Recently a magazine has been placed in my hands titled: “THE BAHÁ’ÍS” published by the “Office of Public Information of the Bahá’í International Community” of the heterodox Bahá’í organization and distributed by the heterodox Bahá’í Publishing Trust of the United States. It was published initially in 1992 and reprinted in 1999 and undoubtedly has since been reprinted.
It is an attractive 80 page magazine obviously designed primarily to appeal to the non-Bahá’í reader containing nine principal articles on various aspects of the Faith and many photographs in colour of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, former Hands of the Cause, the members of the first illegitimate Universal House of Justice, the holy Shrines, the several Bahá’í Temples, and various Bahá’í groups.
The article that has particularly caught my attention is one titled: “A System for Global Governance” with the subtitle, “The Bahá’í Administrative Order” comprising some three pages interspersed with several photographs. Perhaps I should not have been shocked, upon reading this article, written to inform the non-Bahá’í reader about the Bahá’í Administrative Order of the Faith, although I was, when I noted that that there was no mention whatsoever that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the divinely-inspired Architect of that Order.
However, as the articles in this publication are all written by heterodox Bahá’ís who believe that the Guardianship ended with the passing of Shoghi Effendi, it should have come as no surprise that they would omit any reference to the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for fear that if that sacred and divinely-conceived Document were to be reviewed by the same readers, they would inevitably perceive the essentiality and indispensability of the Institution of the Guardianship to the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. For they would discover that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had made the Guardian of the Cause of God not only the “Center of the Cause,” assisted by Hands of the Cause appointed solely by him, but had been endowed with the exclusive right of interpreting Bahá’í Holy Writ and been made the “sacred head” of the supreme administrative body of the Faith—the Universal House of Justice— which under their administrative organization was now a headless body.
Joel B. Marangella
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