Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)
1968-06-01 / 2. szám
HOP Vol XX Special Number - 43 - (07687) 1968 No 2 the urgent problems of the people in the present social transformation (the development of collective thinking, the Christian education with regard to collectively owned property, and mainly, in view of our rural population,the questions concerning collectivized farming). At this point, too, we must give critical treatment to dated op inirons still surviving as relics of the past, There are many temptations to overcome especially in relation to matters pertaining to the work of Christian love, the diakonia of the church. Our preachers havu rightly been emphasizing that the true Christian diakonia does not simply consist in individual acts and activities to help individuals in distress, but that the meaning of the church diakonia today is that the church accepts her responsibility for the future cf society e It is in the light of this insight that the questions cf communal responsibility are also solved. Just as in the life of society, the problem concerning; communal life is also solved by pointing to the joyous involvement of the man who loves his country and people, with free conscience, in the tasks of ctaumunal life. Proceeding along this line, this joyfully accepted and free responsibility also embraces the international obligations of our churches. Our churches have received the task from their common Lord to proclaim the message of repentance, the call for our return to Jesus Christ in this critical era of our divided world. It is by taking this responsibility seriously that the church may work for the church of the future and prepare the way of the church in the future0 The words cf the preachers call for concrete acts on the port of the church members in the matters pertaining to our international responsibility. Our preachers realize the untenableness of the view which is a relic of the past, rooted in many respects, in pietism: a view as though Jesus Christ, as a supreme and legalistically interpreted principle, were the only factor to release the existing social and international tensions.» An attitude - if based on a principle - towards the Gospel is the betrayal of the essence of the Gospel, while the way of true obedience is to live by the personal ond living reality of the Gospel. The turning sway from the idea of the churches life being an end in itself and the conversion to the service of the church in. the world is also indicated in our preaching by the fact that the task of defending the peace of the world, the service and struggle carried on in a way appropriate to the church for the peace of the world have become themes cf our sermons in our churches. Our preachers try to show the Biblical foundations of this service, They point out that the sacrifice of Christ is the sharpest protest against the destruction of human lives (Luke 9:51-56) and that the Christians' protest against war is the necessary consequence of God's revelation. f) The Homiletioal Tasks Conooming the Ethical Problems cf Social Life The conversion of our church from the idea cf the church's life being an end in itself to service for the world is also indicated by the way in which the ethical problems of cur church and social life are taken up in the pulpits.
