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

1964-03-01 / 3. szám

8

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

WINTER MEETING OF THE GENERAL BOARD OF N.C.C.C.

PRESIDENT MUELLER SPEAKS ON TOP PRIORITY AREAS

The claim that the church should “stick to religion” and stay out of public affairs merely supports the Marxist teaching that “religion is the opiate of the people,” Bishop Reuben H. Mueller, president of the National Council of Churches said as main speaker at a special luncheon honoring the National Council’s policymaking General Board, in Baltimore, Md. He charged that “either way the intent is for religion to put the people to sleep so they will docilely submit to those who oppose them.”

Bishop Mueller said Christian unity need not require organizational union, but that it must “manifest itself in action, bringing God’s resources to bear upon the problems of our human existence and interrelationships.”

He cited “civil rights problems, integration barriers, religious misunderstandings and international fears and hatreds” as top priority areas for Christian unity in action.

“I do not know a slick answer for these rough problems. I only know that we must try but that in trying we must stay close to Jesus Christ. We cannot do these things by ourselves,” he told guests at the luncheon sponsored by the Maryland Council of Churches.

Christian unity must extend throughout the world to all places, races and classes, can never be secure either nationally or internationally “unless it takes root in the local communities,” Bishop Mueller said. He emphasized that the ecumenical movement “is not exclusive to one group” of top church leaders. “Christian truth and Christian experience are for everybody, everywhere, and at all times,” he declared.

The local council of churches should be the “powerhouse of united spiritual, evangelistic, educational and social action advance for all of the churches of the community.” Council directors in turn should be the “ablest and most trusted influential persons in the community’s Christian forces,” Bishop Mueller said.

COUNCIL RESTRUCTURE PLANS GET GREEN LIGHT

The complex makeup of the National Council of Churches will be streamlined as the result of actions taken at the winter meeting of the General Board of the National Council of Churches held February 25-27 in Baltimore, Md. Under the plan, major program units will be realigned and renamed, with the exception of the Division of Christian Education, which will keep its name but take the Department of Pastoral Services under its wing.

The Council’s present four divisions, two central departments, two commissions and seven administrative offices will be affected in the reorganization, slated to be completed by January 1965.

The new Division of National Life and Mission will incorporate the Divisions of Home Missions and Christian Life and Work, and the Central Department of Evangelism. The Division of Foreign Missions and Church World Service will make up the new Division of Overseas Ministries.

Program units to be included in the new Division of Christian Unity are the Departments of United Church Women, United Church Men, the Office of

Councils of Churches, the NCC Southern Office in Atlanta, Ga., and the Department of Faith and Order Studies. Other offices and administrative units will be regrouped in the new Office of Planning and Program; Office of Communications; Office of Administration; and Office of Finance.

WCC Executive Committee Issues Statement on Christian Unity

The Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches meeting in Odessa, USSR, February 10-14, adopted a statement titled “Christian Unity: The Present Stage.”

A communique issued with the statement noted that the Executive Committee adopted the statement after it had “studied and discussed recent ecumenical developments, especially the second session of the Vatican Council and many important meetings between the leaders of different Christian confessions.”

The statement declares that its aim is to “set forth afresh those principles which have inspired the common life of the World Council of Churches” in the search for unity. It said that “we have entered upon a new period in the history of the ecumenical movement.”

It noted that now “nearly all churches recognize and are engaging actively in the pursuit of Christian unity,” and described as “especially welcome the attention which the Roman Catholic Church is devoting to the subject of ecumenism, in the deliberations of the Second Vatican Council.”

The Committee also welcomed with rejoicing the fact that “more and more personal relationships are being established, both among church leaders and among members of the different confessions.”

However, it declared, “the real crux of the ecumenical problem remains that of the relationships between the churches.”

For this reason, the statement said, “the right of every church to hold and develop its own particular attitude to the problem of church unity should be fully recognized and respected.”

What the World Council seeks to promote, it said, is “a conversation within a fellowship which has become a new experience in the life of the churches as they have shared in prayer and action.”

In the WCC the churches “recognize one another as confessing the same Lord, sharing the same baptism and participating in a common calling to the glory of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

The WCC’s member churches do not look for “a unity characterized by uniformity or by a single centralized administrative authority.”

Although they “may have reservations concerning one another’s ecclesiological position” they are ready to engage in this conversation on “equal terms” and “all are expected to listen as well as to speak, to receive as well as to give.” At the same time “existing differences and tensions are frankly faced,” and doctrinal relativism repudiated.

But such conversation is not all they do, the statement continued. These churches whenever it is possible to do so “seek to render assistance to each other in case of need, and support one another in their witness to Christ.” Common witness and common action are their constant aim, it underlined.

The statement concluded: “We encourage the member churches of the World Council to persevere in