Calvin Synod Herald, 1978 (78. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1978-01-01 / 1-2. szám
REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA 7 WARC PRESIDENT ISSUES CALL TO PRAYER Princeton, USA — A challenge “to discern and combat the forces that would disunite and destroy us,” and a call to prayer for wisdom, faith and courage were issued here on November 25 to the member churches of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches by its president, Dr. James I. McCord. The call to prayer was issued at the request of the WARC executive committee “to underline the Alliance’s deep disquiet at all that threatens the survival of humanity, and to urge the churches to combat according to the means at their disposal and in ways most appropriate to their respective situations, hunger, poverty, war and the deterioration of the environment.” Dr. James McCord in his letter to the churches described the present generation as “refugees from the chaos we have constructed,” rather than as “pilgrims en route to our goal.” Although the present “exodus society” has the knowledge and technical skills to realize a vision of a new world “where barriers are broken down, poverty and disease are erased, threats to human life are eliminated and all divisions are healed,” this vision has become blurred, according to the WARC president. “We are tempted to become impotent and immobilized, cut off from the past and the future,” he said. Dr. McCord urged the churches to pray “for wisdom not our own, to lay hold on the spiritual resources for a better world.” He expressed his conviction that prayer changes things: “it can re-focus our vision and enable us to become pilgrims again ...” The Alliance leader ended his letter with the plea: “Let us covenant so to pray and so to journey.” The full text of the call to prayer is given below. “Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, We are increasingly aware that we are all members of an exodus society, that we are moving out of one age into another. Every exodus is motivated by a dream of a promised land, and our generation has had a vision of a new world, a society where barriers are broken down, poverty and disease are erased, threats to human life are eliminated, and all divisions are healed. Of course, such a vision is not unique to this age. But what is different is that today there are present and ready to hand knowledge and technical skills that should enable us to move from where we are to the land of promise where we want to be. But suddenly this vision has become blurred and has begun to recede. Inquiries into the human future are producing results not for our comfort. So bleak is the prospect that an entire generation feels doomed to live in a world shorn of a future and without hope. Moreover, we are no longer pilgrims en route to our goal. We have become Churches participating in COCU are the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Methodist Episcopal, the Episcopal Church, National Council of Community Churches, Presbyterian Church in the U.S., United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. IF GOD WENT ON STRIKE It’s just a good thing that God above Has never gone on strike Because He wasn’t treated fair For things He didn’t like. If He had ever once sat down And said, “That’s it — I’m through! I’ve had enough of those on earth So this is what I’ll do! I’ll give my orders to the sun, Cut off your heat supply, And to the moon, give no more light And run the ocean dry; Then just to really make it tough And put the pressure on Turn off the air and oxygen ‘Til every breath is gone.” Do you know He’d be justified If fairness was the game For no one has been more abused Or treated with disdain Than God — and yet he carries on Supplying you and me With all the favors of His grace And everything for free. Men say they want a better deal And so on strike they go But what a deal we’ve given God To whom everything we owe. We don’t care whom we hurt or harm To gain the things we like But what a mess we’d all be in If God should go on strike. Anonymous refugees from the chaos we have constructed. We are now told that no other generation has faced such a situation, that history has little to offer in dealing with our problems, and we are tempted to become impotent and immobilized, cut off from the past and the future. It is precisely at such a time that we are called to remember how Jesus, that night in Gethsemane, admonished his disciples, “Watch and pray, lest you enter in temptation.” Those words, spoken so long ago in crisis, need again to be etched upon our consciousness. We are called upon, as disciples of Jesus in our day, to discern and to combat the forces that would disunite and destroy us. And fundamentally we are called to prayer: Prayer for wisdom not our own, to lay hold on the spiritual resources for a better world; prayer for faith, to believe that God is still at work, making all things new in Jesus Christ; and prayer for courage, that we may be worthy of our times and freed to face the hour to which we have been matched. Prayer changes things. It can re-focus our vision and enable us to become pilgrims again in the quest “for a city with foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. Let us covenant so to pray and so to journey.” RPS, Dec. 1977
