Magyar Egyház, 1954 (33. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)

1954-11-01 / 11. szám

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

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generally for past or present indifference to social injustice, in which the Church is also involved. There is a particular danger, it was said, that nations will over-emphasize the military aspect in their defense against communism and fail to see the need for reforms in political, social and economic institutions as an important part of their response to its challenge. It will be the task of the churches to point to the dangers inherent in the present situation: on the one hand the temptation to succomb to anticommunist hysteria and the danger of self-righteous assurance concerning the political and social systems of the West: on the other hand the temptation to accept the false promises of communism and to overlook its threat to any responsibility society. However, Christians in communist and non-communist countries are called to hold each other in special brotherly concern and prayer across the barriers.

International Affairs.

In connection with the international affairs the participants of the fourth section proclaimed the Christian hope in an hour of grave international crisis. Social and political systems are in conflict. Opposing ideologies compete for the minds and souls of men. Rival power blocks imperil the peace of the nations. This troubled world, disfigured and distorted as it is, is still God’s world. He rules and overrules its tangled history. In praying, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, we commit ourselves to seek earthly justice, freedom and peace for all men. Our confidence, however, lies not in our own reason or strength but in the power that comes from God. Here as everywhere Christ is our hope. — Man deeply and persistently longs for peace. He no longer finds any glamour in war; he has tasted the fruit of its insanity and found it bitter and poisonous. He is sick of it and wants to be at peace! Christians everywhere are committed to world peace as a goal. In his address before the participants of the Evanston Assembly president Eisenhower called upon the leaders of the churches to pray and labor for this goal. Christians are urged to search for means to limit weapons and advance disarmament, to strengthen the service of the United Nations, to continue to press for social, political and economic measures for the prevention of war. Christians, however, must also face the fact that peace will not be easily or quickly attained. Basically the problem is a spiritual one and economic and political efforts would not alone solve it. Men’s hearts must be changed. This is always the supreme evangelistic challenge of the Church. The foremost responsibility of the Christian Church in this situation is undoubtedly to bring the transforming power of Jesus Christ to bear upon the

hearts of men. Above all, Christians must witness to a dynamic hope in God, in whose hands lie the destinies of nations.

Intergroup Relations.

Section V discussed the intergroup relations, particularly the racial problems. It is our Christian belief, declares the report of this section, that Christ offers the only true solution of the world’s racial problems. The new people of God, the Church, was created from every race and nation. The calling of the Church with regard to race is to witness within itself to the Kingship of Christ and the unity of His people, in Him transcending all diversities. The great majority of Christian churches affiliated with the World Council have declared that physical separation within the Church on grounds of race is a denial of spiritual unity and of the brotherhood of men. Yet such separations persist within these very churches, and we often seek to justify them on other grounds than race because in our own hearts we know that separation solely on the grounds of race is abhorrent in the eyes of God. The Church is called upon, therefore, to set aside all the excuses and to declare God’s will both in words and deeds. The problems of race, difficult as they are and insoluble as they sometimes appear to be, provide for Christians an opoprtunity for obedience and for a deeper understanding that bond and free, Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, men of every land and continent are all one in Christ.

Laity.

The last section spoke on the laity. The importance of laity received proper emphasis in Evanston. The report says among others: clergy and laity belong together in the Church; if the Church is to perform her mission in the world, they need each other. It is the laity who draw together work and worship. It is they who bridge the gulf between the Church and the world. The Church through the laity becomes the leaven in the lump, the constant sign at the centre of the world’s affairs of the divine mercy and adoration. The real battles of the faith today are being fought in factories, shops, offices and farms, in the press, radio and television, in the relationship of the nations. Very often it is said that the Church should “go into these spheres”; but the fact is that the Church is already present in these spheres in the person of its laity. This fact points to the final victory of the Christian ideals in every sphere of our life.

The Evanston Assembly was a great Christian gathering indeed. It has offered the finest solutions for our burning problems in Christ who is the hope, the only hope, of the world. We hope and pray that these resolutions will be realized in the lives of the member churches. In our own church olso.

Gabor Csordás.

DECLARATION...

Excerpt of the adopted message from the second assembly of the World Council of Churches.

To all our fellow Christians, and to our fellow men everywhere, we send greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. We affirm our faith in Jesus Christ as the hope of the world, and desire to share that faith with all men. May God forgive us that by our sin we have often hidden this hope from the world.

In the ferment of our time there are both hopes and fears. It is indeed good to hope for freedom, justice, and peace, and it is God’s will that we should have these

things. But He has made us for a higher end. He has made us for Himself, that we might know and love Him, worship and serve Him. Nothing other than God can ever satisfy the heart of man.

Forgetting this, man becomes his own enemy. He seeks justice but creates oppression. He wants peace but drifts toward war. His very mastery of nature threatens him with ruin. Whether he acknowledges it or not, he stands under the judgment of God and under the shadow of death.

HERE WHERE WE STAND, Jesus Christ stood with us. He came to us true God and true man, to seek and to save. Though we were the enemies of God, Christ