Dear Friends,
I turn Seventy today, October 3rd 2026. I’ve been a Baha’i since I was Seventeen. Much has changed in the 52+ years since I joined. Many old-timers have made the same observation. Back then we had 150,000 Baha’is. Now about 75,000, with more ex- or inactive Baha’is than active. I’d like to take the opportunity of my birthday to share some insights as to why.
Perhaps you have not noticed, but since I sell teaching materials, it is obvious to me that the Bahá’í Community in the U.S. is not growing. In fact, it is about half the size that it was 52 years ago when I joined. Enrollments have gone from 3000 a year to 300 a year, and there are as many people officially withdrawing as joining.
Why?
We could blame people for not being receptive.
We could blame ourselves for not teaching correctly.
But I believe it goes deeper than that.
There are millions of open-minded, receptive people who hear that we believe in equality, but see that we do not include women on our highest Council, and it troubles them.
There are thousands more who feel unwelcome because they, or someone they care about, are gay.
These two policies not only chase potential Bahá’ís away – they also trouble the hearts of Bahá’ís themselves, who may or may not choose to express their concerns, and who may or may not decide to step back from participation in Community life.
Then there are the thousands of other Bahá’ís, who have accepted these policies, but have felt their creative spirits being stifled by the limiting structure of the institute process. Many of them have also stepped back from participating in community life.
Perhaps saddest of all, however, are the thousands of dedicated Bahá’ís like you, who are obeying every word of guidance as hard as they can, and still see almost no results. They have done every Ruhi book. They attend every meeting. They host devotions and classes, and still nothing changes. They blame themselves and try even harder, until they finally burn themselves out.
If we count inactive and estranged Bahá’ís, then people who struggle with these issues make up the majority of the believers in Bahá’u’lláh. They are some of my best customers.
So, is every Bahá’í who is struggling with one or more of these policies in trouble? Are they violating the Covenant because they have questions about where we are heading? If you are part of the majority that has doubts about any of this, are you a bad Bahá’í?
No.
It means that the same heart that attracted you to Bahá’u’lláh in the first place; that made you fall in love with the spirit of His Teachings, is also telling you that these policies do not reflect the spirit of love, inclusion and independent thought that you dedicated your life to.
This doesn’t make you a bad Bahá’í. It makes you a true Bahá’í.
So take a deep breath, and let’s take a look a what has allowed the Community to drift so far from its original spirit. I promise I won’t say a word against the authority of the Institutions. This is not about authority. It is about something else.
All of these issues are the result of a single idea. This idea is so entrenched in the Community that it has become a Sacred Cow. It might be more accurately describes as The Sacred Elephant in the living room. It is something so big and so unquestioned that not only are we not allowed to touch it, we aren’t even allowed to look at it.
I was warned not to name this elephant. My friends said that no one wanted to admit it was there. So, I’m not going to name the elephant. I’m going to let Bahá’u’lláh name him.
In the Kitab-i-Aqdas, paragraph 47, Baha’u’llah reveals, “He Who is the Dawning-place of God’s Cause hath no partner in the Most Great Infallibility“. And again, in the Tablet of Splendors, He revealed, “Render thanks unto God, inasmuch as He hath unraveled for thee that which was hidden and enshrined in His knowledge so that everyone may become aware that within His realm of supreme infallibility He hath not taken a partner nor a counselor unto Himself.”
Yes, I am going to talk about infallibility. Now before you freak out and stop reading, let me remind you that if you are one of the thousands of Bahá’ís who have concerns about women on the House of Justice, our attitude towards homosexuals, or the way the Institute Process has affected the Community, then you already have concerns about how we apply the idea of infallibility to our community life. Isn’t it better to face these concerns head-on rather than keeping them in the shadows where they fester?
It isn’t the claim of infallibility that I want to address, but rather our rigid understanding of what that means.
From the above quotations, you can see that Baha’u’llah has reserved “The Most Great Infallibility” for Himself. This leaves us with the question of what is the nature of conferred infallibility, and how should it be understood in application?
In consulting with Bahá’í scholars in Europe, I learned that many of them have adopted a fairly flexible understanding of infallibility. In this view, being infallibly guided is not the same as having essential infallibility. Being guided allows for missteps, and the opportunity to change your mind.
American believers, on the other hand, have a very rigid and all-encompassing view of infallibility. This makes sense, since we are steeped in a culture that leans towards black and white thinking. Americans believe in a literal heaven and hell, salvation or damnation, six-day creation, Left vs. Right, and capitalism vs. communism. It is only natural that Baha’is growing up within the American culture would lean towards an absolutist view of infallibility.
The question is, what view is supported by the Writings?
An exhaustive search of the Writings will not find a single authoritative statement in which Bahá’u’lláh uses the word infallible when referring to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Guardian, or the Universal House of Justice. More than that, not even ‘Abdu’l-Bahá uses the word infallible to describe himself.
What Bahá’u’lláh says is “turn towards” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and “refer ye whatsoever ye understand not” to him.
These two phrases can be understood in a very wide range of ways, from “he is in charge now,” to “every syllable he utters and every twitch of his finger is divinely guided by Me.” That the Bahá’í Community has leaned towards the second interpretation is more of a statement about the community’s love for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá than it is an objective reading of the words on the page.
Most of the problems in the Bahá’í Community come down to the fact that we have inserted the word “infallible” into the words of Bahá’u’lláh, and then defined “infallible” as “inerrant” rather than “unchallengeable” or “guided” or simply “unable to fail” which is its literal meaning. As I said, being guided or unable to fail (in the long run) allows for missteps. Inerrancy mean you are incapable of making any mistake at all.
The simple fact is that neither “turn towards” nor “refer to” confer inerrancy. In any other context, the question of inerrancy would not even arise. Even within a religious context, it would take more than these words to confer inerrancy. After all, is Peter inerrant? Is Ali? And if Bahá’u’lláh had said “turn towards the historian Nabil,” would we be talking about infallibility at all? I don’t think so.
After all, it would only take three words for Bahá’u’lláh to establish ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s infallibility in any meaning of the word if He had intended to. “He is infallible.” That’s it. Yet they were never written. Here are His words in context:
“The Will of the divine Testator is this: It is incumbent upon the Aghsán, the Afnán and My Kindred to turn, one and all, their faces towards the Most Mighty Branch. Consider that which We have revealed in Our Most Holy Book: “When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended, turn your faces towards Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root.” The object of this sacred verse is none except the Most Mighty Branch” [‘Abdu’l‑Bahá].
“O people of the world! When the Mystic Dove will have winged its flight from its Sanctuary of Praise and sought its far-off goal, its hidden habitation, refer ye whatsoever ye understand not in the Book to Him Who hath branched from this mighty Stock.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá himself never uses the word “infallible” to describe himself. He does make the claim that what his says “is the very truth,” and “whoso deviates from my interpretation is a victim of his own fancy.” Those are strong words, but they don’t establish infallibility in the sense of inerrancy. And if Bahá’u’lláh did not confer infallibility, then ‘Abdu’l-Bahá can’t claim it simply by being the one we are to turn towards.
So on one hand we have the command to turn towards ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for guidance, and on the other hand, we have very clear and compelling statement that no one shares in the Most Great Infallibility. Together they form a clear transfer of authority, even a promise of guidance, but not a transfer of infallibility or inerrancy.
I know this is hard to believe, since we’ve been told for over 100 years that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was infallible, but neither Bahá’u’lláh nor ‘Abdu’l-Bahá actually said that he was. And if ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was not infallible, then he could not transfer infallibility to the Guardian (who was never mentioned in Bahá’u’lláh’s writings) or the Universal House of Justice (which Bahá’u’lláh did not call infallible.)
Sit with that for a moment.
Bahá’u’lláh never said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was infallible. Period.
That should be the end of the discussion, but of course it isn’t. So let’s dig a little deeper.
Bahá’u’lláh clearly passed authority on to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá That is not in doubt, which is why this is not about questioning the Covenant. But one can have absolute authority and still be able to make mistakes. Every secular authority in the world functions without a claim of inerrancy.
Bahá’u’lláh’s claim of infallibility for Himself carries two implications. The first is that He is incapable of making a mistake – He is inerrant. The second is that His authority cannot be challenged. (When you read the passages about His infallibility, this is the aspect that is most clearly enunciated.) Unchallengeable authority can be passed from one authority to another. Inerrancy is intrinsic and essential to the station of the Manifestation, and cannot be conferred upon another.
We could say that “nothing is beyond the power of God,” and that is true. But having made the statement that He “hath no partner in the Most Great Infallibility,” He would need to be very specific about any exception to that claim.
Consider how Bahá’u’lláh describes the coming of the next Manifestation: “Whoso layeth claim to a Revelation direct from God, ere the expiration of a full thousand years, such a man is assuredly a lying impostor.” He is very clear. There is no room for doubt or misinterpretation. If He intended for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to be considered absolutely infallible, then the logical place for Him to say so would be in the Book of the Covenant. But He doesn’t. All he says is “turn towards” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “Turn towards.” That’s it. Adib Taherzadeh calls this a “magic phrase,” but Bahá’ís don’t believe in magic. They believe in being true to the Written Word of God.
One doesn’t need to believe in magic in order to accept a more flexible definition of infallibility. We turn towards ‘Abdu’l-Bahá because he is a wonderful human who is guiding the Community in the right direction, not because he is channeling the words of Bahá’u’lláh.
At this point, a lot of you will be feeling uncomfortable for two reasons. First, you will be wondering if it is “legal” for us to even be asking these questions. Are good Bahá’ís allowed to ask questions and disagree about what the Writings mean? Sadly, I’ve been told by many that it is “dangerous” to be a Bahá’í and let people know that you have these questions. I was told not to “fall on my sword” by discussing this issue publicly.
I am not interested in being in a religion that calls for independent investigation of the truth… except when it is uncomfortable. I don’t want to be in a religion where people are afraid to speak up for fear of a metaphoric sword.
If you agree, then keep reading. If not, stop now.
The second reason why the issue of infallibility makes us uncomfortable is that we absolutely love the Central Figures and institutions with all of our hearts, and we have associated that love with our vision of them as being perfect.
So let’s step back a moment.
Does one need absolute infallibility in order to have authority? Of course not. There are millions of kinds of authority in the world, and the only major ones who claim infallibility are the Pope, the Mormons, and the Bahá’ís.
But more importantly, does one need to be infallible before we can love, respect, admire, adore and follow them? Doesn’t the ability to make a mistake make a person even more noble when they choose not to?
Believing that Bahá’u’lláh bestowed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with infallibility like a magic cloak of perfection may raise our perception of his station, but it diminishes our perception of him as a person and his power as an example. You don’t admire people for doing the right thing if they have no other choice. Superman is not brave for walking through fire – because he can’t be burned. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is not an amazing human being if he was incapable of making a mistake. He would simply be God’s puppet. Is that a fair way to think of all of the sacrifices he made or the things he accomplished? How can he be an example, if we can make mistakes and he can’t.
So, having established that it is (or should be) legal to talk about infallibility, and that it is possible to love ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the administrative order even more, knowing that they are human and struggle just like we do, it is time to actually talk about our belief in infallibility and the effect it has had on the health of the Bahá’í Community.
Here are some of the issues that deserve to be addressed:
What do we gain by applying a more flexible understanding of infallibility?
What are the downsides of a rigid definition of infallibility?
If it is not in the Writings, how did we come to adopt such an absolutist view of infallibility?
An absolutist definition of infallibility does not allow for a single mistake. Can we point to any examples where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or the Guardian were clearly mistaken?
What are the implications of admitting that mistakes were and can be made?
What should we do with this information?
Will I be punished for asking these questions?
Let’s start with:
What do we gain by applying a more flexible understanding of infallibility?
In the long run, the Community might be able to choose to allow women on the Universal House of Justice, allow gay marriage, and relaunch some of the many programs that were replaced by the institute process – but all of that is in the distant future. There are some important things we g
ain instantly as individuals when we become open to the possibility that not everything is carved in stone.
Flexibility for the Individual
The first thing we gain, and this is a biggie, is freedom of conscious.
If an absolutely infallible institution tells me that there should not be women on the Universal House of Justice, for example, it is not enough to accept and obey, I have to change what I believe. No matter what my heart says; no matter what my logic says; if I don’t agree, then I am wrong. And if the wisdom of this law is to be as “clear as the noonday sun,” and I still can’t see it, then there must be something wrong with me. So, I either have to get my head around it, conclude that there is something spiritually wrong with me, or live with the cognitive dissonance of believing two contradictory things at the same time. This is incredibly unhealthy, and ends up with thousands of Bahá’ís feeling that they are living a lie. This, in turn, affects their interactions with other Bahá’ís and their ability to share the teachings with others.
If, on the other hand, we accept that mistakes are possible, we can say “I disagree with this teaching, but I can obey it.” This may look like a way to create disunity, but in reality, it is a way to allow people to live in integrity.
Closely related to this is that when we don’t assume absolute infallibility, we gain the ability to ask questions. For example, is building buildings the best use of our funds? After 160 years, why aren’t more of Bahá’u’lláh’s Writing translated? Why aren’t we told how many registered Bahá’ís there are in the world?
These are valid questions, but if everything done is perfect, then to even ask a question about decisions is discouraged. Without questions, we can have no opinions of our own. Our opinion must simply be, “of course that is the right way to do things.” If we have no need for opinions, then we never have a reason to engage our critical thinking skills.
For example, in a recent FaceBook thread about the many individual initiatives that have been halted by the Universal House of Justice, one sincere Bahá’í said, “The Universal House of Justice has the infallibility conferred on it via the Covenant. Its decisions are not to be questioned….” But without questions, we can’t understand the reasoning behind the decisions to halt projects. Without knowing the reasons, we can’t predict what other individual initiatives might be considered unwise. The result is that people are hesitant to begin any projects outside of the institute process. No matter how wise the decisions may have been, without the right to question them, they become barriers to future action.
When we are allowed to question, have opinions, and think for ourselves, then we will also take a more mature, active role in the life of the community. Very young children don’t need to pay attention to how their parents organize their lives because they just assume that their parents are always right. If everything in the national and international community is organized perfectly, then Bahá’ís only need to think about what is going on in their own local community. The rest is being taken care of. And if things are not going well in the local community, then it can only be the fault of the local Bahá’ís. There is no need for transparency on the national or international level, because trust replaces transparency. But without transparency, there is not only no need to pay attention to what is happening, there is no ability to pay attention. This hinders the individual’s right and responsibility to have a “world embracing vision.”
Advantages for the Community
Those are things we gain as individuals. As a community, something we gain by letting go of infallibility is that we will not be written off as a cult by people who are familiar with religious history. People are rightly concerned when they hear religious leaders claim that they cannot make a mistake and must be obeyed without question. This is a major barrier for people who truly believe in the independent investigation of the truth. For many, it is a deal breaker. It is perceived as a kind of magical thinking that doesn’t belong in a religion dedicated to the harmony of science (and reason) and religion.
Letting go of infallibility also means that we no longer have to tie ourselves into pretzel knots trying to explain some of the prophecies made or statements made about various scientific subjects. We lost a lot of credibility when we claimed that there would be world peace by the end of the 20th century. For a while, we pretended that it was “more or less” achieved during the “century of light,” but recent events make any claim of a united world absurd. So now some say “it wasn’t really a century,” while others quietly pretend the prophecy never happened. (I’ll return to this later.)
Letting go of infallibility also means that we can become relevant in the 21st century. If things written between 1892 and 1957 are scrutinized word by word to form the basis of every future policy and plan, then the whole idea of a living religion that changes to meet the needs of the time gets turned into stone tablets. Yes, much of the guidance is timeless – but much of it seems hopelessly anchored to a world that no longer exists. Will we, for example, still be reading King James versions of the Writings 900 years from now?
What are the Downsides of a Rigid Definition of Infallibility?
Put simply, the dangers of believing that an institution is infallible when it isn’t are far greater than the dangers of not believing an institution is infallible when it actually is. An infallible institution does not fear or resent being questioned. It welcomes the clash of differing opinions even when it believes it is right. But an institution that believes it deserves unquestioned loyalty when it isn’t infallible can cause great harm.
Even if the structure envisioned by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would have been absolutely infallible, the loss of the Guardian means that what we currently have is not that structure. An element of humility on the part of the institution would be appropriate.
One of the greatest dangers of believing in infallibility is that it makes it impossible to course-correct once a policy is instituted because belief in infallibility creates a bubble.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Universal House of Justice IS infallible, and they launch a program that is very successful in South America, Africa and Asia, but is a disappointment in Europe and North America. It is still a great program because it is NOT failing in the majority of the world. Globally, it is infallible. But…
What will the Bahá’í Communities of North America do? They know the plan is perfect, so they look for and record every small success, spin mediocre progress as victory, and downplay or ignore every failure when they send their reports to the World Center.
Now, the Universal House of Justice says that it is infallible, but not omniscient. It says that it relies on getting accurate information when making its decisions. (Ignoring the questionable logic of this for a moment) this means that the Universal House of Justice will have inaccurate information about the success of its plan. It will, therefore, not do anything to change the plan to make it more suitable to North America.
In other words, simply believing in infallibility can cause mistakes to be made.
Infallibility Creep
Udo Schaffer, a brilliant Bahá’í scholar, author of A Light Shineth in the Darkness, and frequent representative of the Faith at UN conferences, wrote an excellent analysis of the Infallibility of the Universal House of Justice, and argued that it is infallible, but only within its sphere of responsibility. In the Will and Testament, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made the House of Justice the creator of laws. At the time Schaffer’s article was written, the only actual legislation it had done was the creation of the Continental Board of Counsellors.
“Authoritative interpretation is the exclusive prerogative of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Guardian, while infallible legislation is the function of the Universal House of Justice.”
– The Universal House of Justice, Messages 1963 to 1986, p. 517-518
Note: legislation is not the same as administration, creating plans or giving guidance. Those are executive and advisory functions.
Yet from an absolutist perspective, every dotted “i” and crossed “t” are unquestionably perfect. Sadly, even though Schaffer’s article was published in a respected Bahá’í periodical, he asked me not to refer to it in any of my writings while he was alive for fear of reprisal. Think about that. “For fear of reprisal.” This is where belief in absolute infallibility leads. (He has since passed.)
“Trickle-Down Infallibility”
This “infallibility creep” leads to another real danger to the community – the belief that ALL decisions made by Bahá’í institutions are perfect because mistakes will be corrected by the infallible overseer.
In a conversation with a member of an NSA. I heard about a decision that I thought must be one of the worst I had ever encountered. When asked about it, the NSA member said, in essence, “I know we were right, because we sent our minutes to the World Center, and they didn’t correct us.”
Believing that someone else will magically correct any of your mistakes can lead to truly awful behavior. If you haven’t heard stories of individuals being wounded by decisions made by National Assemblies, you have not been listening.
When you think you are infallible, it is really upsetting when people question your decisions. The temptation to punish them for doing so (after all, you know they are wrong) can be very great. It causes us to lean towards fundamentalism and a legalistic approach to the Teachings.
How Did We Get Here?
If it is not in Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings, how did we come to believe that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was inerrant?
There are several paths that led us here. First, the early believers loved ‘Abdu’l-Bahá so much that they often believed that He was the Manifestation himself. One of the early American Bahá’ís, Juliet Thompson, wrote a book, I, Mary Magdalen as though sitting at the feet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were equivalent to sitting with Christ.
Feeding this worshipful attitude towards Him was the early publication of The Tablet of the Branch. Early Bahá’ís believed that this was written by Bahá’u’lláh about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and that belief persists to today. Yet any objective reader will readily realize that it is a description of the Manifestation Himself. It was written in the very early years of His Revelation explaining the station of the Manifestation. His son was only 19 years old at the time. It is highly unlikely that Bahá’u’lláh would write this about His young son, and then remain silent about it for the rest of His life. Meanwhile, even the Guardian gives Bahá’u’lláh the following titles: the “ ‘Rod come forth out of the stem of Jesse’ and the ‘Branch grown out of His roots,’… To Him Haggai had referred as the ‘Desire of all nations,’ and Zachariah as the ‘Branch’ Who ‘shall grow up out of His place,’ and ‘shall build the Temple of the Lord.’”
Then came the publication of Bahá’í World Faith, in which a poor translation added “I am infallible” within one of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s talks. This, and many other unauthenticated passages and poor translations have been removed from all subsequent authorized publications, but the memory remains.
So why did the Guardian say that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was infallible? Was there some dark, nefarious reason to do so? No. First of all, he is infallible in some definitions of the word, just not inerrant. But also, I think the young Shoghi Effendi truly believed that the grandfather he dearly loved was perfect. If you look at the Guardian as a human being rather than an infallible super-human, then it is all too easy to understand why, faced with an impossible task, he would uphold ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s infallibility, and thereby also establish his own authority within the Community.
BTW: A fallible ‘Abdu’l-Bahá cannot transfer infallibility onto the Guardian or the House of Justice, but a careful reading of the Will and Testament shows that He didn’t really do that anyway. He said they would receive “unerring guidance.” We all receive “unerring guidance” every time we read the Writings. Guidance, as I said before, allows for missteps. We all read the Writings and then, through misunderstanding or personal impulse, do something imperfect. This is one more reason to use a more flexible understanding of infallibility when we use the term.
Infallible or Unchallengeable?
Since I am trying to offer a more flexible understanding of infallibility, let me offer some support for that. Translations are tricky things. The word that is translated as “infallible” when it is used at all, can also be translated as “unchallengeable” or even “pure.” Authority can be unchallengeable without being infallible in the sense of inerrant. There is a famous quotation from a US Supreme Court Justice that says, “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.” Many of the writings about infallibility make much more sense when we use a different translation. The references to many past prophets having “conferred infallibility” make more sense, since it is possible to confer unchallengeable authority, but conferring inerrancy is more problematic. Are we really to believe that, aside from the Manifestations, there have been many “infallible” prophets? The stories we read about them show us struggling human beings who ultimately did the right thing, but made mistakes along the way. They are often referred to as “prophets not endowed with constancy.” A rigid, inerrant, definition of infallibility requires constancy.
Evidence of Mistakes
We tend to look at our history through rose-colored glasses and adjust what we think ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Guardian “really meant” based on what we know now.
For years, we all taught that humans evolved separately from the rest of the animal kingdom, based on what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said in Some Answered Questions. Now that science tells us differently, we have gone back and rewritten what appeared at the time to be a clear statement.
The promise that the world would be unified and at peace by the end of the 20th Century was the inspiration for a great deal of teaching work, but it never came. At first, we said that it had “essentially” happened because there were no major wars between countries. Then we said that “century” didn’t mean 100 years. Then we stopped talking about it.
The Faith lost a lot of credibility and a lot of followers because of this failed prophecy. We can say that we simply misunderstood the prophecy, but that means we could be misunderstanding a lot of other things too.
Then there is this: “There will be an equilibrium of interests, and a condition will be established which will make both rich and poor comfortable and content. This will be an eternal and blessed outcome of the glorious twentieth century which will be realized universally.”
Economic inequality is greater now than when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was chatting with Andrew Carnegie.
But perhaps ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s most glaring failure was in creating a detailed blueprint for the Bahá’í world that was to last 1000 year, and yet never actually came into existence as described. You can say that it was “God’s Will” that the system He said should be built never was, but then you have to concede that it might be “God’s Will” that other aspects of that system, like no women on the House of Justice, or conferred infallibility, might not need to be as described.
The gap between the system we were told to create, and the one we were able to create is so vast that no objective observer would say they were the same thing. Even if the original system, with its checks and balances, was capable of being called “infallible,” the system we have now, with virtually no checks on power, would benefit from some humility.
It would be like saying that we could get rid of the President and the Supreme Court, leaving Congress to make laws, enforce them and appoint all judges, and claiming that we were still following the Constitution because we still had elections.
The Guardian
Shoghi Effendi was an amazing person. He did wonderful things for the Faith. But was he inerrant? An overwhelming amount of the guidance we received from The Guardian was actually written by his secretary, yet we treat it as infallible because it was signed by him. So here is a letter about the interpretation of a passage – clearly within his realm of responsibility:
“The same holds true of the statement of Bahá’u’lláh in the Íqán, regarding transmutation of copper into gold after seventy years, under certain conditions.
“We as Bahá’ís must assume that, as He had access to all knowledge, He was referring to a definite physical condition which theoretically might exist. Because we don’t know what this condition is in scientific terms, does not refute Bahá’u’lláh’s statement at all.
“The Guardian hopes that Mr. … will not let so small a thing stand in his path. The principle of Faith is to accept anything the Manifestation of God says, once you have accepted Him as being the Manifestation. That is really the crux of the whole matter. It is a question of confidence.”
(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, March 14, 1955)
We now know that gold is produced by the collision of neutron stars. There is no conceivable condition under which copper would turn into gold over the course of seventy years. What we also know is that the number seventy is used in both Bahá’í and Islamic scripture to symbolize things that take a lifespan to accomplish. Bahá’u’lláh is clearly suggesting that the wisdom of a lifespan can be gained in the twinkling of an eye, not that copper buried underground will slowly turn into gold. It should be troubling to note that an “infallible” source of guidance is requiring unquestioned belief in a scientific impossibility rather than accepting that there are things they don’t understand.
Of course, the other glaring mistake that the Guardian made, that we have spent 70+ years trying to explain away, is his failure to write a will or to indicate in any way what the Bahá’ís should do after his passing. Rúḥíyyih Khánum was 47 at the time of his passing. They had been trying to conceive for 20 years. He had known (or should have known) for at least five years that the likelihood of having an heir was vanishingly small, and yet he made no provisions whatsoever.
The argument is that he couldn’t say anything that contradicted what was in the Will and Testament. There are two problems with that. First, it means that everything we’ve done since then is a contradiction of the Will and Testament, and second, he could have said that. “If I die without an heir, there will no longer be a Guardian. It will be up to the House of Justice, when elected, to create a system that can function without a Guardian, and to appoint Hands of the Cause.”
There. A two-sentence Will that would have prevented years of confusion and covenant breaking. But according to those who should know, he did not say or write anything to protect us from what he knew was coming eventually.
Love him. Respect him. But when his secretary says that homosexuality is a question of morality rather than psychology, shouldn’t we be allowed to treat it like the statement that copper can literally turn into gold in seventy years?
The Universal House of Justice
As I mentioned before, the House of Justice claims infallibility while also admitting that it is not omniscient.
“Universal House of Justice is not omniscient, and the friends should understand that there is a difference between infallibility and omniscience. Like the Guardian, the House of Justice wants to be provided with facts when called upon to render a decision, and like him it may well change its decision when new facts emerge, or in light of changed conditions at some point in the future. We have found nothing in the writings of Shoghi Effendi which suggests that the House of Justice would on any occasion reach a “wrong decision.”
This is a clear argument for a more flexible understanding of infallibility. Think about the logic for a moment. If you can make a decision based on incorrect information and then reverse it when more information is given, then the first decision can’t really be considered a perfect decision, can it? If you need to know everything in order to be infallible, and you admit that you don’t know everything, how does the claim of absolute infallibility hold up? If the claim were: “The Universal House of Justice will always make the best decision possible with the information available,” then the logic works. This is the logic of guidance as opposed to inerrancy. There is a lot of unknown and unknowable information in the world. Sadly, the logic does not support its statement that it is incapable of making a wrong decision.
What Are the Implications?
Once we acknowledge the fact that mistakes have been made, and can continue to be made in the future, what do we do with this information?
First, we take a deep breath.
Then we adopt an attitude of humility.
Then we joyfully become open to the idea that the Writings and the facts at hand point to a more flexible, open-minded understanding of the nature of infallibility as manifested in Bahá’í Institutions.
With this more open-minded perspective, we can give ourselves permission to think and act for ourselves, and to speak what is in our hearts rather than hiding our true feelings about the direction the Community is heading.
Once again, this is not about questioning the position of authority, it is about questioning the need to agree with authority. We can obey without agreeing. We can also disobey, as long as we don’t interfere with the rest of the Community. We can decide which of the pieces of guidance we receive we want to commit to following – without feeling guilty for not doing everything (or anything).
We can stop beating ourselves (and others) over the head with guidance and policies we don’t agree with. It was our hearts that brought us to Bahá’u’lláh. So it is our hearts that we should follow in choosing what we do and who we interact with.
There are currently, in the US, more disaffected and inactive Bahá’ís than there are active Bahá’ís. If we adopt an attitude of humility and open our hearts to them, they just might want to hang out with us – maybe not at Feast; probably not in a Ruhi Circle, but somewhere fun.
Let us get back to the business of loving one another instead of tip-toeing around laws and difficult subjects. The Bahá’í Administration is not a police force. They can’t send us to physical jail, and they can’t even send us to spiritual jail. The worst they can do is take away our administrative rights. Maybe losing one’s administrative rights would be the beginning of living a Bahá’í life rather than the end.
(BTW: What would we say about a country that denied the right to vote to homosexuals? Is this the world we want to build?)
Where Do We Go to from Here?
Honestly, I don’t know.
Talk about this with your friends. You don’t have to say whether you agree or disagree, just say that I raised the question and see how they respond.
Watch this space. Will the Bahá’í Administration consider this letter an appropriate sharing of one person’s concerns and perspectives, or will it be perceived as an attack? Are questions like this allowed? Will I be shunned? Unenrolled? (Yes, that is a thing.) Will my business be boycotted? Or will it just be ignored?
What happens next will tell you what kind of community you currently live in. Think about what kind of community you want to live in, then work for it.
With sincere Bahá’í love,
Justice Saint Rain