“The Guardian, like the Master before him, has not considered it advisable to as yet permit any person or Assembly to put another person out of the Cause of God. There is a sharp distinction between depriving a believer of his voting rights, which is a severe disciplinary measure and not a spiritual sanction, and pronouncing a former believer to be a truly spiritually diseased soul, a soul in the condition the Master referred to when, in His last cable to America before His ascension, He said: ‘He who sitteth with a leper catcheth leprosy.’ The Guardian has, within the last few years, considered the National Assemblies strong enough to wield the instrument of sanction in the sense of depriving a Bahá’í of his voting rights. But no one but himself can pronounce a person to be in that diseased condition we call ‘Covenant Breaking’ and no one but he can reinstate a Covenant Breaker. No National Assembly has been given this right and cannot therefore review the question or reinstate anyone...”
45: COVENANT BREAKERS (Shun)
“...Bahá’u’lláh and the Master in many places and very emphatically have told us to shun entirely all Covenant breakers as they are afflicted with what we might try and define as a contagious spiritual disease; they have also told us, however, to pray for them. These souls are not lost forever. In the Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh says that God will forgive Mírzá Yaḥyá if he repents. It follows, therefore, that God will forgive any soul if he repents. Most of them don’t want to repent, unfortunately. If the leaders can be forgiven it goes without saying that their followers can also be forgiven...
“Also, it has nothing to do with unity in the Cause; if a man cuts a cancer out of his body to preserve his health and very life, no one would suggest that for the sake of unity it should be reintroduced into the otherwise healthy organism. On the contrary, what was once a part of him has so radically changed as to have become a poison.”
46: CRIMSON BOOK (The)
“Unfortunately it would seem that the knowledge ‘which could largely eliminate fear’ has not been disclosed or identified by Bahá’u’lláh, so we do not know what it is.