Magyar Egyház, 1966 (45. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1966-06-01 / 6-7. szám
8 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ In many of our congregations there is already a beautiful Christian education building which stands there practically empty on weekdays. The Lord has bestowed so many rich blessings upon us that we have more and more qualified teachers among our members. God gave us children. We have buildings, teachers, pupils and let us also confess: the money we also could have. Let us look around us for examples what some of our Protestant brethren are doing in Northeastern seaboard, United States, 1966? A few blocks away from my church there is a Slovak Lutheran Church which has a flourishing parochial school. Every morning a bus picks up the children from Passaic, Garfield and Clifton. Some children from our church attend this wonderful school. In our area there is an Eastern Christian School Association which is the largest parent-controlled, private school system in the state of New Jersey. It has several Christian Day Schools and an excellent Christian High School. Along with an increasing number of children from our church, my children attend the Passaic Christian School. From September on, a very talented and dedicated member of our congregation will join the faculty of teachers at Eastern Christian. These schools are maintained by Reformed people (mainly of Dutch immigrant background) and they do not even have a Confession of Faith which binds them to have their own schools. You may think this idea unrealistic and revolutionary. Everything new creates some controversy. I wish and pray for one, because our churches would benefit by it. If there is one thing clear from a careful reading of the Second Helvetic it is the following: the elders and leaders of the Church have to be concerned with the children of the Covenant. The future of our Christian life in this country will not be secured by record-breaking budgets and larger church buildings and more comfortable club-rooms; but rather will there be faith, love and dedication in the hearts of our children? An hour of Sunday School on Sunday mornings will not be enough to keep the healthy balance between the spiritual and the intellectual growth in the mind of a child. Ultimately the secularist, agnostic and relativist spirit of our times will win out. I did not raise this problem as an idealist I know that there are places where our church is too small to maintain a school, but it does not give us an excuse for not looking around. You will be surprised, a superficial reading of your local telephone directory may tell you that there is a Lutheran School a few blocks away. You should also know that where our Christian Reformed brethren have a church, they also have a school. Don’t think that they are richer than we are in material things, but they say we want Christian education for our children and they sacrifice for it. Five families somewhere in Michigan began the Christian Reformed denomination about a hundred years ago. They were Dutch immigrants, “poor peasants.” Today they have a denomination of 270,000 communicant members. You ask why could they, and why can’t we? The answer is humanly speaking Christian Day Schools. One more thought should be added. Had there been no Christian schools in Hungary, there would be no Hungarian Reformed Church in this country or anywhere else! A leading Hungarian political essayist wrote in 1960 the following: “The Reformed Church Schools had been bulwarks of Hungarian Calvinism and from which came generation after generation its elite. One or two of the schools and colleges predated the organized Church, tracing their charters back four hunderd years. Some of aristocrat and peasant alike went to the ancient kollégiums, graduat-There were five Sundays in July ing years later as mature pastors, teachers, scholars and poets. These schools produced a percentage of the country’s political and intellectual leaders far in excess of the numerical proportion of Hungarian Calvinists ... At all events, the church schools in Hungary far surpassed the state schools ...” There were 1117 Hungarian Reformed elementary, high, preparatory schools, teachers colleges, when the Communist government nationalized the schools in 1948. The same author also stated, “Needless to say, the Reformed Church never for an instant thought of giving up her schools. In the past, the greater the pressure of the times the more firmly she clung to them. After World War II, the Church regarded the surrender of the schools as unthinkable . . . Almost all of those (ministers and laymen) who played a leading part in resistance (against the Communist takeover of the schools) were arrested and interned.” (Gyula Gombos, The Lean Years, A Study of Hungarian Calvinism in Crisis, pp. 29-31) Our faith, our heritage and our contemporary situation demands answer and a responsible answer to the question: Where are the Christian Schools of the Hungarian Reformed community in North America? If you think there is no need for them, say so and tell us why. I really think that it is the imperative of the hour that our churches seriously consider this problem, and also do something about it. If that lady in Maryland has so much vigor and courage to go as far as the Supreme Court fighting for her unbelief, can it we as Reformed Christians be at least as much vigorous and courageous in carrying out the tenets of our faith? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge” — thus says the Lord (Hosea 4,6; Jeremiah 4,22; Isaiah 5, 13). And again another very concrete Biblical warning to us: “A people without understanding shall come to ruin.” (Hosea 4,14) The Bible means exactly the same what we were trying to get across. In times like ours, an articulate understanding of our faith is needed, but in such a way that it really becomes the integrating force of our entire personality, thinking and living. The Lord claims your entire life for his kingdom, and you cannot give him half-hearted, part-time (Sunday morning only) service. Is your faith dear to you? Do you think we have a heritage which should be preserved? Do you want to fulfill your baptismal vows as parents? The best way to help all these to become true is the way of Christian day schools where God-fearing and dedicated teachers educate the children of God’s Covenant “in all knowledge.” “For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light do we see light.” (Psalm 36,10.) Ordination In Duquesne The church was filled with worshippers on June 19th at the ordination of the Rev. Lester D. Helmeczi. Three parents were unspeakably happy on this day. Kálmán Helmeczi and his wife were the happiest. Their eyes were filled with tears of joy. The pious, good parents of Hungarian Reformed heritage have lived to see the day when their second son, Lester, was ordained to the Christian ministry. Can prayerful parents have any greater joy than to see their son give his heart to Christ in this modern secular world and to see him become a servant of Christ? The faith of one of the ancestors in
