great depths and sometimes embarrassing intimacy to others at the end of a cellphone.
[9:16] Another feature of the present day society is the abject failure of collective decision-making and governance throughout the world. We have reached a condition in the relations between peoples, tribes, races, nations, and governments where there is an inability to resolve conflicting views and approaches. The resolution is only by force or by further division of countries which were formerly united into smaller and smaller fractions. It is associated with a decline in respect for authority. Respect for authority is replaced by questioning and disagreeing any time a leader or an authority figure in the secular society announces a decision, there is immediately a response of questioning and disagreement and a fractionation of views. Conventional democracy has shown that it has problems which render the very survival of what we today call democracy, has rendered that survival subject to question. The manipulation of elections, the excessive power of vested commercial and media interests. So often when one analyzes the operation of what seems to be a democratic society, one finds for example the tyranny of a majority; the alienation of the electorate with an increasingly fewer proportion of the population exercising their right to vote.
[11:27] The one other characteristic which I think is part of society today is the development of a pervasive sense of insecurity. And that I think is evident in polls taken by social commentators and the like. That sense of insecurity, that sense of lack of confidence in the future, that view that the world to come in the years ahead for this generation or its children, that that will not be better than what we have today has led to a growing sense of insecurity which has spawned a number of most unfortunate characteristics: extremism, the polarization of population, the development of deep-seated animosity between the political parties in most two-party systems. Societies around us are becoming increasingly vulnerable to demigods and messianic figures, political or social. And with that has come an emotional adherence to simplistic solutions. People desperate to find something to improve their life are vulnerable to the seemingly simplistic solutions offered to their problem.
[13:09] This I observe has three quite discernable consequences. The first is, and most important to us, it has created and is increasingly creating golden opportunities to attract people to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. We lament these conditions of the declining society. We yearn to improve the welfare and happiness of the people around us. But we also recognize that these conditions are those most appropriate to attract others to the message of Bahá’u’lláh. Looking more deeply, one can show that at a fundamental level, at a level beyond the superficial, the core activities of the Five Year Plan are remarkably appropriate to address these issues at the level of principle. Beyond the level of simplistic solution but at the level of principle, one can analyze the content of the various Ruhi books we have, the various other aspect of the Five Year Plan, the two new issues that have been presented to us in the Riḍván 2010 message. One can carry out an analysis and show, lo and behold, this is exactly what is needed by humanity to resolve the problems I have addressed.
[14:57] Another consequence though is that the members of the worldwide Baháʼí community are inevitably suspect to a certain degree of influence by those negative forces that I listed a few minutes ago. Our believers are immersed in a secularized environment. They will, like it or not, be subject to the tendency to divorce religion from the operation of their daily lives, to look at the world through the operation of material forces, as is characteristic of political analysis today. They will to some extent be subject to alienation from their institutions, to some extent, will question the authority of the elected bodies of the Faith, and so on. We wish it weren't so, but it's part and parcel of our transition through this time of turbulence and change.
[16:13] Yet another consequence of these characteristics is the vital necessity for the administrators of the Cause, those in both arms of the Administrative Order, to give attention to community development strategies which meet the needs and opportunities created by the present world. We need, as the Universal House of Justice has pointed at in this recent Riḍván message, we need to create a new culture, not simply the transformation of spiritual values, but to go beyond that and use these transformed values to give rise to a new culture and ultimately to a new civilization. All of this calls for us to examine the question of change because the development of this culture requires that we give greater attention than before to the establishment of the foundations for the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
[17:34] The transformation of spiritual values is necessary, but not sufficient, to meet the emergent needs of humanity. We need beyond the transformation of spiritual values, we need a fundamental systemic change in human organization and modes of collective action and governance, and thus the creation of what is in a real sense a radically different culture. This creation of a new system of human organization and social interaction is a vast task. It is beyond our comprehension. It is a task of great complexity and immense difficulty. It will require the energies of millions of Baháʼís for centuries to come for it to be accomplished. And all we can do is with perfect faith, proceed to lay its foundation today, confident that they will come with the revolution of centuries the fruition of our goals and ideals in this regard, and that the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh will be established.
[19:15] We look forward to the joining together of a vast multitude of Baháʼís of the present and future generations, devoting themselves to work in concert in the pursuit of these tasks. But we also must recognize that it will not be easy. Some believers, of devotion and integrity, some believers will at certain times misunderstand the necessary focus on organizational issues and functioning. And they will from time to time accuse us of having abandoned spirituality in pursuit of organization. It's inevitable. Spirituality, to a lot of people, has a very narrow definition, a definition that we would associate with otherworldliness, impracticality, or a lack of focus on concrete issues. This is a false definition, but it's often the one given. We will be required to focus on organization, our organization will become increasingly complex as the number of Baháʼís grows and as the reach of the Faith extends deeper into society and one of the hazards we will face will be that of the disillusion of those believers whose image of what a religion should be differs from ours.
[21:04] Together with that, we will face at various points in the future, misrepresentation outside the Bahá’í community by skeptics who will accuse us of creating an organization seeking political domination on a world scale. Because they view the extensive development of the World Order as they view the degree of discipline, the capacity for concerted and unified action transcending national borders. It is inevitable that in the future we will be subject to misunderstanding, misrepresentation, false accusation of a political nature.
[21:57] Be that as it may, we must go ahead. The development of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh must require, as it proceeds, changes in strategies and approaches. And this in many ways is the one point to be made of this talk. If I were kinder I would stop at this point, I've made my point. The central issue is the fact that one must expect that the Cause will adopt different strategies and approaches as it deals with a variety of circumstances appropriate to the growth of World Order. Some of these will be similar to strategies described by Shoghi Effendi, and some of them will be different, and some of them will be radically different. And believers who confuse constancy with change will be worried that we are forsaking the interpretations of Shoghi Effendi when in fact, all we are doing is changing some of the strategies of that master strategist, that was Shoghi Effendi.
[23:31] We can, to a certain extent draw lessons from the experience of the Baháʼí community during its 160 or 70 years of existence of how it has dealt with significant change at various points in that history. With the end of the Heroic Age, and the inauguration of the Ministry of Shoghi Effendi there was significant and indeed dramatic change. Things that were very cherished by a number of believers were changed, were discarded. New practices were introduced by Shoghi Effendi in those early years of his ministry. And this is proceeded during the course of the Ministry of the Guardian and then during the interregnum and the period now of the Universal House of Justice. As a result the mass of the believers faithfully, if indeed doggedly, followed the instructions given to them by the World Center of the Faith. However, some found that too difficult. Some resisted change introduced by Shoghi Effendi and later by the Head of the Faith, some resisted change by strengthening their veneration of the practices of the early days of the religion. They took refuge in a return to the religious practices of what you might call, sociologically, the primitive age of religion because therein lay security, therein lay insulation from the forces of change. It's a little bit like what happens in the present day in Christianity, where there is a return to say the Amish way of life as a way of resisting the destructive effect of modernity on the Christian practice.
[25:55] Others welcomed the commitment on the part of the Faith to change, with say the measures introduced in the early years of the Formative Age, and they saw it as giving a signal to them to propose radical change. They became extremists at the other end of the spectrum. They said, "Ah, now is our chance to adapt this religion, to make it more attractive to society, to abandon the discipline of the past, discarded fundamental principles, and grow very, very rapidly". Those of you who have been around for many decades will remember a story that Firuz Kazemzadeh used to tell when the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States first ventured into the field of public relations in the 1960s. And it sought the advice of a prestigious public relations firm, and that advice was: "The first thing you should do is change your name". Because the name Bahá’í is not going to fly in present day United States. I think probably Dorothy and Jim will remember that. So part of the reaction to change historically has been the fact that some have returned to early practices of a different condition of the Cause in the hope of finding security while others have taken it as a signal to promote radical change which, if it were accepted, would undermine the very foundation of the Faith.
[27:53] These are tendencies in the Baháʼí community at every time of change, including the present day. What protects us and what renders history not subject to repetition of the past is the uniqueness of the Covenant. The uniqueness of the Covenant means history does not repeat itself. The divisions, the irreparable divisions of the past, are not recurring at the present time. Nevertheless, within the safety net of the Covenant we do find today with the changes occurring since 1996, when the House of Justice first called us to embark upon this condition of advancing the process of entry by troops, we do have certain forms of reaction of believers troubled by what the House of Justice has said and what it has done. There is for example, there are signs of reversion to earlier cultural practices. Takes various forms, one form is where believers say, "I quit. I quit involvement in the community. I'm going to go home. I'm going to say my prayers, observe the fast, read my Gleanings, and let the rest of you go off in this very novel and unfamiliar direction." There is the resurgence in some quarters of a disdain for the Administrative Order as a post-apostolic age addition to the Faith rather than the unfolding of the paths of the organic unit that is the body of the Cause.
[29:55] There rise of a few extreme and radical voices saying, "the House of Justice is wonderful, it had made this change, but this is just the beginning. I can tell you what we really need to change..." and then follows something that makes one cringe. Perhaps most troubling to all, including myself, is that with this condition of change into which we have entered since 1996, there has come the distress of a small but significant number of devoted believers who have served the Cause with distinction and fidelity for many generations, and who feel forsaken, abandoned by present day strategies and have not left the Cause, they will die as faithful believers, they have not left the Cause but they have become passive and deeply disappointed, disillusioned, apprehensive about where the Cause is going, or even alienated. In some of my more cynical moments, I've characterized their reaction as that of the forsaken lover who finds that the object of his affections and his devotion has proven not to be as he had hoped.
[31:40] What is the solution to this situation? My view is that the solution is that of re-examining what it is that is constant in our religion and what it is that is subject to change. I want to propose such a model to you tonight and I want to suggest to you that the way forward, the way to avoid the pitfalls which the Cause is facing as it meets the pressing needs of society, the way forward is to adhere with unswerving devotion to those things that are constant and to those elements that are subject to change.
[32:32] Firstly, what is constant? What are the elements of our religion to which we must commit ourselves, which are fundamental to the religion which will not change during the entire course of the dispensation, which are the bedrock on which our Faith must rest? The first, of course, is unwavering belief in the Manifestation and commitment to the work of the Cause. How easy it is to say these words! How simply they roll from the tongue! How difficult it is to maintain unwavering commitment and belief in the Manifestation of God through the trials and turmoils of decades of Baháʼí community life. To the inevitable tests that come from some of the teachings, tests which come from the pressures of non-Bahá’í relatives and family and friends, and the tests which come from the tensions of local Baháʼí community life! How difficult it is to remain constant, firm, continually active and devoted to the Cause despite these tests! How difficult it is to resist the seeds of doubt, which can be sown either consciously or inadvertently, by others who are conscious that 20th century history is one of diluted and megalomaniac individuals with exalted claims.
[34:28] A second element of constancy required of us is adherence to the provisions of the Covenant and a continuing effort to internalize the Covenant, to explore its practical implications and to support its Institution. Here again, it's so simple to say these words, so challenging and so difficult to put them into practice. If you were to ask anybody in this room, myself included, do you support the Covenant? There would be this "Yay, verily!" that our friends this afternoon were [?]. But how difficult it is when the institutions of the Cause make decisions with which we disagree, when distant bodies, the members of which we do not know, make decisions which govern the day-to-day activities of our lives. How difficult it is to remain committed to the Covenant in the present day philosophy of individualism and suspicion of authority. How strange it must appear to our friends who are not Baháʼís that we are prepared to commit ourselves, to commit our future and our activity to a Body in distant Haifa that we don't know, we've never met, we have no way of assessing the character of the individual members of the Universal House of Justice, and for us to say, "Whatever they decide, I follow. They tell me to walk through the fire, I will walk through the fire." How different that is from present day society.
[36:24] Another element of our constancy is the requirement of constancy of effort to follow the laws of the Faith, to practice its virtues and to strive for excellence. Again, how easy to say this, how hard to put it into practice, how difficult to stand for the laws of the faith which are unpopular, which are an apparent visage of 19th century mid-Victorian narratives. How difficult it is to survive peer pressure, how difficult for children and youth in their schools to resist the temptations which all their peers in the school are succumbing to. Yet these are the requirements of constancy.
[37:23] One more point of constancy, to strive to develop a spiritual outlook on life with an awareness of spiritual forces and their effect. The writings of our Faith, particularly those of the Guardian, and also those of the Central Figures, but the ones that I find of particular interest to me at the present time, although I'm struggling to understand it, is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's "Tablet to Dr. Forel", which to my mind is if I understand it correctly, discloses a model of the universe subject to great spiritual forces which have a determining role in the course of human affairs. Shoghi Effendi in the World Order letters, referring to forces released by the operation of the events of the Cause, the operation of the work of the Central Figures, the coming of the Manifestation and the like, mysterious statements that appear in our writing about spiritual forces. For example, the passage in the latter part of Advent of Divine Justice that refers to the American nation and people subject to forces they can neither comprehend nor control in the evolution of the destiny of America. To adopt a outlook on life which incorporates as a necessary part of the model the operation of these spiritual forces in a materialistic and unbelieving world, that to me as part of the constancy required of us.
[39:27] Now the changing aspects. And this is where of course we have the difficulty, where we have the anguish, the challenge to highly devoted and faithful believers, in some instances. One of the things that is subject to change is the application of the laws of the Faith. You might say now wait a minutes, let's not get carried away here. Here we have the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Book of Laws. You're surely not going to change it. The House of Justice, in the introduction to the English translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas referred to the progressive application and elaboration of those laws, laws which are not applicable to us today will be applicable tomorrow. Elaborations which will clarify how these laws are to be applied will be presented to us at an appropriate time by the House of Justice. For example, we had the session this afternoon on Ḥuqúqu’lláh, and those of you who've been around for more than 18 years will remember there was a time where the Law of Ḥuqúqu’lláh was not obligatory on believers in the West, it was discretionary. And then lo and behold in 1992 the Universal House of Justice decided the time had come for it to be applied. It changed from being discretionary to obligatory, as specified in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. So one of the changing aspects will be that of the application of the laws of the Faith and their elaboration.
[41:26] Another aspect that is subject to change in the operation of the Cause is that of the external reach of the Faith. Despite its existence as a religion subject to spiritual forces, to spiritual powers, to spiritual concepts of existence, it has become apparent with the guidance of the Central Figures of the Head of the Faith, that the Baháʼí community is destined to become far more deeply involved in the life of society than occurred with any religion of past dispensations. It will become far more deeply involved in the social and economic life, in influencing thought and discourse on the pertinent issues or interest to society, to an extent we cannot yet comprehend. Why? Because what we are doing is not simply spreading a religion in the traditional sense. We are building a World Order and a World Order will be exactly as the name suggests, it will be an ordering of the condition and operation of humanity. So those of us comfortable with a replacement of traditional religion, Christian or Muslim, by the Baháʼí faith, will find ourselves challenged to redefine our concept of legitimate religious practice to include this far broader and deeper involvement in society.
[43:26] Of particular significance to us at the present time is the fact that one of the changing elements of the Cause are its teaching plans and strategies. Why? Because our aim is ultimately to embrace the whole of human society and to build a strong foundation into which there can enter millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people as humanity gathers into the shelter of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. The strategies used in days gone by in the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in the ministry of Shoghi Effendi, those strategies are changing and will change. It is inevitable. The only way to avoid that is to say, "We're not going to grow. We're not going to change. We're going to stagnate." There's an internal dynamic to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh which is forcing us forward to meet our future destiny. That internal dynamic is compelling us to change. As part and parcel of that change, strategies will alter, will be modified, will be discarded, other strategies put in place.
[45:01] Inevitably, there will be people who will draw a letter of 1925 from Shoghi Effendi and say: "Look, the Guardian said that and you rather ignorant people are doing this, and it contradicts." And we will look at it and say, "You are right, it does contradict it, but we make no apology for that. It's a different condition of society." This will lead hopefully to acceptance by our inquirer, but it may also lead to a heated exchange where our inquirer accuses us of meddling with the interpretations of the Guardian. It's not interpretation, it's strategic application of the principles [?]. We distinguish between strategic applications of the master strategist, Shoghi Effendi, those are quite different from the enduring interpretations of Shoghi Effendi which remain valid for the entire course of the dispensation.
[46:10] One other element of change which has already occurred, and which will occur even more in the future, is that the Universal House of Justice as Head of the Faith will introduce administrative practices and will create new institutions. This is very startling. Why do we need new institutions? We've got along very well for decades with the National Assembly and Local Assemblies. Now we have Regional Baháʼí Councils, more recently we have the whole apparatus of advancing the process of entry by troops. We have clusters, where the word cluster I don't recall it appearing in the writings of the Guardian, where did it come from? Here it is. We have a variety of bodies, institutes, and coordinators, and animators, and whatever. Where did all this come from? What is its legitimacy? What is its authority? Its authority lies in the remarkable amount of power invested in the Head of the Faith, the Universal House of Justice. So we, as part of our commitment to the Faith, must become adjusted to the fact that there will be changes in administrative practices, creation of new institutions as the Cause advances.
[47:43] Some short number of years ago, the House of Justice asked the Research Department to make for its internal use a compilation of those statements of the Guardian where he indicated that certain administrative practices were provisional, subject to change by the House of Justice. That compilation was not released to the believers, it's unlikely to be released, but it's no big secret, you could do just as well as the Research Department did pretty much by going to the published works of the Guardian. It wasn't as if there were secret things that you haven't seen it. But when you go to these published works one comes away amazed at how much of what we take for granted in our administrative functioning, when you look at the fine print, Shoghi Effendi says it's subject to change, provisional, subject to alteration by the Universal House of Justice. I mention this too because I feel we must be alert to the prospect of this kind of change in years to come. I don't want to leave you frightened as if some terrible thing is going to happen tomorrow but we should be mentally agile and prepare for change when it's introduced to us in a proper, authoritative manner.
[49:19] So our Cause, the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, it has within it the necessity for change if it is to fulfill its destiny and its promise. This means that we are confronted, if we are to remain involved in the work of the Faith, we are confronted with the necessity for finding the balance between constancy and change. And I submit it to you that there is no other way on Earth in finding that correct balance without unwavering adherence to the guidance of the Universal House of Justice. Only in that way will that balance be preserved, no other way works.
[50:28] As you all realize as well as I do, and in fact if not more, the Universal House of Justice is unique in religious history. It cannot be compared to any other body that has appeared in the recorded history of the world. And that is for several reasons. One, of course, is the categoric promise of Bahá’u’lláh that its decisions are guided to be free from error and hence, it is infallible. This is an astonishing claim. No other religion has contemplated that, although various claims of infallibility have been made in 1870 and various other times. Nevertheless, we are promised categorically by Bahá’u’lláh, reiterated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and again by Shoghi Effendi that that Body, when it gathers as a Body of elected members of the Universal House of Justice, whatever decision it makes, either unanimously or by majority, that that represents the Will of God. And this is amazing. When it becomes apparent to the generality of the people of mankind, it will arouse derision, ridicule, suspicion, anger, distress in many quarters. It is a gigantic claim. It's far bigger than you and I can possibly imagine. And it will become one of the distinguishing features of the Baháʼí faith, a source of a lot of criticism as well as an emblem of its magnitude and greatness as the years advance that such a claim exists, that such authority has been given by a Manifestation of God.
[52:35] Yet another element of the uniqueness of the Universal House of Justice is the fact that for the first time in history, an institution at the center of a revealed religion has been endowed with a specific commitment to make change. This is an institution which has change built into it, in its very fiber. In the central elements of its structure, the Universal House of Justice is a body charged with making change so that the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh can come into being, so world civilizations can be created. The fact that the House of Justice has the right to make decisions within the specified parameters which are equally binding as the laws of Bahá’u’lláh, and then to change its own decision as conditions alter is astonishing, remarkable, mysterious. And in that manner, Bahá’u’lláh has gifted humanity with a body of change, recognizing the central significance of change to the establishment and operation of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. It is natural and not to become deeply alarmed about, it is natural that the magnitude of the authority and functions of the Universal House of Justice give rise, from time-to-time, to challenges to that authority. These challenges come not unusually from devoted and well-meaning believers. Challenges to the authority of the Faith, of the House of Justice, do not come from malicious in all cases, sometimes they do, but in a lot of cases they arise from very good believers, well-meaning believers of great devotion to the Cause. And in some cases, they come from the skeptical, and in some cases, they come from the downright malicious.
[55:08] Let me mention to you my own personal list of some of these challenges that I observe in the years of my service on the House of Justice. I do this without a [?] of authority, this is not something the House of Justice has commissioned or even authorized, it's simply my own personal views. One challenge arises from the well-meaning view that the Universal House of Justice is essentially an international assembly. We have Local Assemblies, and we have National Assembly and by-glory, now we've elected an international assembly. What a wonderful thing that is. And just as a National Assembly exercises control and authority on the affairs of the Cause in this country or other national communities, so the international body exercises control and authority on an international level. It seems very plausible, it seems very reasonable. That makes for a satisfying degree of symmetry. But it's not true. It is not an international assembly. It is not a body which is basically like a board of directors of a multi-national corporation. You might say "Thank God, the way multi-corporations are going these days." It is not like the board of directors of a multinational corporation. If it were, one could make a pretty good estimate of its decisions by studying the individual members. In my professional life, I've had to deal at times with corporate bodies in my field of electronics and I found it very useful. Get a list of the names of the members of the corporate body, get their bio-form, analyze, see what they did, what each one has written, what each one has said on various subjects and you could do—I'm sure those of you in professional lives do the same thing—you can get a pretty good estimate of what the body will decide for having studied the individuals and their particular perspectives and predispositions. The Universal House of Justice is nothing like that, not even remotely, not even vaguely similar. And to form the mental construct of it as being like an international assembly or international corporate body of a secular nature is completely wrong. It's misleading.
[57:57] Another challenge to the authority of the House of Justice arises from well-meaning and well-intentioned attempts to restrict its authority. For example, one school of thought has said that yes, the House of Justice is infallible, but only when legislating, and it's legislated seven times, or eight times, or nine times, or whatever over the course of its 47 years of existence. I can tell you quite categorically that that view, although well-meaning, is not correct. And I speak in a categoric way because the question has come to the Universal House of Justice, and it has responded in this way that it's not so. It has drawn attention to the sweeping nature of the powers conferred on the House of Justice by Bahá’u’lláh in the [?]Ishraq, and in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and in other places. Its promise of infallible guidance is not only when it is legislating, even though it has a unique function of legislating on matters not covered in the text.
[59:22] More subtly is the view that the House of Justice can make mistakes. Shock. Horror. What do you mean make mistakes? Ah ha! The House of Justice has said in writing, it needs information. And that the House of Justice freely admits, it has written this whenever anybody asks it, it will freely give such an answer, just as Shoghi Effendi gave a similar answer in their response to questions. The logical flaw is to say, since the House of Justice requires information, if it is given incorrect information, it will proceed to make a wrong decision. That's logically wrong. It's not so. The House of Justice, at times, is given information which turns out to be incorrect. That does not mean it makes an incorrect decision. A variety of responses can occur, and I have seen all of them, although I don't want to persuade you of my view by what are basically pilgrim notes, so I wouldn't go into detail. Nevertheless, I think one can very persuasively argue that the House of Justice promise infallibility is not dependent upon provision of correct information. If it were, one would have an escape clause with which to disregard any decision of the House of Justice by labelling it as a decision based upon incorrect information. It doesn't work. It doesn't apply. The House of Justice is guided according to what Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has stated.
[1:01:24] More subtle distortions of the operation of the House of Justice also occur, again, often by well-meaning believers. One of these is the tendency to ascribe statements to the House of Justice without written documentary evidence. If I were to get up and say to you, the House of Justice decided three weeks ago, thus, and thus, and thus. You would, because you are good people and because of the ethos meeting, you'd say, "Okay, Peter Khan said it, it must be right." Heaven help us from such a view. Matters of religious authority are too crucial to be dependent upon good feeling towards the interlocutor. Matters of religious authority depend upon unimpeachable evidence, and that evidence from a corporate entity like the Universal House of Justice is in writing.
[1:02:37] What this means is that we must find a difficult path in the development of Baháʼí culture. We must find a path in which it is not offensive to say politely and sweetly and gently and with big smiles to everybody in sight that, "Excuse me, what is the authority for what you say?" When you first start doing this, you'd would be well-advised to wear the kind of mask that fencers wear, you know with a mesh here, because you're liable to find a few loose teeth. Because it's considered most offensive if I come and say to you, "The House of Justice has decided thus and thus" and you say, "Peter, tell me, uh, what is the authority?" My initial reaction is, "Okay, you're calling me a liar, aren't you?" Now where do we go from there? We've created an adversarial situation?
[1:03:48] What we have to do is on the one hand learn not to be too sensitive, not to be hypersensitive, on another way we need to learn polite forms of speech which give rise to a request for authority, not because anybody is a liar, not because I don't trust you, or you don't trust me, but because the question of authentic religious authority is crucial. The history of religion shows how problems have arisen from well-meaning believers who has said what they believe to be correct, and in fact when you see it written, there's a comma somewhere, or a full stop here, instead of there, which changes the whole meaning. So we need a culture which protects the integrity of the authority of the House of Justice by politely and timely and quietly asking for the reference, for the authority, from where is this written. But as I say, get a fencers mask when you start doing that.
[1:05:01] There is also, again in terms of tendencies to erode the authority of the Universal House of Justice, there is the tendency to adopt an authoritative perspective simply through the force of one's eloquence or the loudness of one's voice or the dogmatic nature of one's statements, or even the size of one's physical presence. It is to my mind, both interesting and challenging to read, in the history of religions, how priesthoods arose in past dispensations. It wasn't always somebody drunk with the desire for power, who seized authority, and proclaimed himself a priest. It is something that often arose gradually over a period of generations, as individuals became more and more authoritative. If you look at the evolution of the stature of the Bishop of Rome ultimately to the Papacy, one sees an example of this and you see similar examples in Islam, where there was no priesthood, but it gradually crept in because of the elements of human nature. This doesn't mean we have people around who want to be priests, but it does mean that there is a human tendency on the part of a devoted religious community to cast individuals in a priestly role, either due to their longevity, they've been around forever, or their formal academic qualifications, their charisma, or the fact that so many people hang upon their every word. And this quasi-priestly authority, often given to believers who would shrink from the thought themselves, is a gradual erosion of the authority of the House of Justice. It will not occur. We won't have priests. It's not going to happen. The Covenant will protect us, but we can make life a little easier. Avoid the shedding of blood to a greater extent if we do not, if we control our tendency to endow quasi-priestly authority on capable, knowledgeable individuals.
[1:07:49] Getting to the end of my talk, there are at the farthest end of the spectrum, apparently malicious attempts to create doubt in the minds of the believers by spurious stories about the House of Justice. For example, one of the stories that has circulated on the internet, which I suspect many of you have seen, is the fact that two members recently were forced to resign because of disagreement with the other members. Some of you might have seen this, some of you probably haven't seen it. The oddest thing in the world, we sat in council-chamber and we're stunned by it. It had not even a whisper of truth in it. It was ridiculous. That spurious story astonished us. The authority of the House of Justice rests upon the statements in the writings. It does not rest upon anything I say, but I can say to you I've never seen a body as unified as the House of Justice. Never in my wildest dream have I seen this. Sometimes, rare occasions I must admit, the House of Justice finishes its agenda before 5:30 p.m., like 4:50 or 4:55, 5:00 p.m. And when that occurs, which is rare, I notice the members just sit back and chat with each other. We don't want to leave each other. There's nothing, the agenda's done, we can go, and there's horrible amount of stuff waiting on the desk for you to deal with. Nevertheless, we just enjoy each other's company. Enjoy the pleasure of associating with each other. The level of unity, something I've never before seen.
[1:09:55] There will no doubt be other ingenious attempts to weaken the image of the believers in the authority of the House of Justice. Some will be well-meaning, some will be from very well-intentioned believers, some will be from malicious people, some will be deliberate attempts to subvert the foundation of the Cause. All will fail because of the power of the Covenant. Through our adherence, our unwavering, unqualified, total commitment to follow where the House of Justice leads, without qualification, without question, without any reservation at all, we will succeed in preserving the balance between constancy and change and we'll be led through this difficult time of turbulence and unrest and disorder in the world.
[1:10:58] I want to conclude by reading to you a passage from the writings of the Guardian, and it's a passage the Guardian wrote some 80 years ago, in the early years of his ministry, with the vast amount of work ahead of him to raise up Local Assemblies, to bring into being National Assemblies, ultimately to give rise to the conditions favorable for the creation of the Universal House of Justice. At that time in the early 1930s, Shoghi Effendi looked ahead and he said when that body comes into being, this is what it'll be like:
[1:11:47] "Through it the pillars of the Faith on this earth will be firmly established and its hidden powers be revealed, its signs shine forth, its banners be unfurled and its light be shed upon all peoples. … Then will all our cherished hopes and aspirations be realized, the tree of our endeavors bear fruit, the Will and Testament of our Master and our Beloved be fully and firmly established, and the hidden powers of the Cause of our Lord and God be fully manifested."
[1:12:33] And the Guardian's words written 80 years ago concerning the House of Justice, concerning what will happen when it comes into being, those words conclude with this sentence. "Then will be unveiled before our eyes, the inauguration of an era the like of which has never been witnessed in past ages." It is in this sense that we are called upon to follow unswervingly, unhesitatingly, with no reservation whatsoever, the guidance of the Universal House of Justice, wherever it leads us.
Thank you.
