Calvin Synod Herald, 1976 (76. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1976-03-01 / 3-4. szám
REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA 5 ENCOURAGED the withdrawal of all foreign troops from that country. SUPPORTED the legal efforts of the United Church of Christ (a member body) to obtain a new trial for a group of ten people from Wilmington, N.C. imprisoned as a result of busing-related tragedies. REQUESTED California legislators to extend the tenure of its Agricultural Labor Relations Board so the task of farm worker elections (for unions) can be completed. SUPPORTED the right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination to hear a presentation by Puerto Ricans on this issue in October. WILL ASK the Governor of California not to grant extradition of Indian activist Dennis Banks, now apprehended in that state. SET UP a process to form a committee to study conditions among native Americans where there are questions concerning violations of their rights. ENCOURAGED member churches to participate in setting up a Bail Bond Fund for minority people in need of legal assistance. SUPPORTED the New York State Council of Churches’ call for ending that state’s legal prosecution concerning the Attica uprising. ADOPTED a theoretical framework for the next three years emphasizing a “sacramental, global, interdependent” vision of the world and ENCOURAGED increased discussion by laity of these problems, especially those with expertise in them. APPLAUDED address by church historian James H. Smylie tracing political and spiritual revolutions in America and by Australian biologist Charles Birch defining a “just and sustainable” world society. VISITED the grave of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. after being led in worship by his father. HEARD a report on the latest arrests of Christians in Korea — this time the March 1st incarceration of Mrs. Lee Oo Chung, president of Church Women United of Korea and AGREED to send a delegation to Washington, D.C. to personally protest to the Korean Ambassador to the U.S. and to express solidarity with the National Council of Churches in Korea. REAFFIRMED its longtime support of the United Nations.----------------** --------------------Churches Must Change Theologian Says “It is up to the church to change so that the gospel can be heard anew,” Rev. Dr. Letty Russell, Assistant Professor of Theology at Yale, told a group of a hundred church educators at a conference at Tanglewood, North Carolina. “We must participate with God in contradicting the reality of the present.” These comments followed a week of study of the future in which participants had heard dire predictions of disasters — mega-famine, totally destructive wars, and an environment polluted and destroyed by the year 2000. History shows us that people can change and are changing, Ms. Russell said. Church people need the perspective of faith and hope to plan in the face of problems that seem impossible to solve. If we stretch the horizons of our expectations, we will develop the soul-power to take the small steps to make human life more human. The futurists talk about “when we will use up energy sources, when we will blow ourselves up, and when there will be a revolution, and they ask how we can intervene.” But the religious person anticipates the working of God in history and asks how we can act now as if the future of God’s new age were already present. However, church persons must not be utopian dreamers. They must be a constant pressure group for changing the status quo. If they are ostriches, then others will project the future. The gospel, Professor Russell said, is good news for oppressed people. We must enter into the suffering and pain of the women,, the Blacks, the third world people, the hungering and dying, and participate in God’s liberating actions. When asked how the churches need to change, she said we must decide what work needs to be done and shape the structure of the church to do it. We must think of the church in terms of its mission or task rather than as a white-washed building whose structure must be maintained. The church for the future may take many forms according to the work that needs to be done. Ms. Russell spoke of “the church in the telephone booth” if the job that needs to be done is crisis counseling or suicide prevention. She spoke of the church as a family that would be a support group for persons of all ages and that would be doing many different kinds of things. The church today ministers to families, she said, but it is not itself a family. A family church would be one that lived and worked as a family, offering support to every person — childcare help for the overworked mother, financial help for the youth struggling through school, care for the aged. It would be a “permanent availability structure — a permanent community.” The group of one hundred educators represent twelve denominational bodies with a constituency of thirteen million. The twelve work together for Joint Educational Development (JED) to accomplish some shared goals in church education. O 0 o TEN RULES FOR MARRIAGE 1. Trust completely. 2. Let love rule supremely. 3. Never credit circumstantial evidence. 4. Be ready to sacrifice. 5. Don’t carry a grudge. 6. Remember that companionship begins at home. 7. Make the “family altar” a must in your home. 8. Be willing to forgive and forget. 9. Put the will of God ahead of yours every time. 10. Be as courteous to each other in privacy as you are in public. O Ö O HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO GET TO CHURCH? A questionnaire mailed out by a Church asked, “How far do you live from the Church? and How long does it take you to get to Church? One member answered, “I live about 4 blocks away from the Church, and to get there it takes me about 3 months.”
