House of Worship

The Mashriqu'l-Adhkar is one of the most vital institutions in the world, and it hath many subsidiary branches. Although it is a House of Worship, it is also connected with a hospital, a drug dispensary, a traveller's hospice, a school for orphans, and a university for advanced studies. Every Mashriqu'l-Adhkar is connected with these five things.

(Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 99)

There is one more institution of the Bahá’í Order that I want to briefly discuss in relation to the oneness and wholeness of human relations embodying the spiritual, social and material relations of human community in the converging and culminating of historical processes of evolution. That is the institution of the House of Worship.  Though manifest so far only at the continental level, the Bahá’í vision sees every village, town and city with a House of Worship at its center, and around which cluster agencies of social service.  Indeed, some Houses of Worship are now being built at the national and even local levels.

Historically, sacred sites and places of worship were a focal point of community life.  Indeed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá pointed out that: "The original purpose of temples and houses of worship is simply that of unity—places of meeting where various peoples, different races and souls of every capacity may come together in order that love and agreement should be manifest between them . . . that all religions, races and sects may come together within its universal shelter.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 65)

Worship, the temple, and its festivities were the spiritual, social, and physical foundations of human community.  The institution of the House of Worship is a perfect demonstration of this principle.  The Baha’i House of Worship is both the reappearance of the ancient principle that human community is founded upon the collective need to worship, and of its expansion into more “worldly” concerns.  That is, the auxiliary social institutions of learning and care that are to surround the collective center of the House of Worship—a hospice for travelers, a university, a dispensary of medicine, a hospital, a school for orphans—embody the oneness and wholeness of human relations, and give expression to the core principles of service and commitment to knowledge that animate the Bahá’i Community.

Too, as we saw with the Feast and the Spiritual Assembly, which were both the culmination of long processes operating in social evolution and a convergence of various forms of community and governance, the whole conception of worship reappears in its highest form in the Bahá’i House of Worship, which is for all humankind, and enfolds within its structure all those who come to worship, and then unfolds in centers of service and learning because this process is how human community is built and flourishes.  This is not some accidental similarity between ancient and modern thought.  Rather, the whole process of human social evolution is brought together in one consciously revealed thought that spreads out organically in the world. 

The Universal House of Justice wrote: “A symbol of this process may be seen in the House of Worship and its dependencies. The first part to be built is the central edifice which is the spiritual heart of the community. Then, gradually, as the outward expression of this spiritual heart, the various dependencies, those ‘institutions of social service as shall afford relief to the suffering, sustenance to the poor, shelter to the wayfarer, solace to the bereaved, and education to the ignorant,’ are erected and function. This process begins in an embryonic way long before a Bahá'í community reaches the stage of building its own Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, for even the first local center that a Bahá'í community erects can begin to serve not only as the spiritual and administrative center and gathering place of the community, but also as the site of a tutorial school and the heart of other aspects of community life. The principle remains, however, that the spiritual precedes the material. First comes the illumination of hearts and minds by the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and then the grass roots stirring of the believers wishing to apply these teachings to the daily life of their community. Such stirrings can be fostered, encouraged and assisted by the national and continental institutions of the Faith, but without them any activities introduced from above might well prove abortive.” (Compilation. Developing Distinctive Bahá’í Communities)

For the past few hundred years the image of human beings was that of selfish, greedy, grasping individuals intent only on self-interest and maximizing personal material comfort and security. Social institutions were built, starting in western nations, with this creature in mind. These institutions saw their primary role to manage the anarchy inherent within him, often by coercion, threat, prisons, and force. The institutions of most societies were organized upon authoritarian principles requiring passive obedience to a leader or leadership. Hence the individual and his social institutions were caught up in a terrible conflict of purpose and were forced to work against each other, only coming together to negotiate some temporary blend of desires.  Over time this has had terrible consequences for social harmony. 

But in the Bahá’i Order individuals and institutions operate on the same values and principles, and work together to realize common goals and purposes.  Within the framework of the Order of Bahá’u’lláh, there is complete harmony between the aspirations of the individual and the objectives of the community when mediated through common institutions that are built upon and share the same spiritual values, aspirations, and goals, instead of standing opposed to them, as has been the case of the past few hundred years.  These divine institutions help power the positive release of the energies of personal initiative and foster the full development of human potential, while the cult of personal leadership by charisma is entirely eschewed.  To examine the internal dynamics of this relationship the next post will discuss the interplay of authority, power and initiative in the Bahá’i Order.  

Culmination and Convergence

The Feast may well be seen in its unique combination of modes as the culmination of a great historic process in which primary elements of community life—acts of worship, of festivity and other forms of togetherness—over vast stretches of time have achieved a glorious convergence.

(Universal House of Justice, A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992:67-68)    

The image of culmination and convergence links the end, culmination, and the beginning, convergence, as one structure, or, in another image, combines them into de Chardin’s Omega Point which is, actually, the same as the Primal Point: the union of the center of life and the highest degree of life’s development, The Revelation of the Bab is both the culmination of the Prophetic Cycle of Revelations and the convergence of all these Revelations upon and into Itself, so that a new Spiritual Reality, the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, may appear, which is the culmination and convergence of all previous Revelation, including that of the Báb, or Gate.  Out from the heart of this Spiritual Reality, which is both a new Revelation and Revelation renewed, unfolds a new consciousness of humanity’s oneness and a new and whole global Order, the culmination of these two evolutionary processes, and their convergence into a revolutionary new configuration of humanity destined to take us to undreamed of heights of development. 

Likewise, consciousness of the oneness of humanity is not just the notion of humanity as one species on one planet today, but also the consciousness of humanity as a single evolving species from the beginning to the end of time.  This consciousness is the culmination of human self-awareness and a convergence of all attempts to see humanity as one spiritual reality moving toward one social purpose and civilized goal, namely the all-embracing world civilization foretold by all the Scriptures.  This civilization is, in turn, the culmination of all human efforts to build societies and the convergence of their different methods, characteristics, and individualities into a new structure of social relations.

But further, the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh must also, from in its inmost spiritual heart to Its outermost social expression, exemplify this principle. This is the great pivot of collective human life, thought and history, the point where humanity turns onto a new and inclusive cycle of development. The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and His divine Order must both renew and unite all progressions and give them new form and direction, so that the highest and the inmost are united as one now and forever; the culmination and the convergence are themselves twin aspects of a single unfolding process, the seed and the fruit are the same, though in time one appears at the beginning and the other at the end.

As the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is a consummation of the stages of progressive Revelation, and the consciousness of humanity’s oneness is the consummation of advances in human self-awareness and self-understanding, so the Bahá’i Order is the consummation and convergence of the processes of civilization building and social evolution in history.  With that in mind let us set the Bahá’í Feast in full historical context.

The House of Justice explains: “The Feast may well be seen in its unique combination of modes as the culmination of a great historic process in which primary elements of community life—acts of worship, of festivity and other forms of togetherness—over vast stretches of time have achieved a glorious convergence. The Nineteen Day Feast represents the new stage in this enlightened age to which the basic expression of community life has evolved. Shoghi Effendi has described it as the foundation of the new World Order, and in a letter written on his behalf, it is referred to as constituting ‘a vital medium for maintaining close and continued contact between the believers  themselves, and also between them and the body of their elected representatives in the local community.’" (The Universal House of Justice, A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992:67-68)   The Nineteen Day Feast operates at the very base of society. “It is intended”, writes the House of Justice, “to promote unity, ensure progress, and foster joy.” (A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992: 66)

The Feast is not a traditional social gathering, nor is it something totally new.  It is, however, revolutionary in the true meaning of that word, as a revolving back to the origin.  The Feast is, according to the House of Justice, the culmination of a great historic process of human civic life and a convergence of different forms of human togetherness.  Thus this culminating stage integrates all past stages and forms of the long evolution of community life.  The culminating aspect opens a vast new way to look at the Bahá’í Order historically—as the highest expression of social relations that have always existed—the radiant converging aspect points to an equally vast future of integrated and joyous community life built upon the foundation of the Feast.

That foundation, proclaims the House, is that: “the Feast is rooted in hospitality, with all its implications of friendliness, courtesy, service, generosity and conviviality. The very idea of hospitality as the sustaining spirit of so significant an institution introduces a revolutionary new attitude to the conduct of human affairs at all levels, an attitude which is critical to that world unity which the Central Figures of our Faith labored so long and suffered so much cruelty to bring into being. It is in this divine festival that the foundation is laid for the realization of so unprecedented a reality.”  (A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992: 70)

The House of Justice continues: “Moreover, because of the opportunity which it provides for conveying messages from the national and international levels of the administration and also for communicating the recommendations of the friends to those levels, the Feast becomes a link that connects the local community in a dynamic relationship with the entire structure of the Administrative Order. But considered in its local sphere alone there is much to thrill and amaze the heart. Here it links the individual to the collective processes by which a society is built or restored. Here, for instance, the Feast is an arena of democracy at the very root of society, where the Local Spiritual Assembly and the members of the community meet on common ground, where individuals are free to offer their gifts of thought, whether as new ideas or constructive criticism, to the building processes of an advancing civilization. Thus it can be seen that aside from its spiritual significance, this common institution of the people combines an array of elemental social disciplines which educate its participants in the essentials of responsible citizenship.” (A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992: 67-68)

This is an absolutely amazing statement.  The House of Justice sees the Feast as an arena where pathways of energy running through the whole hidden Order, from the individual up to the House of Justice and back, connect in an open, dynamic, reciprocal relationship.  Again Feast is not just a regular time and place set aside for Bahá’ís to get together in worship, or to discuss their business, or to engage in relaxed sociability.  Seen in its full context, the Feast is the beginning of a great new thrust in social evolution, because participating in a Bahá’í Feast is a way for every individual to be linked to “collective processes by which a society is built or restored”.  The Feast is a community institution of an Administrative Order that is “the pattern and nucleus” of an emerging world order.  It is “an arena of democracy at the very root of society” combining “an array of elemental social disciplines which educate its participants in the essentials of responsible citizenship.” Hence by participating enthusiastically in a Feast one is helping to restore and rebuild one’s own society—building civilization from the ground up.

The Bahá’í Order is truly an organic entity, growing through a process of absorbing the light of spirit, for the purpose of building and restoring society.  The Feast, as a community institution and an integral part of that Order, is one mirror of the Kingdom receiving the imprint of light from that higher realm.

Next post will discuss the institution of the House of Worship, another fundamental element of the Divine Economy.

The Imprint of Light

Thou art the head of an assembly which is the very imprint of the Company on high, the mirror-image of the all-glorious realm.

(Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 164)

“The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh,” wrote the Universal House of Justice, “encompasses all units of human society; integrates the spiritual, administrative and social processes of life; and canalizes human expression in its varied forms towards the construction of a new civilization.” (The Universal House of Justice, 1994 May 19, response to United States National Spiritual Assembly.)

Underpinning the governance of this Order are the stable unchanging forms of the Local Assembly, elected everywhere by the same direct method, and the Bahá’í Feast, the common institution of Bahá’ís everywhere. National Assemblies and the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing body of the Bahá’í world, are elected by indirect representation.  Universality of values (e.g. absence of prejudice, equality of the sexes, truthfulness, trustworthiness) and of purposes (e.g. spiritual development, unity of all human beings, justice), is an essential element of each part of this order and its functioning, and is the touchstone of its stability and simplicity. Yet, because each level of the order has its own sphere of jurisdiction and individuality, it can also continually modify its secondary aspects in order to respond innovatively to change.  Thus the oneness and wholeness of human relationships are built into the very fabric of these interlocking institutions.  But this is because these relations are a fundamental principle of life, something that incarnates and expresses a spiritual reality.

As the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is Itself a consummation of the stages of progressive Revelation, and consciousness of humanity’s oneness is the consummation of human advances in collective self-awareness and understanding, so the Bahá’i Order is the consummation of the historical processes of civilization building and social evolution.  With that in mind let us set the Bahá’í Order in full spiritual and historical context.  First, the spiritual.

This statement of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá opening this post, written to the members of a Local Spiritual Assembly, attests to an ancient principle, namely, that the human social world is an imperfect mirror-image, an imprint of light, of an existing, perhaps pre-existing, celestial society; a spiritual kingdom which Christ said was “prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (The Book of Matthew 25:34)  This spiritual society is a spiritual pattern which is both the organizing code for organic social development and is indicative of human connections with the Supernal Realm. 

The metaphor of the mirror-image is often used in sacred Scriptures to describe the relation of the divine world with that organic world of human society that is growing toward it.  For example, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote: “Perchance, God willing, this terrestrial world may become as a celestial mirror upon which we may behold the imprint of the traces of Divinity, and the fundamental qualities of a new creation may be reflected from the reality of love shining in human hearts.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 235) 

Organically, the divine structure, Shoghi Effendi says, is stirring within the womb of the Bahá’í Administrative Order, which is both the pattern and nucleus of the emerging world civilization, the social template for a new world order.  Yet the Bahá’i Order is not just a receptacle of spirit.  It is also transformational.  It is the channel for the outflowing of spirit into the world, the power driving what Bahá’u’lláh calls “an ever-advancing civilization” that “all men were created to carry forward.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 214)  If we ask, “Ever-advancing toward what?”, the only answer for me can be: “Toward the divine society”, the Kingdom of heaven on earth, the full realization of that society established at the foundation of the world.  But realization means that humanity must make a major evolutionary leap, one unlike any that it has made till now.

The House of Justice writes: “Thus, enshrined in His Revelation is a pattern for future society, radically different from any established in the past, and the promotion of His laws and exhortations constitutes an inseparable part of the effort to lay the foundations of such a society.” (Letter from House of Justice, 19 April 2013)  The future society they refer to is the fully manifested pattern of the Kingdom of God on earth that all humanity is evolving toward.  So, by the phrase “growing toward it”, I mean that through the interaction of the divine Word guiding human effort to improve conditions, earthly society looks more and more like the divine one.  

This ancient yet novel conception may be hard for many to grasp.  Even for the members of the Bahá’í community, recognizing the divinity of the structure they are working within can be a challenge.  The House of Justice wrote: “There needs to be a recognition on their part of the Assembly's spiritual character and a feeling in their hearts of respect for the institution based upon a perception of it as something beyond or apart from themselves, as a sacred entity whose powers they have the privilege to engage and canalize by coming together in harmony and acting in accordance with divinely revealed principles.” (The Universal House of Justice, 1994 May 19, response to United States National Spiritual Assembly.)

To indicate how that relationship between the divine and human realms works and know for what purpose the Bahá’í Administrative Order was constructed, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá remarks, "so that the perilous darkness of ignorant prejudice may vanish through the light of the Sun of Truth, this dreary world may become illumined, this material realm may absorb the rays of the world of spirit.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 105)  Again, the divine Order is both the foundation and the goal of human social evolution.  Its unfoldment is the continual advance of human society, and the closer human society gets in structure and activity to the divine structure the more rays of the world of the spirit are absorbed, and it is this light-energy, when it is absorbed, that powers advances toward greater social complexity and coherence.

Thus the House of Justice says that one important characteristic of Bahá’í administration is that: “Even as a living organism, it has coded within it the capacity to accommodate higher and higher degrees of complexity, in terms of structures and processes, relationships and activities, as it evolves under the guidance of the Universal House of Justice.” (The Universal House of Justice, Riḍván 2010)

This evolution contrasts sharply with the disintegrating materialist order.  While in the old order great rents appear within its fabric with increasing frequency, spaces of dissension that mark a further decline in that culture, in the Bahá’í Order spaces of integration open up “at the level of culture” that both mark advances in its complexity and release new powers. Here, in these openings, is where new flows of divine energy enter the human world, where community activities and structures appear that can canalize this energy, where novel interactions spontaneously are generated, where unity is forged anew, where links, connections and transformations occur.  They provide a glimpse into the workshop where a new spiritual world of human culture in the likeness of the divine is created as it is being created.

The Bahá’í Order is the social structure of the oneness and wholeness of human relationships, the “machinery that embodies this fundamental principle of life.”  This Order develops according to organic principles, but only so long as it absorbs spiritual energy, which it is designed to do, as the mirror is designed to absorb and reflect the rays of the sun.

            We’ll look at the Bahá’i Feast in the next post.

Essentials of a Divine Economy

Does not the very operation of the world-unifying forces that are at work in this age necessitate that He Who is the Bearer of the Message of God in this day should not only reaffirm that self-same exalted standard of individual conduct inculcated by the Prophets gone before Him, but embody in His appeal, to all governments and peoples, the essentials of that social code, that Divine Economy, which must guide humanity's concerted efforts in establishing that all-embracing federation which is to signalize the advent of the Kingdom of God on this earth?

(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 60)

This, and the next few posts, will explore the concept of Divine Economy, keeping in mind that the word, economy, means “household.”  The household I am talking about is planet earth and its family members are all humanity. 

To move from the present international political order, whose core principle is the “anarchy inherent in state sovereignty”, (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 202) into a new global unity built upon the oneness of humanity, “the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 42) is not going to be easy, of course  To construct society upon the principle of the oneness of humanity implies, Shoghi Effendi said, "an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced." (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 43)

A global social order cannot be erected independently of the consciousness of the oneness of humanity, for it is the outer social embodiment of this inner unifying consciousness.  Thus, consciousness of world unity cannot acknowledge the finality of the principle of national sovereignty and interest, but, rather, that “in a world of interdependent nations and peoples the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the whole....The welfare of the part means the welfare of the whole, and the distress of the part brings distress to the whole." (The Promised Day is Come: 122)  Consciousness of human oneness, like other unifying spiritual conceptions, breaks into a polarity of complementary material or social parts that interact reciprocally to increasingly manifest the coordinating powers of the spiritual.

Hence, one part of the organic change in the structure of society, to be recognized before the union of political states can be effected, is the establishment of a universal system of social governance based upon a conception named by Shoghi Effendi “the oneness and wholeness of human relationships”.

How did Shoghi Effendi know this?  He noticed effects, what are often called the signs of the times, and read them correctly.  Shoghi Effendi also said that the world was falling into ruin from the “lamentable inability of the world's recognized leaders to read aright the signs of the times.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 36) I will discuss what I think are two such signs: the demise of the international political order, and the rise of communications technology.

 Shoghi Effendi saw that the nation-state system, having reached exhaustion, was collapsing, and understood why.  He wrote in 1936:  “World unity is the goal towards which a harassed humanity is striving. Nation-building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in state sovereignty is moving towards a climax.  A world growing to maturity must abandon this fetish, recognize the oneness and wholeness of human relationships, and establish once and for all the machinery that can best incarnate this fundamental principle of life.”  (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 202) 

Being a fundamental principle of life, the oneness and wholeness of human relations range from the principles and standards restoring the primary and universal social institutions of marriage and family, to the principles that strengthen civic organizations and institutions, such as education, to the principles organizing international political relations and building the organs of world government.  That is why they are universal.

Because they are a fundamental principle of life, the oneness and wholeness of human relationships have always been the essential form of human society.  Today, because of communications technology, which helps build world consciousness, they can be fully manifest as a fundamental principle of a global civilization. 

As a principle organizing humanity’s social development  through history, the oneness and wholeness of human relations can become fully manifest now because, at the end of history and development (wholeness), the essential spiritual form itself (oneness) becomes manifest in fully mature organic stature.  Said another way, oneness is the archetypal spiritual form out from which was generated the wholeness of all the development toward its manifest mature form.  This is the working of spiritual causality, and we saw the same principle at work earlier in the appearance of the universal Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh to unify the religions, and the promulgation of the consciousness of the oneness of all humanity to unite human beings.

The global Bahá’i community can be seen as one model, though only a nascent one, of these relations.  But the distinction characterizing the Bahá’í community is that it is truly a global community, a single social organism.  Every local Bahá’í community is as the embryo of a global community living within the womb of a national one. 

What does the oneness and wholeness of human relationships look like and how do these operate in present society? Though no complete answer to this question can be given, certain principles structuring them can be understood because they are already functioning within the social order established by Bahá’u’lláh.

First, the need to create the oneness and wholeness of human relationships means that simple adjustments to current human relations cannot effect the radical transformation required to unite in a global civilization.  It means, rather, that nothing less than a new kind and totality of human relationships be created, a qualitative change that embodies a truly organic and universal restructuring of social life resulting from a reconceptualization of both the nature of humanity and the structure of society.   Such relationships embody a new ideal of civil society.  

Seen separately, the oneness of human relationships, arising out of the urge of human beings to form groups, unifies individuals into purposeful on-going collective experience. The wholeness of human relations, stemming from the need to diversify to bring about the expression of the full range of human potentialities, allows full play to humanity's creative drive, humankind's sole hope of meeting novel situations successfully. 

Oneness and wholeness are complementary necessities that act reciprocally to manifest a single principle, unity.  One without the other is insufficient to build or transform society, because both qualities are required to nurture the whole human being.  Together, not separately, they compose a fundamental principle of life, a unity manifest in a diversity, and unity in diversity is totality. 

Revelation as Pattern: Building a New Order

Regard ye the world as a man’s body, which is afflicted with divers ailments, and the recovery of which dependeth upon the harmonizing of all of its component elements. Gather ye around that which We have prescribed unto you, and walk not in the ways of such as create dissension. Meditate on the world and the state of its people.

(Bahá’u’lláh. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 55-56)

While Spirit is transformative, in this world, at least, It needs a body through which to act effectively. The spiritual must also be substantial.  Without appearing in organic, social form, human understanding of Spirit is as some disembodied spectre the nature of which is subject to a host of conflicting imaginative interpretations, so that, eventually, Spirit means anything and nothing at all.  Though Bahá’u’lláh breathed the Spirit of His Revelation upon the whole of creation, still, for human community, Spirit must have a focus and a locus, a form identifiable as only Itself, and a pattern of  growth that follows organic laws fed by spiritual light.  This is the evolving Bahá’í community.  

Shoghi Effendi wrote: “Few will fail to recognize that the Spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh upon the world, and which is manifesting itself with varying degrees of intensity through the efforts consciously displayed by His avowed supporters and indirectly through certain humanitarian organizations, can never permeate and exercise an abiding influence upon mankind unless and until it incarnates itself in a visible Order, which would bear His name, wholly identify itself with His principles, and function in conformity with His laws.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 19)

The Bahá’i Community is rebuilding civilization from the ground up.  The call of God is both to the soul of the individual and to the spirit of humanity, and answering this call sets off a spiritual transformation that appears in the transformation of organic form.  Spiritualization of the individual begins with a fundamental change in self-consciousness from a center within himself to a center within divinity. Out from this new center flow different and new attitudes and behaviors demonstrating that a spiritual transformation is underway. 

However, transformed individuals are not sufficient by themselves, even in the aggregate, to effect the scale and speed of change needed for social advance to occur. Inner individual changes not outwardly supported by new patterns of collective behavior and through mediating institutions will eventually become as water in the sand.  If only a few are spiritually transformed, there is no appreciable seismic activity set off in the social landscape, though the dynamic force of example does have powerful effect.  But if larger numbers of people undergo transformation, and are united by institutions also operating on spiritual principles, then the larger society feels this impact and can undergo a transformation both in its nature and in its structure, which means one form disintegrates as another is built in its stead. 

In fact, until a new collective consciousness takes root and a new society is erected, the actions of such individuals actually ramp up the confusion in a system that is “lamentably defective”, because that system cannot assimilate the energy and patterns of behavior that flow from spiritual principles.  Rather, reactionary forces will attempt to crush these for the insurrection that they perceive them to be.  Consider this statement from Bahá’u’lláh on the integrative and disintegrative effects of a righteous act: “One righteous act is endowed with a potency that can so elevate the dust as to cause it to pass beyond the heaven of heavens. It can tear every bond asunder, and hath the power to restore the force that hath spent itself and vanished...” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 286)

Since its inception, setting in motion and coordinating processes of individual and social transformation has been at the heart of the Bahá’í counter-thrust to materialism, moving through a series of enlarging and interconnecting contexts that we can call: personal, institutional, and, now, moving into effective community action. 

The three enlarging social contexts capture the process of social transformation by spiritual means, each context linked to the others, creating a widening and upwardly evolving social force.  The House of Justice succinctly puts the process internal to the Bahá’i Community as: “Souls must be transformed, communities thereby consolidated, new models of life thus attained.” (The Universal House of Justice, A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992: 64-65.)   In another place they discussed the effects of the interaction of these three contexts of spiritual transformation on the broader community: “A Bahá'í community which is consistent in its fundamental life-giving, life sustaining activities will at its heart be serene and confident; it will resonate with spiritual dynamism, will exert irresistible influence, will set a new course in social evolution, enabling it to win the respect and eventually the allegiance of admirers and critics alike.” (Letter from the Universal House of Justice. Riḍván, 1984)

We can now undertake a discussion at the broadest level of analysis, namely, the entire globe. In a work of macro-social analysis, this is a natural enough direction to take, but we have this added reason:  “The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve—is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cooperation among individual peoples and nations. Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 42-43)

Linking the individual and the collective, i.e. humanity, to see how they are similarly affected and similarly respond to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is another example of spiritual causality which generates change everywhere at once.  Too, if the Bahá’i Administrative Order is the “pattern and nucleus” of a new order, then, to get some idea of how the Bahá’í community works internally is also to understand how the world can work, and to better grasp the interrelation that all-important dynamic between personal and social transformation.

Before we embark on this examination, it should be understood by all that this new world order, this new social form of governance that humanity will adapt itself to and which is the manifestation of spiritual forces, is not to be imposed upon the world, but, instead, demonstrated as one possible model of social organization and collective functioning.  That is, the Bahá’i Order is presented to the world as something that populations, their leaders and those serving on institutions, can observe, evaluate, incorporate, and build upon.  It is the wide-embrace, the strength and efficiency of that Order, the clarity of its principles and the nobility of its aims, and its ability to harmonize and advance human aspirations, which alone will win converts to its principles and processes from among the fair-minded among humankind.

Having said that, I should not fail to state that it is a remarkable social Order, possessing challenging features, exalted ethical ideals, and new principles of interaction, all expressive of a new conception of human nature and purpose that contrasts sharply with current notions of human nature, purpose and governance.   It is a Divine Economy.

Manifesting the Spiritual Form

I believe that the spiritual form of the emerging new World Order pre-exists its own manifest organic form and that the spiritual form is complete in the Revelation, while the organic form is moving toward completion.  Recall, too, that the Master stated that humanity will “adapt itself to a new social form” which is “the manifestation of spiritual forces”.  Let us examine more closely the early half-hidden stages of this manifestation.

First, Shoghi Effendi perceived that “the structure of His New World Order, now stirring in the womb of the administrative institutions He Himself has created, will serve both as a pattern and a nucleus of that world commonwealth which is the sure, the inevitable destiny of the peoples and nations of the earth.” (The Promised Day is Come: 118.) 

It is of great interest to me that the complete structure of Bahá’u’lláh’s World Order—the heavenly pattern—is stirring within the womb of the organic institutions of the Bahá’í Administrative Order.  Thus, the Guardian, called the Bahá’í Administrative Order “a system which is at once the harbinger, the nucleus and pattern of His World Order.” (God Passes By, p. xv.)  This means to me that His World Order already exists completely in some spiritual form, and is—indeed always has been—growing in this one.  Similarly, at the moment of human conception, the entire DNA, the whole biological code, of the individual exists complete in that first fertilized cell, but it unfolds in stages we call organic, physical development.  “This Administrative Order,” wrote Shoghi Effendi, “as it expands and consolidates itself…will, as its component parts, its organic institutions, begin to function with efficiency and vigor, assert its claim and demonstrate its capacity to be regarded not only as the nucleus but the very pattern of the New World Order destined to embrace in the fullness of time the whole of mankind.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 152) 

Every developmental organic expansion of the divine order is, then, a fuller unfoldment of the spiritual structure that provokes a fresh set of tribulations for the existing human order, bringing more stress to bear upon its already overstressed edifice, crumbling that order further and faster, as the new order is both fed by celestial springs of energy, and takes over the free radicals of energy that a cancerous order gives off in its demise. 

For me, the most striking image describing the spiritual and organic shaking apart of the bonds holding the old order together by the development of the new is “vibrating influence.”  Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 136)

The image of a vibrating influence is a powerful one, for it accurately describes the effect of the Word, Itself a vibration of sound and meaning.  But Bahá’u’lláh here uses this metaphor to describe the radiant influence of the institutions He fashioned, each a structure vibrating at a divine frequency—a suggestive idea if one accepts the basic postulates of String Theory with its infinitesimally small vibrating strings of energy undergoing continual oscillations between equilibrium and disequilibrium.  

On the level of pure energy, the way that the divine order replaces the human one is by introducing a new master vibration, thereby setting all things vibrating at a higher frequency and establishing a new harmony.  This breaks down the old form, but leads to breakthrough into a more complex order.  Disequilibrium of the old is necessary before a new equilibrium can be established.  But that new equilibrium can occur most efficiently when the proper organic form, the resonant structure, to channel this energy exists, so that development is guided through its stages of growth rather than relying entirely upon trial and error.  Guidance is the design of the plan of God.    

It is a known fact that all manifest or actual states and powers, then, first exist somewhere as potential before they are manifest, or actual.  For me, things first exist as both spiritual and organic potential, and that potential is both energy and form or structure, the spiritual form being the archetype or template of the organic.  God fashions the new spiritual form which is Revelation, and Revelation, in turn, fashions the organic world, including human society, in its image.  The Revelations are linked in a process called progressive Revelation, and each unfolds seamlessly from the other, for all are unfolding from one Structure.  Organically, forms are linked and connected to unfold and this is done through internal transformations.  But when a system has reached the limit of its internal transformations of growth, the whole system must transform for growth to continue, and this means the existing form of the system must be done away with. 

The organic form that Spirit incarnates itself in, a form which holds and channels that energy, also gives the world a model to pattern itself upon.  That is, while the heavenly pattern, expressed in the revealed Word, is the template for the organic Bahá’í Order, the Bahá’í Order is the pattern of a new society that societies will use to reconstruct themselves.  The Bahá’í Order operates both as a pattern and nucleus, a template, for the new society to be built upon, the source of existence, whose essence is Revelation, for the new social creation.  As the organic pattern, it directly incarnates the divine pattern, the heavenly city come down to earth, the human society made in the image and likeness of the divine one.  As social nucleus of a new world order, a nucleus that cannot be assimilated by the old world but can build a new one, it acts as an anti-environment to that old world, bringing it to consciousness, upsetting its equilibrium and transforming its relations, processes and structures.

            Every previous Revelation provoked a crisis in the social order of humanity of its time, however geographically remote many lands and peoples may have been from the land the Revelator appeared in. But because His message was a spiritual one It instantly diffused throughout the world, gradually changing over centuries the entire environment of human thought and life.  The unparalleled power of the Revelations of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, in my view, provoked a near instantaneous systems-wide upheaval, a structural crisis, in the entire world order of Their time.  In any structural crisis there flares an internal battle between the major sectors for power to lead the whole society.  Today, the entire world at every level continues to generate increasing levels of dysfunction and violence.  For the new spirit initially works to reenergize all things, including all those things opposed to its appearance and progress. 

In a structural crisis, the only certainty is that the existing system cannot survive. What is impossible to know in most such crises is what the successor system will be.  The one encouraging feature about a systemic crisis is the degree to which it increases the viability of human creativity.  But the choice is a single and final one.  Either there shall be a significantly better world-system (however that is conceived) or the result shall end with a system that is likely far worse, or with no system at all.

I said that in most cases the new system is unknown, but, for Bahá’ís at least, with the power and pattern of Baha’u’llah’s Revelation and the organic structure of His Administrative Order, which the Guardian described as the very pattern and nucleus of the coming world order, the new system is understood in advance, at least its general features, principles and values.  It is His promise, taken on faith by His followers and demonstrated in their individual and community relations, that it will not only come to pass, but is doing so with every passing hour.

Setting a New Foundation

It should be remembered by every follower of the Cause that the system of Bahá'í administration is not an innovation imposed arbitrarily upon the Bahá'ís of the world since the Master's passing, but derives its authority from the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, is specifically prescribed in unnumbered Tablets, and rests in some of its essential features upon the explicit provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. It thus unifies and correlates the principles separately laid down by Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and is indissolubly bound with the essential verities of the Faith. To dissociate the administrative principles of the Cause from the purely spiritual and humanitarian teachings would be tantamount to a mutilation of the body of the Cause, a separation that can only result in the disintegration of its component parts, and the extinction of the Faith itself.

            (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 5)

 I have said that the divine order cannot be assimilated by the human world, and so is breaking it down.  Yet, from the divine side of transformation, what is occurring is a recreation of the human in the image of the divine.  This is a work of infinite complexity that transforms all human and social relations and processes—reinforcing some, abrogating others, instituting still others—but forming an entirely new configuration of the parts of the whole.  One order replaces another, puts itself in its stead, for there is not room in one world for two world orders.  Too, there can be no continuity, except within the progressive expansion of that spiritual context called progressive Revelation.

Another way of looking at this process was given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He stated: “No matter how far the material world advances, it cannot establish the happiness of mankind. Only when material and spiritual civilization are linked and coordinated will happiness be assured. Then material civilization will not contribute its energies to the forces of evil in destroying the oneness of humanity, for in material civilization good and evil advance together and maintain the same pace.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 109)

Linking and coordinating the two kinds of civilizations involves not only the political realm and the world of morality, but also linking the economic, civil, cultural and religious sectors of society with each other and coordinating their different axial principles to achieve ever greater coherence on a world scale.  But we can also ask: Where does this spiritual civilization exist with which an existing material civilization is to be linked and coordinated?  The only answer, I believe, is that this spiritual civilization exists both fully in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and embryonically in the organic Bahá’í world community, which is the social embodiment of that spiritual civilization.  The linkages and coordinations are those connections being built between the material and divine civilization by the Plans of God that turn the human order into the divine One. 

Let us look again at a statement from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Among the results of the manifestation of spiritual forces will be that the human world will adapt itself to a new social form, the justice of God will become manifest throughout human affairs, and human equality will be universally established.”  It is noteworthy in this connection that He states that humanity “will adapt itself to a new social form”, not invent or create it unaided. Too, this new social form is “the result of the manifestation of spiritual forces” and not the result of natural or social evolution or human action.

The reciprocal interactions of the Plans form a kind of transformational logic taking humanity from one order to another, because in this twofold reciprocal process the “first is essentially an integrating process, while the second is fundamentally disruptive.”  Neither process, then, is exclusively integrating nor disruptive, rather, each process is either mostly integrative or disruptive.  If they were only one or the other, by definition transformation could not occur.  While integration is occurring in the disruptive process—integration which I identify as those movements searching for a new order—the process as a whole is fundamentally disruptive.  Too, the constructive process casts its own turmoil in the world by constructing a new configuration of the different sectors and aspects of civilization upon a foundation of revealed spiritual principles.

Integration and disintegration are parallel processes operating at every level, yet they move in opposite directions, acing reciprocally, and these counter movements generate the maelstrom of destruction that humanity is now experiencing.  The Guardian stated: “Might not this process of steady deterioration which is insidiously invading so many departments of human activity and thought be regarded as a necessary accompaniment to the rise of this almighty Arm of Bahá'u'lláh? Might we not look upon the momentous happenings which, in the course of the past twenty years, have so deeply agitated every continent of the earth, as ominous signs simultaneously proclaiming the agonies of a disintegrating civilization and the birthpangs of that World Order—that Ark of human salvation—that must needs arise upon its ruins.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 155-156)

Now, the linking and coordinating of two separate civilizations, one representing a dying order and the other an emerging one, to advance the last stage of the human order and to save what is good in it, is, as I have already hinted, only one kind of linkage and coordination that is social transformation; this one laying the foundation of the Lesser Peace. The other kind is the unfolding divine civilization itself, which is the foundation, pattern, and energy of the Most Great Peace.  
          Recall that I said above that the spiritual civilization already exists in complete form in the Revelation of Baha'u'llah. The complete spiritual structure emerges in stages into the world of time and grows organically into maturity.  Through the divine administrative Structure, the new material law and spiritual law emerge together already perfectly linked and coordinated, making one unfolding structure of increasingly manifest complexity.  Shoghi Effendi stated (to repeat the quote heading this post) that the Administrative Order “unifies and correlates the principles separately laid down by Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and is indissolubly bound with the essential verities of the Faith.” So closely are they intertwined that he warned: “To dissociate the administrative principles of the Cause from the purely spiritual and humanitarian teachings would be tantamount to a mutilation of the body of the Cause, a separation that can only result in the disintegration of its component parts, and the extinction of the Faith itself.”

This is the descent of the spiritual New Jerusalem from out the spiritual world into the visible material one, manifesting by progressive stages the actual Kingdom of God on earth.  How is this done?  We'll examine that in the next post.

Complementary Plans of God

For let none suppose that the civilization towards which the divine teachings impel humankind will follow merely from adjustments to the present order.  Far from it.

(The Universal House of Justice. Riḍván 2012)

Last post discussed the point that the difference between the Bahá’i Community’s efforts to change society and those of other progressive movements is that the Bahá’i Community’s origins and purposes are not within the old human order, but outside the human order altogether in Bahá’u’lláh’s divine Revelation.  He did not come to advance the human order, but to put a divine Order in its stead.    The Bahá’i community is separate in nature and purpose from everything, positive or negative, in that dying order, and plays no part in the disputes, contentions and jockeying for influence that characterize the efforts of other groups, no matter how progressive they may be:

The divine Order, then, is built upon a different mentality and progresses by different means.  I mean that those erecting the new organic social reality are not depending, as does the rest of humanity, solely upon the trial and error of social experiment, but, rather, are building upon the actual unfolding nucleus and pattern of a new civilization.  This does not mean that any stage of advance of the new Order is strictly determined beforehand in all its particulars. Experiment within a common framework is necessary.  The Community is guided in its efforts at every step and stage by a divine Plan as given through authoritative institutions.  Though one effect of this building is to cause disruption in the existing order, this is the disruption of construction, not destruction.  I’ll come back to this point.

Nonetheless, as perceived by those from within the consciousness of the old order, the building of the Bahá’í Order seems but another social religious movement competing for status and influence.  Doubtless, the Bahá’í community’s efforts to erect a divine order look similar in some respects to those trying to advance the human order.  But the reconfiguration of relations necessary to express new, universal values is not an evolution of our current paradigm of understanding of how society comes into being and is built, nor even a radical addition to that understanding, but a revolution in understanding itself. 

The primary reason, then, why humanity cannot, unaided from Above, reason, plan, or envision its way to a new order is that the new pattern is wholly divine, and God, through His Manifestation, is in charge of erecting it.  He does so, according to the Bahá’i perspective, through the release, diffusion, and operation of spiritual forces that operate with disintegrative and integrative effects. These compose two parts of one process, for they are both products of the breaking and building generated by the twin Revelations.  They form, that is, two complementary Plans of God, which are, from another and equally true perspective, twin aspects of one divine Plan that Shoghi Effendi named the Major and Minor Plans of God.  

The Universal House of Justice explains:  “We are told by Shoghi Effendi that two great processes are at work in the world: the great Plan of God, tumultuous in its progress, working through mankind as a whole, tearing down barriers to world unity and forging humankind into a unified body in the fires of suffering and experience. This process will produce in God's due time, the Lesser Peace, the political unification of the world. Mankind at that time can be likened to a body that is unified but without life. The second process, the task of breathing life into this unified body—of creating true unity and spirituality culminating in the Most Great Peace—is that of the Bahá'ís, who are labouring consciously, with detailed instructions and continuing divine guidance, to erect the fabric of the Kingdom of God on earth….” (Universal House of Justice, Messages 1963 to 1986: 333-334)  

As the twin processes of disintegration and integration progressed, each in their own way, the House further elaborated: “Our fellow human beings everywhere are insensibly subjected at one and the same time to the conflicting emotions incited by the continuous operation of simultaneous processes of "rise and of fall, of integration and of disintegration, of order and chaos". These Shoghi Effendi identified as aspects of the Major Plan and Minor Plan of God, the two known ways in which His purpose for humankind is going forward. The Major Plan is associated with turbulence and calamity and proceeds with an apparent, random disorderliness, but is, in fact, inexorably driving humanity towards unity and maturity. Its agency for the most part is the people who are ignorant of its course and even antagonistic towards its aim. As Shoghi Effendi has pointed out, God's Major Plan uses "both the mighty and the lowly as pawns in His world-shaping game, for the fulfilment of His immediate purpose and the eventual establishment of His Kingdom on earth." The acceleration of the processes it generates is lending impetus to developments which, with all the initial pain and heartache attributable to them, we Bahá'ís see as signs of the emergence of the Lesser Peace.

Unlike His Major Plan, which works mysteriously, God's Minor Plan is clearly delineated, operates according to orderly and well-known processes, and has been given to us to execute.  Its ultimate goal is the Most Great Peace.” (The Universal House of Justice, Riḍván 155, 1998)

The genius of Shoghi Effendi also perceived that these complementary plans act reciprocally: “A twofold process, however, can be distinguished, each tending, in its own way and with an accelerated momentum, to bring to a climax the forces that are transforming the face of our planet. The first is essentially an integrating process, while the second is fundamentally disruptive. The former, as it steadily evolves, unfolds a System which may well serve as a pattern for that world polity towards which a strangely-disordered world is continually advancing; while the latter, as its disintegrating influence deepens, tends to tear down, with increasing violence, the antiquated barriers that seek to block humanity's progress towards its destined goal. The constructive process stands associated with the nascent Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, and is the harbinger of the New World Order that Faith must erelong establish. The destructive forces that characterize the other should be identified with a civilization that has refused to answer to the expectation of a new age, and is consequently falling into chaos and decline.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 169)

Also, as remarked upon earlier, while the organic growth of the Bahá’í Administrative Order adds to the derangement of the world’s equilibrium, this is of a different kind than that provoked by contending movements originating within the old order.  The disorder which the Bahá’í Community creates stems from setting human life, thought and society upon a new, divine foundation.  Bahá’u’lláh wrote in this regard: “The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 136)  The word, “revolutionize” does not mean to engage in such “revolutionary” activities as the toppling of governments by force and insurrection, but to revolve back to the root, the origin and source of human society itself.  This is accomplished through the agency of His unique and wondrous, divine social Order. That is, through the shaking of foundations He is revolving humanity back, through levels of disequilibrium, to the spiritual origins of its social life to set it firmly upon divine principles and revealed laws.  This will be the setting of a new foundation, the manifesting in organic social life of the eternal divine pattern called the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. 

A Necessary Distinction

No sooner had that Revelation been unveiled to men's eyes than the signs of universal discord appeared among the peoples of the world, and commotion seized the dwellers of earth and heaven, and the foundations of all things were shaken. The forces of dissension were released, the meaning of the Word was unfolded, and every several atom in all created things acquired its own distinct and separate character. Hell was made to blaze, and the delights of Paradise were uncovered to men's eyes.

(Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh: 296)

If we want to understand the difference between the efforts of the Bahá’i community to transform society and those of other progressive groups, an important distinction must be made.  The forces of dissension, the signs of universal discord and the commotion that are released with the coming of the Báb’s and Bahá’u’lláh’s  Revelations are not just all those clashes between angry protesters striving against entrenched oppressive powers that have been part of human history since the nineteenth century, such as those of the year 1848.  Dissension, discord and commotion are also generated by “positive” searches and progressive movements for a new meaningful order of human society.  Both protest and search have become global, as we read, yet they form but a disorganized conglomeration of movements. 

The reason that even positive movements for change originating within the old order become part of the forces of dissension is that taken together these movements lack any coordinating principle, supreme authority, universal value system, or comprehensive vision and plan that encompasses them.  Thus, they eventually begin competing with each other for influence and this makes them serve destructive ends.  They may be inspired by divine energy, but they lack the divine plan.  They receive the energy, but cannot effectively channel it for long or for enough people. 

Releasing the forces of dissension, then, is both the release of the anarchic forces of the lower nature and what happens when the tensions within the body politic, held together, in the absence of true religion, by a viscous bond of law, shared beliefs, common customs, and police patrols, are dissolved.  It is not Revelation that releases them from their latency; rather they release themselves from all constraint through the power—though they know not the Source—of His revelation.

From a larger and longer perspective, discord, tumult, and internal dissent are necessary to the process of social advance into a new social form.  Their role is to clear away the clotted bureaucracies, to dissolve the knots of prejudice and repression, to pry off the icy grip of entrenched power, so that new growth may happen.  Thus whatever disruptive influence they have is part of a larger process of greater integration.   

Shoghi Effendi explains: “The convulsions of this transitional and most turbulent period in the annals of humanity are the essential prerequisites, and herald the inevitable approach, of that Age of Ages, "the time of the end," in which the folly and tumult of strife that has, since the dawn of history, blackened the annals of mankind, will have been finally transmuted into the wisdom and the tranquility of an undisturbed, a universal, and lasting peace, in which the discord and separation of the children of men will have given way to the worldwide reconciliation, and the complete unification of the divers elements that constitute human society.” (The Promised Day is Come: 117)

Yet humanity cannot, unaided, fix the problems and challenges that it faces—perhaps because of a principle articulated by Einstein, namely, that problems cannot be solved using the same mentality that generated them. 

In 1931, in the darkest hours of the Great Depression, Shoghi Effendi summarized the impotence of human efforts: “Humanity, whether viewed in the light of man's individual conduct or in the existing relationships between organized communities and nations, has, alas, strayed too far and suffered too great a decline to be redeemed through the unaided efforts of the best among its recognized rulers and statesmen—however disinterested their motives, however concerted their action, however unsparing in their zeal and devotion to its cause. No scheme which the calculations of the highest statesmanship may yet devise; no doctrine which the most distinguished exponents of economic theory may hope to advance; no principle which the most ardent of moralists may strive to inculcate, can provide, in the last resort, adequate foundations upon which the future of a distracted world can be built. No appeal for mutual tolerance which the worldly-wise might raise, however compelling and insistent, can calm its passions or help restore its vigor. Nor would any general scheme of mere organized international cooperation, in whatever sphere of human activity, however ingenious in conception, or extensive in scope, succeed in removing the root cause of the evil that has so rudely upset the equilibrium of present-day society. Not even, I venture to assert, would the very act of devising the machinery required for the political and economic unification of the world—a principle that has been increasingly advocated in recent times—provide in itself the antidote against the poison that is steadily undermining the vigor of organized peoples and nations. What else, might we not confidently affirm, but the unreserved acceptance of the Divine Program enunciated, with such simplicity and force as far back as sixty years ago, by Bahá'u'lláh, embodying in its essentials God's divinely appointed scheme for the unification of mankind in this age, coupled with an indomitable conviction in the unfailing efficacy of each and all of its provisions, is eventually capable of withstanding the forces of internal disintegration which, if unchecked, must needs continue to eat into the vitals of a despairing society. It is towards this goal—the goal of a new World Order, Divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, equitable in principle, challenging in its features—that a harassed humanity must strive…. Is it not a fact—and this is the central idea I desire to emphasize—that the fundamental cause of this world unrest is attributable, not so much to the consequences of what must sooner or later come to be regarded as a transitory dislocation in the affairs of a continually changing world, but rather to the failure of those into whose   committed, to adjust their system of economic and political institutions to the imperative needs of a rapidly evolving age? Are not these intermittent crises that convulse present-day society due primarily to the lamentable inability of the world's recognized leaders to read aright the signs of the times, to rid themselves once for all of their preconceived ideas and fettering creeds, and to reshape the machinery of their respective governments according to those standards that are implicit in Bahá'u'lláh's supreme declaration of the Oneness of Mankind—the chief and distinguishing feature of the Faith He proclaimed?” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 33-34)

The revolts against materialism going on at three distinct levels within the world are generated by the spiritually energizing and socially organizing force of Revelation.  The materialist order cannot assimilate this new Power, for Revelation is not just energy but also new social and moral pattern. Under the impact.of both divine energy and pattern the established order buckles, then crumbles.   That progressive movements in thought and society contribute to the advance of human consciousness and society is certainly true. Yet, in my opinion, the best that these movements can accomplish is the building of the last stage of advance of the human order: certainly a good thing.  But they cannot build a divine order, and it is the divine order that is required today.

Hence, while what they do is good, it is not good enough to effect the necessary transformation in thought and action.  So long as they remain within the consciousness of the prevailing order and attempt to reform that order from within it, they must, to some degree, oppose and contend with other groups searching for solutions, with the established powers of the old and dying order, and with the Bahá’í community.