Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)
1968-06-01 / 2. szám
HCP'Vol XX Special Number 1968 No 2 36 *■ (07678) is recorded about the first Christians: "Praising God, and having favour with all the people". And. inasmuch as the State is indeed the State of the people and not the coercive organization of the ruling oliques of exploiters, the leitourgia of the State and the leitourgia cf the Church, the minister!urn verb! divini and the minister ium rei pnblicae will converge in mutual understanding, and in cooperation to accomplish the great, humane and Godgiven objectives of modern lifc0 I 3) Prom Serving the Church as an End to Serving the World a) Theological Approach to Socialist Society It was afier World War II that the Evangelical churches of Hungary were first confronted,in aotual practice,with the decisive issue of sooiabism when they became surrounded by a society which was being built up according to the principles of Marxism and according to the purposeful blueprint of social development. The churohes were unprepared to make this enoounter, but, progressively recognizing their deficiency in this respect and making an open conf ess ion of the same, their repentance was actually followed by their conversion fron their selfishnessc Following World War II, a development began, on the basis of Marxist principles, which has since radically changed the whole structure of our society* A purposeful revolutionary programme has been put into practice in order to effect a total transformation of eoonomic life and the consoiousness of the people* This development has created an entirely new situation also for the Evangelical churches of Hungary. They have had to reckon with the fact cf the new situation which has placed new tasks before them. Although the churches; preachers of prophetic vision and many of their responsible "watchmen" had repeatedly warned the churches as to the foreseeable ohonges, and had even eriled for the effort to acquire an unbiassed view of socialism, their voice had been unheeded and the churches were unprepared to face the challenge of the change when it set in. The main reason for their unpreparedness lay in their nationalistic anti-communism which, masquerading as an attitude appropriate to the church, had dominated church life during the time between the two world wars and had induced the churches to believe that the life of the church was bound up with the fate of bourgeois society. After World War II, it was this posture that the leading theologians of the churches began to challenge and, as a result of their critioism, the congregations and the parishioners also, in a gradual prooess, have given 15) thii - view. To sum up the situation of our church after the termination cf World War XI we might say that it was composed of two extremes: a "folk church majority" with a latitudinarian ocnscienoe and a group marked by a
