The holey Baha'i Covenant

"Yeah I never understood the splinter groups obsession with continuing the guardianship." Just finished reading William Garlington's The Baha'i Faith in America, it explains a lot about this obsession. For Mason Remey, and many other Baha'is, it was inconceivable, unimaginable, that there not be a living hereditary guardian because a living hereditary guardian had been specifically mentioned by Abdu'l-Baha' in his W&T as an integral part of the future Baha'i administrative order as permanent head of the UHJ. And Abdu'l-Baha' being infallible couldn't have erred in this, couldn't have been wrong, could he? For some it became obvious that for the Guardianship to end would mean that they would as well have to admit to, accept, Abdu'l-Baha's humanity, Abdu'l-Baha's fallibility, some Baha'is couldn't go there, most are still in denial. As well in several places in Shoghi Effendi's writings the existence of a future Guardian is clearly stated, Shoghi Effendi couldn't have been wrong, couldn't have been fallible, could he? Thus Mason who was a pillar of the Baha'i community, a Hand of the Cause, a favourite of Abdu'l-Baha's, appointed by Shoghi Effendi to head The International Baha'i Council, could not fathom that god had changed his mind (bada) in regards to an ongoing Guardianship, couldn't accept that Abdu'l-Baha's W&T was flawed. Mason was intellectually honest enough to understand what the implications were of the W&T of Abdu'l-Baha' being shown to be imperfect, shown to be a merely human document in no way perfectly, 'infallibly', divine. Thus the Hands decided to take control over the affairs of the Baha'i Faith even though they had no authority to proceed in that manner. What these Baha'i elites did was behave as religious elites usually do, ignore the masses of believers and do what they personally choose to do without consulting with those masses. A more democratic, dare I say more spiritual way to proceed would have been to go to the greater Baha'i community itself and see what Baha'is themselves thought, what Baha'is themselves believed. Obviously these religious elites didn't trust the masses of Baha'i believers, didn't feel that they were capable or worthy of collectively deciding for themselves the direction their religion should take.

By Larry Rowe
Source : TRB