A Crisis In Numbers And Spirit - The Administration's Failure Laid Bare

 The 2025 Ridvan Report released by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States looks celebratory at first glance. Pages and pages of professional language, statistics, and institutional initiatives are meant to give you the impression of strength and success. However, read the fine print, and you see a different story---a story of stagnation, exclusion, and disconnection from the spirit of Baha'u'llah and the original message. Let's explore the real message behind statistics and language. 

The Decline of the Faith: A Crisis Created by the Administration

The report indicates that 260 believers have chosen to disengage from the Faith, and 464 people died. That means over 700 people were lost to the community in one year, with only 396 new believers. The total number of declared Baha'is in the U.S. stands at just 15,200, spread thinly across a vast population, most of those new arrivals likely arrived due to family or birth-born Baha'is, meaning they are likely not new, or they joined via outreach. Excluding reinstatements and returns, the data shows a glacial hemorrhaging of membership. 

Despite billions of dollars being spent globally for decades, there are now 25,832, out of 32,625, localities without Baha'is in the U.S.---a staggering 79% of U.S. localities have NO active Baha'i community whatsoever. This shows a deep Administration failure in outreach and retention. This is nowhere near the community building. This is decline.

Youth: Missing in Action

The Ridvan report really makes effort to boast the successes of youth programs that were put into place---junior youth camps, summer activities, institute events, etc., but admits the harsh reality between the lines. For instance, the Wilmette Temple, the largest Baha'i institution in North America, only launched youth service initiative this year. Why? Because young people don't care. The numbers say it all. In the entire country, only 125 youth declared this year, and just 26 youth became Baha'is. A mere 4,374 junior youth participated in programs – and most were not even Baha’is. 

Young people are seekers of truth. The desire for justice, for sincerity, for independence in their search for faith. In exchange they find an inflexible administrative structure based on bureaucracy and fear of questioning. Ruhi books don’t motivate them. Declaration cards don’t liberate them. The Free Baha’is, who don’t control the bylaws, continue to receive more and more inquiries from disenfranchised youth. 

The False Refuge of Institutionalism 

The paper consistently speaks of “havens of peace,” implying that study circles and children’s classes are the sole solution to the suffering of humanity. Meanwhile, 79% of the country has no local Baha’i presence. This is not addressed at all; there is no reflection given on why the Faith has not spread organically, no mention of spiritual transformation, just institutionally managed participants. Each completed, and celebrated, Ruhi book (6,229 this year) holds no symbolism; there are no indications provided to answer the more significant question: are souls transforming? Where are the personal accounts of individuals who are finding peace, service, or a relationship with God through this ceremonial bureaucracy? There are none. It’s all output, outcome. In fact, the Baha’i Faith boasts 58,921 devotional participants, yet doesn’t say how many were actual Baha’is. These programs increasingly serve as numbers-padding rather than soul-nourishment.

The Financial Empire Built on Faith 

The report clarifies $3.3 million has been given to the International Fund, and $39.5 million to the Shrine of Abdu’l Baha from the U.S. only. Meanwhile, the Faith’s total assets ballooned to over $817.1 million, and yet local communities struggle with relevance and visibility. Yet, while the money flows, the hearts are fleeing. How is it that a dwindling community is putting tens of millions into construction and development projects, while local assemblies are unable to attract people to the core teachings of Baha’u’llah? Are we building the Kingdom of God, or just building kingdoms of glass and concrete? 

The Ruhi Curriculum – A Symptom of Control 

The Ridvan Report exalts “advancement in clusters” and “programs of growth,” but these phrases are only thinly veiled euphemisms for systematic indoctrination through the Ruhi Institute. It’s all one and the same, complete with a lack of depth for the sake of duplicity. 

Even the Wilmette Institute, which pretends it is an educational setting, is co-opting Baha’i theology to have propagandized graduates within the institutional vision of the Baha’i Faith. Evidence of co-opting is that Wilmette instructs its graduates to go back into the community and “revise your approach and reflect” reflect on what? Not with regard to the authentic Writings of Baha’u’llah. There is no focus on personal investigation, nor critique of the actual status quo. 

What the Free Baha’i Community Sees 

The Free Baha’i movement sees through this veil. We see the administration drifting away from the true essence of faith. We see meetings full of statistics, without spirit. We see youth walking out, not because they don’t love Baha’u’llah, but because they no longer recognize him in what the UHJ has become. 

Baha’u’llah warned about religious hierarchy and spiritual arrogance. And now, in this day, the Baha’i institutions look the same as the very clerical power structure they meant to replace.

A Call Back to the Core  

A total of 254 individuals withdrew from Faith, with 77 citing doctrinal or administrative concerns, and 32 officially converted to another religion. These are not rebels, they are seekers of truth. When you move away from the original teachings of Baha’u’llah, people leave you – it is that obvious! The moment is here to reexamine: What did Baha’u’llah want? A religion directed by accountants, fund reports, and Ruhi completions? A world that fostered independent investigation, unity of hearts, and unconditional service. 

Free Baha’is are not rebels. We are returners. We have returned to the original call of Baha’u’llah: the call not to control, but to liberate. The call is not to create kingdoms of paper, but communities of love. The call is not to song cards, but unlocked hearts. 

Conclusion: A House Divided 

The Ridvan 2025 Report reads like the desperate attempts of an empire losing its hold. Money is rising, but meaning is fading. Under Administration, the reports are thick, but the Faith is thin. Community-building has become code for control, and the “society-building power of the Faith” has been buried under administration speak. 

We Free Baha’is offer another way. A better way. A return to Baha’u’llah – not to the institutions that now stand between Him and His followers. 

Let the reader decide.

SHOGHI EFFENDI –THE SO-CALLED “GUARDIAN” WHO BETRAYED THE CAUSE

History calls him the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith. Yet, when one looks beyond the titles and carefully woven narratives, a far darker truth emerges. What kind of “Guardian” celebrates persecution, excommunicates his own family, and replaces humility with hierarchy? What kind of leadership stands in the name of unity, yet divides and destroys?

A Guardian Rejoicing in Tragedy

In The Messiah of Shiraz (Denis MacEoin, p. 528), we find chilling evidence of how Shoghi Effendi reacted to the martyrdom of innocent Baha’is in Iran. Instead of mourning, he celebrated the global attention it brought to the Faith. Writing to the American Baha’is in August 1955, Shoghi stated:

“Seldom, if at any time since its inception, has such a widespread publicity been accorded the infant Faith of God, now at long last emerging from an obscurity which has so long and so grievously oppressed it…

”To him, the shedding of Baha’i blood was publicity. The suffering of believers became a marketing opportunity. Even worse, he later directed that funds be used to hire “an expert publicity agent.” Was this the spirit of Baha’u’llah’s teachings — to find advantage in the suffering of others?

A Guardian Who Banished His Own Blood

The so-called Guardian excommunicated nearly every close relative of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l Baha — including his own parents and the granddaughters of Abdu’l Baha. Among those cast out were Ruhi Effendi Afnan, Mehr-Angiz (Shoghi’s own sister), and even Lady Munira, the beloved wife of Abdu’l Baha.

No tyrant in history was harsher toward his own kin. How could the grandson of the Master, who embodied love and service, become a source of pain and humiliation for those who carried the same sacred lineage?

A Greedy Guardian in the Age of Gold

Under Abdu’l Baha, generosity meant humility. He refused even the $18,000 offered by American Baha’is for his travels, returning it with instructions to “give it to the poor.” (Zimmer, A Fraudulent Testament).

But under Shoghi Effendi, money became the Faith’s new idol. Fundraising replaced service, bureaucracy replaced love, and temples of stone replaced temples of the heart. The shift was clear: the Cause became a corporate enterprise, and the faithful became financiers of an administration that fed itself.

A Guardian of Arrogance, Not of Grace

Accounts from those who met both the Master and Shoghi Effendi show the contrast vividly. Thornton Chase described Abdu’l Baha as “one who loved to serve others, even in little things.” There was no distance between the Master and the believer — only warmth and oneness.

Dr. G. Haynes Holmes, a minister from New York, recalls his shock upon meeting Shoghi Effendi:“

I was instructed that I must rise when Shoghi Effendi entered, and must under no circumstances approach his person. I had to keep my distance, as though I were in the presence of some king or pope.” (Sohrab, Grandson, 1943).

From servant to sovereign — this was the transformation that turned the Faith from a movement of hearts into an empire of fear.

The True Guardian – Abdu’l Baha’s Spirit of Love

Abdu’l Baha once said, “There are no officers in the Cause. I do not and have not appointed any one to perform any special service…”This simple, luminous statement was the death knell to any form of clerical control — yet Shoghi ignored it, introducing hierarchy under the guise of Guardianship. From this false step , the cancer of administration grew: the UHJ, the NSAs, the LSAs — all layers of control that now suffocate the Faith.

The Free Baha’i Stand

Today, the so-called Universal House of Justice walks the same path as Shoghi — distant, bureaucratic, and obsessed with funds and reports. The light of love that once defined the Faith is dimmed under piles of statistics, accounts, and decrees.

But the Free Baha’is remember. We hold fast to the essence of Baha’u’llah’s message: freedom from clergy, independence of thought, and the love that unites all hearts. We do not need Guardians to rule over us — we have Baha’u’llah to guide us.

A true Guardian protects. Shoghi Effendi destroyed. A true leader unites. He divided. A true servant uplifts. He oppressed.

The time has come to return to the purity of the Cause, to the radiant simplicity of Abdu’l Baha’s teachings, and to the heart of Baha’u’llah’s revelation — love without control, faith without fear. 

Volume 9 | Edition 5 | Qudrat (Power) 182 B.E.