..... the individual, the institutions, and the community

     To understand the nature of the interacting processes that, in their totality, engender the expansion and consolidation of the Faith is vital to the successful execution of the Plan.  In your efforts to further such
understanding, you and your auxiliaries are encouraged to bear in mind a concept that lies at the foundation of the current global enterprise and, indeed, at the very heart of every stage of the Divine Plan, namely, that progress is achieved through the development of three participants--the individual, the institutions, and the community.  Throughout human history, interactions among these three have been fraught with difficulties at every turn, with the individual clamouring for freedom, the institution demanding submission, and the community claiming precedence.  Every society has defined, in one way or another, the relationships that bind the three, giving rise to periods of stability, interwoven with turmoil.  Today, in this age of transition, as humanity struggles to attain its collective maturity, such relationships--nay, the very conception of the individual, of social institutions, and of the community--continue to be assailed by crises too numerous to count.  The worldwide crisis of authority provides proof enough. 
So grievous have been its abuses, and so deep the suspicion and resentment it now arouses, that the world is becoming increasingly ungovernable--a situation made all the more perilous by the weakening of community ties.

The Universal House of Justice.
Dec.28th 2010