No Kings Part 9
Throughout this series, we have traced a winding drama: humanity’s escape from bondage, its struggle with law and authority, its pendulum swings between fear and freedom, kingship and chaos. We have watched as Israel, and later America, stands at the crossroads again and again—faced with the temptation to enthrone a new king, or cast off all constraint; to build golden calves, or to submit to the high and exacting call of covenant.
If there is one lesson our age demands, it is that no structure—however just—can substitute for the transformation of the heart. And here, in this new era, the Baha’i Faith comes forward not simply with critique, but a blueprint for the “Kingdom of God on earth”—a civilization worthy of the name, built by those who heed the voice of a Living Divine Lawgiver.
The Baha’i Blueprint: Just Laws, Voluntary Obedience
At the core of Baha’i teaching is the idea that humanity is at last ready to move beyond spiritual childhood—the ancient dependence on kings, priesthoods, and external compulsion—if only we will arise with faith and unity. Baha’u’llah’s vision is not of lawless autonomy, nor of ever-heavier thrones, but of societies:
- Animated by the Most Great Justice
- Governed by laws that protect dignity for all
- Led by those who see service, not dominance, as their station
- Welcoming every sincere heart as a builder, not as a subject or spectator
As ‘Abdu’l-Baha reminds us, America is “uniquely qualified” to lead the world to the Most Great Peace because, unlike previous powers, it can do so free of old-world suspicion and imperial ambition—if it does not become mired in “foreign entanglements,” and if it leads by the quiet power of example, not force.
Yet, as the Baha’i writings warn, this noble path is not for the faint of heart or the culturally comfortable. To play our part is to choose the road of a “peculiar people”—those who live by a standard higher than what is currently accepted, however inconvenient or misunderstood.
The Tablet of Ahmad: Antidote to Delusion
Baha’is are given a sobering and empowering admonition in the Tablet of Ahmad—a prayer and guidance whose message resonates across time:
“Rely upon God, thy God and the Lord of thy fathers.
For the people are wandering in the paths of delusion, bereft of discernment to see God with their own eyes, or hear His Melody with their own ears. Thus have We found them, as thou also dost witness.
Thus have their superstitions become veils between them and their own hearts and kept them from the path of God, the Exalted, the Great.”
The warning is as relevant now as in any age: the world, even when clamoring for new kings or new freedoms, is prone to delusion, lulled by prejudice, cynicism, and spiritual laziness. The golden calves have changed shape, but the human penchant for easy answers—political, social, spiritual—has not.
Yet the antidote is also there, spoken earlier in that same Tablet:
“O Ahmad! Bear thou witness that verily He is God and there is no God but Him, the King, the Protector, the Incomparable, the Omnipotent.”
“To Whose commands we are all conforming.”
To conform—to take joy in obedience to divine guidance—is not passivity but the highest liberty, for it frees us from the tyranny of impulse, ideology, and the exhaustion of perpetual rebellion. It is the very engine of maturity and unity that makes a just and lasting civilization possible.
The Call: From Protest to Participation
The lesson for Baha’is—and all seekers of justice—is clear:
- Don’t simply critique the kings (or would-be kings) of the age.
- Don’t simply join the “No Kings” chorus if it is only an evasion of all discipline and shared endeavor.
- Build: a pattern of community, a culture of consultation, institutions that reflect God’s law in action—not out of compulsion, but from love and shared purpose.
Our challenge is to embrace the rigors of law-within-community, to inspire by example, and to invite genuinely all who thirst for justice, creativity, and peace. The Kingdom is not brought by wish or wrath, but “with the hands of its very people,” as Baha’u’llah wrote.
Toward a Fitting Summary
As this journey closes, let us remember:
- Every age has its false kings and its golden calves. What matters is not whom we overthrow, but what we build—and why.
- The true “No Kings” movement is not the refusal of all authority, but the prayerful, disciplined search for the authority “which is from above”—what Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Muhammad, and Baha’u’llah all beckoned us toward.
- The final revolution is of the heart: taking up, together, the challenge to manifest a public justice, a private holiness, and a steadfast willingness to turn from slogans to service.
May we, as Baha’is and as citizens, become—by God’s grace—a “peculiar people,” steadfast against both the seductions of tyranny and the nihilism of unmoored self-will. And may America yet fulfill its destiny, as ‘Abdu’l-Baha foretold, not because it is without error, but because it will arise, with courage and discernment, to “adorn the pages of history” by helping at last to build that radiant city where no king is needed—because each soul, and every law, bows in gladness before the will of the King of Kings.
Thus ends the series—a call to heed the ancient warning, embrace the new Revelation, and rise as active builders of a civilization at once just, free, and luminous.
