@ WC: The quote was in a section marked "A Collection of Sound Hadith." No line of authority was given for any of them, so I don't know if the author of the book was just using Bukhari or what he called the "sound six" (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Nasai, al-Tirmidhi, and Ibn Maja) or if it they were 'sound' just because he said so.

I made a favorite bookmark for Some Answered Questions. I'll give you my impressions as I delve into it more fully.

@ IMO: I'm glad I'm not the only one who still uses the metephor.

Namaste, Salam, and Peace.

Dear Markezuma,

Rereading this thread it appears that possibly you might have at the time thought of the Universal House of Justice as a body that mediates our spiritual relationship with God, as is commonly thought of among of religious leaders (or clergy) of a belief system. They are not a clergy! Election of anybody to any body does not mean some sort of holiness. Well certainly not in the Bahá'í Faith, anyway.

They individually have no more authority or spiritual station than any other living believer in good standing.

Back when there were still Hands of the Cause of God, those men and women had a higher spiritual station and individual authority and they had been directly appointed by the Head of the Faith of the time, to that lifetime status; but they were not clergy either.

The Universal House of Justice determined that they could not appoint Hands of the Cause themselves. So they appointed Continental Board of Counselors to the job of protecting and propagating the Faith which the Hands were doing, but without their position/status and serving for limited terms.

Their authority is as a body. They are one united voice to whom we believers owe obedience and have been assured will be infallibly elucidating what is not clear to us, judging and legislating issues that may be divisive; so that we, and eventually the world, will not be disunited and in conflict, but at peace and with justice.

The mechanism of their election is in practical form quite a thorough vetting. The membership of the whole world's National Spiritual Assemblies go to elect them every five years. These men and women (between a quarter and a third of them are women) vote in the same manner as all Bahá'í balloting in a spiritual electoral process that involves no mention of individual names,  no campaigning, no nominating, no electioneering, in fact none of the corrupt procedures of what we cynically accept as the rancid lubricants that seem the necessary ancillaries of the modern democracies of today's republics. In a prayerful atmosphere each soul fills out and turns in his or her private vote. They are each elected the same way and so were the delegates that elected them, except all those other elections are annual for their terms of one year, and the House has five years.

Have written this, even though none of this may be new to you by now, but just in case it may be read by someone to whom it might be of interest.