Sárospataki Füzetek 17. (2013)
2013 / 4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Szilveszter Füsti-Molnár: Can the Heidelberg Catechism be Neglected in the Life of the Reformed Church of Hungary?
Can the Heidelberg Catechism be Neglected in the Life balanced and unpredictable bring forth several logics for meeting the exigencies of the time - which often has opposite effects that do not strengthen a dialectical relationship but bring about confusion and a loss of orientation. The Church has in many ways become on the periphery. The temptation in the in-between state can be detected in the more and more common phenomenon that people in their spirituality turn away from institutionalized religious forms. They, in fact, just want to live their spirituality over against religiosity today. Subjective relativism wants to create such a spirituality suitable for the me, which is solely mine. In Mannioris analysis this leads to the elaboration process of individual identities, where the I becomes the foundation of reality and truth, and instead of grasping the personal meaning of existence outside of oneself, the individual him or herself creates one’s own spiritual meaning.9 It is the Christian apologetics task to counteract this tendency. Groothuis calls our attention to the fact that spirituality is the essential element of objective truth.10 The uncertainty of the borderline state becomes evident when rational objectivity is called into question in this process. This leads to distrusting the truth of normative interpretations, which causes the corruption of truth. The universal Christian Church presupposes the foundations for such a solid Christian worldview whose main narrative - from the beginning to the very end of the world - establishes also ontologically its mission and fills it with universal validity. It even has hope for the future, and offers to the individual and to collective efforts the gift of commitment, with eschatological fulfillment. The question is how to determine the position of the Church in the context of its own identity in regard to the liminal process in which the structures fault lines are stretched. Moreover, what interconnections are found between the liminality and the existing one standing in one’s existence? Our theological message is at this point first of all and principally based on a unique confessional position, since its foundation is determined by the incarnation. Through the incarnation of the Word, God calls in a personal and historical sense - and the theology of the Church confesses that the Word is both divine and human. God has every reason to say: “he who lives forever, whose name is holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isa. 57, 15) From this point of view, Christian mission and the task of the Church can be understood as a call into the liminal situation in which the wholly other appears. 9 G. Manion: Ecclesiology and Postmodernity. Question for the Church in our Time. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007, p. 4. 10D. Groothuis: Truth Decay. Defending Christianity against the Challenges of Postmodernism., 2000, Leicester: InterVarsity Press, p. 164-165. Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam 2013 I 4 49
