The Next Stage

by Douglas Martin

About: The failure of the generality of humankind to recognize the relevance of Bahá’u’lláh’s message results largely from a prevailing prejudice against any spiritually-based solutions for social dysfunction. With the opening of the twenty-first century, however, the efficacy of the solutions proffered by Bahá’u’lláh could not be more obvious. The Bahá’í community itself constitutes unarguable evidence of the transformative power of His Message. Consequently, its members – and particularly the scholars among them — find themselves at a stage in the Faith’s development wherein they can and must construct a discourse that will free the subject from the presumptions of what Shoghi Effendi termed a “haughty intellectualism.” As Bahá’ís take on this challenge, the Association for Bahá’í Studies will indeed open avenues through which knowledge of the Bahá’í Cause may legitimately find expression in institutions of higher learning.