Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HGP Vol XX Special Number

1968 No 2- 38

(07680)

confident and less tuned to a church message based primarily on the misery cf man. The Church Can only communicate with people in the new situation if she is able to proclaim the Gospel and if the membeis of the Church can be identified in the various fields of social life as people imbued with the joyful content of the Gospel, confident and hopeful people who know what is good and always side with those who serve the good of the people - "having tasted tint the Lord is gracious" (l Peter 2;3)o The task of the Ohuroh in society,ewry society, is to become a blessing for the--peqple, and this she can do only in that she herself obeys the Gospel and actually proclaims the Gospel«

o) The Fruits of the New Orientation; Understanding Responsibility, Mission

In every new situation of history, the Lord of the churches places them under the obligation to re-think their tasks« We now sum up under three headings what our churches have to consider anew with regard to their understanding, responsibility and mission«

In the new situation in v/hich our church lives and serves today the following three things are concerned by the new orientation of the church:

The‘‘question cf understand ing is the first problem to engage the attention of our church* The question is first raised by the experience of the church that she is not understood by others« Socialist society is basically secular and thus unable to understand the Church. To be sure, bourgeois society, too, is marked by the effects of secularization but, in its case, this issues in indifference« The bourgeois society does not understand the mission of the Church either, but, by virtue of a cp'rtain respect for tradition, it as< sumes the condescending attitude cf apparent understanding*

Having made this experience, the Church must also realize that the primary question is not whether or not she is understood by the world, but rather the question whether and to what extent does she understand the world. This is one of the most important questions of the Church in the world that has come of age, and within this, especially in the society in which this process of growing maturity has progressed farthest, that is:, in socialist society the development of which precludes any possibility of the Church playing a leading role in society.

It is fron this understanding that another factor of the Church’s renewal issues, and that is her responsibilitye The^Church can only fulfill her mission in this world if she is taught by God’s love granted to her to love men in a responsible manner, that is to say, to love as brothers and sisters those people also who do not belong to the fellowship of the Church; if, having renounced even the last remains of Cain’s heritage, she actually accepts her responsibility for all men*