The Absence of Clergy

The prohibition is explicit rather than inferred. The Kitab-i-Aqdas abolishes the priesthood, forbids the pulpit as a raised place from which one person addresses the community with authority, abolishes auricular confession to another human being, and directs that asceticism and the monastic life be set aside in favour of work and family life within society. Alongside these the Baha writings make individual investigation of truth an obligation, so that a believer is not to accept a religious claim on the authority of another person.

The historical setting explains the force of it. The Bab and Baha'u'llah both taught in a Shia environment with a large, learned and powerful clerical establishment, and both faced its opposition directly. A revelation that removes the office removes the mechanism by which a religious class can stand between a person and the divine, and Baha writing presents this as the intended consequence rather than a side effect.

What replaces the office is a division of function. Elected bodies govern: Local and National Spiritual Assemblies, and the Universal House of Justice, first elected in 1963, which is the head of the Faith and which legislates on matters the scriptures leave open. Appointed individuals advise and encourage: Continental Counsellors and Auxiliary Board members, and formerly the Hands of the Cause of God, a rank now closed. Neither performs sacraments, hears confession, or interprets scripture on behalf of others.

Baha elections are conducted in a way designed to make a career impossible. There is no nomination, no candidacy, no campaigning and no discussion of individuals. Each elector writes nine names on a ballot in prayerful silence, and the nine receiving most votes constitute the Assembly for the year. Canvassing for oneself or another is regarded as disqualifying in spirit, and electioneering has no place in the system at all.

Decisions are taken by consultation, which is a defined process rather than a general disposition. An opinion offered in consultation is understood to become the property of the group rather than of the person who offered it, so it may be examined and abandoned without loss of face, and once a decision is taken the body supports it as one, including those who argued against it. The authority rests with the body and never with an individual member, who has no standing outside a meeting.

The practical consequence is that ordinary believers do everything a clergy would otherwise do. There is no officiant at a Baha marriage beyond the couple stating the prescribed verse before witnesses; funerals are conducted with a prayer that any believer may read; and the Nineteen Day Feast, the regular community gathering, has devotional, administrative and social portions in which readings are shared out rather than delivered as a sermon. A community without clergy is not a community without offices; it is one in which the offices belong to everybody in turn.