Magyar Egyház, 1964 (43. évfolyam, 3-9. szám)

1964-07-01 / 7. szám

8

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

MAGYAR

CHURCH

Aladar Komjáthy:

THE FRANKFURT STORY THROUGH HUNGARIAN EYES

l.

“We are living in an age of destruction and renewal on a world scale.” This quotation is from the study guide “Come, Creator Spirit,” which was prepared by the theological secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches for the 19th General Council held in Frankfurt, Germany between August 3 and 13, 1964. The sessions of the General Council were held in the main building of the Goethe University, which is located in an area of feverish reconstruction and city renewal activity. The customary “detour” and “street closed” signs coexisted peacefully with the posters “Come, Creator Spirit! 19th General Council, World Alliance of Reformed Churches.” While the many delegates from all parts of the world discussed the renewal of the church within the walls of the University, the bulldozers and other terrifying wonders of the modern reconstruction industry changed the environment. The noise of urban renewal never ceased to speak about the same condition our study guide tried to say in the above quoted sentence. The Reformed Churches of the world need the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. They came together in Frankfurt in the hope that the prayer of their main theme, “Come, Creator Spirit!” will be answered.

The German city, Frankfurt is one of the miracles of the post-war renewal and urban redevelopment in that nation. Those delegates who have not been in Frankfurt since the war did not recognize the city. But urban renewal and renewal of men are two entirely different matters. The vigorous economic renewal and its natural product: prosperity do not guarantee that there is a renewal in the hearts of men. As a Frankfurt cab driver with a philosophical bent said with some resignation in his voice: “There must be something wrong with us, people, if Christians from so many lands have to come to Frankfurt to discuss the renewal of man.’” Cab drivers are usually right and the study guide expressed the same concern in its diagnosis: “During the period of recorded history m=n’s know-how and social interests have grown immensely, wherever education has been possible. His wisdom and morality, however, have very often remained about the same. Civilized man has learned to fill up his brain and to restrain his body according to social convention. At times his spirit soars in flights of intuition, art and caring. On the normal plane of life, however, he is sick at heart. Or his heart is sheathed in the subtle diversions of labor and play, and he no longer suffers over the misery of his fellow-man nor contemplates how little he knows of man’s true grandeur. Modern society is itself virtually a mass organization of men in need of redemption.”

From all parts of the world Reformed Christians came to the Frankfurt General Council. It was the first such gathering of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches on

German soil, but it was not the first international meeting of Reformed Churches in Frankfurt. Almost four hundred years prior to our meeting an “International Reformed Convent” was held in Frankfurt in 1577, where the sixteenth century Reformed Christianity was just as well represented as it was at our meeting. In addition to the representatives of Queen Elizabeth I who was instrumental in summoning the convent, the Reformed churches of Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, Poland and Hungary sent delegates to the first Frankfurt meeting. The original aim and purpose of that historical meeting had been the desire to write an ecumenical creed for all Reformed Churches. The first Frankfurt meeting did not produce such a statement of faith and could be regarded as a failure.

Will this modern gathering of the Reformed Churches be remembered in the same way in the annals of church history as the one in 1577, or as a General Council of great historical importance? “What did you accomplish?” This is the question of many church members directed at those pastors who attended the Frankfurt Council. It is not easy to give an altogether positive answer to those questions. Maybe the real question should be phrased: “What is the significance of the Frankfurt meeting in the life of the Reformed congregations?” And let us forget now the imaginary and abstract “congregation in the nuclear age” or the “church in the post-Christian era”, but take a congregation like mine on Fourth Street in Passaic, New Jersey or the Javanese Christian Church of my friend Bosuke Probowinoto in the Indonesian city of Salatiga. The most decisive point must always be, did the General Council in Frankfurt really help the witness and service of the some fifty thousand local congregations?

II.

The statement of President Ralph Waldo Lloyd in his introductory address could be used as a descrption of the Frankfurt meeting as a representative body of Reformed Churches of the entire world: “It is not too much to say that within the past decade the Alliance has become for the first time really a World Alliance.” It is one of the often repeated facts of the Frankfurt meeting that ninetysix Reformed churches from sixty-five countries were represented. There are 27 member churches of the Alliance on the continent of Africa, 11 churches in Latin America, 10 in North America, 17 in Asia, 3 in Australasia and 27 in Europe. The approximate number of Reformed church membership throughout the entire world was estimated to be about fifty million. There are more than six million Reformed Christians in Asia, about four and a half million in Africa and more than one million in Latin America. Since the previous General Council which was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1959 twenty churches (17 from Africa!) were admitted into the membership of the Alliance of Reformed Churches. There are still Reformed and Presbyterian denominations which are not members. The largest of these, the Reformed Churches (Gereformeerde Kerken) of the Nether lands sent three observers to Frankfurt. Some