Does the Bahai Faith hope and intend to be a World Theocracy?

[George-ananda]

Though loyal to their respective governments, though profoundly interested in anything that affects their security and welfare, though anxious to share in whatever promotes their best interests, the Faith with which the followers of Bahá'u'lláh stand identified is one which they firmly believe God has raised high above the storms, the divisions, and controversies of the political arena. Their Faith they conceive to be essentially non-political, supra-national in character, rigidly non-partisan, and entirely dissociated from nationalistic ambitions, pursuits, and purposes. Such a Faith knows no division of class or of party. It subordinates, without hesitation or equivocation, every particularistic interest, be it personal, regional, or national, to the paramount interests of humanity, firmly convinced that in a world of inter-dependent peoples and nations the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the whole, and that no abiding benefit can be conferred upon the component parts if the general interests of the entity itself are ignored or neglected.

~ Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 198

But the question we don't see answered in this thread is then what DOES the future 'World Order of Baha'u'llah' to look like? I've always understood it to be a commonwealth and theocracy.

 

[oldbadger]

Abdul-Baha and after Him Shoghi Effendi were designated Interptreters of the Writings of Baha'u'llah. Abdul-Baha was not a "Prophet". He was an Exemplar of what a Baha'i should be.

Abdul-Baha explained His station as follows:

Regarding the station of this servant: My station is Abdul-Baha, my name is Abdul-Baha, my qualification is Abdul-Baha, my praise is Abdul-Baha, my title is Abdul-Baha. All the friends of God must declare this word, in order that all of them become united and harmonized upon it. No difference must arise. Collect, translate, print and spread all the Tablets written by me regarding this question.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v2, p. 466)

"Abdul-Baha" means Servant of Baha (Baha'u'llah)

OK..... Now, there's the big difference (as I see it) between Christian Paul and Abdul Baha. Paul claimed to know Jesus-Christ intimately, and of course Paul declared Jesus-Christ to be of the Trinity, God. Paul was the prophet, and his letters are quoted as often by Christians as the rest of the bible together, methinks, and on their own they could make Christianity, almost.

Abdul Baha is not a prophet, and therefore he did not receive messages directly from God. Therefore, I won't copy/quote him again. If I would be researching any new developments in Bahai I would seek for translations of Baha'u'allah's writings. If Bahauallah wrote it and if the translation is agreed then 'fine'. But there's still an issue there. Other Bahais, naughty bahais if you like, may offer different translations. Now you know that they're naughty, or at least you would say so, but the naughty ones say that they are true. That may not plunge Arabic and Persian fluent bahais into difficulty but it sure does plunge everyone else (in the secular world) into uncertainty.

 

[oldbadger]

But the question we don't see answered in this thread is then what DOES the future 'World Order of Baha'u'llah' to look like? I've always understood it to be a commonwealth and theocracy.

Same here. This^^^^

 

[Sen McGlinn]

Thank you.....
On the basis of your explanation, I would stick rigidly to what Bahauallah wrote in any investigation that I might undertake. That is just my line drawn in sand.... Nobody else's.
The problem is that anything that I will ever read of his has been translated by some other mind.

You could have a look at the Mormon church, if you want to avoid the intermediary of a translator

All of us, whether we've learned the original languages or not, depend on a community of scholars and translators checking one another's work, criticizing, polishing, improving. We rely therefore on an autocorrecting process, rather than on the mind of a single translator.

Further to that, I get the feeling that some of his writings could be withheld in order to protect from a world 'not ready' for them.

Of course -- and there would be no evidence because it's being withheld. The problem with such theories is that the suppression would require the silence of everyone who ever had anything to do with it. Nobody had a guilty conscience and decided to blow the whistle? Nobody slipped and revealed what was being concealed? It's on this reasoning that we can be reasonably confident that the moon landings really happened.

The volume of Baha'u'llah's writings that have been published is absolutely enormous -- but I am counting writings in Persian and Arabic, and by "published" I am including photographic reproductions of manuscripts, as well as typeset publications. There is a large pool of people who know Persian and/or Arabic and can read handwriting in the styles of the period. So concealing stuff would be difficult. Much of Baha'u'llah's correspondence is repetitive, because he made a point of answering each letter, even if its questions were on themes he had already written on a hundred times. So while the portion of his writing that is available in English is small, a good portion of his thinking is accessible to the English reader. There are pieces that are esoteric and hard to translate, but there are also Bahai scholars who give it a go, and publish their translations and commentaries on their web site and in journals. The "tablet of medicine" is an example, look for Stephen Lambden's translation and commentary.

And there seem to have been changes in some of thebfocused points of the faith over the years. Back in the 60s Baha'is often mentioned that there were miracles in the faith, that seemed important then.[/bahai]
It is normal for a religious community to mature. I may have contributed a small bit to Bahais having less confidence in their miracle stories (see my "750 muskets" for example: https://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/750-muskets/). Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha were not keen on miracles as evidence. Abdu'l-Baha says, for example,

" ...many marvellous things appeared from Baha'u'llah, but we do not recount them, for not only do they not constitute a proof and testimony for all mankind, but theyare not even a decisive proof for those who witnessed them and who may ascribe them to magic.Moreover, most of the miracles attributed to the Prophets have an inner meaning. For instance, itis recorded in the Gospel that upon the martyrdom of Christ darkness fell, the earth shook, theveil of the Temple was rent in twain, and the dead arose from their graves. If this had outwardlycome to pass it would have been a stupendous thing. Such an event would have undoubtedlybeen recorded in the chronicles of the time ..."
(Some Answered Questions, New Translation)

So if Bahais are moving away from miracle stories, I would think that's a good thing. But how is it that you know what Bahais were saying in the 60's?

I would say, after this and the previous discussion elsewhere that if Bahai should reach a massive enough percentage of yhebpopulation that controlvwould begin to pass to housesofjustice. The fact that their names were changed to LSAs suggests media juggling for a better image.

The House of Justice would become more and more influential, if there were more Bahais, so long as it did not screw up. Look at the Roman Catholic church, and the hit it has taken with the paedophile & coverup scandals. Numbers of followers do not provide a guarantee of continuing influence, especially not in the internet age. Lasting credibility depends on a good track record and dealing with internal issues properly. Control, in the sense of government, can never pass to the houses of justice, because they have no mandate to accept it even if it were offered. Abdu'l-Baha writes:

"Should they place in the arena the crown of the government of the whole world, and invite each one of us to accept it, undoubtedly we shall not condescend, and shall refuse to accept it.
(Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 50)

Abdul-Baha did change the name from House of Justice to Spiritual Assembly to avoid creating the impression that Bahai institutions were a sort of government. But he was also absolutely clear in his writings and talks that the Bahai religious institutions were not a government, and that as a general principle religious leaders should not get involved in government and politics, and vice versa, that governments should not interfere in matters of conscience.

You seem to be not only the most knowledgeable western Baha'i to me, but also the most frank one.Question. Are you yourself an lsa or a nsa exec?

I am certainly not the most knowledgeable, and never will be, because I started serious study too late in life. I am not serving on any Bahai institution, though I have done so in the past, and I'm not enrolled in the community. In late 2005 I was removed from the rolls of the Bahai community, following a decision of the Universal House of Justice. I have put up some of the documents on a page on my blog : https://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/about/about-dissenrolment/. I have applied to be re-enrolled periodically, and in the meantime continue as a believing and practising unenrolled Bahai. I don't draw attention to my disenrollment, because it's a bad look for the House of Justice, and I'm not personally harmed by not being on the rolls, which simply means not being able to vote or be elected. But neither do I hide my disenrollment, because concealment always makes things worse.

 

[Sen McGlinn]

But the question we don't see answered in this thread is then what DOES the future 'World Order of Baha'u'llah' to look like? I've always understood it to be a commonwealth and theocracy.

Same here. This^^^^

Two commonwealths. One is a commonwealth of nations with a world executive, legislature and judiciary, the other is the Bahai commonwealth, a term that Shoghi Effendi uses in the same way that Gibbon refers to the Christian commonwealth within the Roman Empire. The Bahai commonwealth is the Bahais of the world looking after one another (and others) and cooperating to achieve goals. It is an NGO, you might say, and it is headed by the House of Justice.

I've discussed the two commonwealths on my blog :
https://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/commonwealths/

 

[George-ananda]

One is a commonwealth of nations with a world executive, legislature and judiciary,

Isn't this commonwealth to be laid out as prescribed in the World Order of Baha'u'allah? Is not the world order of the future to be essentially divinely ordained through Baha'u'allah? Is not the Baha'i Faith to be the dominant religious and administrative structure for the future of mankind?

I am thinking you are presenting things in a way more nicely in accord with modern believable reason and sensibilities but not according to original intention and understanding.

 

[oldbadger]

........................................
Of course -- and there would be no evidence because it's being withheld...............................

Maybe not now, but certainly 50 years ago important books had not been translated and made available to the west.... is that correct?

Are you saying that all of Bahauallah's 'foundation' writings are now available in English, French, German, Spanish etc for us to read?

As a result of recent discussion, here, I think that I would want to read translations of Bahauallah's writings before all else in connection with Bahai. I will see what is available online.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Two commonwealths. One is a commonwealth of nations with a world executive, legislature and judiciary, the other is the Bahai commonwealth, a term that Shoghi Effendi uses in the same way that Gibbon refers to the Christian commonwealth within the Roman Empire.

That's not exactly a reassuring comparison. The Christian commonwealth eventually expanded and usurped the Roman Empires.

 

[Sen McGlinn]

Isn't this commonwealth to be laid out as prescribed in the World Order of Baha'u'allah? Is not the world order of the future to be essentially divinely ordained through Baha'u'allah? Is not the Baha'i Faith to be the dominant religious and administrative structure for the future of mankind?

I am thinking you are presenting things in a way more nicely in accord with modern believable reason and sensibilities but not according to original intention and understanding.

Shoghi Effendi lays out a vision of the commonwealth of nations, in a letter entitled "The Unfoldment of World Civilization", which is published in his collection of letters The World Order of Baha'u'llah. That section begins :
http://bahai-library.com/writings/shoghieffendi/wob/56.html

"The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá'u'lláh, implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded. This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist of a world legislature, ...

He is not laying down a set of conditions that must be met, or Bahais will reject this commonwealth. He is extrapolating from the principle of the the unity of humanity, using his understanding of the trends in history at his time, to say how it must work as a matter of necessity. He is not alone, thinkers such as Dante, Comenius and Kant have looked for a solution to the problem of wars between nations, and have concluded that there must be a world executive (for Dante, that was a monarch), and a world code of laws, which implies a legislature and a judicial system. The logic is inescapable: the only alternative is that one nation becomes so powerful it forms an empire that absorbs all others, or reduces them beyond the possibility of war being required.

As you can see, Shoghi Effendi assumes that this commonwealth of nations will contain multiple creeds. He does not say that the unity of the human race envisaged by Baha'u'llah means everyone becoming Bahais.

My reading of the works of Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi is based on the premise that they are intelligent and well-read men, who do not generally contradict themselves or suddenly say something silly. The Bahais of previous generations have sometimes put attributed silly ideas to them, as a result of relying on bad texts, or reading them through presuppositions, or picking out the apparent meaning of a single text and not correlating that with other sections of the Bahai writings that bear on the topic. When the fog of accumulated interpretations is cleared away, and one reads what these three intelligent and informed men wrote and said and did, it is indeed acceptable to reason and postmodern sensibilities. Baha'u'llah is the prophet of postmodernity.

 

[Sen McGlinn]

That's not exactly a reassuring comparison. The Christian commonwealth eventually expanded and usurped the Roman Empires.

? I thought the Christian commonwealth was subsumed by the Roman state, losing much of its independence.

History is how you read it, but if you want to read the Roman chapter as the story of Christian institutions taking over the state, you need an explanation of why those institutions did not take over the state in countries outside the Roman Empire, and an explanation of why the Emperors continued to rule rather than the bishops of Rome ruling. Whose names were on the coins: the Emporers' or the Popes'?

On the rare occasions when a bishop or theologian called an emporer to account for acts of immorality or cruelty, this was a brave brave bishop, speaking truth to power. Because the power was definitely in the hands of the Emporers, not the church.

 

[oldbadger]

Shoghi Effendi lays out a vision of the commonwealth of nations, in a letter entitled "The Unfoldment of World Civilization", which is published in his collection of letters The World Order of Baha'u'llah. That section begins :
"The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá'u'lláh, implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded. This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist of a world legislature, ...

....Shogi Effendi lays out a vision......... and tells us what Bahaualah's vision, implies.
We would not have to trust Shogi's vision, because he is not a prophet. Bahauallah's vision should be clear to us directly because he wrote about it. I'm beginning to see that some of Bahai is based upon what a handful of people have decided to tell us how to think about Bahauallah's words. And they expand upon his words.

I'm no Bahai, but if I would be then I would almost certainly be a renegade. Abdul Baha is a perfect example of what a Bahai should be, and Shogi Effendi a person most intimately acquainted with the faith, but anybody who disagrees with the opinions of those two, if they went directly to the wrtten words of Bahauallah and decided for themselves....... is a 'heretic' of sorts.

Such folks, in a Bahai world, would surely lose their position, their status, their rights and all.
Methinks that Bahai may well have been sweetened, for now.

 

[Sen McGlinn]

Maybe not now, but certainly 50 years ago important books had not been translated and made available to the west.... is that correct?

Are you saying that all of Bahauallah's 'foundation' writings are now available in English, French, German, Spanish etc for us to read?

As a result of recent discussion, here, I think that I would want to read translations of Bahauallah's writings before all else in connection with Bahai. I will see what is available online.

Yes, there are good translations of most of the central texts from Baha'u'llah; one that is still missing is the Kitab-e Badi'. It's published in the original Persian (with lots of Arabic sections), and there's nothing to stop someone doing a translation, except that it's a difficult text and a long one, and so far only short sections have been done.

For Baha'u'llah's writings, I recommend "Tablets of Baha'u'llah revealed after the Aqdas" - a collection of tablets written at the end of his life when he was summing things up. A 1978 official translation is online at:
http://bahai-library.com/bahaullah_tablets_bahaullah
and in Spanish:
http://bahai-library.com/bahaullah_tablas_despues_aqdas
French:
http://www.bahai-biblio.org/centre-doc/saint/noyau/saint-TABL.htm
There's a German translation, Botschaften aus Akka, but it is not online

Now it gets interesting. This contains some numbered lists of principles, which have been the model for Abdu'l-Baha's lists of principles in his public talks and some of his letters. When you get to principle 8 in the Ishraqat you find : "All matters of State should be referred to the House of Justice, but acts of worship must be observed according to that which God hath revealed in His Book.” In Spanish it is "Todos los asuntos de Estado deben ser remitidos a la Casa de Justicia" and in French "Toutes les affaires d'Etat devraient être référées à la Maison de justice, mais les actes du culte doivent être observés selon ce que Dieu a révélé dans son Livre."

Further, the 13th principle in the Bisharat (Glad Tidings) reads in the 1978 translation: "All matters of State should be referred to the House of Justice, but acts of worship must be observed according to that which God hath revealed in His Book." Which illustrates what I said about Baha'u'llah repeating himself, but the translation is wrong and seriously misleading as to Baha'u'llah's thinking. When Shoghi Effendi translated the Bisharat he produced this:

Administrative affairs

are all in charge of the House of Justice; but acts of worship must be observed according as they are revealed in the Book.
(The Baha’i World, Volume 11 (1946-1950), page 67)

and when he translated the Ishraqat he made it:

The eighth Ishraq: This passage, now written by the Pen of Glory, is accounted as part of the Most Holy Book. The men of God’s House of Justice have been charged with the affairs of the people in every State. They in truth are the trustees of God amongst His servants, and the manifestation of His authority in His realms. O people of God! The educator of mankind is Justice, for it rests upon the twin pillars of Reward and Punishment – pillar that are the very source of life to the world. Inasmuch as for every day there is a new problem and for every problem an expedient solution, such affairs should be referred to the house of Justice, that the members thereof may act according to the needs and requirements of the time. They that for the sake of God arise to serve His Cause are recipients of Divine Inspiration. It is incumbent upon all to be obedient unto them. Administrative affairs should be referred to the House of Justice, but acts of worship must be observed according as they are revealed by God in His Book. O peole [people] of Baha! Ye are the manifestations of the love of God and the daysprings of His loving kindness. Defile not your tongue with the cursing and reviling of any soul, and guard your eyes against that which is not seemly. Show forth that which is within you, if it be well received your end is gained, if not to protest is vain. Leave him to himself, and turn unto the Lord, the Protector, the Self-subsisting. Be ye not the cause of grief, much less of discord and strife. The hope is cherished that ye may obtain true education under the shadow of the Tree of Divine Providence, and act in accordance with that which God desireth. Ye are all leaves of one tree, and drops of one ocean.
published in The Dawn: a monthly Bahai Journal of Burma, Vol. II, No. 7, March, 1925.

Ali Kuli Khan's translation, from 1906 or earlier, reads:

“Administrative affairs are all in charge of the House of Justice, and devotional acts must be observed according as they are revealed in the Book.”

The odd translation in the 1978 English publications of these "tablets" (shorter works of Baha'u'llah) seems to arise in the first place because the translators had not checked to see whether Shoghi Effendi had translated these tablets. If they had known of his translations they would surely have used them. On top of that, they have failed on a cardinal rule of translation: every word and sentence has to be understood in terms of the context in the text, in the author's thinking and in the world of his time and the audience he expects to understand his words. The odd English translation has been copied into the French and Spanish, because the official translations use the principle of harmonising translations into new languages with any official English translations that may exist.

 

[Sen McGlinn]

....Shogi Effendi lays out a vision......... and tells us what Bahaualah's vision, implies.
We would not have to trust Shogi's vision, because he is not a prophet.

Absolutely: Baha'u'llah's vision is clear, if less specific than Shoghi Effendi's. But you asked me about Shoghi Effendi, so I answered about Shoghi Effendi. You said:

Isn't this commonwealth to be laid out as prescribed in the World Order of Baha'u'allah?

I assumed you were referring to the book The World Order of Baha'u'allah

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

? I thought the Christian commonwealth was subsumed by the Roman state, losing much of its independence.

History is how you read it, but if you want to read the Roman chapter as the story of Christian institutions taking over the state, you need an explanation of why those institutions did not take over the state in countries outside the Roman Empire, and an explanation of why the Emperors continued to rule rather than the bishops of Rome ruling. Whose names were on the coins: the Emporers' or the Popes'?

On the rare occasions when a bishop or theologian called an emporer to account for acts of immorality or cruelty, this was a brave brave bishop, speaking truth to power. Because the power was definitely in the hands of the Emporers, not the church.

Well the history of Christianity's rise to power involves clerics influencing sympathetic officials, governors etc to grant the Church more & more power and more & more land until the Christian Church supplanted the Old Gods as the state religion. The Emperor was originally the Pontifex Maximus (the state high priest) but passed this title to the bishop of Rome who became the Pope and the Roman state became a Christian theocracy as opposed to a Pagan one. After the Empire collapsed, the Pope was the most powerful man in Europe - holding sway over whole regions of the continent and eventually the entire continent itself.
After that, the Church held ultimate power in Europe because it was the Pope (or a local major Church representative acting on his behalf) who crowned kings; it was the Pope who told Western European monarchs to stop fighting each other from time to time, it was the Pope who called Crusades and told kings (and even emperors) to go & fight for the Church and it was the Pope who could, as God's representative, say a king had lost God's blessing to rule and excommunicate a misbehaving monarch. Remember, kings could only rule as long as their reign was blessed by the Church. Since all lords & rulers (including kings) were expected to pay tribute to the Church in the form of land & wealth, the Church was at the top of the pecking order.

And if the Roman state took over the Church, why did the Church survive the Western Empire's collapse?

 

[George-ananda]

Shoghi Effendi lays out a vision of the commonwealth of nations, in a letter entitled "The Unfoldment of World Civilization", which is published in his collection of letters The World Order of Baha'u'llah. That section begins :
http://bahai-library.com/writings/shoghieffendi/wob/56.html



He is not laying down a set of conditions that must be met, or Bahais will reject this commonwealth. He is extrapolating from the principle of the the unity of humanity, using his understanding of the trends in history at his time, to say how it must work as a matter of necessity. He is not alone, thinkers such as Dante, Comenius and Kant have looked for a solution to the problem of wars between nations, and have concluded that there must be a world executive (for Dante, that was a monarch), and a world code of laws, which implies a legislature and a judicial system. The logic is inescapable: the only alternative is that one nation becomes so powerful it forms an empire that absorbs all others, or reduces them beyond the possibility of war being required.

As you can see, Shoghi Effendi assumes that this commonwealth of nations will contain multiple creeds. He does not say that the unity of the human race envisaged by Baha'u'llah means everyone becoming Bahais.

Now how do you reconcile what you say above with these two passages from the very document you referenced?

By this is meant that all nations and kindreds will be gathered together under the shadow of this Divine Banner, which is no other than the Lordly Branch itself, and will become a single nation.

All men will adhere to one religion, will have one common faith, will be blended into one race and become a single people.



I believe this less emphasized importance of the Baha'i Faith in your arguments does accord better with modern western thinking but I do believe this is an attempt to morph the original Baha'i beliefs into something more palatable. I can see the reason for this effort but I know for a fact that the above two quotes were not hidden or shirked away from when I was a Baha'i in the early 1980's.

My reading of the works of Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi is based on the premise that they are intelligent and well-read men, who do not generally contradict themselves or suddenly say something silly. The Bahais of previous generations have sometimesput attributed silly ideas to them, as a result of relying on bad texts, or reading them through presuppositions, or picking out the apparent meaning of a single text and not correlating that with other sections of the Bahai writings that bear on the topic.

I know for a fact we studied from only official Baha'i translations and the use of unauthorized or unapproved translations was covenant breaking. I also know the Kitab'i'Aqdas is the law book of the new era that in the course of time is to be fully implemented, But I felt embarrassingly and to my disappointment it sounded like an upgrade to a small extent of mainstream 19th century Islamic culture and would go over like the proverbial lead balloon today.

When the fog of accumulated interpretations is cleared away, and one reads what these three intelligent and informed men wrote and said and did, it is indeed acceptable to reason and postmodern sensibilities. Baha'u'llah is the prophet of postmodernity.

I think you are creating a Baha'i 2.0 (which will be more palatable to modern western people than the 1.0 version). I think the UHJ stands by the 1.0 version but avoids being bold about it in anyway such that the newer Baha'is are not fully aware of some teachings.

I am curious, do you think your views would be fully endorsed by the UHJ?

 

[arthra]

We would not have to trust Shogi's vision, because he is not a prophet. Bahauallah's vision should be clear to us directly because he wrote about it. I'm beginning to see that some of Bahai is based upon what a handful of people have decided to tell us how to think about Bahauallah's words. And they expand upon his words.

Interpretation is a key issue.... In Christian history had for instance James the brother of the Lord been appointed an "interpreter" of Christ's words by Him and was the Center of the church as he was in Jerusalem and James spoke the same language as Jesus .. You would have an analogy with Abdul-Baha and later Shoghi Effendi being the Interpreters of Baha'u'llah's Writings.

Of course we do not have any record of an appointment of James to such a role.. He was a head of the church in Jerusalem and spoke Aramaic but we have no records of his being an "interpreter" of Jesus.

As I mentioned above Abdul-Baha was the assigned Interpreter of His Father's Writings:

"When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and
the Book of My Revelation is ended, turn your faces
toward Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath
branched from this Ancient Root."

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 62

And Shoghi Effendi as Guardian was appointed by Abdul-Baha:

In His Will and Testament 'Abdu'l-Bahá conferred the
mantle of Guardian of the Cause and infallible Interpreter of
its teachings upon His eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi, and
confirmed the authority and guarantee of divine guidance
decreed by Bahá'u'lláh for the Universal House of Justice
on all matters "which have not outwardly been revealed in
the Book"

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 3

 

[psychoslice]

Most of religion does want to enforce their beliefs onto others, but not the Bahia faith, what brings you into the faith is pure love, just like a magnet, drawing you into the truth, its that simple really.

 

[loverofhumanity]

The letter of Shoghi Effendi covers and describes two processes.

First is the Lesser Peace established by the nations of the earth not the Baha'is.......

Shoghi Effendi has given us this definition of the Lesser Peace: [This gradual process...] must, as Bahá'u'lláh has Himself anticipated, lead at first to the establishment of that Lesser Peace which the nations of the earth, as yet unconscious of His Revelation and yet unwittingly enforcing the general principles which He has enunciated, will themselves establish"- (PDC p.128).

The Guardian further amplifies his own statement when he anticipates gradual steps in this process. These steps he identifies as: "The political unification of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, the emergence of a world government and the establishment of the Lesser Peace as (anticipated)...by the prophet Isaiah"- (CF p.33). He further adds that this step involves "the reconstruction of mankind, as the result of the universal recognition of its oneness and wholeness."- (PDC p.128)

Next is the Most Great Peace established by the Baha'is

Shoghi Effendi has given us the following definition: "The Most Great Peace... as conceived by Bahá'u'lláh—a peace that must inevitably follow as the practical consequence of the spiritualization of the world and the fusion of all its races, creeds, classes and nations—can rest on no other basis, and can be preserved through no other agency, except the divinely appointed ordinances that are implicit in the World Order that stands associated with His Holy Name"- (WOB pp.162-163).

Shoghi Effendi further considered the following words addressed to Queen Victoria by Bahá'u'lláh to refer to the Most Great Peace and not to the Lesser Peace: "That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal cause, one common faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error..."- (WOB pp.163). In another Tablet Bahá'u'lláh refers to the unity of all mankind. According to Shoghi Effendi Bahá'u'lláh had in mind the Most Great Peace: "It beseemeth all men in this Day to take firm hold on the Most Great Name, and to establish the unity of all mankind. There is no place to flee to, no refuge that any one can seek, except Him"- (WOB pp.163)

The first peace is just political unification. Later, likely much later comes the brotherhood of man where love and unity abound.

 

[oldbadger]

Absolutely: Baha'u'llah's vision is clear, if less specific than Shoghi Effendi's. But you asked me about Shoghi Effendi, so I answered about Shoghi Effendi. You said:
I assumed you were referring to the book The World Order of Baha'u'allah

I didn't know about the book!
Can you tell me, are Bahauallah's main (translated) writings all accessible on the internet, or only extracts of them?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I didn't know about the book!
Can you tell me, are Bahauallah's main (translated) writings all accessible on the internet, or only extracts of them?

I hope you won't be knocking on my door to tell me all about it.