Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)
1968-06-01 / 2. szám
HOP Vol XX Special Number 1968 No 2- 56 (07698) The Church accepting the diakonia pattern must realize that the dominant attitude of her ministry cannot he deduced simply from the otherwise quite legitimate demands and expectations of the society in which she lives and serves® Our churches have had to learn again and again to distinguish between those who indeed seek the ways of cooperation with the healthy objectives of the environing society and those who are led by some considerations of political opportunism, of fear and ary other alien motives, thus becoming veritable "fellow travellers"» The diakonia pattern calls for the attitude of constant openness to God#s revelation, giving reply by personal decisions in terms of obedience to God's guidance. The conduct of the Church appropriate to the diakonia pattern is net that of the arriviste» Important as it is to find the common way of cooperation with the surrounding society in serving what is good according to God,her conduct can never become a means to the end cf maintaining or recapturing the positions of her public influence in society or to aoquire new positions which seem to belohg to her status0 The diakonia pattern of the Church in relation to society has a diacritical character» If die is really obedient to her Lord, thai she will rally her members to serve what is good in society but will dissociate herself from what is not good» And she carries on this service not for herself -, neither only in the interests of her members- If she proves obedient in this service, then she will be able to give her specific contribution to the end that the society in which she lives may be constantly purified so as to ful fill its God-given destiny* 5) THe Eroghetic Ministry of the Church - the Churches Word on Secular Issues In pur contribution to the World Conference on Church and Society, in 1966, we dealt in detail with the prophetic ministry of the Church ’In society,, (See HOP July, 1966, Special Number, pp. 3-12)e In view of the importance of the theme and with sane new considerations of the problems involved, we take up again the question concerning the interpretation .and social significance of the prophetic ministry cf the Church;, This section of our present contribution is the completion of the former study of the theme inasmuch as now we not only deal with the Biblical foundations of this service but we also discuss the place which the prophetic ministry of the Church occupies in the development of Hungarian theology, with some attendant problems in this context® The Church can only fulfill her prophet ic mis sion if it is in accord with the prophetic ministry as portrayed by the Bible® This principle of Biblical orientation, however, is not without some difficulty se Since the ministry of the Biblical prophets was always conditioned by the place and
