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

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HOP Vol XX Special Number

1968 No 2

(7624)- 4 -PREFACE

In the years preceding 'and following Wörld War II, the Evangelical churches of Hungary have taken a progressively intensified interest in the problems of their social environment,, This is explained by .the fact that,between the two world wars, the problems of Hungarian society became extremely aaute® In the community of European peoples, Hungary5 s half-feudal and halfcapitalistic social system was unaffected, and about three million of her total population of ten millions barely rose above the lowest subsistence level. In this situation, the churches lamentably failed to side with the poor and to castigate the privileges of the ruling classes,» Quite on the contrary,they helped to uphold the conditions of social injustice®

It was after these antecedents that die churches had to face the events of a radical social transformation which followed World War Ho They could not ignore the revolutionary changes in the life of sooiety; they had to define their relation to them, In this way, the social problems have moved to the forefront of the churches interest® This developmoit at first provoked the criticism and even the mistrust of the sister churches abroad because,two decades ago, it had been yet a much more strongly held opinion than today that the churches transgressed the boundary of their responsibility and competence if they declared themselves on social problems® However, the subsequent years have witnessed to the growing affirmation, also among the churches of the oikoumene, of the Biblical insight that Christian faith implies the obligation to love our fellowmen, and the commandment of love places the church under the obligation to assume responsibility for man, also for the earthly welfare of man® The dangers under the threat of which mankind lives today are of such a magnitude that the churches cannot escape their duty to give their answers to the social problems. The World Conference on Church and.Society held in 1966 in Geneva, by itself, signalizes the inoreased awareness in the churches of their social responsibility®

The Hungarian churches have recognised the historical necessity of the revolutionary changes that have taken place in this country® Thy have accepted the new social order, in spite of the fact that the ideological foundation of the new system is Marxism which involves the principle of atheism and thus it is opposed to the Gospel® The enoounter of the Hungarian Evangelical churches with Marxist society and their endeavour to ccpe, also theologically, with their new historical situation, constituted an event almost unparalleled in the history of the Evangelical churcbeso When we entered this confront at ion, we could not rely on the experiences of other Evangelical churches® Hence — quite understandably - our venture has provoked diverging comments in the vaV