Review process

The Review process has been consciously set up to ensure that books purporting to represent the Bahá'í Faith give an accurate picture of Bahá'í history or beliefs. One of Bahá'u'lláh's Teachings is that there should no longer be "burning of books". It seems certain that the implications of this are that human beings should be, and will be, free to express their personal opinions in the areas of faith, philosophy, religion, etc., and that in a general way there should be no censorship. It seems, from the Writings of the Guardian, that the institutions of the Faith have no right to prevent the publication of highly interpretative or speculative works, but that while the Faith is yet young, and not well understood by the general public, it should be made clear which books have "official" approval. Each National Spiritual Assembly, therefore, should make arrangements to scrutinise, to an appropriate degree, texts which are to published as "Bahá'í books". Publishers such as George Ronald, Kalimat Press, Special Ideas, etc., therefore ensure that a Literature Review Panel sees each new book.

If the review process does not approve the work in its current form

Although the Review Panel is set up to ensure that the Faith is relatively accurately portrayed in the new work, the members are usually free to make additional suggestions to the author, which he or she is free to take up, or to ignore. If, as sometimes happens, the Review Panel decides that a book is not ready to be "endorsed" as having "passed" review, the Panel should present its reasons to the author. The author is free then to do one of several things. He or she could simply give up, and abandon the project. The author could rewrite particular points or sections that were highlighted. The author could rework the whole manuscript, perhaps in collaboration with another person, or s/he could publish the book anyway, using a non-Bahá'í publisher. Should the author(s) decide to use a non-Bahá'í publisher, even though the book was not approved by the Review Panel, the author is still in good standing as a Bahá'í. If, of course, the author uses a work to attack the Faith or its institutions, that would no longer be the case, as their status as a Bahá'í would then be open to question.

Footnote

It is clear from the response of the Universal House of Justice to approaches on this subject that, as the Bahá'í Faith is still completely unknown to large parts of the world's population, it is still too early to remove this review process.