Hungarian Church Press, 1957 (9. évfolyam, 14-15. szám)

1957-11-30 / 14. szám

HOHE’ XL. 30,1957, Vol.IX/14- 10 -166

Hie way in which tftm the grave mistake was made wc-s that the sodden attack against this ovcrouafidence v/as carried out in a meiirver as though our entire church had lost its way and had x>ursued ends wholly alien to the service of the Kingdom of God, Shis critical spirit could not he kept within proper bounds, and it seemed that God chose to punish this ovtrconi'idaioe by the onslaught of a criticism which, both as to its ends and to its methods, was a conglomeration of mistiikesc

This was all the more unfortunate as this criticism could have also found an abundance of things which called for remedy* In the way of our further self-scrutiny I point out a oase of this category: certain elements in our properly recognised insights had pushed into the backfproun-d (or even silenced, for some people) some other elements of truth which were equally or even more important. Let me give some exarples» We had stressed - and with right - the quality of timeliness in our preaching and in the entire work cf our church. At the same time, the eternal and unchanging message of tiie Word of God to every generation of all ages had been obscured or pushed into the background. It is quite evident that the living Word of the living God is only heard where it actually reproves, comforts and guides the man cf today amidst the problems and tasks of his life here and now. However, we must also realise the rights of the "eternal human" needs, and no preaching or church work must neglect or dismiss th em lightly. When king David wept over the body of his dead child, his tears were the same as those shed by a poor, grieved father of our time, Cr, when David poured out liis heart in deep penitence in Psalm 51, it was just like the throbbing of our heart if we, too, oould repent for our sins. Now this is an ex-xple hew a properly peroeived truth might change into on untruth when we push it forward r t the expense or risk of another truth. Now, another example. Emphasii has been laid in our time - and with right - in the wide fields of human living, on the idea of fellowship.

It is clear that, eben in this respect, the church has many a useful and radical message of the Bible to deliver which may have Leaning even on such practical problems as those concerning collective farming or the peace movement. Hence our pulpits may speak about the agricultural producing cooperatives or about the common destiny cf "all nations of men made by God of one blood" whai making today our choice between peace end war, that is, life and death* Itt it should not have been obscured cither, neither pushed into the background that human comnunity is not the aggrégation of lifeless objects but a fellowship of living personalities, and the infinite value of the indivi «nl soul must find its emphasis in preaching and in other church work, If we remain loyal to our Master who told us the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin and of the prodigal sen, then we must given due place in all our preaching and teaching to the great tex££ "TKhat shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his/soul?" It is quite certain that no one in the Reformed Church in Hungary had rejected those teachings of the gospel which lay so great an emphasis on the chiding experiences of the individual soul. Unfortuna.tely, the people in the revival movement oould only assess the task of the church from the exclusive viewpoint of the individual soul and cf individual salvation, while the large perspectives and timely imperatives of the ikingdom of God had remained for them in the background. We could initiate a debate as to which side lived on the failures of the other side, I admit the possibility that certain instances cf onesidedness actually seemed to justify a onesided emphasis with the opposite sign, or served as pretext for the same,

■And yet my last example- Hie reality of sin and the power of evil also belonged to the neglected elements of cur x <LoCi ik-i iw, which had failed to do full justice to the teaching the Word of Gcd about those realities. Here again we may notice the wrong use we made of a well perceived truth, On this point, however, we may only refer to individual instances of deviations and errors and cannot speak of a general and characteristic deviation in our church*s life. A church generation brought 15) on and again and again returning to the Heidelberg Catechism could hardly