Calvin Synod Herald, 1992 (92. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1992-01-01 / 1. szám

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD-3-REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

CALVIN SYNOD vs. the UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. ”

II.Cor. 4:7

I.

The holy scriptures and the history of God’s people in all ages inform us of many instances when the Lord of the generations of mankind has turned human tragedy into divine blessing, and none more so than in the crucifixion and resurrection of His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Among other occasions, one instance of the outpouring of His grace occured in Hungary some centuries ago, which is of crucial importance today for those concerned about the faithfulness of churches to Christ and their Reformation heritage. The Reformation broke in Switzerland and Germany as faithful priests Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther, John Calvin challenged with boldness the corrupt theology and practices of the Lord’s churches. Just as the earth’s great plates exert ever-increasing pressure against one another until they suddenly move by, and a shattering earthquake changes everything around it, the the Reformation resulted from many and varied pressure which were building for years, some social or economic and others political and religious.

There was tremendous turmoil within and among the nations as the emperors and kings, electors and dukes, vied with each other and also with popes and bishops for control over empires and kingdoms. When the Reformation swept like wildfire across Europe, it received overwhelming acceptance in Hungary to the chagrin of the Habsburgs, whose dynastic goal was to revive the Holy Roman Empire under their crown. A necessary part of that scheme was to use the Roman Catholic Church as one of its foundations, with the princes of the Church granting the Habsburgs the credibility of papal decree and divine right.

Under force of arms, the Counter-reformation might have succeeded in Hungary, which was battered into submission by the Habsburgs of Austria, in the name of defending the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. But just as in ancient days, the Lord was at hand. With the approval of the King of kings, faithless Israel that had maintained the outward forms of true religion, but had in practice rejected the heart and substance of true belief, was destroyed and its people taken into captivity

as the slaves of their conquerors. Even their great temple was desecrated and ruined, for the Lord was not at rest. So again in a later day, God was at hand.

When the Muslim hordes swept up from the south and across Greece, and in 1525 AD reached the borders of Hungary, they were met by the nation’s small army, alone and without allies. The Hungarians were devastated and their king slaughtered in the debacle. The hordes swept onward until they controlled most of the country, except the more defensible mountainous regions near Austria in the west and Transylvania in the east. While the Hungarian remnant was defending their soil and lives, the Habsburgs remained intent upon their dynastic designs. Still pursuing the Counter-reformation in the area they controlled, they forced lost churches and members back into the Roman Catholic Church. They even collaborated with the Muslims in their persecution of the Protestants in Hungary, with the misery of the unrecanting ministers still remembered among us in the story of the Hungarian Galley Slaves.

Yet, it was the intervening wedge of Turks who kept the empire building Habsburgs and Roman Catholic power in the west separated from the freedom loving Hungarians and Reformed (as well as other Protestants) in the east. The Turks stayed one hundred and fifty years, decimating a population estimated then at five to ten million, to less than two million. In the meantime, the rising of the new nations permanently broke the back of Habsburg power, although not their aspirations, and also the political power of the Roman Catholic Church. After the earthquake settled, both Hungary and the Reformed Church survived!

II.

Now in the New World, where resettled Hungarians have joined colonials and many waves of immigrants who fled from the political and religious turmoil of the Old World, the Church is being sundered anew from within and despised from without. No denomination seems to be exempt, the mainline ones the most, but none is more beleaguered than our own United Church of Christ. In just over thirty years of its existence, it has lost almost thirty percent of its membership. Torn by the secession of some churches already, with numerous others threatening to leave

also, a recent headline in the church’s paper was: “Internal unity main topic at Executive Council.”

For many years the United Church of Christ has grown increasingly so radical on theological, political, economic, social and personal issues that it is now the most radical of all the mainline denominations. Efforts by conservative and confessional members to reverse or, with due respect for them, just to restrain the leadership have been regularly thwarted. Then in more recent years these efforts were more adamantly rebuffed or chided. The response of many, including the General Synod’s unofficial newspaper at its last meeting, to Calvin Synod’s action to prohibit ordination of practicing homosexuals was plain ridicule . The fact that so many members and churches have their opinions, feelings and principles ignored appears to have been of little or no importance to those interest groups propelling their agendas through the church’s political machine.

III.

The disagreement with the radical and leftist stances of the General Synod and the church boards was no greater anywhere than in Calvin Synod. While scattered voices echoed throughout the years, only this body spoke as one with boldness in opposition to the self-destruction of the denomination. In recent years, some of those solo members and churches banded together in such groups as the Biblical Witness Fellowship. Having been denied voice and leadership roles on church bodies, through a system that fosters self-perpetuation of those most favorable to the controlling leaders, the creation of these groups was essential for the attainment of their common goals by working together, and for necessary fellowship and support. More recently, roadblocks to restrict the rights of pastors to move, and of churches to secure conservative and confessional ministers, have been growing, despite the assurance of the Constitution of their rights and autonomy in the process.

At this point a considerable number of members, ministers and churches have contacted Calvin Synod for relief. They seek fellowship with others committed to the final authority of the scriptures, to the faith and heritage of the Reformation, and to the lifestyles and actions consistent with these.

Rev. Albert W. Kovács