A Governing Body Without Clergy

Membership carries none of the duties that would elsewhere define a religious leader. There is no pastoral office attached, no preaching function, no sacramental role and no personal spiritual authority. The Baha'i Faith has no clergy at all, and the House of Justice is a governing body rather than a college of priests.

No individual member holds authority apart from the body acting as a whole. Decisions are reached by consultation, a practice Baha'i teaching treats as a religious discipline in its own right, in which a view once offered belongs to the group rather than to the person who raised it and unity of decision is valued above the vindication of any participant. Members are not publicly identified as spokesmen and the institution speaks in its own name.

One feature is unusual enough that the Faith itself addresses it directly: membership is restricted to men. Every other elected Baha'i institution, local and national, is open to women and men equally, and the Faith teaches the equality of women and men as a central principle. Baha'i sources state that the restriction rests on the authority of Abdu'l-Baha and that its reason has not been disclosed, and that it will become clear in time. The atlas records the position and the explanation offered for it as the Faith gives them.