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

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HGP Yol XX Special Number

1968 No 2

76 -(07780)

church in the full complexity cf social relations* This scientific require» ment reckons with the phenomenon that "a significant part" cf ihe religious people "adept socialist ideas and the Christians, too, have today something to say about socialism"* This method of scientific investigation states that "the theoretical affirmation of socialism in the circles of the believers is a fact which calls for a new Marxist analysis"* ®9)

d) The Object of the Dialogue\ A Higher Level of Humanism ” " — ..■■■■■-«■■■,-—. ....... — — ■

After this digression, let us have a closer look on the latest problems of the Christian—Marxist dialogue* We must first of all state our conviction that, ty repeatedly mentioning the necessity cf the dialogue, we do not weaken but rather strengthen that practical and theoretical basis in which cooperation is possible between the social order of socialism - in our case, the Hungarian People's Bepublic - and the churches, ard more than that: they also strengthen well-regulated, good relations based on principles* The Christian. churches in Hungary have affirmed the social order of socialism, ard it is this affirmative position that we wish to clarify further by the dialogue, thus attending to the emerging new problems and further strengthening the existing good relations* The constantly changing international situation and the new stages in the construction of the social order call for a permanent conversation*

We must also state that our theory cf the dialogue expounded in the aforesaid. Jubilee Instruction, that is, • our peculiar dialogue model ia not an after—thought, a belated attempt to justify a certain practice accepted under duress* Without -ejecting out of hand the criticism cf those disagreeing and without claiming absolute validity for our position, we must nonetheless stress that the thinking and action of the church living in the world are always situation-bound, not only in the East but also in the West* This means in our case that we,beginning with our cooperation with Marüsts, have not sought the theoretical justification of this fact, but rather the Christian presuppositions of this reality since for us the Christian-Marxist dialogue is not the "dialogue of sublime souls" ("Dialog der schönen Seelen", Markus Barth), neither "a conversation between pure spirits apart from the social and political tensions" (N* Stöhr) 70) but, above all, an event within the Church* Hence it is not a monologue but a profoundly Biblical orientation in which the primary emphasis is on Christian witness.

One of the basic viewpoints of the Hungarian Evangelical churches is, with regard to the dialogue as well as to all the decisions on social problems, that, in the Marxist partner of the dialogue, we do not primarily see the Marxist but tin mon0 We cannot identify the Marxist partner with a stereotype: he is an atheist, although this is an essential feature of his self-understanding, neither consider him primarily as a man who rejects the theistic and idealistic ideology which, because of the church's omission, he identifies with Christian, faith, but we regard him, above all, as person work-