us,
or social--that has successfully survived the perennial blight of schism
and faction. The Baha'i community, in all its diversity, is a single body
of people, one in its understanding of the intent of the revelation of God
that gave it birth, one in its devotion to the Administrative Order that
its Author created for the governance of its collective affairs, one in
its commitment to the task of disseminating His message throughout the
planet. Over the decades of its rise, several individuals, some of them
highly placed and all of them driven by the spur of ambition, did their
utmost to create separate followings loyal to themselves or to the
personal interpretations they had imposed on Baha'u'llah's writings. At
earlier stages in the evolution of religion, similar attempts had proved
successful in splitting the newborn faiths into competing sects. In the
case of the Baha'i Cause, however, such intrigues have failed, without
exception, to produce more than transient outbursts of controversy whose
net effect has been to deepen the community's understanding of its
Founder's purpose and its commitment to it. "So powerful is the light of
unity", Baha'u'llah assures those who recognize Him, "that it can
illuminate the whole earth."(58) Human nature being what it is, one can
readily appreciate the Guardian's anticipation that this purifying process
will long continue--paradoxically but necessarily-- to be an integral
feature of the maturation of the Baha'i community.

"A corollary of the abandonment of faith in God has been a paralysis
of..."

A corollary of the abandonment of faith in God has been a paralysis of
ability to address effectively the problem of evil or, in many cases, even
to acknowledge it. While Baha'is do not attribute to the phenomenon the
objective existence it was assumed at earlier stages of religious history
to possess, the negation of the good that evil represents, as with
darkness, ignorance or disease, is severely crippling in its effect. Few
publishing seasons pass that do not offer the educated reader a range of
new and imaginative analyses of the character of some of the monstrous
figures who, during the twentieth century, systematically tortured,
degraded and exterminated millions of their fellow human beings. One is
invited by scholarly authority to ponder the weight that should be given,
variously, to paternal abuse, social rejection, professional
disappointments, poverty, injustice,