"Concerning your question as to the status of those individuals whom the
Local Assembly or the N.S.A. have considered it necessary to deprive of
the voting right and to suspend from local meetings and gatherings; such
action which Local and National Assemblies have been empowered to take
against such recalcitrant members, however justified and no matter how
severe, should under no circumstances be considered as implying the
complete expulsion of the individuals affected from the Cause. The
suspension of voting and other administrative rights of an individual,
always conditional and therefore temporary, can never have such far
reaching implications, since it constitutes merely an administrative
sanction; whereas his expulsion or ex-communication from the Faith, which
can be effected by the Guardian alone in his capacity as the supreme
spiritual head of the community, has far-reaching spiritual implications
affecting the very soul of that believer. The former, as already stated,
is an administrative sanction, whereas the latter is essentially
spiritual, involving not only the particular relationship of a believer to
his local or National Assembly, but his very spiritual existence in the
Cause. It follows, therefore, that a believer can continue calling himself
a Baha'i even though he may cease to be a voting member of the community.
But in case he is excluded from the body of the Cause by an act of the
Guardian he ceases to be a believer and cannot possibly identify himself
even nominally with the Faith."