The Daily Message
Responsibility calling – A chance for society healing and Christian community from Romania
I have written a text about the crisis of Christianity in Romania. There, where I have mentioned some of the coordinates which can give us the opportunity to analyze the present situation of the churches in our country, I did not accentuate an aspect which I would like to talk about in the following lines. Is about a moral question, of maximum importance, which regards the responsibility towards the past and present deeds, as well of the Christians ones, as of the Romanian society as a whole. The core of the problem is connected with the way in which God works in history with people and countries, of the nature of spiritual life and the process of world salvation. Man is responsible for all its acts, and atonement of his sins, untying the slavery connections cannot be made without assuming the responsibility for these ones, without invoking mercy and God‘s gift over these problems. The role of Christians in this world is connected with the salvation work which God had started for the people and for all things. In this way, Christians play the role of a priesthood who brings before God the world in order to repent. This vocation operates at all levels, as well individually as in community or nationally. According to the Gospel, the role of Christians to be salt and light is decisive for the life of mankind, under all its aspects. Without any superiority, Christians have the great responsibility to initiate atoning relations before God for everything, from people, until their deeds and creations. This frame of Christian revelation must be permanently analyzed and put into practice in different context of human life, from different historic spaces and periods. In the situation of Romania, is noticed the fact that the answer of Christians to God‘s challenges in this direction do not correspond to the expectations. More and more voices speak about the crisis situation of Romanian society and Romanian church, about the need to reborn, about the need for solutions, but these fail to appear. There also must not be forgotten that the chance for a reborn or refresh, of the church, as well as of the society, is permanently accessible, but it supposes the acceptance of the frame and working terms of God. In other words, the beginning can only be in responsibility, repent, mediation and atonement before God for everything.
The moment 90s were crucial, as well as for the entire Romanian society as for the Christianity in our country. We had the occasion, the big gift, to pass from a democratic system of social and politic organization, which would permit us to free expression and rebirth, reforming the society and the church in which we pray. The need to reform the church was necessary out of more rationalism, the majority being connected with the way the communist system had operated over Christian life from the churches in Romania. Here are some reasons in this way:
- The infiltration of political police inside the churches, as that the ecclesiastic life was organized under the careful surveillance of the system, and a lot of church leaders became informers or collaborators of the party;
- The weak cohesion of the interior life of communities (the illusion of our profound spirituality from communism was good enough demolished after the fall of the system and can also be seen today at the level of each confession, as well as a whole);
- Lack of vision of our churches (proof- we have not been prepared for the change produced in the 90s nor were we able to recover after that);
- The weak implication of the church in society, in the world (the marginalizing and relativity of Christians being a success production of communism);
- Etc.
Although there was a kind of life impulse and ever certain tries to reevaluate the state and identity of the Romanian Christian community in the years after the Revolution, the project had never been accomplished nor put into practice. Which should have been the motifs? Probably there are more, but we would like to emphasize only one: there was no spiritual force, the moral force for such an action. The Romanian church needed an important action, not an isolated and punctual one. And this never happened, because those who were competent to initiate the process which they did not assume.
We would not want that these words should raise problems. We do not write these lines with the though to bring someone else‘s judgment or finger towards certain people or towards certain positions. We try to raise a principle problem. The church permanently needs a critical evaluation of its own life, of the road it has done and the direction towards it goes, and the way it lives, the way it rapports to the world it leaves in. This evaluation supposes assuming the errors, atonements, search for God‘s will for the times we live in, accomplishing some changes, if they are needed etc. This is what the prophetic gift given by God to the church consists in. Or, for the Romanian Christian community, both the majority and minority, the changes in the 90s meant a clear signal that it is the right moment for such an evaluation. More, the church had the chance to play a fundamental role in reforming the entire Romanian society. But it looks like we have missed that moment and we tend to perpetuate the state.
Returning to the problem, we consider that we lacked the necessary moral force, authority and responsibility for such a step. And because we did not fructify the moment, we went on with our lives after the previous moment, we continued to make mistakes which we still do not assume, we go into a direction which we cannot visualize very well, if we did not make the effort to see our past. Because we did not take seriously the 90s, we approached Romanian reality after Revolution in a naïve manner, without vision. We continued the flow of mistakes, both by not having a firm position towards Romanian society in the reform crisis, and through all kinds of interior problems which left deep marks in the life of the church. From these years, Romania started a real robbery of public resources sustained on lie and relations based on influence and power. The church not only did it not take attitude but also had its own field of fall, entered in similar games connected with properties, influence areas, power. It was entered into the routine of some processes, debates or justifications, without any use for the Romanian human‘s spirituality. In the country have entered, and still are entering, by means of the churches, enormous resources, from material aids, until financial ones and emigration possibilities. All these were an opportunity to fall for many, using these resources being often made with no transparency, without regard to material or financial aspects, there are sad the separations produced on their account, sad as the experiences which led to the stratification of the Romanian society in rich and poor. After 1990, a lot of churches were built in Romania, poor some these being an evident signal of Christian spirituality. May be it is not bad that buildings were built, but it is bad that little was worked at the spiritual building of the Christian Romanian society. After the Revolution, in the leading positions of the society infiltrated as well former organizers, who by propaganda succeeded to take the power years along. But neither the Christians succeeded into saving themselves from the presence of the firmer collaborators and people of small quality in the leading positions of the churches. These ones, also by propaganda and manipulation, succeeded into maintaining the key positions, change their hair for new times after the 90s, but to hold still the dynamic of the church. In this way the young generation got to be pretty distrustful about the actual leading of the churches, and the dialogue between generations had a lot to suffer. Examples of mistakes, sins, committed by the church and society may go on. But our purpose is not that of showing sins; bring judgment to someone, but that of reminding that even today we have the chance to save us from these sins, for a better future, of the Romanian society and of the Romanian church.
The chance is not the silence. May be some hope that the past will be forgotten, that distance for the past brings also the solution to the problems and in this way will get better for those living now. But we are very wrong. The non atoning past cries at us from history, as far as it may be. And its lack of healing is a handicap which draws us down, darkens our perspectives and makes us incapable of moving on. There are horizons of national or local history over which it is a silence of conspiracy, either talking about programs, laws and unfair courts, treasons or soul sales. All these are blocking our existence, are keeping us still, and are depriving us from authority, from life. Also, the chance is not the human judgment of the ones who had failed, creating some courts and condemning the sinners. On the contrary, it is recognition, the maturity of assuming the things as they are and the will to stop committing those sins.
The crisis in which the Romanian church lies cannot be over-passed but by an explicit call to assuming and atoning our sins from the past. And here, the essential role belongs to the leaders, to the leaders of the church and of our confession, at all levels. If their initiatives fail to appear, as it was the case after 1990, it is difficult to foresee who will take it. Although it sounds unpopular, may be we do need an attitude which we had met in the Israelite people in some delicate moments in their history, through those callings to atonement, bag and ashes of the whole Israelite people, from men to beasts. It is difficult to propose concrete modalities by which this process would be accomplished. Essential is the start, the initiative, which supposes call to dialogue, serious analysis of the facts and situations from the past, showing the produced causes and effects etc.
It is possible that those who had made mistakes and bear their direct responsibility not to have got or have the force to assume them or start that process of healing the past. But this possibility remains for their followers. We all know the attitude of the real prophets or of the real leaders of the chosen people. We know, for examples, the position of the prophet Daniel towards the sins of his people or, sins which himself did not committed. By a responsible attitude, assuming the sins of the people, Daniel mediates before God for the salvation from slavery. Once the process started, by a free and courageous act of the prophet, God works for blessing His people and for His testimony before the world.
We close this text with the hope that the actual leaders and persons with responsibility inside the Romanian Christian community will assume their prophetic role to announce the truth of biblical revelation about God‘s solution to the present state of crisis and problems. And the truth is that the solution is at hand, it does not cost but the pride, the ridicule or the commodity of the life with no responsibility.
Iassy, 30 April 2005
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