Magyar Egyház, 1982 (61. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-09-01 / 9-10. szám
MAGYAR £GYl7ffZ 10, oldal theological training for more. And now the Reformed Church of Lithuania is alive and well. “We thank the God of our fathers that He gave us a helper in the person of Bishop Tóth of Hungary” was his final sentence. We also know that Bishop Tóth was instrumental in many ways helping our own Hungarian Reformed Church in the Trans-Carpathian Ukraine, also in the Soviet Union. The funny thing about Bishop Tóth is that on this very same day Carl Mclntire and his Anti-Communist crusaders were picketing the General Council meeting with signs like “Expel the Red Bishop Tóth!” “Bishop Tóth is a Communist!” To confessing Christians in Soviet Lithuania and Hungarian Reformed people in Soviet Ukraine Bishop Tóth is a champion of our faith, and a true helper in the Lord’s work, and to these Fundamentalist creeps from Collingswood, New Jersey he is a Communist agent. The most encouraging news I heard from Indonesia, China and Korea. Our churches are growing so fast, that some Indonesian Reformed churches doubled their membership in one year! The Korean Presbyterian Seminary became the largest in the whole world! There are more Reformed theological students in Communist China today than in both churches in Canada combined! When your friends in the Christian ministry tell you these good news soul is renewed and your heart is lifted up giving thanks to the Lord. This General Council was dominated by one major issue, which overshadowed all the discussions: the policy of “apertheid”, racial discrimination of the white Dutch Reformed churches of South Africa, which really gave the “theological justification” to the South African Nationalist (white) government. There were several White Dutch Reformed delegates from two white churches and also several from the Colored and African Black Reformed churches. At the opening day, the Holy Communion service was interrupted by a passionate speech delivered by one of the Black delegates from South Africa. He made a statement that the Black and Colored (which means mixed White-Asian-Black) delegates refrain to take holy communion because the white Dutch Reformed delegates belong to a church which refuses to serve holy communion to people of other races in their native land. Thus, a holy war on apartheid was solemnly declared. While the Canadian and American press largely ignored the Ottawa meeting (I could not find any article about it in the Montreal Gazette), the South African secular press from Johannesberg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Bloomfontein was there in Ottawa in full force. In South Africa the events of the Ottawa meeting were headlines. There were interesting stories about facts like a white South African taking a shower next to a Zulu Black delegate in the dormitory bathroom, which would be illegal in South Africa, punishable by law. The General Council, once again, condemned “apartheid” (separate development) as a heresy, ie. an ideology which is false doctrine and against theGospel of Jesus Christ, contrary to the Reformed confessions of faith, and also suspended the membership of the two South African white churches, which uphold apartheid until they repent of their sins. And the General Council also elected as its new president Dr. Allan K. Boesak, a Colored South African theologian. There is just no way in the light of our Reformed faith to defend “apartheid”. But I would like to make two comments. The tragic and heroic history of the Dutch Reformed Calvinists of South Africa should not be forgotten. I also never heard the British Churches ever asking forgiveness for the violence and repression committed against them for decades. The real tragedy of these South African Reformed people is that they so easily became oppressors in this century and forgot the tremendous sufferings and oppression their fathers underwent for at least hundredfifty years! While apartheid is an obvious heresy, the hypocrisy of many White Christians especially in Europe and Britain in this regard should be also seen as a sin. It is easy to condemn apartheid in Switzerland with beautiful theological statements and then go a to vote in referendums supporting discriminating measures against the Turkish and Yugoslave migrant laborers. Anyway I think that one of the problems of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches is that there is too much Swiss influence which is not warranted and very unfortunate. In the new policy making body of the Alliance there are seven Swiss persons, and there is not one Dutch Reformed member. (Due to misplaced feministic agitation, the only Dutch theologian was voted out in favor of a Swiss woman during the only election by secret ballot.) It could be argued that the Swiss churches are not even Reformed churches any more. None of the Reformed confessions of faith are accepted standards of faith in any of the Swiss churches. The United Presbyterian Church in the USA adopted the Second Helvetic Confession of Faith as its own in 1967, the same creed is long forgotten in Switzerland the country where it was written. Their own confession of faith! They have no confession of faith at all. Maybe, it is because they have never suffered persecutions in their history. It is true they could produce fantastic theologians, but they have no more confession of faith! For many years now, I was critical of the World Alliance of Reformed churches because its leadership kept it purposely as a farm-team or minor league subservient to the World Council of Churches. Consequently, it totally — and irresponsibly — abondoned church aid to the proper agencies of the World Council of Churches. We have far more minority churches in the Communist world and in the Third world than the Lutheran World Federation, and while the Lutherans through their own church aid agency very efficiently helped their own kind, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches was most ineffective in matters of church aid as the Hungarian Reformed mission churches in Latin America for instance suffered a great deal, left alone helpless while the Lutheran World Federation did a splendid job at the very same locations. Bishop Szamosközi used to say that the lot of the Hungarian Reformed minister in the mission church in Paris, France is an eternal shame of the wealthy Reformed and Presbyterian churches of the “free world”. I, for one, Firmly believe that the confessional world organizations such as the Lutheran World Federation and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches have a
