Magyar Egyház, 1975 (54. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1975-02-01 / 2. szám
10 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ from ALL church bodies that belong to the American Hungarian Reformed Presbyters’ Association. So far the committee has had two meetings and the progress is excellent. For this 300th anniversary celebration, on behalf of Presbyters’ Association we are proposing that a bronze plaque, containing the names of those surviving galley slaves and art work depicting their ordeals be installed at the Bethlen Home in Ligonier. To prepare financially for this project, we are proposing that Sunday, May 4th, 1975 be set aside in all churches in our Association as Galley Slave Sunday. On this special Sunday, all the churches will use special Sunday folders, and envelopes being prepared by the committee. The financial assistance that we will receive from all the churches that belong to the American Hungarian Reformed Presbyters’ Association will determine the success of our undertaking. In the hearts of the Presbyters’ Association, May 4th, 1975 is a special Sunday for a tremendous cause. I hope the thoughts of the members of all the Hungarian churches will be the same as presbyters’ and express YES — WE DO REMEMBER! Richard Heyz Vice Pres. American Hungarian Reformed Presbyters’ Association Chief Elder, Hungar. Ref. Church of Duquesne, Pa. Report on the North American Area Council Meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches MONTREAL, Jan. 9 — Churches of the Reformed faith are suffering from “collective theological amnesia,” according to the Rev. Dr. James I. McCord, president of Princeton (N.J.) Theological Seminary. Dr. McCord, who also is the general secretary of the North American Area Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational), made his remarks at the opening session of the Council’s annual meeting at Chateauguay near here. “We have forgotten our history and our confession of Jesus Christ and so have lost our identity and our sense of direction for life and mission,” he said. The distinguished United Presbyterian churchman called on Canadian and American churches, which will be celebrating significant religious and national anniversaries during the next two years, “to recapture their history, reaffirm their confession, and move out to engage the important issues in the world today.” The United Church of Canada, which resulted from the union in 1925 of three major Protestant denominations — Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian — will mark the 50th year of its merged existence in June of this year. The Presbyterian Church in Canada will celebrate its centennial in 1975. Reformed and Presbyterian churches in the United States will join in local and national observances of the nation’s bi-centennial in 1976. In addition, the delegates elected a slate of officers and approved a budget for 1975 in the amount of $103,800. Addresses by prominent Canadian and Caribbean churchmen also were heard as were reports on bi-lateral conversations between Reformed and Lutheran churches in both Canada and the United States, and between Reformed and Orthodox and Reformed and Roman Catholic churches in the United States. Responding to an action taken at the Council’s 1974 meeting “to explore the possibility of forming a transnational Reformed Church in North America,” the Council agreed to make this proposal a matter of continuing concern for the body and its appropriate committees. Papers on the theological basis of human rights and the theology of liberation were presented by the Council’s theological committee headed by Professor Allen 0. Miller of Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo. It is anticipated that the findings of the Council in these areas of theological concern will be considered at the centennial meeting of the World Alliance’s General Council to be held at St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1977. Theme of the world meeting will be “The Glory of God aad the Future of Man.” The Council called upon the President to insure equal justice and the right of dissent for all American citizens and organizations “without intimidation or punitive action being leveled against them by governmental agencies.” “We believe,” the statement said, “that the government of the United States by its heritage and its accountability within the community of nations will give leadership to the cause of freedom and justice for all mankind.” In other actions the Council voted to continue its bi-lateral conversations with the Roman Catholic and
