Each Local Spiritual
Assembly should become the heart and nerve center of its community. The
Assemblies should be so educated and equipped with guidance from you that they
become pillars of strength for the believers, and sources of knowledge and
guidance. The Local Assemblies should neither be like private agents prying
into the lives of the believers and seeking out their personal problems, nor
should they condone glaring disregard of the Holy Laws. Whenever it becomes
known that one of the believers is flagrantly disobeying the Teachings of the Faith,
whether spiritual, ethical, moral or administrative, the Assemblies should not
allow such a situation to become a source of backbiting among the friends or
deteriorate into either the loss of the dignity of the Teachings in the eyes of
the Bahá’ís and non-Bahá’ís, or the eventual inactivity of the believers, as
you have observed. The Assemblies, with the encouragement and under the
continuous guidance of your National Assembly, should, in the name of
protecting the interests of the Faith, themselves initiate action for the
solution of the problem, and handle it with love, wisdom and firmness.
(Letter from the
Universal House of Justice, dated November 12, 1965, to a National Spiritual
Assembly)
