Calvin Synod Herald, 1979 (79. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-07-01 / 7-8. szám
6 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD 1. WE HAVE FAILED TO MEET THE FULL-TIME BISHOP CHALLENGE. We have appointed a committee of seven which met discussed the problem, but mellowed it to an “assistant to the Bishop” and ended in a token (financial) “assistance to the Bishop’s Office.” Victimized with “impossibility thinkers” we were hopelessly divided in this issue, and as our Lord said: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand” (Mt. 12:25). Of course, we pay the heavy price for it now (no visitation of churches, no Hungarian Reformed curriculum for our church schools, no information booklet, no “acting” conference for the welfare and growth of our constituency, etc.), but I am afraid the price in the future will be even heavier. 2. WE HAVE FAILED TO CULTIVATE OUR HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH UNITING. Again, we had some meetings, organized committees, even worked together in some areas (Future of Ligonier, diaspora, Erdély Relief, etc.) but a real breakthrough of trust and faith have not occurred. Now we plan to have our youth conference together, but whether we are going to have it or not remains to be seen. Although neither our denominational leadership nor the pastors and members of congregations are overly enthusiastic about this possibility, it seems to me that the plague of “impossibility thinking” is the real source of our failure. 3. WE HAVE FAILED TO ESTABLISH THE HUNGARIAN REFORMED CENTER IN LIGONIER. At our last Synod meeting I reported in details how this problem emerged among us. I feel I am obligated now to report on what took place since. After a dignified and constructive deliberation, the 40th Annual Meeting of our Synod UNANIMOUSLY accepted the recommendation that “The Calvin Synod.. . wishes to use the Children’s Home buildings of the Bethlen Home with option to buy them in 3-5 years in order to create a Hungarian Reformed Center.” The Conference Council was authorized to enter into negotiations with the HRFA regarding the use of the buildings. “After a suitable agreement is reached concerning maintenance, amortizations payments, and a Council-prepared plan and budget, it is to be approved by the referendum vote of the delegates of the 40th Annual Meeting ... not later than May 25, 1978.” This resolution accepted on April 18, 1978 was sent to the President of the HRFA on April 20, 1978. He presented it to the Board of Managers of the Bethlen Home on April 25, however no action was taken! Thus the representatives of our Conference Council met the national officers of the HRFA in Washington, D.C. on May 2, 1978. When the opinion was expressed that the Bethlen Home of the HRFA intends to establish a Heritage Center of the Bethlen Home pending New Statistics On Church Membership: Mainline Protestants Decline Slowing, Evangelicals Still on Rise NEW YORK, May 31 — While evangelical bodies remain the fastest-growing American churches, a seven-year decline in mainline Protestant membership appears to be slowing, according to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 1979. Published today by Abingdon Press for the National Council of Churches, the Yearbook contains statistics on American and Canadian church membership for 1977, the most recent year for which they are available. The nation’s only source of comprehensive statistics on religion, the Yearbook also reports that overall church membership kept pace with population growth in 1977; that the number of U.S. clergy continued to rise, feeding an already tight market; and that women and minorities continued to enter the seminary in growing numbers, though remaining far below their percentage in the overall population. Total financial contributions to churches were up in 1977, but with inflation the churches were simply “running harder and harder to stay in the same place,” notes Yearbook editor Constant H. Jacquet. The average contribution to 45 U. S. church bodies went front $149.75 in 1976 to $159.33 in 1977, but in real dollars the increase was very slight. According to a Gallup poll reported by the Yearbook, church attendance stayed roughly level in 1977, with 41 percent of adults attending in a typical week, compared to 42 percent in 1976. But another Gallup indicator took a downturn: the percentage of people believing religious influence on the rise in American life dropped from 44 to 36 percent, reversing a six-year trend. The Yearbook places total church membership in the 222 religious bodies surveyed at 132,812,470, an increase of 0.7 percent over 1976. That figure is close enough to the estimated 0.8 percent increase in U.S. population to render the difference statistically insignificant.
