Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)
1968-06-01 / 2. szám
iHCP'Tol XXJäpeoial Number — 72 - (07776) . 1968 No 2 rives its power "frönk the will of the people" and no longer funotions "tty- the grace of God". The Cónfusion ha.s been intensified by explicit statements about the <*ivil magistrate in one of our church confessions (both of our confessional standards were made in the XVTth centrqy), to wit: "The chief duty of the magistrate is to secure and preserve peace and public tranquillity. Doubtless he will never do this more successfully then when he is truly God-fearing and religious»,, if he roots out lies and all superstition, together with all impiety and idolatry, and defends the Church of God" (The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter XXX)« The representatives of the new state, as it is known, profess to dialectic historical materialism and, as its derivative, atheism. So the prophetic preachers needed prophetic boldness to tell plainly and unmistakably to the religious masses educated by a theology allied with the stationary and bourgeois ideology that there was a vast difference between the problems of the XVTth century and those cf the XXth century. The kind of atheism, namely the Marxist atheism, with which we have to do is radical humanism which, in many respects, came into being because the Churoh had failed to do her prophetic duty committed to her in implementing the commandment to love our' fellowinen» g) Prophetic Courage in the New Social Situation All in all, it was with the sense of genuine realism that the prophetic preachers in the Hungarian Evangelical churches first assessed the new historical situation, in the light of the. Word of God, and gave to the congregations, on the basis of the Word, their guidance which has since stood the test cf the subsequent quarter of a century0 This message freed the members of the congregations from their former ideological shackles and enabled them to take their part, with true Christian freedom and responsibility, in the effort to build up a new society on the ruins of the old« Also in the matter cf changing the economic structures of the country, a bold, end clear prophetic word was needed» The congregations of the Proiv estant churches had held the utterly non—Biblical dogma concerning the sacrednéss of private property. Then prophetic resoluteness was called for to dispel tiie harmful ru-uLui.. of tne nationalistic ideology., rarisnionorc under the sway of nationalism and political adventism, dreaming of the fulfillment cf nationalistic dreams had to be told plainly that God had made the peoples of the earth of one blood and that He wanted to reconcile all the peoples cf the world with one another ard to pull down the walls of partition erected among them by prejudices and nationalistic hatred.. By proclaiming this message, prophetic preaching has helped Hungarian Protestantism in the new Hungarian society to establish with the neighbouring good relations the fruits of which we are now enjoying. During the past quarter of a century our church has had the deep experience of the blessings of prophetic preaching. It seemed-at first that our church had not only been judged by God for its sins but thai it had for%
