 Friends, it's a pleasure to be here with you all tonight. The work that the Association for Baha'i Studies is doing is quite a challenging range of tasks. And the letter that came last year from the Universal House of Justice came as a result of a couple of years, really, of consulting about the intellectual life of the Baha'i community and looking not just at what was being done in North America, but also in other parts of the world as well. And so, of course, with some 40 years of effort in this endeavor of scholarly activity, we're clearly not starting from scratch. But what the House of Justice hoped to do was to try to reinforce and reinvigorate and refocus a little bit some of the efforts that were underway in the world, and hopefully to accelerate and allow the friends in different parts of the world to be able to build on what's come before. So tonight, I'm going to share with you some ideas. But I just want to make it clear that these are my personal ideas. So you can always read what the House of Justice wrote and decide whether you agree with me or not. That's fine. Now, friends, many years ago when Shogha Fendi was trying to educate the Baha'is of the world about the concept of administration, he saw that they were struggling. I mean, they weren't fully aware that some thought that the Baha'i Faith couldn't be organized at all. They were surprised by some of the things Shogha Fendi was explaining to them. And so he patiently worked with them as they made different mistakes and challenges arose. And he would patiently answer their questions and try to focus them on their work. But one of the things the Guardian pointed out was one of the problems that the friends face. He said, one of the main reasons why the faith does not advance more rapidly is because the friends have not learned to live with and work within the framework of the administrative order. Either they crystallize it into two set of form or they rebel against what they feel to be a system and do not give it sufficient support. Both of these extremes impede the progress of the faith and the efficiency of the believers. So on the one hand, the friends would turn the administration into a kind of formula or a recipe for action and become quite rigid. On the other hand, seeking to be free of any kind of structure, they rejected the system completely. And in response to this, then Shogha Fendi evoked the idea of a framework, the framework of the administrative order. So within that frame, within that structure, within that matrix could come then all the concepts and elements and methods and instruments that are embedded in the teachings about the administration. But if we draw just some of those pieces, well, we tend to get maybe rigid and mechanical about it. And if we look at so much of it that we wanna do whatever we want, we tend to go to the other extreme. So he called the friends back again and again to understand the whole framework of the administration. And then they could begin to work patiently and continue to draw on insights from the teachings about the administration. And gradually, as they translated those concepts in the action, their understanding of the framework could grow deeper and could evolve over time. Now the House of Justice resorted to the same concept of a framework in the work of expansion and consolidation, which again, you're all familiar with now. And since 1996, we've been working to try to act in a systematic manner in our teaching work according to the framework for action laid out in the plan. Again, if you go back and you study and you look at many decades of work in the teaching field, what you saw before 1996 was a tendency to go in one or two directions. We had communities where we could easily enroll large number of people, but we struggled with the idea of building a community and consolidating those numbers. In other communities, it was tougher to teach, but then we could focus a great deal on the consolidation effort. And then we would become generally small, very well-administered, but generally inward-looking. So the House of Justice then introduced this idea of a framework to again, to think of all of these elements together, all the concepts and ideas that the teachings contain about the concept of growth, but then also set us in motion with simple steps initially that could gradually grow in complexity and our understanding of this framework could become deeper and even broader over time as we gained more experience. And basically that's what's happened. You've seen the most recent videos with the frontiers of learning with some of the most advanced clusters in the world. Well, now we see, we have a capacity in some 200 clusters in the world where 100 or more individuals could create patterns of community life that would embrace in a meaningful, vibrant, growing pattern of community life 1,000 or more individuals. While you look at the scope of our activity now is in some 5,000 clusters, if we're able to transfer that same capacity that we have in some 200 clusters to 5,000 clusters, it means that we're capable then of embracing 5 million people in a meaningful pattern of life. And when we can expand that to every cluster in the world, 15,000, that's 15 million people. And then that's only if you go up to the level of some 100 taking care of 1,000. Well, in the most advanced clusters, now we have, in the most advanced one, we have about five or 600 people who are engaging 10,000 people. So the point is that a problem that we struggled with for several decades has now manifested itself in a proven pattern of action that only has to be taken to other places in a systematic way. And all of this was because we set our path along this idea of a framework. It kept us from going to one extreme or another until gradually we could resolve the challenge we faced and come up with a pattern of effective action. The same process has been at work over three decades in the area of social and economic development. And most recently, in the 26th of November, 2012 message or letter document, the Office of Social and Economic Development writes about the same concept of a framework in relationship to the activities of social and economic development. One of the things that points out is achieving progressively higher degrees of coherence implies the existence of a common overarching framework that gives shape to activities and which evolves and becomes more elaborate as experience accumulates. And in relation to any area of activity, some elements move to the fore while others act only in the background. And then it focused on some of those aspects of the framework for action that particularly apply in the area of social and economic development. Learning, complexity, knowledge, science and religion, the need for appropriate technology, spiritual and material education and so on. So we have a common core of a framework that applies in all of these areas. And some elements come to the fore in particular areas. So when the House of Justice wrote to the Association, to the National Spiritual Assembly about the work of the Association, it also then raised this concept of a framework and encouraged as one part of the process to explore more deeply what are the elements of the framework that apply in the area of scholarly activity and intellectual activity of the Bahá'í community. And so I'm going to share with you a few points. Obviously our time is limited. There are many, many different concepts here. And again, we're not starting from scratch. One could very productively go back and look at many articles and books that have been written over the years that very capably deal with aspects of the work of this particular aspect of the work of the faith and draw out salient points that we could add to this list of elements for our framework of action. But I want to just touch on a few that I think all of these are touched on in the letter of the House of Justice and no doubt various presentations over the next few days will delve into them all a little bit more deeply. Now two of these points I want to raise I actually spoke more about them five years ago I believe when I was here and also they're covered in the book Revelation and Social Reality. So I don't want to dwell on them but I do think it's imperative to mention them because they're so fundamental. One of course is just the concept of learning described by the House of Justice study, consultation, action and reflection. And obviously this is a fundamental part of the framework for action in this area of scholarly endeavor but how it would be operationalized what does it mean? How would it be realized in this particular work of the intellectual life of the community? Well that's something that has to be worked out over time. And again if you want to look more about that you can refer back to Revelation and Social Reality. But another point is just to recognize the importance that the writings have or in the way that the writings describe the importance of the contribution of learned individuals. For example there's a large section just in Secret of Divine Civilization where Abdul Baha talks about the fundamental contribution of the spiritually learned to the progress of civilization. And that's what we're talking about here. The implications of Baha'u'llah's revelation for the emergence of a new civilization. So we need learned individuals who contribute to all fields. We're talking about really, I mean on the one hand when we say scholarship what comes to mind is really the work of specialists who actually devote their life to a particular field of study and become so distinguished in it that they're not just academics, they're recognized by others as scholars. So there's an academic meaning and of course we wanna draw to some extent on that sense of the word but actually we mean more than that in a broader sense. Recall Shoghi Effendi a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi where he said the cause needs more Baha'i scholars. People who not only are devoted to it and believe in it and are anxious to tell others about it, which is, let me read that again because that's an important clause. People who not only are devoted to it and believe in it and are anxious to tell others about it but also who have a deep grasp of the teachings and their significance and who can correlate its beliefs with the current thoughts and problems of the people of the world. So we can broaden it out from this very narrow definition maybe in the academic sense. We wanna include that but we wanna broaden it to think about the intellectual work of the faith in its widest sense. That means, for example, the House of Justice applied it also to the teaching work. So a lot of intellectual activity is going forward in that teaching work. You're not gonna build patterns of community life to embrace 15 million people without a lot of thought and a lot of struggle in order to get there. And so we've advanced so far after almost two decades we have a lot further to go before we're able to arrive at that level. But then in a certain sense, every field of endeavor in which Baha'is are present is an environment where Baha'is can begin to contribute in an intellectual way to the work that's going on in that field. So in economics, in education, in almost any discipline that you can think of, well, there's intellectual work to be done for the building of a new civilization, both in advancing that field but then fields are just not static. They continue to grow and evolve. So we also need individuals then who can draw insights from the Baha'i teachings and add those insights into the conversations in those disciplines as they advance and grow and develop over time. One special segment of that is the study of the faith itself. So there are certain areas like history or Middle Eastern studies or just the study of the revelation itself which form a part of this but by no means is the intellectual work exhausted by that. And it was pointed out, the Hazard Justices touched on in its own description a wide range of areas that we shouldn't define Baha'i scholarship too narrowly and that it touches on areas like correlating teachings to contemporary thought, understanding the course of world events, looking at new trends of thought, the expansion and activities of the Baha'i international community and the involvement with society, the defense of the faith, theological issues and so on. So we're looking at exploring these areas and also developing the human resources that are able to engage in these areas as well. So this capacity, not just to engage in these areas but to accompany others and raise up others also becomes a critical part of the work. Now another point I wanted to raise in addition to these two which again are talked about more elsewhere. But one of the concepts the Hazard Justices touches on in the letter is that one of the critical aspects of a conceptual framework that will require careful attention in the years ahead is the generation and application of knowledge. So this search for knowledge is fundamental to what we do. And you know as Baha'is of course we study what Baha'u'llah said and then there's a challenge that we face where over time the more we study we begin to think that we understand what Baha'u'llah said but we also have to understand that there's a difference between what he said and what we think he said. Now the thing about it is is that if you ask yourself, well you don't see the difference. You know, which is natural because if you saw a difference you change your mind. If you say, oh he thinks this, okay I think that too. So I would change my mind to match but nevertheless no matter how sure I am that I understand it I have to also be aware that there's a gap between what my understanding is and what Baha'u'llah is actually saying. There's a book by a journalist, Will Stor called The Unpersuadables where he looks into this idea of how human beings understand things. He does a series of interviews with people who let's say they believe in strongly in things that are considered to be maybe on the fringes of human knowledge or maybe actually outside the circle of human knowledge. So for example, UFOs or past life regression or ghosts or creationism or yoga healing and so on. And he looks at these individuals and he interviews them and he sees that well they sincerely believe what they're talking about. And yet the more you try to point out any kind of contradiction in what they believe well they're unpersuaded by that. But then as he explored more he also saw that those people who mobilize themselves against thinkers like that, people who would try to debunk psychic phenomena or new atheists who would try to critique religion that actually the same phenomena of mind was also apparent there as well. That there was just a tendency of human beings to try to understand reality and then become convinced about what they believed. So he talks about this idea. He said, I look at myself and I say that I look at my beliefs and I think that well what I believe is pretty much right. Everything I think, I can't think of anything that I believe that is wrong. And so I look around, I think yes that's okay. But then I think well I look around me and then I see well this guy's wrong about that, this person over here is wrong about that. It's fairly easy to look around and see the problems other people have with understanding reality. And then he said but then well what does that mean? Does that mean I have some kind of superpower where I'm able to understand reality and other people are not and so on. So then you have to start saying well actually probably some of the things I think must be wrong. But then I go down the list and I say is this wrong? No, that's right. What about this? No, that's pretty good too. And so on down the list I can't find anything that's wrong. And he said that this tendency begins to manifest itself on a cultural level. He said I've watched as people have honed in on their beliefs and then engaged in battles across the lines with others who have their different set of beliefs. I've watched these personal battles be manifested in the wider world. The decade of terrorism we've just lived through has its roots of course in mismatch beliefs that are both political and religious. Those same years saw what the appearance of an increasing, an appearance of an increasing suspicion of science. He said one response has been the cultural rise of the radicalized rationalists, celebrity atheists who have written bestselling books and sponsored anti-God advertising on the sides of London buses. Groups of self-declared skeptics who toured sold out concert venues like rock stars defining themselves in opposition to the kinds of anti-scientific thinking that they declared dangerous. Every one of these people convinced they're right. None of them convincing the other. So there's a problem of human understanding and the general tendency of human beings to look at the world and have the sense that they understand it. And then unfortunately to become somewhat impervious to any attempt to try to understand reality in a different way. So again, I'm sure not in Canada, everybody's quite civil here, right? But I can speak for the United States and the public discourse is breaking down. Not just ordinary discourse, not just comments at the bottom of articles on the internet, although watch out if you read those. But even the public affairs, the impossibility of governing when people decide that they know what's right and they're not going to accept the view of anybody else. And so what has made human civilization possible, the ability to investigate, explore, talk, make decisions, solve problems is starting to break down in an environment where people know what they know and they're not willing to change their thinking. Now, of course, for Baha'is, we know from what Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha say that this is not the way that we should approach the investigation of knowledge. And so we're told that if two people fight, then the truth remains hidden. And we're told that nevertheless, I mean, even on top of that, we do tend toward our own dichotomy sometime in our thinking. So for example, this thing that Shoghi Effendi talked about in the administration, we thought about it, we struggled with it. And Shoghi Effendi had to keep constantly encouraging the friends not to fight and to forgive one another and to look at the framework of the administration and try to solve their problems. Many aspects of our struggle with the plan over the past decade have divided us into two groups arguing about different points rather than trusting in the process of consultation and learning and gradually being confident that gradually these problems could be resolved. And if they couldn't, if we were stuck, we could always ask the Universal House of Justice. Some years back, there was a debate about liberal Baha'is and fundamentalist Baha'is was rifling through the internet and so on. And so on, I mean, there's other themes that I could go into, but I don't want to. Now friends, we know from what Baha'u'llah said that there is a mode of consultation that's not about decision-making. It's about just the general idea of investigating reality. Baha'u'llah tells us to take counsel together in all matters. It is much as consultation is the lamp of guidance which leadeth away and is the bestower of understanding. The writings also tell us that the maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation. So we have a set of a methodology, basically, the process of consultation, where individuals, whatever the level of understanding they have, are free to understand that and hold their views and express their views, but also are aware that maybe their views are not right. Maybe they're not absolutely correct, but they're offered, and then in a process where other views are shared, gradually the, if individuals don't stubbornly cling to their opinion, gradually the truth starts to appear and then a new consensus emerges. Now, the question becomes how do you apply this also on the level of academic work? Because in some areas, the idea is that, well, the way to find truth is to argue, and so people just throw their ideas out there and they argue as strenuously as possible and so on, and the best ideas went out. And now, to some extent, that's true in the area of the hard sciences because in the final analysis, you have the facts of physical reality to check this discussion against. But in other human disciplines, there's a price that's paid for that. In the book, The Philosophy of Mind, John Heil writes that in philosophy, there's a tendency to take doctrines with which we disagree and dismiss them out of hand. But if you can be wrong, even mostly wrong, without being altogether wrong, when you consider the historical development of theories in the philosophy of mind, you can see the same difficulties cycle into focus again and again. One generation addresses the qualitative aspects of mentality, the next focuses on its scientific understanding, its successor takes up the problem of mental content. The cycle then starts over, each generation recovering what had been largely invisible to its immediate predecessor. So ideas are thrown out wholesale, replaced by another, rather than sifted through to see, well, what are the elements that might be valuable there and retain those and gradually then hold those as you begin to construct an ever more accurate picture of mind. So even in our scholarly fields, you can lose the sense of systematic action and direction through this process of arguments trying to win out over other arguments and losing them the search for truth. Now in the writings we have a number of statements that remind us that the search that we're engaged in is something that transcends extremes or dichotomies, the tendencies to go into a dichotomy and fight it out. So for example, Bahá'u'lláh says, know then that whosoever adhereth to the outward meaning while oblivious to the inward meaning is of the ignorant. That whosoever adhereth to the inward meaning while oblivious to the outward meaning is of the heedless. And that whosoever understand that the inward meaning in the light of the outward meaning is of the truly learned. So our tendency to go to one extreme or the other, but he's calling us to rise above those limited perspectives. Abdu'l-Baha'u of course talks about the idea of science and religion are the two wings with which man's intelligence can soar into the heights and with which the human soul can progress. Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone, he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition. Whilst on the other hand, the wing of science alone, he would also make no progress but fall into this despairing slough of materialism. So it takes both. It's not one extreme. It's not the other. Somehow we have to find the balance that transcends. It's not just somewhere in the middle. And Chilli Effendi of course talked about this in relation to the progress of the faith. He says it's our primary task to keep the most vigilant eye on the manner and character of its growth to combat effectively the forces of separatism and sectarian tendencies. Let's extreme orthodoxy on the one hand and irresponsible freedom on the other cause it to deviate from that straight path which alone can lead to its success. So our effort must be not to be caught up in these limited perceptions of understanding where we end up creating dichotomies and fighting about two sides rather than trying to draw the insights that are necessary and that we can retain in a gradual and constructive deeper understanding of reality that empowers us to contribute to the advancement of a new civilization. Now another point I wanna raise friends is the concept of the scope that we have for our differing opinions because sometimes then we get the idea then consultation means we all have to agree. So in a way it's a way of kind of silencing diversity of thought. And in fact that's not the case. Even though we know that to some extent based on what I said before of course maybe you're not convinced yet about yourself but we all know that to some extent what we understand must be to some degree not correct. So if we say well nobody can express themselves unless they express themselves absolutely correctly well then that would mean nobody could express themselves. So we have to put forward our views and we have to welcome the views of others and we shouldn't suppress those views and we should create an environment where the friends feel that they could put forward their ideas. Then for example we recall the historical situation where the Baha'is in the early days had a divided view of Baha'u'llah's station. Some believed him to be the supreme manifestation of God and others went further than that. And what did Baha'u'llah tell them? He said well they could have their own ideas as long as they didn't argue about them. And Abdu'l-Baha said that if two souls quarrel and contend about a question of the divine questions differing and disputing then both are wrong. The wisdom of this incontrovertible law of God is this that between two souls from among the believers of God no contention and dispute might arise. That they may speak with each other with infinite amenity and love. So we have the right balance for it. Everybody should be free to express their views. We shouldn't contend with each other because of our views. Gradually then in the sharing of ideas the truth will gradually emerge, will be able to find it. Now sometimes in our use of vocabulary also we tend to impinge a little bit on this exchange of ideas. For example we should keep in mind for example that while we're told not to criticize one another that doesn't mean we're not supposed to use critical thought. You see those two things are not the same thing. We shouldn't conflate them. Although there might be a dissenting idea expressed, the idea that doesn't hold with the traditional idea with the majority idea, that's different than the concept of dissension of which there's no place or dissenting against the revelation which of course is a contradiction of what it means to be a Baha'i. In sharing our views we have to learn how to appreciate all the factors that Baha'u'llah told us about the dangers of speech. So for example excess of speech is a deadly poison. Abdu'l-Baha says to insist that we are right and others are wrong is the greatest obstacle to unity and truth. And Baha'u'llah also urges Baha'i writers to present their views with tact and wisdom. Whatever is written should not transgress the bounds of tact and wisdom and in the words used there should be hid the property of milk so that the children of the world may be nurtured with their with and attain maturity. So he said God grant that the authors among the friends will write in such a way as will be acceptable to fair-minded souls and not lead to coviling by the people. So we have to learn how our speech can begin to incorporate such characteristics. One of the things that the House of Justice wrote some years ago in response to some of the questions of the friends was that the questions were about the idea that given the body of the revelation and then the body of extensive authoritative interpretations by Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, surely this would narrow the range that was available for thinking people because it would like religion of the past under the priests and so on. Well more and more questions would get a pat answer and then there was less and less freedom of thinking on the part of individuals. And what the House of Justice explained is that if we look at the writings of Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian, we'll see that they do just the opposite, that they don't form a fossilization of the thinking of the manifestation. What they do is refer back to those words time and again. They frame them in a way that open up possibilities. And the same thing is true of the guidance of the Universal House of Justice. If for example you have a certain arrangement with a sporting event that lays out the nature of the soccer field and these are the boundaries and this is where the goal is and so on and these are the rules of the game, it doesn't restrict the game, it makes the game possible. And then the artistry of the game is based within the framework of the rules. Well in the same way, the revelation frames a certain aspect of reality for us and the authoritative interpretation clarifies that. And the House of Justice directs us in different stages at different times. All of this is to release the power, not restrict the power of individuals to study the revelation, but to release the power so that they could creatively investigate and then contribute to the building of a new civilization. Gradually we have to learn the processes of how to think and how to share without falling into some of these problematic habits. If you look for example, just one quick example at the idea of evolution and some of the various articles and books that Baha'is have written about the concept. There's a number of kind of, they fall into a few categories for example. For example, there's a kind of a traditional idea that what Abdu'l-Bahá was talking about was the idea that in the primordial ooze there was organism, amoeba type or whatever or DNA structure or whatever and that one led to all plants and animals and then there was another one kind of side by side with it and that led to human beings because man was always man from the beginning. Now the problem with that is that that doesn't agree with science at all. So you have a problem there where this concept of parallel evolution becomes an idea that grows in the Baha'i community because of a certain understanding of what Abdu'l-Bahá says and but that's one way of looking at it. Then other Baha'is have looked at it other ways. So for example, some have now one paper looked at the idea and said, well, yes, science says this about evolution, Abdu'l-Bahá said this idea and well, Abdu'l-Bahá was wrong about the science and therefore we should just not look at what he said. Another one says no, Abdu'l-Bahá was right about the science and as a matter of fact then they make an effort to correlate what Abdu'l-Bahá said with the contemporary science of the day. And then another way of looking at it said, well, actually Abdu'l-Bahá's not really talking about the methodology of science. What he's talking about is the meaning of these scientific findings in terms of their social implications. And so really he's speaking in terms of the vocabulary of the day and he's trying to point out that man is not merely an animal because he could see the destructive social forces that were at work with that kind of attitude, social Darwinism and eugenics and so on. So there are these different Baha'i thinkers have come up with different ways of looking what Abdu'l-Bahá said. Now again, Abdu'l-Bahá said something and we're trying to understand what he said. So these are all interpretations not what Abdu'l-Bahá actually said but what we think he said and what we think that means. Now over time, as these ideas are put forward and views are exchanged, we expect some of these ideas will outlive others. Some will die out. Like for example, Abdu'l-Bahá himself says, weigh your religious beliefs in the light of science. So if you're interpreting Abdu'l-Bahá in a way that conflicts with science, you should interpret him a different way. In the same way, I think it's hard to say that Abdu'l-Bahá said that you should weigh your religious beliefs in the light of science and then started teaching non-scientific things. I don't think that's a good conclusion either. So what you have is leaning toward these two other areas. Now is what he said, does it match contemporary scientific thought? Well, let friends ride. Let them discuss. Let them show. Is it more of a philosophical point rather than a scientific point? Well, let's discuss that. So over time, the best ideas will emerge just as in a consultation process, a consultative process. As long as we don't stubbornly cling to our opinions, as long as we don't assist that we're right and as long as we don't argue about the divine questions. So what we're trying to do then is raise a community where this kind of discussion can take place and sharing of views. So we want, as a harmony, like in other areas of our work, we want a harmony among the individuals and community and institutions. So we want individuals who are free to investigate and explore ideas and share those ideas. And we want a community that's tolerant to some degree, that's willing to listen, that hears, but also is not carried away by new ideas or that their faith becomes shaken when certain ideas that they didn't understand are presented, which might not be correct in the first place. The institutions themselves also have to have a degree of tolerance to give the freedom for ideas to emerge, but at the same time, also has to protect the community from extremes. Now friends, the last point I want to touch on is the concept of the relationship of science and religion. Now, of course, this is a fundamental principle of our faith. The House of Justice talked about the critical dimension of it to this work of Association for Baha'i Studies. The world, of course, shows us how many ways this concept of science and religion engaging one another can go wrong. But we know from this quote that I just read from Abdu'l-Bahá, that from our point of view, these things are intimately dependent on one another. In other words, it's not just there's two separate things and both of them are good and Baha'i should have them, but somehow religion keeps science from veering into materialism, and science keeps religion from becoming superstition. So how do we learn about that? What is that relationship supposed to be? And how will Baha'is come to understand it? Again, if we were fortunate, we could read a book by a Baha'i philosopher of science of two or 300 years in the future who will describe the harmony of science and religion for us, and then we'd all love to read that and we would all be fully informed by that. Unfortunately, we're in this year and not 200 years down the road and so on. So actually, in order for that individual to write that book, well, we have to set in motion certain kinds of processes that have to be healthy and have to be constructive, and gradually the learning will take place until it becomes clear what the proper balance is. Now, maybe it varies from field to field. Also, it's likely that we have Baha'is coming from all kinds of backgrounds, so there's probably a spectrum of thought in the Baha'i community about this, all the way from the point of view of those friends who are firmly grounded in science who look a little bit with suspicion about any idea of somehow religion can come to bear in a particular discipline of science. Well, that just sounds like religious fundamentalism. So what are we talking about here? All the way to the other point of view that would say, well, science will just one day be subsumed under the reading of the Holy Scripture. And that even today, if we see a discrepancy between scripture and science, well, science will evolve to match what Baha'u'llah said. So all along this continuum, we have Baha'is maybe with very different points of view and there's a spectrum of ways in which they might be engaged in intellectual work. So some people in the sciences themselves, some maybe in diverse disciplines, in philosophy, in social and economic development, in discourses of society, in secular religious studies, looking at the faith from the terms of theology or just the traditional study of the text. So our methodologies will span this whole range as well. All we have to do is keep in mind that when we're talking about that there's some kind of relationship there, we don't mean creationism. We're not talking about scholasticism. We're not talking about theological schools in which sciences are just the handmade of theology. At the same time, we're not talking about the other extreme either. We're not talking about scientism. We're not talking about religious studies, reductionism of religion. We're not talking about materialism, philosophical materialism. So we have to recognize that this is our condition at this stage in the development of the faith. Human minds are limited. In science, advancement is made because there's a truth referent that's higher than the conclusions of the individual human mind. There's the brute facts of nature against which the ideas are tested through the scientific method. And the reliability of science is based on the extent that it can be grounded on these brute facts rather than personal impressions. And so in the same way, the revelation represents a kind of a truth referent against which human conceptions have to be weighed. So in principle, the idea is that the individual has to bend to revelation. We don't bend revelation to ourselves, to our own thoughts and conceptions. And so the teachings and their authoritative interpretations are statements of truth that can't be altered. But at the same time, we have to struggle to understand what they mean and to bring our own personal conceptions closer and closer to that understanding. And that's just not about study, but it's also about testing those ideas in action in the field. Now, let me give you one example. There's a recent book called Doctrine and Power by theologian Carlos Galval Sobrino. And he wrote about Christianity in the fourth century and observed that in the third century, whenever there were issues about doctrine, generally they would be an attempt to come to a consensus about what the teachings mean. The various bishops or the various theologians would talk, they would have even public discussions and they would try to bring the different points of view together. But in the fourth century, with the change in the structures in the church and with the coming of Constantine and so on, it changed the power dynamic of the bishops. And what happened was that a bishop's power would rest on whether or not they were able to carry the spirit and convey the true teachings. So the doctrines that they taught had to be true or they would lose their basis of power. And so he writes, persistent confrontation combined with a determination to undermine fellow prelets replaced the former striving for consensus, challenged by their rivals and driven by a new certainty that they possessed the truth, church leaders embarked on a disruptive quest to prove their orthodoxy and to discredit their opponents. With unprecedented zeal and passion, they set out to convince other Christians that their views represented the truth about God and the orthodox teachings of the church. And so then that began the pattern of struggle around theological ideas that stain the church, divided it, initiated wars, initiated the inquisition and so on to prove which doctrine was correct. So it moved from an idea of what is true to power. It was not about knowledge anymore, but about power. And so this is also kind of a fundamental, we could apply the same thing to any of these other methods as well. This one is about theology, but we could also look at the same thing that science is absolutely true can be reduced to the concept of power rather than knowledge. So then you have tobacco companies, for example, paying for studies to show cigarette smoking doesn't cause any damage. It's not science anymore, it's about power. So what we have to do then is to make sure that our behind discourse in our investigation doesn't become about this, that it's about the search for truth. Not claiming that what I found is true and therefore I try to bend the faith to my point of view and I insist and I go about trying to convince the other Baha'is to agree with me rather than just putting my ideas out there and seeing if there's a value in them, contributing them to the consultative process and so on. Now the first line of defense in this process are Baha'i intellectuals themselves. You see, what we need, we can't have the institutions becoming the bulwark of defending the faith in these areas. It has to be the Baha'is in the diverse fields who can think, who can study, who can understand this plan tomorrow to look across the diverse fields and see how do they tick, how do they work? What we need, for example, are Baha'is in different fields to tell us the strength and weaknesses of those fields. What are the best methods? How do they understand reality? And what are the strengths and weaknesses of those methods for understanding the teachings? We don't need somebody to say, for example, I'm a historian, this is what I say about Baha'i history. Therefore, I'm the authority, so it's true and therefore you all have to accept it. It's quite the opposite. What we need is a Baha'i historian who will tell us what are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods in the field of history? How reliable are they? What insights do they help us to share? And in what ways can we understand that they might lead to misunderstandings about the nature of history? And so the same thing is true with Baha'is in every field of endeavor. So friends, now in this, there's one obvious pitfall and that is when an individual speaks with authority, that they claim that what they believe is what's true. We're looking for a model of seeking truth where individual has freedom of thought and conscious, where there's humility and a certain awareness of human limitation, where there's a converse of consultative mode to the action of the community and to their deliberations, where we use the truth reference in science and religion to explore reality and where there's lots of space for Baha'is to have different thoughts and to share them with others to make mistakes over time to gradually resolve them. But if an individual insists that their own idea is true, well then we have a different set of problems. And, of course, Abdu Baha'a has clearly said that the views of individuals have no authority unless they're endorsed by the Universal House of Justice. And, but what is done in this other case is the exact opposite, where individuals claim to know and insist and try to convert the community where the individual is saying, no, what the learned says is true and unless they endorse what the House of Justice says, then it's not correct. So, unfortunately, we did experience a pattern where this occurred in the community some years back in this area of intellectual work of the community. And the House of Justice finally had to take action. It talked about a group of people who sought to use the language and the occasion and credibility of scholarly activity to lend a counterfeit authority to a private enterprise which was essentially ideological in nature and self-motivated in origin. He said they strove to change the essential character of the faith. In the absence of the guardian, they tried to create a quasi-authoritative position. Since there was no guardian, they would say what the teachings mean and so on. And so, essentially, when the House of Justice stepped in to resist their action, they complained that an authoritative religious body was trying to suppress academic freedom. And what actually was taking place, however, was that a group of individuals were trying to claim an ecclesiastic authority in a religion where that authority was placed in the hands of elected body. So it was an attempt to usurp and create a place that basically Baha'u'llah prohibited in his religion. Now, friends, I just want to close with one point. In many years ago, when Abdu'l-Bahá started facing some of these challenges in response to the actions of Muhammad Ali, and then it was when the problems started to come out in the community and the general community began to become aware. And they wrote to Abdu'l-Bahá one last time a illustrious Baha'u'llah wrote to Abdu'l-Bahá and said, what's happening? What should we do? What needs to be done? And Abdu'l-Bahá said he wrote a long tablet and he poured out the different things that were on his heart. One of the things that he said that as long as these people hope through their machinations and false rumors that they can affect the life of the covenant, that it could be diverted from its national channel, then he said that never will these seditions stop nor will these dark clouds be dissipated. But he said that if the friends could truly arise as an incumbent on them in accordance with the covenant in Testament and manifest steadfastness and influence, then others will despair of changing and perverting the center of the covenant and will give up their provocations and deliberations. So it's up to us then to create the pattern of community where all ideas are welcome. But then we're impervious then to these ideas that exceed the boundaries that Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Bahá said for discourse in his community. Now friends, of course these are just a few ideas as you go then through the next few days and hopefully more and more into the years ahead. Gradually the ideas that are latent there in the development of a framework for action and then working systematically along the lines of that framework over the years, what we'll see is the emergence of new possibilities for our work in a wide range of intellectual areas for the faith. Many years ago when the House of Justice wrote in 2001 about intensive program for growth, it didn't describe what an intensive program for growth was because it didn't know what it was. It could only describe certain ideas and concepts and prerequisites to set in motion the process of learning about it. Well it was the efforts of the friend acting within that framework that mapped it out, that helped us to learn so that in a short period of time, less than 10 years, we now see what a vibrant program of growth looks like where hundreds can engage thousands in a vibrant process of growth and community building that has an impact on the wider society and that was learned in a process of 10 years. So the same thing is true here. What we're doing, what we're experimenting with, what we're learning about is to set in motion certain kinds of habits, very constructive habits, welcoming habits, processes of building human capability and so on, that will allow us to learn in a systematic way about this very challenging area of the intellectual and scholarly life of the community. The Housa Justice wrote in its letter, it is timely then to reflect upon the many years of experience of the association, the coherence of its undertaking with the major areas of action in which Baha'is are engaged and the possibilities for the most productive avenues of endeavor in the future. Every believer has the opportunity to examine the forces operating in society and introduce relevant aspects of the teachings within the discourse's prevalent and whatever social space he or she is present. It is perhaps as a means to enhance the abilities of the friends to explore such opportunities in relation to their scholarly interests that the endeavors of the association for Baha'i studies can be conceived. Through the specialized settings it creates, the association can promote learning among a wide range of believers across a wide range of disciplines. In one of the recent youth gatherings here, one of the youth from First Nations got up in front of the gathering and said that one star in the sky cannot give off much light, but when you have many stars, you bring light. Now of course, we know, Abdu'l-Baha described the spiritually learned as stars of good fortune shining from the horizons of humankind. And Baha'u'llah said, righteous men of learning who dedicate themselves to the guidance of others are stars of the heavens of true knowledge. So friends, may you be successful in your efforts to multiply and increase the luminosity of these stars. Thank you very much. Thank you.