Dear Baha'i friends,
In reply to your letter of 4 July asking guidance as to what
is a functioning Local Spiritual Assembly, we offer you the following comments:
Local Spiritual Assemblies are at the present newly born
institutions, struggling for the most part to establish themselves both in the
Baha'i community and in the world. They are as yet only embryos of the majestic
institutions ordained by Baha'u'llah in His Writings. This is also true of
National Spiritual Assemblies. In the
following passage written by the Secretary of the Guardian on his behalf this
point is elucidated:
“The Baha'i Administration is only the first shaping of what
in future will come to be the social life and laws of community living. As yet
the believers are only just beginning to grasp and practice it properly. So we
must have patience if at times it seems a little self-conscious and rigid in
its workings. It is because we are learning something very difficult but very
wonderful -- how to live together as a community of Baha'is, according to the
glorious teachings.” (From letter dated 14 October 1941 to two believers)
What we find expounded in the writings of our Faith is the
lofty station Local Spiritual Assemblies must attain in their gradual and at
times painful development. In
encouraging these Assemblies to attain this aim, there is no harm in the
National Spiritual Assembly mentioning certain minimum requirements from time
to time, provided it is clear that non-attainment of such standards, which by
their very nature must be continuously revised with changing conditions, do not
justify the withdrawal of recognition from any weak Assemblies. It would not be profitable therefore for the
Universal House of Justice to lay down universal minimum standards for properly
functioning Local Spiritual Assemblies, as these must necessarily differ from
country to country, and even from district to district within the same country,
in the process of the evolution of these Assemblies into Houses of Justice, as
envisaged by Baha'u'llah.
