Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HCP Yol XX Special Number

1968 No 2

(07906)- 125 -terests of the whole human race® "Coexistence - said Professor Hromidka at the 1963 meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Christian Peace Conference - is a relation of nations attempting to prove their authority and stand the test of mutual competition by their creative work in science and culture, by their moral and spiritual level, by their economic and social, political and international achievements, What matters is that man and mankind is helped to achieve a higher standard of living to develop their spiritual pavers and to create cultural goods0oo Coexistence does not in the least mean to give up oneps own conviction, ideology, world view; it means,, however, the desire to put oneps own conviction and ideological firmness at the service of man and mankind" »104)

There is no coexistence—concept peculiar to theology0 The churches becoming aware of their responsibility for the world, the peace cf mankind and its life on this earth in the future must accept the secular character and political content cf this concept by recognizing the opportunity and possibility cf their helpful cooperation in the field of those endeavours to which this concept refers.

Already in the report of Section IV of the Amsterdam Assembly this principle of coexistence with its political content is mentioned? "The church must positively strive that the various eoonomic systems new in conflict with each, other, that is , communism, socialism and private enterprise- may live side by side, without making war against each other'In spite of the repeated proposals'made by many member churches to put the question of coexistence on the agenda of ecumenical discussions, most cf the churches handled this problem, in the subsequent years, with suspicion and reserve0 There can be no doubt that this was the consequence of the harmful, influence which the mightily stepped-up Cold War ’v I exerted on the World Council of Churches-. Today, however, we are already in the position to state that the churches are no longer averse to the conception and the secular goals it entails, and, at the World Conference on Church and Society, there was a special study group to discuss the question of coexistence (Structures of International Cooperation -■ Living Together in Peace in, a Pluralistic World Society)0 We may state with satisfaction that the cause of coexistence is today not only the object of the discussions and ministrations of the Christian Peace Conference but also ar important concern in the studies and investigations of all the churches which arc learning to exercise their responsibility for humanityc

It is no coincidence that we have stressed our conviction that there is no conception of coexistence that were peculiar to theologye It is our experience gathered in the course of the relevant discussions under the auspices of the Christian Peace Conference that the churches are constantly tenpted to "spiritualize" certain secular conceptions the contents of which are not alien but rather- sympathetic to their own endeavours and tasks-,Hence we must bear in mind that the meaning of coexistence is not derived from salvation history and hence its interpretation cannot be the monopoly cf the church, this guardian of divine revelation^, To put it briefly? although the