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

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HGP'Vol XX Special Number - 50 - (07692)

1968 No 2

In the period between the two wars there was an inner fermait in the life of the Protestant churches - something that the churches abiNtad iölow Very little about* It will suffice to recall the service of the Student Christian Movement (Pro Christo); many of the personalities who subsequently had an active part in the shaping of social life and in finding the new life pattért! of the church rallied from this movement«} Also on the congregational level, the revival movement ■» mainly under Anglo-Saxon influences in the Reformed Church and Finnish influences in the Lutheran Chufch - also had some positive traits«- The re-thinking of theology also made its contribution to this preparation« The direct influence of Barth*s theology was felt mainly in the Reformed Church, but it also gave impulses in the Luthe ran Church mainly to the study and a new understanding of Luther;s theology* These sketohy notes might suggest that some of the motives of later decisions can be traced back to the period between the two wars«

The main problem of our orientation in the new social situation concerned the distinction between service aid servility» Service meets the real need of man, servility is the attitude of catering to human wishes» At the beginning of the new period, pastors^ conferences and study groups raised questions like these; "What Does the Hungarian Nation Expect of the Procalamation of the Gospel?" "The Kind of Gospel Preaching the Hungarian People Needs"«, It almost seemed that conservatism would make the church a toy of reactionary farces, and,.in this respect, the influence of political Catholicism was by no means negligible (with Cardinal Mindszenty-’s personality being transformed into a symbolic figure)0 Those proposing the above themes and levelling the charge of mistaking servility for service to those seeking the way of the church failed to notice whence the real temptation of servility, that is, of the posture of catering to human wishes and emotions was actually coming to them«

c) The Ecumenical Dimensions of the Diakonia

The ecumenical movement which is serving the cause of a world-wide cooperation of the churches has given us help but sometimes also problems in our effort •-sciously to accept the servant pattern of the church«

the years immediately following World War II, we joined in the ecumenical movement with a special intensity} It was in this movement that •we first got to know the experience of the German Confessing Church - somewhat belatedly (it was only after the war that a Lutheran periodical published the Theological Declaration of Barmen and vie learned about the struggle of the church in Norway)« These examples promoted the self—scrutity of our churches but did not relieve them of the duty to-make their own and independent inquiries« Sane of them^toulc^tha-imptalse from the example of the G-eiman Confessing Churches protest against the anti-Christian content of Hitlerism to assume the same uasture against the emerging new social order. These,