Magyar Egyház, 1977 (56. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1977-01-01 / 1. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 7 these copies to people in your community. All must be informed of this church boycott.” Remember! If the leaflet writer would achieve his goal, the church would not be modernized, but destroyed. He was brave enough to sign his name and his address, but he was not sincere to tell the truth and state his real goal. As Lenin once said: “We can not destroy all our enemies at once, but we will destroy them step by step.” The second false statement about the church: The church is nothing else, but another earthly organization, a very closed society, brotherhood, a special interest group, which has an equal place in modern community with other groups, service clubs, veteran organizations, labor groups, etc. According to this opinion the church is a good organization, helping the government, helping the people, doing some very important social work, teaching the alcepted moral laws of the nation, helping the police force and the family life. The usefulness of the church is measured in earthly achievements, visible results. This is the official U. S. government opinion about the churches and this opinion is written in the tax laws of our nation giving the non-profit, charitable status and tax exemption to the churches. The third false opinion about the church: The church is nothing else but the visible representation of a philosophical idea, and has a place among other philosophical schools somewhere between the “there is no God” and the “there are many Gods” theories. The fourth false opinion about the church: According to this false opinion the church is acceptable in the modern community and believers, free thinkers, Christians and atheists all have their places under the sun and they all can live peacefully together working for the benefit of mankind. Another modern way to talk about the church is to compare the religious belief with today’s scientific achievements. The usual saying is: “Religion is fiction, science is fact!” According to this thinking religion and the church is acceptable for modern men, if the teaching of the church always follows the up-to-date scientific discoveries, accepts all scientific facts and explains to the common man the work of the scientists. They call this modern but false idea the space age religion, but really this thinking is nothing else but the religion and worship of science. For others the church is an escape route, a safety valve in a crazy world. The advocates of this thinking are saying that the church is fulfilling a very important place in the modern life and today’s community. Only through faith in the supernatural and deep involvement in the lives of others through spiritual channels, can we stay normal, live in peace with ourselves and with others. Only through the never changing teaching of the church can we survive in a fast changing world. According to this opinion the church is doing the job of the psychoanalists, gives assurance when we need it, forgives our sins and takes away our guilt feelings and cures our mental disorders, giving us a fix and never changing point, who is God. All the above mentioned false opinions about the church’s place in modern community share one common mistake: They do not know what is the church, they analyze only the visible form, the earthly side of the church and they make their statements about the church and the place of the church in today’s modern world and community accordingly. We can not really blame them. Sometimes, we Christians are making the same mistakes, we are not taking into consideration all the facts and the whole truth about the church. Before we give our answers and place the church into the right place in today’s modern community, let us refresh our memories and talk about the church according to the Bible, Jesus Christ and the revelation of God. II. THE ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH. The origin of the church is going back to the idea of a covenant relationship between God and man. We can find this special relationship in the earliest records of the Bible. God made covenants, agreements with individuals and families, later with the whole nation. The religion of the Old Testament was the religion of hope and its golden age was in the future with the coming Messiah. The messianic hope and the promised salvation was the center of the worship, the fundament of the religion. One of the most interesting features in the teaching of Jesus Christ is his claim to be the Messiah and His announcement of the coming Kingdom of God. Jesus, using this words, intended to appeal to the ideas and hopes of those whom He addressed. But very soon it became plain that the kingdom which He preached was something very different from anything that the most spiritual believer had conceived. The God appointed leaders of the Old Testament had led their people in war, they had judged them in peace and they had demanded tribute, but these functions Jesus Christ openly disclaimed. He would not allow His followers to think of appealing to force, He rejected the idea of being ruler or a judge. But on the other hand the great acts which God himself had
