A Review of Shoghi Effendi's Vision of the Future as Expressed in The Advent of Divine Justice

      Shoghi Effendi in The Advent of Divine Justice provided the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada not only with the inspiration and instructions to carry out their teaching missions but also with a clear vision of their glorious future. North American Bahá'ís were to see themselves as the "spiritual descendants of the dawn-breakers ... usher[ing] in ... not by their death but through living sacrifice, that promised World Order, the shell ordained to enshrine that priceless jewel, the world civilization, of which the Faith itself is the sole begetter."^[1] Shoghi Effendi's vision of a world civilization, based on the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan,^[2] represented the stages through which the North American Bahá'ís would pass on their way to realizing their spiritual destiny. Shoghi Effendi's most important vision related to the Seven-Year Plan initiated in 1937 and then in its second year. He described it as "the first and practical step towards the fulfillment of the mission prescribed in those epoch-making Tablets [of 'Abdu'l-Bahá]..."^[3]

      Shoghi Effendi reminded the North American Bahá'ís, whose vision might have been limited to the completion of the Seven-Year Plan, that the consummation of this Plan could result in

no more than the formation of at least one center in each of the Republics of the Western Hemisphere, whereas the duties prescribed in those Tablets call for a wider diffusion, and imply the scattering of a far greater and more representative number of the members of the North American Bahá'í community over the entire surface of the New World.^[4]

      Little by little, Shoghi Effendi carefully spoon-fed the North American believers his vision of the larger plan embodied in the Tablets of the Divine Plan. Once their "inter-American tasks and responsibilities" were discharged, then their intercontinental mission "enters upon its most glorious and decisive phase," a phase which, according to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, would witness the American believers carrying the message of Bahá'u'lláh from the shores of America throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Islands of the Pacific. And once having accomplished this task, the American community, as promised by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, would "find it self [sic] securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion."^[6] However, even this great accomplishment would not mark the end of their mission. The future contained much more. "... who knows," Shoghi Effendi told the American believers, "but that when this colossal task has been accomplished a greater, a still more superb mission, incomparable in its splendor, and foreordained for them by Bahá'u'lláh, may not be thrust upon them?"^[7]

      Shoghi Effendi knew only too well what awaited the small community of North American believers in the days ahead. They could not expect to be spared the turmoil of the times. The strongholds of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi pointed out:

...one by one and day after day, are to outward seeming being successively isolated, assaulted and captured. As the lights of liberty flicker and go out, as the din of discord grows louder and louder every day, as the fires of fanaticism flame with increasing fierceness in the breasts of men, as the chill of irreligion creeps relentlessly over the soul of mankind, the limbs and organs that constitute the body of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh appear, in varying measure, to have become afflicted with the crippling influences that now hold in their grip the whole of the civilized world.^[8]

      Those of us too young to remember or who were not yet born can only imagine how Shoghi Effendi's vision of the possibilities awaiting the North American believers energized their spirits and illuminated their own limited vision. Think what it must have meant to those believers so small in number and only in the second year of the first plan, to read the inspiring words of Shoghi Effendi urging them on to new possibilities beyond their wildest dreams. In surveying the possibilities of the future, he mentioned the election of the Universal House of Justice and its establishment in the Holy Land; the gradual erection of the various dependencies of the first House of Worship in the West; the codification and promulgation of the ordinances of the Most Holy Book; the formation of officially recognized courts of Bahá'í law in certain countries of the East; the recognition by certain Islamic countries of the independent religious status of the Bahá'í national and local spiritual assemblies; the establishment and recognition of the Bahá'í Faith as a State religion; and finally the establishment of a Bahá'í nation, which Shoghi Effendi envisioned would "culminate in the emergence of the worldwide Bahá'í Commonwealth, animated wholly by the spirit, and operating solely in direct conformity with the laws and principles of Bahá'u'lláh."^[11]

      Achieving these possibilities of the future would not be easy. The task would be "long and arduous," but the North American believers would succeed because they were the "champion-builders of the mightiest institutions of the Faith of Bahá'u'llah."^[12] At times, the course would be "lost in the threatening shadows with which a stricken humanity is now enveloped, yet," according to Shoghi Effendi's vision, Bahá'u'lláh's unfailing light would continue to shine upon the North American believers with such brightness "that no earthly dusk" would ever "eclipse its splendor."^[13]

      Shoghi Effendi was no mere visionary ignoring the harsh realities of the present in some blind directionless quest for an amorphous future. His vision reflected the spiritual guidance of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, as well as the two-fold process of destruction and construction that was simultaneously transforming the entire planet. These interactive scenarios occupied much of Shoghi Effendi's vision of the future, and those Bahá'ís who witnessed the turmoil of the world through his vision tended to be less agitated by "the threatening shadows."

      Shoghi Effendi did not sacrifice an iota of harsh truth in his vision of the future. North American Bahá'ís were constantly cautioned about the obstacles that would be placed in their paths. Enemies "fierce, numerous, and unrelenting" would arise with "every acceleration in the progress of [their] mission," but if, Shoghi Effendi reminded the American believers, they persevered, "... the invisible Hosts ... must, as promised, rush forth to [their] aid..."^[14]
     
      What kind of people would be needed to carry out the challenges of the Seven-Year Plan and the subsequent plans? What types of people did Shoghi Effendi envision as the "spiritual descendants of the dawn-breakers" and the "champion-builders of the mightiest institutions of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh"? And how would they contribute both to the teaching and consolidation of the Bahá'í Faith and the spiritual regeneration of their compatriots?

      First of all, in Shoghi Effendi's vision the new race of people, which would be called into being by the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, would remain "wholely unrecognized and completely obscured," unless the Bahá'ís made a sharp distinction between themselves and the "people from which God has raised them up." Bahá'ís of the United States in particular were informed by Shoghi Effendi that they were not chosen by Bahá'u'lláh to play a leading role in the birth of the world civilization because of any "inherent excellence" or "special merit" of their country or people. Instead it was only because of the "patent evils" and "excessive and binding materialism" of the United States and its people that Bahá'u'lláh and Abdu'l-Bahá had "singled it out to become the standard-bearer of the New World Order." For only in this way can Bahá'u'lláh, Shoghi Effendi pointed out,

demonstrate to a heedless generation His almighty power to raise up from the very midst of a people, immersed in a sea of materialism, a prey to one of the most virulent and long-standing forms of racial prejudice, and notorious for its political corruption, lawlessness and laxity in moral standards, men and women who, as time goes by, will increasingly exemplify those essential virtues that will fit them for the preponderating share they will have in calling into being that World Order and that World Civilization of which their country, no less than the entire human race, stands in desperate need.^[15]

      One cannot overestimate the spiritual and social significance of Shoghi Effendi's vision of the future. As we read The Advent of Divine Justice, it is imperative we realize that his vision contains not only spiritual goals but also the necessary loving guidance to reach the goals. Yet, within his vision are firm admonitions. Shoghi Effendi told the American Bahá'ís in no uncertain terms that the new world order they were struggling to establish could "never be reared unless and until the generality of the people to which they belong has been already purged from the divers ills, whether social or political, that now so severely afflict it."^[17]

      For the North American Bahá'ís to fulfil their spiritual destiny, they first had to meet certain spiritual requirements, which included "a high sense of moral rectitude in their social and administrative activities, absolute chastity in their individual lives, and complete freedom from prejudice in their dealings with peoples of a different race, class, creed, or color." Each one of these spiritual prerequisites as envisioned by Shoghi Effendi directly influenced the establishment of the New World Order. The first one, while not exclusively directed to the elected representatives, was specifically addressed to them because of their responsibility for "laying an unassailable foundation for [the] Universal House of Justice." The second spiritual prerequisite was addressed to the youth, who in the vision of Shoghi Effendi, would "contribute so decisively to the virility, the purity, and the driving force of the life of the Bahá'í community, and upon whom must depend the future orientation of its destiny, and the complete unfoldment of the potentialities with which God has endowed it."^[18] In Shoghi Effendi's vision of the future, Bahá'í youth, if they led a "chaste and holy life," would contribute to the "future progress and orientation of the youth of their own country."^[19] This would be their special mission. The third requirement, freedom from prejudice, unlike the other two spiritual prerequisites, was addressed to all Bahá'ís of whatever age, rank, experience, class, or color.^[20]

      Perhaps no other problem concerned Shoghi Effendi more than racial prejudice in American society. He called it "the corrosion of which, for well nigh a century, has bitten into the fiber, and attacked the whole social structure of American society" and said it should be "regarded as constituting the most vital and challenging issue confronting the Bahá'í community at the present stage of its evolution."^[21] His vision of future race relations in the American Bahá'í community was uncommonly accurate for someone viewing such events from afar. He told Bahá'ís of both races that they faced "a long and thorny road beset with pitfalls," which "still remains untraveled." And he cautioned them that "on the distance they cover" and "the manner in which they travel that road, must depend ... the operation of those intangible influences which are indispensible to the spiritual triumph of the American believers and the material success of their newly launched enterprise."^[22]

      Shoghi Effendi's vision of future race relations within the American Bahá'í community allowed no compromise. Bahá'ís of all ages and social backgrounds were expected to contribute to the solution of the vexing problems standing in the way of the American community's realizing its spiritual destiny. Freedom from racial prejudice should be "deliberately cultivated through the various and everyday opportunities, no matter how insignificant whether in their homes, their business offices, their schools and colleges, their social parties and recreation grounds, their Bahá'í meetings, conferences, conventions, summer schools and Assemblies." And above all else, it should become "the keynote" of the national spiritual assembly.^[23]

      In sharp contrast to prevailing racial theories and practices, Shoghi Effendi outlined what American Bahá'ís should do to solve the racial problems within the Bahá'í community. Both races had to contribute their share to the solution of this vexing problem, tear down the barriers that divided them, and "endeavor, day and night, to fulfill their particular responsibilities in the common task which so urgently faces them." While he encouraged both races to contribute their share to the solution of this problem, he reminded them of the warnings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and told them to "visualize, while there is yet time, the dire consequences that must follow if this challenging and unhappy situation that faces the entire American nation is not definitely remedied."^[24]

      Unfortunately, America did not have long to wait; the "dire consequences" were only a few years away. In the early 1940s, the worst race riot in American history up to that time broke out in Detroit. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's and Shoghi Effendi's predictions of the dire future consequences of unresolved racial conflicts in America had been all too painfully true, a truth that would become increasingly apparent in the turbulent 1960s.^[25]

      Shoghi Effendi's vision of how American Bahá'ís of both races should mutually contribute to racial harmony within the Bahá'í community in preparation for their role in helping their nation rid itself of racial conflicts represented an approach unprecedented in American race relations.^[26] Both races were assigned specific responsibilities. White Bahá'ís were to

make a supreme effort in their resolve to contribute their share to the solution of this problem, to abandon once [and] for all their usually inherent and at times subconscious sense of superiority, to correct their tendency towards revealing a patronizing attitude towards the members of the other race, to persuade them through their intimate, spontaneous and informal association with them of the genuineness of their friendship and the sincerity of their intentions, and to master their impatience of any lack of responsiveness on the part of a people who have received, for so long a period, such grievous and slow-healing wounds.^[27]

believe, and be firmly convinced, that on their mutual understanding, their amity, and sustained cooperation, must depend, more than on any other force or organization operating outside the circle of their Faith, the deflection of that dangerous course so greatly feared by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and the materialization of the hopes He cherished for their joint contribution to the fulfillment of that country's glorious destiny.^[28]

      The American Bahá'í community, therefore, has a "double crusade," envisioned by Shoghi Effendi as the necessary process for establishing the foundation for the future role America will play in the establishment of the New World Order: First to "regenerate the inward life of their own community, and next to assail the long-standing evils that have entrenched themselves in the life of their nation." Once again, he outlined both the hardships and the victories awaiting Bahá'ís in the future. Their Faith would be attacked, their

motives misconstrued, their aims defamed, their aspirations derided, their institutions scorned, their influence belittled, their authority undermined, and their Cause, at times, deserted by a few who will either be incapable of appreciating the nature of their ideals, or unwilling to bear the brunt of the mounting criticisms which such a contest is sure to involve.^[29]

The voice of criticism is a voice that indirectly reinforces the proclamation of its Cause. Unpopularity but serves to throw into greater relief the contrast between it [the Faith] and its adversaries, while ostracism is itself the magnetic power that must eventually win over to its camp the most vociferous and inveterate amongst its foes.^[30]

      As already mentioned, Shoghi Effendi's vision of the future represented the stepwise unfoldment of the larger vision of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdul-Bahá. All along the way, the North American Bahá'ís were constantly nurtured by the loving guidance of the Guardian. They had only his vision to reassure them that the foundation they were laying would make possible the building of the future World Order. The teaching requirements of the Seven-Year Plan were crucial to the laying of this foundation. "The entire community," Shoghi Effendi wrote, "must, as one man, arise to fulfill them." Teaching the Faith occupied the center of Shoghi Effendi's vision of building the New World Order. And in this vision, every Bahá'í was expected to participate, "however humble their origin, however limited their experience, however restricted their means, however deficient their education, however pressing their cares and preoccupations, however unfavorable the environment in which they live."^[32] Only teaching the Faith would "rescue a fallen and sore-tried generation that has rebelled against its God and ignored His warnings," and only teaching the Faith could offer that generation the "complete security which only the strongholds of their Faith can provide."^[33]

      No doubt only a few Bahá'ís of the time fully understood the historical and spiritual ramifications of the Seven-Year Plan. This teaching campaign, the first of a series of such efforts, would embrace "all the races, all the republics, classes and denominations of the entire Western Hemisphere. Teaching the Faith to diverse racial groups was essential to the success of the teaching plan. As Shoghi Effendi envisioned such effort, "No more laudable and meritorious service can be rendered the Cause of God, at the present hour, than a successful effort to enhance the diversity of the members of the American Bahá'í community by swelling the ranks of the Faith through the enrollment of the members of these races."^[34]

      The Guardian's emphasis upon enrolling diverse racial groups--such as blacks, Natives, and Inuit--in the American Bahá'í community could not be compared to the missionary efforts of other religions that all too often adopted a patronizing stance towards the enrollment of racial minorities. Such traditional approaches were based upon the racist assumption that minorities had nothing to contribute but everything to gain from converting from their native religions to the religion of the missionaries. In sharp contrast to this approach, minorities, within Shoghi Effendi's vision of their role in the building of the New World Order, were vitally needed for their contribution to "the enrichment and glory of Bahá'í community life." Such an achievement Shoghi Effendi wrote, "must warm and thrill every Bahá'í heart."^[35] Inspired by 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan, Shoghi Effendi could see the tremendous spiritual power that such racial groups would contribute to the growth and expansion of the Bahá'í world community and in the process elevate themselves to a level unattainable outside of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh.

      Imagine the difficulty some Bahá'ís must have had in envisioning such contributions emanating from racial groups so long placed beyond the pale by their compatriots. Of all people, how could Natives, blacks, and Inuit rise sufficiently above their historical degradation to contribute to the development of a New World Order? But Shoghi Effendi saw it all unfolding before the disbelieving eyes of the world. Similarly some American Bahá'ís might have doubted that central and southern America would play an important role in the unfolding of the New World Order. Yet Shoghi Effendi's vision of that region's future--in sharp contrast to many of his contemporaries--was one in which it was "destined to play an increasingly important part in the shaping of the world's future destiny."^[36] No longer could North Americans and Europeans relegate this region to the margins of world history. "With the world contracting into a neighborhood, and the fortunes of its races, nations and peoples becoming inextricably interwoven," Shoghi Effendi informed his readers, "the remoteness of these states of the Western Hemisphere is vanishing, and the latent possibilities in each of them are becoming increasingly apparent."^[37]

      It was hoped the North American Bahá'ís would contribute to this development of the region's "latent possibilities." All they had to do was to follow Shoghi Effendi's guidance. Once the North American Bahá'ís had set up "at least one nucleus in each of these virgin states and provinces in the North American continent," he instructed them, "the machinery for a tremendous intensification of Bahá'í concerted effort must be set in motion, the purpose of which should be the reinforcement of the noble exertions which only a few isolated believers are now making for the awakening of the nations of Latin America to the Call of Bahá'u'lláh."^[38]

      This second phase of the teaching campaign under the Seven-Year Plan constituted a critical step in the overall grand design of that period. As Shoghi Effendi put it: "Not until this second phase of the teaching campaign... has been entered can the campaign be regarded as fully launched, or the Plan itself as having attained the most decisive stage in its evolution."^[39] Furthermore, this phase had such historical significance that only Shoghi Effendi could adequately envision its ramifications: "Upon this campaign must depend not only the effectual discharge of the solemn obligations undertaken in connection with the present Plan, but also the progressive unfoldment of the subsequent stages essential to the realization of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's vision of the part the American believers are to play in the worldwide propagation of their Cause."^[40]

      For Bahá'í pioneers to fulfill the obligations of the second phase of the teaching campaign, they had to acquire and develop attitudes and behaviors consistent with the spiritual purposes of their mission. Operating in a region where the image of North America was not always positive and where the indigenous peoples had been exploited for centuries by Church and State, with the former rationalizing the oppression by the latter, Bahá'í pioneers and settlers had a great task ahead of them. That they succeeded was due in no small part to the manner in which Shoghi Effendi prepared and assisted them in envisioning how to interact with the peoples of the various countries in which they would pioneer. "Every laborer in those fields," Shoghi Effendi instructed,

should, I feel, make it his chief and constant concern to mix, in a friendly manner, with all sections of the population, irrespective of class, creed, nationality, or color, to familiarize himself with their ideas, tastes, and habits, to study the approach best suited to them, to concentrate, patiently and tactfully, on a few who have shown marked capacity and receptivity, and to endeavor, with extreme kindness, to implant such love, zeal, and devotion in their hearts as to enable them to become in turn self-sufficient and independent promoters of the Faith in their respective localities.^[41]

      As already mentioned, Bahá'í youth of North America were expected to do their part in the unfolding of the New World Order. Acknowledging their lack of experience and resources, Shoghi Effendi did not hesitate to offer them a role in the teaching campaign. His vision of their possibilities included their "adventurous spirit ... vigor, ... alertness, and optimism which they had already demonstrated. These characteristics, Shoghi Effendi stated, qualified these youth "to play an active part in arousing the interest, and in securing the allegiance, of their fellow youth in those countries." What greater demonstration could be "given to the peoples of both continents of the youthful vitality and the vibrant power animating the life, and the institutions of the nascent Faith of Bahá'u'lláh than an intelligent, persistent, and effective participation of the Bahá'í youth, of every race, nationality, and class, in both the teaching and administrative spheres of Bahá'í activity."^[42]

      Only Shoghi Effendi had the vision to see that such participation by Bahá'í youth would demonstrate to critics and enemies of the Faith "watching with varying degrees of skepticism and resentment, the evolutionary processes of the Cause of God and its institutions ... that such a Cause is intensely alive, is sound to its very core, and its destinies in safe keeping." Shoghi Effendi hoped and prayed that such participation of Bahá'í youth would not only "redound to the glory, the power, and the prestige of the Faith, but may also react so powerfully on the spiritual lives, and galvanize to such an extent the energies of the youthful members of the Bahá'í community, as to empower them to display, in a fuller measure, their inherent capacities, and to unfold a further stage in their spiritual evolution under the shadow of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh."^[43]

      After outlining the qualities and qualifications necessary for them to fulfill their responsibilities in the Seven-Year Plan, Shoghi Effendi returned to the theme of the harsh realities that faced the American Bahá'ís. He envisioned a future "pregnant with events of unimaginable magnitude, with ordeals more severe than any that humanity has as yet experienced, with conflicts more devastating than any which have preceded them." But such ordeals and dangers

must, at no time, dim the radiance of their new-born faith. Strife and confusion, however bewildering, must never befog their vision. Tribulations, however afflictive, must never shatter their resolve. Denunciations, however clamorous, must never sap their loyalty. Upheavals, however cataclysmic, must never deflect their course. The present Plan, embodying the budding hopes of a departed Master, must be pursued, relentlessly pursued...^[44]

that the synchronization of such world-shaking crises with the progressive unfoldment and fruition of their divinely appointed task is itself the work of Providence, the design of an inscrutable Wisdom, and the purpose of an all-compelling Will, a Will that directs and controls, in its own mysterious way, both the fortunes of the Faith and the destinies of men. Such simultaneous processes of rise and of fall, of integration and of disintegration, of order and chaos, with their continuous and reciprocal reactions on each other, are but aspects of a greater Plan, one and indivisible, whose Source is God, whose author is Bahá'u'lláh, the theater of whose operations is the entire planet, and whose ultimate objectives are the unity of the human race and the peace of all mankind.^[45]

      This review of Shoghi Effendi's vision of the future, as expressed in The Advent of Divine Justice, is far from complete. I hope that it has at least directed some attention to the vast scope of the Guardian's vision and his tremendous faith in the ability of the North American Bahá'í community to carry out the first step in the long process that is destined to establish the New World Order. Bahá'ís and non-Bahá'ís who study this book must never forget the historical period in which it was written. While the world stood poised on the brink of yet another war, led by Germany and Japan gone mad with expansionist dreams of world dominance, within the seething cauldron of a worldwide depression, Shoghi Effendi, guided by divine Revelation, instructed the North American Bahá'í community how best to rescue a world lost in its own folly.

Notes

[1]       Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1984) 7.
[2]       'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of the Divine Plan, rev. ed. (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1977).
[3]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 11--12.
[4]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 12.
[5]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 13.
[6]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 13.
[7]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 13.
[8]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 5.
[9]       Shoghi Effendi, Advent 13--14.
[10]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 6.
[11]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 15.
[12]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 15.
[13]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 15--16.
[14]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 16.
[15]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 19-20.
[16]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 20.
[17]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 21.
[18]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 22.
[19]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 30.
[20]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 22.
[21]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 33--34.
[22]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 34.
[23]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 36.
[24]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 40.
[25]     Joseph Boskin, Urban Racial Violence in the Twentieth Century (Beverly Hills: Glencoe Press, 1976) 56--60, 101--50.
[26]     This approach was unique and appears to have been tried only by Bahá'ís.
[27]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 40.
[28]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 40-41.
[29]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 41--42.
[30]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 42.
[31]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 43.
[32]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 45.
[33]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 48.
[34]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 54.
[35]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 54.
[36]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 59.
[37]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 59.
[38]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 58.
[39]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 58.
[40]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 63.
[41]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 65.
[42]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 69--70.
[43]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 70.
[44]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 72.
[45]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 72--73.
[46]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 87.
[47]     Shoghi Effendi, Advent 91.