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

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HOP Vol XX Special Number

1968 No 2- 163 -(08008)

While engaged in the process of this rethinking, we have to go back to the Biblical foundations0 The demand for Biblical and theological motivation is often made from many quarters on]cur Christian peace service« One of tie examples of this is the criticism tint it is difficult to see, in Christian peace declarations, the relation between the Gospel and the specific causes advocated,. But we mean mare than this criticism, which is often formal in nature, when we urge the return to the Biblical foundations« It seems to us that this is really the matter of the basic tendency and all-pervasive spirit of our Christian peace servicea The return to the Biblical foundations can be best exemplified by the preaching of John the Baptiste

The preaching cf Jolin, determined by the knowledge cf Christas Incarnation and the nearness of the Kingdom, proclaims the Compel by callring to repentance, to a return to God issuing in a change in our relation to our fellawmen* The teaching cf Jesus and then the apostolic witness underscore this requirement) The single test of true discipleship, ao.cording to Jesus, is the fulfillment of the commandment of love (Matthew 25s" 31—46).

Christian theology has since generations tended to reduce the conception of repentance to that of an amorphous, pietistio experience, oblivious of the fact that already the first and classic formulation of the conception of repentance or "conversion" was in terms of social ethics ("He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none")&

We need a new evangelism which, preaching the good Ridings of Christ, would, call to repentance in the way of this conversion being our return to the love of our fel lawmen,» The decisive question of the Christian peace service is whether or not we can preach the call to repentance and conversion in this manner«

Christians can only become suitable instruments cf this prophetic preaching^ this new evangelism, if they themselves obey this call to penitence and conversion« Hence it is first of all on the word of the Christians, the churches and on us Christians that this preaching makes its demand* We must meditate on the fact - our Christian brethren from the developing countries often emphatically ask us to do this — that the bulk of the wealth of mankind is in the hands of peoples and governments that profess their adherence to Christian traditions,» let the governments of the same peoples have institutionalized in modem history the practice of colonialism and even today often fight against