Why do they Deny the Continuance of the Guardianship?

Series of Questions continued from the posting of September 7, 2008

Q.5. What is the reason then why the present group of Baha’is under the leadership of the Haifa organization do not recognize the continuance of the Guardianship?
Ans. Upon the passing of Shoghi Effendi in November 1957, a majority of the Baha’is were tragically led astray from their former faithful adherence to the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha by the highly revered Hands of the Cause (distinguished and highly esteemed assistants appointed by the Guardian who serve under his direction) who, upon the passing of Shoghi Effendi, failed to recognize the import and significance of Shoghi Effendi’s appointment of Mason Remey as President of the first International Baha’i Council (the embryonic Universal House of Justice) over which according to the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha only the Guardian of the Faith presides as its “sacred head” and for this reason had been carefully retained by Shoghi Effendi as an inactive body, pending his passing. These Hands, losing sight of the fact that the Guardian must appoint his successor “in his own life-time” and therefore not by a conventional will and testament, upon not finding such a will, erroneously concluded that the Guardianship had come to a premature end. They then appointed a body of nine Hands from their own number, a body outside the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, which assumed the role and functions of the Guardianship and took control of the world administrative seat of the Faith in Haifa. Some six years later, in 1963,this body transferred the authority and functions it had illegitimately assumed to the UHJ in Haifa, a now headless and incomplete body in the absence of a presiding Guardian, whose successor elected bodies have been similarly named Universal Houses of Justice. It should be clearly understood that the Universal House of Justice established by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in His Will and Testament was designed as the supreme legislative body of the Faith, in contrast to the Guardianship who is endowed with supreme executive authority in the Faith, and for this reason these two institutions of the Baha’i Administrative Order are complementary and inseparable and have been referred to by Shoghi Effendi as the “twin institutions” of the Faith. As the so-called UHJ in Haifa is currently inappropriately exercising both executive and legislative functions, this body is therefore rightfully considered by Orthodox Baha’is to be a patently illegitimate body. Furthermore, under the terms of the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha the Guardian of the Faith, is not only designated the “Center of the Cause” and the sole interpreter of Baha’i Holy Writ but he is endowed, as well, with the essential function of presiding, for life, as “the sacred head” of the Universal House of Justice, and as the sole interpreter of the Words of Baha’u’llah, thereby insures that the UHJ does not consider, much less pass, any legislation that would be contrary to the spirit or meaning of the laws revealed by Baha’u’llah or would run counter to His utterances.

No Excuse in the Next World

WHAT WILL BE YOUR EXCUSE WHEN YOU MEET SHOGHI EFFENDI IN THE NEXT WORLD? (A POSSIBLE CREDIBLE SCENARIO)
SHOGHI EFFENDI’S UNDOUBTED INITIAL COMMENTS:
He would certainly say to you how greatly shocked, dismayed and saddened he had been, upon his passing, to note that so many of the believers, like yourself, who during his ministry had ostensibly evinced such faithful and steadfast faith in the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and firm belief in the sacredness and immutability of the divinely-conceived Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in which the Guardian of the Cause of God is named as “The Center of the Cause,” and “the sacred head and distinguished member for life” of the Universal House of Justice had then readily accepted, without question, the incredulous conclusion that had been hastily reached and proclaimed to the Bahá’í World by the Hands of the Cause, gathered in conclave at Akká but a few weeks following his passing, that the Guardianship had come to a premature end based on the transparently fallacious argument that because all of the Aghsán had either died or had been declared violators of the Covenant he had left no will and testament appointing a successor.
YOUR PROBABLE EXCUSE:
As you considered the Hands who had been appointed by Shoghi Effendi to this exalted rank were more conversant on the Teachings and the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá than you were, they must have been right in their conclusion that the Guardianship had come to an end......... >>>DETAIL<<<

An article by the Third Living Guardian of the Baha'i Faith Joel Bray Marangella.

“The Center of the Cause”

Series of Questions continued from the posting of August 5, 2008
Q.3. How, or on what basis, did he become Guardian of the Faith?

Ans: A very pertinent question to which there is a clear and unambiguous answer. His accession to the Guardianship was on the basis of his appointment in 1951 by his predecessor in Office, the second Guardian of the Faith, who had been appointed himself by the first Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, the Grandson of Abdu’l-Baha, the Son of the Founder of the Baha’i Faith, Baha’u’llah, Who had been named by Him the Center of His Covenant with the believers. Abdu’l-Baha delineated the Institutions of the Baha’i Administrative Order in His Will and Testament in which the Guardianship is designated as “The Center of the Cause” and an Institution that is occupied without interruption by a succession of Guardians, each appointed by his predecessor in that Office throughout the duration of the Dispensation of Baha’u’llah, promised by Him to endure at least a full thousand years.

Q.4. You maintain therefore that Joel Marangella became the third Guardian of the Faith strictly on the basis of the provisions of the “Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha?

Ans: Yes. But, although none of the Baha’is deny the authenticity of the Will and Testament of Abdu’l Baha and recognize it as Baha’i Holy Writ and a Document, in accordance with whose terms, Shoghi Effendi became the first Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, those Baha’is, under the leadership of the Haifa organization, have not recognized the fact that Shoghi Effendi, faithfully provided for the continuation of the Guardianship, in accordance with these same terms, in appointing as his successor, Mason Remey, a highly distinguished Hand of the Cause, who then, in turn, dutifully appointed as his successor, the present third Guardian of the Faith, Joel Marangella, also in accordance with these terms.