Shoghi Effendi Never Gave Anyone Else
the Right to Expel Believers

        Anyone who has paid attention to the statements that the Wilmette/Haifa Bahá’ís have made in opposition to those whom their leaders have labelled as "Covenant-breakers" will find that the Wilmette/Haifa Bahá’ís say that the so-called "Covenant-breakers" are guilty of distorting the sacred texts or of fabricating materials, or of falsely identifying certain statements as coming from the Bahá’í writings. It is for this reason, therefore, that those of us who have been the target of such accusations are now placing on this website facsimile copies of certain pages from issues of the American Bahá’í News which conclusively prove that we are not inventing statements that are matters of historical record.

        Along with other documents on this website the inquirer can see the following facsimile pages:

1) The first page of the Bahá’í News of February 1951 in which Shoghi Effendi proclaims the formation of the embryonic Universal House of Justice.

2) Page eight from the Bahá’í News of June 1950 which carries Shoghi Effendi's interpretation related to "the day which will not be followed by night." (See the statement under the heading "Divine Guidance.")

3) Page one of the Bahá’í News of 1955 which shows the Hands cannot overrule the Guardian. (See our article "Neither the Hands Nor the UHJ have the Authority to Overrule the Guardian")

        Within this brief article the inquirer is encouraged to view page two from the American Bahá’í News of June 1949 whereon is found the Guardian's position "On Expulsion and Reinstatement of Covenant-Breakers." It is a position that prior to his death in 1957 he did not change, a position that, as can be seen, withholds from everyone else the power to expel persons from the Faith for Covenant-breaking.

        So how could the Hands in 1960 expel Mason Remey and his followers from the Faith? Where were the Hands given the right by Shoghi Effendi to excommunicate his successor and those who accepted him? Indeed, upon what basis could the Hands level Covenant-breaking charges against those who continued to abide by every clause of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's sacred Will?

        Do the writings of the Faith state that disagreement with the Hands of the Cause constitutes Covenant-breaking?

        Of fundamental importance: where in the writings of Shoghi Effendi between 1949 and November of 1957 is there any evidence that the Hands were entrusted by him with the power to become a collective Guardian and to have the power to determine when certain persons displayed "that diseased condition we call 'Covenant- breaking'?

        The fact is that Shoghi Effendi never changed the position which is provided on the facsimile page of the Bahá’í News of June 1949 and which is provided here for ease of reading:

The Guardian, like the Master before him, has not considered it advisable to as yet permit any person or Assembly to put another person out of the Cause of God. There is a sharp distinction between depriving a believer of his voting rights, which is a severe disciplinary measure and not a spiritual sanction, and pronouncing a former believer to be a truly spiritually diseased soul, a soul in the condition the Master referred to when, in His last cable to America before His ascension, He said: 'he who sitteth with a leper catcheth leprosy'. The Guardian has, within the last few years, considered the National Assemblies strong enough to wield the instrument of sanction in the sense of depriving a Bahá’í of his voting rights. But no one but himself can pronounce a person to be in that diseased condition we call "Covenant-breaking", and no one but he can reinstate a Covenant-breaker. No National Assembly has been given this right and cannot, therefore, review the question or reinstate any one. All any National Assembly can do is to report to the Guardian if they are approached by a Covenant-breaker, and then the Guardian will take action. It is a pity that some of the Western friends, with remarkable naivete, do not grasp the fact that there is absolutely nothing keeping those who have broken the Covenant, whether Bahá’u’lláh's or the Master's, out of the Cause of God except their own inner spiritually sick condition. If they were sound, instead of diseased, and wanted to enter the service of the Faith, they would apply direct to the Guardian and he would be able to adjudge of their sincerity and, if sincere, would welcome them into the ranks of the faithful as he did with Sydney Sprague. Unfortunately, a man who is ill is not made well just by asserting there is nothing wrong with him! Facts, actual states, are what count. Probably no group of people in the world have softer tongues, or proclaim more loudly their innocence than those who in their heart of hearts, and by their every act, are enemies of the Center of the Covenant. The Master well knew this and that is why He said we must shun their company, but pray for them. If you put a leper in a room with heathy people, he cannot catch their health; on the contrary they are very likely to catch his horrible ailment.