Two recent e-mails to the Mother Bahá'í Council of the United States referred to "the need for fellowship and the need not to split the faith into sects" and called for Orthodox Bahá'ís to "abandon your childish ways" and "come back to the fold." The exact messages (with misspelled words corrected) are as follows:
Message 1 from a heterodox believer:
Leave it to Americans to try to instill their own interpretations of the group. If you and your members were true Bahá'ís you would understand the need for fellowship and the need not to split the faith into sects. That obviously was the downfall of all older religions, (Christianity for example). If you truly honor and believe in the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá you would stop this selfish senseless bickering. You are in no way honoring the Messenger of this time by your actions.
It truly saddens me to find an organization like yours trying to split and de-value what the rest of the Bahá'ís are trying to accomplish. To achieve world peace it must start now between your organization and the true faith. Come home and abandon your childish ways. If you love God and love humanity, look into your heart and see that what you are doing is only causing more grief and it is confusing to the friends that have not heard the new message.
Message 2 from a heterodox believer:
It is amazing that you would uphold the terror that the government of Iran is placing upon people of different faiths. Two men were recently executed for believing something different than what the government believes. To align yourself with a people as this proves that you are self-serving. Come back to the fold and stop this talk.
The writer(s) of these two messages labor(s) under an impression that is apparently widespread within the sans-Guardian organization. The heterodox believers seem to feel that it does not matter whether their organization is right or wrong. They seem to think that what is important is only to be united.
However, such a view is tragically erroneous, for to be united while following a wrong course can only lead to disaster.
The writer of the first message was therefore informed that there is a basic problem with his position. Since the sans-Guardian believer had suggested the need to truly honor and believe in the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, he was informed that it was 'Abdu'l- Bahá Himself in His Will and Testament who said that it was incumbent upon Shoghi Effendi "to appoint in his own life-time him that shall become his successor, that differences may not arise after his passing." As a consequence, the heterodox believer was asked: "Who is now interpreting those words to account for a sans-Guardian administration of the Cause?"
It is not the Orthodox Bahá'ís who espouse such an interpretation! Indeed, when one identifies himself or herself as an Orthodox Bahá'í, the individual accepts every clause of the Master's sacred Will--all the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in that Document. But such is not the case of the sans-Guardian Bahá'ís. Beginning in 1957 their leadership disavowed the Master's Will. Thus it is they, the sans-Guardian believers, who do not honor and believe in the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
Then, too, upon what basis can one attribute selfishness and bickering to the Orthodox Bahá'ís? How are Orthodox Bahá'ís dishonoring the Messenger of this time?
Should the believers in the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh unite under an administration which is obviously flawed because it does not contain its supreme Institution, namely, the Center of the Cause, the Guardian of the Faith? The Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá calls for the Guardian of the Faith to be the "sacred head" of the Universal House of Justice. The heterodox organization's UHJ is minus its sacred head, and, as noted above, the reason for that beheading goes back to the 1957 interpretation of the Hands of the Faith that Shoghi Effendi had not appointed his successor.
The Hands of the Faith were never given the interpretative power of the Cause. They were never vested with infallibility, and the writings clearly state that they are to operate only under the guidance of the living Guardian of the Faith. Thus, when the Hands took over the Faith in 1957, they set out to establish an administration which is different from that enunciated by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and clarified by Shoghi Effendi. So why should people unite on that which is clearly outside the Faith?
Such is the response that was made to the first message.
The writer of the second message apparently misread some of the material that is to be found on our Home Pages. That individual claimed that the Orthodox Bahá'ís are upholding "the terror that the government of Iran is placing upon people of different faiths." The individual apparently felt that our article dealing with heresy within the Bahá'í Faith somehow implies that the Iranian government is right in persecuting Bahá'ís. The sans-Guardian believer surely missed the following sentence in that article: "Certainly, the abhorrence of the peoples of the world toward what has happened to the Bahá'ís in Iran is fully justified."
Truly, Orthodox Bahá'ís, like sans-Guardian believers, are appalled that a government can exercise the kinds of terrorism, bestiality, injustice, and the flagrant abuse of humanity that the Iranian government has exercised against the Bahá'ís. Nobody should have to fear anyone else simply because his or her beliefs are different from others. Emphatically, then, Orthodox Bahá'ís are totally against all forms of oppression.
At the same time, though, all of us need to be fully aware of what our beliefs are and how we have arrived at those beliefs. And in the case of sans-Guardian Bahá'ís, those who now follow the sans-Guardian Universal House of Justice need to recognize that they are no longer building the Administrative Order that was delineated and explained by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. Orthodox Bahá'ís, therefore, maintain that the heterodox organization is pursuing a heretical course.
In light of the preceding, it should be clear that the current estrangement between the heterodox Bahá'ís and the Orthodox Bahá'ís cannot be remedied by members of the Orthodox Faith joining "the fold" of the sans-Guardian Faith. Appeals for unity are wonderful appeals, if all the believers in Bahá'u'lláh could be united within the true Faith. But it must be borne in mind that to unite under a false banner would be foolish in the extreme, and those who would call for such unity should be reminded of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's words in His Will and Testament: "the Center of Sedition waxed haughty and rebellious and with divine unity for his excuse deprived himself and perturbed and poisoned others."
From 1957 until the present-day, those under the sans-Guardian UHJ have repeatedly used the theme of "unity" as the supreme watchword for their organization. But true unity must be founded on the Word and the Word in this Day can only be kept pure as long as there is a living Guardian as the Center of the Cause.
Those who have read the last page of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will know what He said about seeking guidance. He said that all must "turn unto the Center of the Cause and the House of Justice." It is not the House of Justice minus the Guardian to whom the believers must turn. They must first turn to the Center of the Cause: the Guardian of the Faith.
The heterodox organization does not have a living Guardian. And without a living Guardian that organization cannot achieve unity on the Word. Orthodox Bahá'ís believe that to join the sans-Guardian organization would be to join with those who are outside the true administrative pattern for the Faith.