Journal index

We are always seeking for the sense of the life, for ourselves and for the place in our family and community. Religion shows a new way to us, according to Jesus Christ’s principles. The son of God not only created a religion, but gave us an example how to live, and sacrifice himself for us. Sándor Karácsony reckons religion as a spiritual behavior, the base of our social contacts. We have to see into our lives and character according to the message of Jesus Christ. The right and appropriate personality can be evolved by individual training.

In the background of the increasingly popular group dynamics one should be aware of the loosening ties within the communities of the modern society. The essence of a small group is that it enables special, experimental and interpersonal learning. Their efficiency as live, open systems can be measured in the existential change of the personality. In our analysis we examine cases of adaptation to the church life at the level of complex ecclesial communal events.Studying the Bible in small groups is a genuine heritage of the Reformation, although it had taken centuries to be considered socially relevant. According to the pastoral-psychiatric practices, the most proper “social sphere” of repentance as the existential spiritual change of the personality is provided by the Bible-study groups. Group-phenomena such as group-cohesion, altruism, wholeness, dynamic balance can be matched very well to the spiritual qualities of the church as a unity of the living body of Christ. Group dynamical process will facilitate a live and fresh ecclesial life. Church services as moderated large-groups are to provide social integration for the Christians through concentric circles. Through the internalisation of a consensus-able dialogue-culture the ecclesial communities would be enabled to formulate a community model based on the love of Christ. To assign proper place of dialogic Bible study, the importance of groups should be increased within the system of church services and complex ecclesial occasions.

The views of Sándor Karácsony about religious education can be clearly discerned from his writings. The main task of reformed pedagogy is to activate continuously the divine notions in this continuously changing world. Protestant teachers must accomplish their daily work according to the Gospel of Christ. The Hungarian Reformed Church was a so-called “church of schools” for hundreds of years. This means that even between WWI and WWII it owned more schools than churches. The number of Reformed schools is significant even today. Sándor Karácsony claims that only Reformed people and communities are able to maintain Reformed schools by people who “are ready to serve and sacrifice themselves” for this cause (Karácsony, Sándor: A magyarok Istene. Széphalom Könyvműhely, Budapest 2004, 172).

The astronomical part of the Ethiopian Book of Enoch refers to an interesting phenomenon, namely the length of the longest day of the year. This data is particularly significant in localising this astronomical observation on the world map. Since the length of the year’s longest day depends on geographical latitude, this data could hint at the latitude of the place, i.e. the approximate geographical location where the Book of Enoch may have been composed. A closer analysis of this reference surprisingly reveals that this place should be looked for somewhere near to latitude 50○, that is far to the north from Palestine.