Magyar Egyház, 1971 (50. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1971-10-01 / 10. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 7 MAGYAR CHURCH EIGHTY YEARS LATER Hungarian Reformed church life began in our country just eighty years ago. Only a radiant optimist would then have believed that this lowly immigrant group would he able to maintain its indentity for so long. Rut, in the words of a recently popular song, “Things, they are a changing.” And these changing times call for a serious study of the basic question that faces Hungarian Reformed people everywhere. Do we wish to retain our identity or do we look forward to assimilation, whatever that means? There are many who have already decided that assimilation is the answer. They view the Hungarian Reformed heritage as something of value, like grandfather’s old pocket watch, but not as a living force. They have decided, and their negative decision means simply that the suicidal path of the old and noble German Reformed Church is their pattern. Not all of us are quite so eager to forfeit the inheritance of the past Many of us, with plenty of experience in “American” church life recognize the drabness that so often characterizes the institutional form of Protestantism. Many of us realize that the social freedoms of our Hungarian Reformed Church people are minor when compared to the outright hypocrasy so often characteristic of pietistic old-line American groups. It is high time for us to realize that our heritage is of value, not to us alone, but to worldwide Christianity as well. We must realize that America is not the melting pot of legend but the amalgam of races and cultures that simply will not be absorbed into an amorphous mass. In effect, we must now, after eighty years of ethnic uniqueness, decide that any other course than the maintenance of our own identity will be disastrous. As churches this means that we must not try to he like the old American congregations. Our worship is distinctive, let’s keep it that way. Our customs, particularly those brought from Hungary, are worthwhile in themselves. Our theological attitudes, particularly our opposition to latitudinarianism, the scourge of modern Protestantism, are essentially Biblical and sound. We have a lot to give to this great nation. If we simply forget our mission and get lost in the crowd, we shall have forfeited our basic reason for survival: our distinctiveness and our willingness to stand apart from the crowd and “do our own thing.” Eighty years seems like a long time. The Jews, however, look back on a history if over three thousand years! They have never forgotten that the past is but prelude to the future. Have we? Charles A. Darocy “CONSECRATED CHICKEN SOUP” J. D. Salinger has written a book, Franny And Looey, about a screwball family in New York. An unusual thing about this fictional family is that the various members really do seem to love each other. Franny, the daughter, has come home from college in a kind of nervous breakdown, full of emotional tension. She simply remains lying on the living room sofa, refusing to eat or drink, refusing any comfort or conversation. Her mother, Bessie, shows the kind of human love evident throughout the Scriptures when she brings her daughter a bowl of chicken soup. Franny refuses it, but every ten minutes or so Bessie brings it in again. This action is driving Franny nuts, but it’s a concern of love and Franny knows it. Bessie thinks to herself: here my daughter hasn’t eaten in twenty-four hours; what does she really need ? W hy she needs a nice cup of hot chicken soup, that’s what she needs. And Bessie gives it, even though Franny won’t accept it. And even though Franny won’t admit it, she gets the message. The message for us, lifted out of this situation in a novel and uplifted in the gospel, could be called the pattern of giving, or the pattern of incarnation (be
