Magyar Egyház, 1970 (49. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1970-04-01 / 4. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 13 THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST’S DISCIPLES IS HERE TO STAY Eastern Classis Meets In Trenton The Annual Meeting of the Eastern Classis of the Hungarian Reformed Church in America convened Sunday, April 12 in the Trenton church. Dean Dr. Andrew Harsanyi and Chief Elder John Nemish presided at the meeting. Beloiv is a portion of the report presented by Dean Dr. Harsanyi to the delegates of the churches. Statisticians are awfully busy nowadays pointing to the general decline of church life—congregational giving is down, benevolence giving is down, church attendance is down. Also, the church has less influence upon its own members and less influence upon public life than, say, a decade ago. Statisticians venture predictions that if this trend keeps up then by 2,000 there will be no churches and no Christianity on earth anymore. Sociologists join in with no less gloomy statements about the world in general: parallel with the decline in the intensity of church life goes the rising rate of violence, crime and corruption, the general breaking down of solid moral standards and the disintegration of family life which most disturbingly manifests itself in the alarming alienation of the young generation from everything that is coming from the previous generation, from everything in the world today that was also yesterday and from everything done by people who come from yesterday. * Examining the life of our congregations in the Eastern Classis we may comfort ourselves with the fact that our congregational receipts have not declined, as a matter of fact they have risen at least to balance out the losses through inflation. Most of our churches, however, do report a decline in attendance. We may say that ‘Well, God is cutting off the dead-wood, what remains is a smaller but truly live group of faithful.’ But if the trend keeps up we may soon have to pray, ‘O Lord, dost thou not think that this business of cutting off dead branches is going too far? There are barely any branches left...’ It is also a fact that many young people disappear from church life after their confirmation and it keeps big effort to keep women’s and men’s organizations functioning— in some cases it has been impossible. Does all this justify a pessimistic outlook resigning to the possibility of the total fading out of the church? The life expectancy of the small band of disciples trembling in the Upper Room after their Master had left them was practically nil. Who, really, expected Pentecost and what was to come after it? Later, who expected the total reformation of the church from a power-seeking organization to a live spiritual community? Who expected Luther, Calvin, the II. Helvetic Confession or the Heidelberg Catechism? Who expected that through the simple Hungarian preachers of the XVI. century the country torn into three parts by two enemies would be saved? For that matter, who expected our Hungarian Reformed Churches in America to survive decades of assimilatory endeavors? I can assure you, very few expected—and yet it all happened. Why, then, are less and less people expecting that this mysterious and miraculous work of the Holy Spirit manifest itself once again in this world of ours and in the 70s? Maybe because people use wrong standards by which to judge the church’s “success.” Even devoted church members think of the church as a business enterprise whose signs of success are quantitative growth in the number of members and dollar turnover as well as in the visible power it can exert in the affairs of the world. A little church history will tell that when virtually all people in the West were members of the Church—Roman Catholic or Protestant depending which country we look at in what age—the Church was quite corrupt or stagnant, lifeless. There are many countries today with established churches—Roman Catholicism in Spain and in Latin America, Lutheranism in Scandinavia, the Church of England—yet the majority of the people are merely nominal Christians. On the other page of the book we see a colossal rise in Bible consumption in Latin America and Africa, vigorous free churches in Scandinavia and in spite of open or subtle oppression in the Communist countries solid manifestations of indomitable faith. No, numbers and dollars are not the signs of success—in the life of the church, that is. Or, look at the various political parties which have been trying so hard to direct national policies under the “Christian” banner, the so called Christian Democrats in Italy, West Germany or Austria—their failure is indisputable. No, the visible manifestation of power is not the sign of success—of the church, that is. We should forget numerical success, power-success and also the gloomy predictions of statisticians and sociologists. Instead, we should recall what the church, the fellowship of Christ’s disciples was supposed to be in his grandiose plan: a redemptive society, healer of the sores of the world, servant of the world, reconciler between man and God, reconciler between man and man. Not an institution, not a busdess, not an organization seeking after power. * No matter how successful and how frequent spaceflights are going to be in the next decade, mass exodus of man from earth is not yet planned. We must live on this planet in this decade and in the next and thereafter. And in this life the fundamental task of the Christian remains the same that Christ gave his disciples. What he told the twelve to do he tells us to do: find the lost, heal the sick, give life to the dead, make men conscious of the great love of God. Methods may be different today—medical science has thousand new ways to heal physical and mental illnesses; breathtaking technical progress provides new ways of production, communication, transportation. The church is no longer the sole agent of health, education and welfare. But the spiritual healing of a sick world and reconciliation is still the church’s task. No agency has come up with better ideas or greater power because the church—not the institution but the fellowship of Christ’s ever modern disciples—is the only one which is able to do things, to love and to serve not in the interest of any single nation, race, groups, or class but as the messenger of Christ who is Lord of all. Because the church is the only agency seeking neither riches nor political power. To be a Christian and to belong to the church therefore is not adding another club-membership to the existing others; it is not assuming another financial obligation The fellowship of the church is not an organization one can join or drop at whim or pleasure. To be a Christian means to acknowledge Christ’s call ‘Follow me!’ and do it, sincerely, wholeheartedly, with body and soul. Returning to the predictions of statisticians: if and as long as the church—including our congregations in the Eastern Classis and in the Hungarian Reformed Church in America—is a self-centered and self-perpetuating religious club and business venture, it is doomed (and it
