Fraternity-Testvériség, 1954 (32. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1954-09-01 / 9. szám
IN PLAIN AMERICAN A monthly page conducted by Edmund Vasvary THE DAYS IN LIGONIER, PA. For the past number of years the representatives of our church and community life have been spending the week, including and following Labor Day, in our Bethlen Home in Ligonier. From the viewpoint of our community life these weeks spent in serious work and good fellowship steadily are becoming increasingly important, so that today the week is a real institution, appreciated and looked forward to by many of our church and community leaders and workers. The program was imposing again. The meeting of the church elders’ federation opened the series. Meetings were held by the District Managers of our Federation, by the Ministerial Association, by the Directors of the Bethlen Home and by the Supreme Council of the Federation, so that every day of the week was fully occupied from morning till night. Through a busy week like this we can realize how complex and many-sided our life has become. A week like this gives a wonderful perspective of the increasing work that is being done every day by our own people in many parts of the country, a work which has already brought wonderful results. Much of this work is voluntary, that is: done by people who don’t receive any material recompensation for it, who are doing it because they believe in it, because they want to serve their God and country, their church and neighbors in every possible way. They were inspiring days, indeed, worthy of every effort and sacrifice. They are worth remembering and to look forward to again next September. ★ ★ ★ THE TROUBLESOME PROBLEM of the delegates to the Evanston meeting from the Reformed Church of Hungary was discussed with frankness and in Christian brotherly spirit. Listening to the testimony of those who were able to attend the historic meeting, the Ministerial Association declared in a resolution that it does not consider the delegates to be propagandists for the Communist regime and the church at large a mouthpiece of Communism. This does not mean, however, that the Ministerial Association is willing to accept the assertion that the church is “free”. Too many proofs show that the all-powerful state makes it impossible for the church to voice truths of the social gospel in the grave problems of everyday life, to raise its protests against the manifest injustices of a godless system imposed on unwilling and defenseless people. The church can be free only among a free people, where the rights of the individual are respected and guaranteed, where it is possible to voice criticism or protest — in other words, in a nation where under the sovereignity of God the leaders receive their authority and power through the freely expressed will of the people. The world knows that this is not so in Communist-dominated Hungary. The church, however, is living and working, and — according to trustworthy information — is succeeding in making its faith more and more evangelical and unworldly. It is to be regretted that the presence of the delegates from Hungary did not occur under happier circumstances. The delegates brought no new message to us. Our knowledge about the Reformed Church in Hungary was not enlarged, because we were informed long ago about the deepening inner life of the church. Circumstances forced the delegates to come with empty hands. Let’s hope that returning their hearts will be more full than their hands were. WHAT HAS BECOME of the guaranteed annual wage demands, which, according to the CIO leaders, were to be a major project this year? In the few instances where new contracts were signed (rubber, steel, electrical manufacturing) it wasn’t mentioned at all. Possibly to answer this question and to soothe some ruffled feelings, the president of the auto workers’ union and of the CIO, Walter P. Reuther, made the announcement that the employees of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler “will definitely get a guaranteed annual wage next year.” This is momentous news, indeed, for the 500,000 auto workers. Next year the union’s five-year contract with these companies will end. The union’s formal demands will be presented in the last week of March, Reuther said. “We feel that the guaranteed annual wage is a must, a matter of economic necessity. We are going to get it. There is no question about it.” (Continued on page 4)
