1. Algemeiner(http://www.algemeiner.com)
Why the Jews Must Leave Hungary (and Europe), 27 May 2014
by Gabriel Eichler
It is time for Europe’s able-bodied Jews to start thinking about relocating to places where their safety will be less endangered than in countries that their ancestors have called home for centuries.
While most rational people would find some new form of a Holocaust occurring again in Europe unfathomable, the striking similarities between the current European public sentiment, this week’s shocking EU election results, and the Brussels- type atrocities, and how the Nazi genocide started – are hard to ignore.
As a Jew whose once large family was eagerly served up by their Hungarian neighbors to be gassed and burned in Auschwitz, I have been actively monitoring the Hungarian Neo-Nazi websites in recent months with great interest.
Even the Jew hatred of Julius Streicher’s infamous “Der Sturmer”- that most rabidly anti-Semitic German Nazi rag before and during the Shoah – does not measure up to the amount of hateful venom currently served up daily by Hungarian neo-Nazi websites – whose web servers are based in the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Justice, State Department, and Attorney General unfortunately have been dragging their feet when it comes to shutting down the U.S.-based web server of Kurucinfo.hu whose daily editorials – in addition to running a full time “Jewish Crimes” column – often refer to the President of the United States as a “N****r Animal.”
While the just concluded EU election results will undoubtedly have dire consequences for Jews living in places like France, it is also my belief that the general safety of Jews in Hungary will be endangered in the very near future.
The “Jobbik” neo-Nazi party – riding on an anti- Jew, anti-Israel, and a rabidly chauvinistic and xenophobic platform – just finished second in this week’s EU elections.
Based on how I see the obvious signals, I can only compare the current situation of Hungarian Jews to the last minutes of those waltzing on the first class deck of the Titanic ten minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912.
A completely naïve, deeply divided Hungarian Jewish leadership’s constant infighting and Western-financed false sense of security today does not help.
Neither does the blind denial and ignorance of the lurking dangers posed by Hungary’s increasingly vocal and arrogant neo-Nazis.
Black uniformed, jack-booted thugs are openly marching on the streets carrying banners, slogans, and armbands of their predecessors who with animalistic sadism and brutality dispatched 600,000 fellow Hungarians of Jewish descent to their deaths in a matter of less than two months.
History repeating itself?
Let’s look back and see how the relative normalcy of Hungarian Jewry turned into hell virtually overnight: with ruthless force and efficiency. In a matter of just a few short weeks, more than 440,000 Jews were jammed into cattle cars like sardines, with no food, water, or toilets, and were deported from Hungary in more than 145 trains in a few days between the spring and summer of 1944.
Eichmann’s SS and Gestapo underlings were merely supervising the gathering up, ghettoizing, and shipping off of the Jews to be exterminated. All of the actions were carried out by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.
Most were deported to the death factories of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but thousands were also sent to the border with Austria to work as slave laborers digging fortification trenches. By the end of July 1944, the only Jewish community left in Hungary was that of Budapest.
That is where the Hungarian Nazi Nyilas (Arrow Cross) thugs took over the massacring of the remaining Jews from their German counterparts.
In a strange turn of history, this week – with only 28 percent voter turnout, Hungary‘s far-right, neo-Nazi, rabidly anti-Semitic Jobbik party was voted in as the country‘s official opposition party at the EU level after Sunday‘s European elections.
Their delegate seats will be occupied at EU headquarters by morbidly dangerous characters like the telegenic, English-speaking woman referred to by many as a “female Hitler of Hungary”: Rabidly anti-Semitic Krisztina Morvai, who once stated that “So-called proud Hungarian Jews should go back to playing with their tiny little circumcised tails (penises).” (Ironically she is intimately familiar with that very subject having delivered three children- fathered by her Jewish ex-husband.)
Returning to the big picture: the situation of Hungarian Jews today can be best described as total chaos. On one hand, well-meaning international Jewish organizations are holding mega-gatherings in Budapest, and pumping massive amounts of capital into rebuilding a flourishing Jewish cultural and religious life in the country.
On the face of it, there is a Jewish Renaissance taking place in Hungary – with renovated synagogues, Jewish cultural festivals, kosher restaurants, and Jewish summer camps.
The Hungarian political leadership seemingly goes out of their way to commemorate the massacre of their Jewish population during the Holocaust.
There are dozens of memorial sites marked by plaques all over the capital Budapest, and recently Hungary’s president was the keynote speaker at Auschwitz, apologizing for the wrongs perpetrated by collaborating Hungarians against the country’s Jews during the Shoah.
I recently visited one of the most moving memorial sites in the Hungarian capital: the place near the Danube where thousands of innocent Jews were shot into the river by Hungarian Nazi Arrow-Cross thugs. The same thugs, who in 1944 wore the same black uniforms, marched under the same flags, shouting the very same slogans as their successors in the current political scene.
What struck me most is something that is completely unnoticed by all who visit- that on the three very large bronze memorial plaques embedded in the cobblestone adjacent to the symbolic shoes of the massacred victims, the word “Jewish” is never mentioned – not even on the Hebrew language plaque.
Speaking of memorials, the current Hungarian government led by recently re-elected Prime Minister Viktor Orban – (following the creation of a monument for Nazi-collaborator Governor Miklos Horthy) – also approved the building of a new, now nearly completed monument to mark the German occupation of Hungary. The monument depicts the Hungarians not as active and enthusiastic collaborators and perpetrators that they were- but rather helpless victims of the German Nazi war machine.
While there are daily demonstrations and even U.S. Congressional protests against the completion of the government-approved controversial war monument – the fact is that notwithstanding the protests, it will be completed in a matter of weeks.
In my opinion, as greater economic chaos spreads across the continent, we will see more dangerous manifestations of open Jew-hatred in most parts of Europe – (some disguised as anti-Israel actions) – and Jewish lives will be in peril throughout most European countries.
It is time to heed the writing on the wall for all able-bodied Jews of Europe to start packing their bags and consider planting their next generations in lands less hostile to them if there is to be a Jewish future.
2.Asian Beacon（http://www.asianbeacon.org）
Transforming the Mind and Heart, 6 August 2013
Bishop Hwa Yung shares with Jack Mock his views on theology and education,as well as the trends and challenges facing the Malaysian Church.
The Methodist Church’s commitment to education has been very strong, but Methodist schools are now part of our national education system. How can the Methodist Church continue to contribute in this area of education?
Higher education is a minefield because it involves huge financial outlay. The Methodist Church does not have such deep pockets to compete with the big boys. We do have two tertiary colleges but, for the moment, we do not have any major expansion plans.
We believe the real need, for the moment, is not in higher education but the primary and secondary school system, into which we need to inject quality. Inappropriate policies have led to a decline in educational standards in our country. Our focus now is on three things. Firstly, for Methodist schools that are government schools, we will work with the government to rejuvenate them as best as we can. But we are handicapped by prevailing government policies. So, secondly, we are planning to set up a string of first-rate private schools in the country. The hope is that such schools will raise and set the standard of education in our nation. With private schools, we have much more freedom to do what we believe is best for the training of the young as well as for the nation. Thirdly, Methodist education began with the church going to where the needs were great and unmet. We therefore hope to set up over the next generation a number of schools and institutions to help poor children or those with special needs, such as autism and other disabilities. The church is also working in some rural areas where there are no government schools at all.
Vincent Donovan in Christianity Rediscovered (1978) concluded that any theology that is not based on previous experience is just empty words. You believe that theology must be both mission-minded and pastoral. How do you think Asian theologians fare in this regard?
I think many Asian theologians have bought into the Western model of a theologian being a university professor. With PhDs from some well-known seminaries or universities in the West, these theologians function as if intellectual knowledge is all that is needed. Even evangelical theologians often fall into the same trap. On the other hand, Pentecostal and charismatic teachers tend to be more practical and pastoral in their approaches. But many of them are generally weaker in their understanding of the Bible and theology – for example, their uncritical acceptance of the Prosperity Gospel and extreme teachings on spiritual warfare. What is desperately needed in the Asian church today are teachers who have mastered the Word and have been mastered by it, and who know through prayer and practice how to apply the Word to the daily life, ministry and mission of the church. Paul, Augustine, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley are not only great theologians but great preachers and pastors!
“Truth and practice are not separable. Neither can there be knowledge without personal commitment.” How are Christians in Malaysia faring in this aspect? Are we lacking in truth or practice or both?
Perhaps the best way to answer this is to go back to the tension between Word and Spirit. Some evangelicals are so strong in the Word (truth) and its authority that they neglect the role of the Holy Spirit. Others are so strong in experience (practice) that the Word becomes secondary. And as the question suggests, many others are neglecting both the Word and Spirit! Surely the great challenge today is for us to recover both emphases at one and the same time. Such a recovery is needed not just for revival in the church, but also for its long-term sustainability as well. Truth in the biblical sense cannot be separated from its practice.
You mentioned in an article — “A 21st Century Reformation: Recovering the Supernatural” — that evangelicals fought tooth and nail to defend the miraculous in the Bible. Such a reformation today will mean that the supernatural be incorporated back into the heart of Christianity. How can this be achieved in the Asian context?
I will go back to what the Bible teaches about the work of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural power of God in healing, prophecy, miracles and deliverance ministries. Drawing from the Bible and elements found in Asian cultures and religious practices, I will also show that many people are still living in bondage to demonic supernatural powers. I will then go on to show that Christ has given us victory over demonic powers. Church growth in Asia over the past hundred years has resulted, more often than not, from the demonstration of the supernatural power of Christ through healing, prophecy, and deliverance of men and women from demonic spirits. This is indeed true also of the life and ministries of the great Asian Christian leaders such as Bakht Singh, John Sung and Cho Yong-gi.
As Chair of the Participant Selection Committee of the 2010 Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation, you were in charge of selecting participants to represent a certain region of the world. What do the Asian representatives need to implement after learning so much at the Lausanne Congress?
The leadership of the 2010 Congress in Cape Town recognised that the centre of gravity of the global church has shifted. For the first time in modern times, Christians in the non-western world outnumber those in the western world. The Congress leadership’s primary concern was that the churches in the non-western world would be adequately represented. (More than 60% of the participants came from Africa, Asia and Latin America). The other concern was that the churches in the non-western world would begin to take on their share of responsibility for world missions. In the past generation, Asian churches have begun to take world missions seriously. Korea has sent out close to 20,000 missionaries overseas. The Indian Missions Association, an umbrella body for some 130 agencies, sent out more than 30,000 cross-cultural missionaries, most of them working within India itself.
But the challenge is more than that. World missions today are no longer about Western missionaries being sent to the “dark” continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is about missionaries being sent from everywhere to everywhere. Indeed some of the spiritually darkest places today are in the West where secularism and unbelief reign supreme. Sensitive Christian leaders are telling us that the West needs to be re-evangelised! The primary challenge of Cape Town 2010 to Asian Christians is that we have to do our part to fulfill Christ’s command in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).
Concerning t he Methodist Church in Malaysia, what are the challenges faced in the areas of leadership development and building up of the church?
These challenges are no different from those facing the Malaysian Church in general. The fundamental challenge for us is to grow in understanding of our faith, in holy living, and in love and unity as a community of God’s people. We also need to grow in our understanding of the Word on the one hand and in the life and power of the Spirit on the other. For this to happen, we need pastors and lay leaders who, having been transformed by the study and meditation of the Bible and by the deep work of the Holy Spirit, can be models of faith for the members. Moreover, we need those who serve humbly and are not afraid to pay the cost of discipleship. This may well be the greatest need of the Malaysian Church today.
How does servant leadership found in the Bible compare with the CEO model (currently adopted by some churches in Malaysia)?
I have pointed out elsewhere that even a magazine like The Economist has noted that the CEO model of a pastor is a product of the teaching of Peter Drucker, the management guru of the 20th century. It is an example of how much the world has seeped into the church of our generation. The term that is also popularly used by many today, including John Maxwell, is servant leadership. But, as some have rightly pointed out, there are problems with that term also. The question is what is our bottom line? What is our ultimate goal? Is it to be a servant or a leader?
It is strange that we blatantly ignore the plain teaching of the Bible, which most Christians claim to live by. Nowhere does the New Testament encourage us to strive for leadership. Yes, in 1 Timothy and Titus, and elsewhere, the qualities of church leaders are stressed. But to strive for leadership – never! Rather, we are to strive to be a servant or slave. This is absolutely plain in the passage in Mark 10:35-45. At the end of that story, Jesus said: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” Yet how often do we mention this verse in our so-called leadership seminars in church?
The New Testament emphasises that we are to strive, first and foremost, to be servants. Whether we become leaders is absolutely secondary. This turns the values of the world upside down. It does not mean there is no need for great leadership in the church. Leadership is not something we strive after – that will only feed our own egos, as can be seen in many churches today, even in Malaysia. Rather, leadership is exemplified in the lives of true servants of God who faithfully do whatever God puts into their hearts and hands to do. Or to put it in another way, great spiritual leadership is always the product of true biblical servanthood!
You wrote a book called “Bribery and Corruption”. Do think that the church has a ministry to its members who are politicians, government servants and CEOCEOCEOs of companies?
The church is called to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”. How can we be “salt” and “light” unless our witness is also clearly seen in the public arena of business and politics? But sadly, much of the Malaysian church still lives a “ghetto existence”, without realising that the “salt” has lost its saltiness (Matthew 5:13)! I hope that Christ will not have to threaten us, “I will come and remove your lamp stand,” like He did to the church at Ephesus if there is no repentance (Revelation 2:5).
After graduating from the University of Tasmania in Organic Chemistry, how did you end up serving in the Methodist Church?
I suppose you have to say that God’s ways are not our ways. I had wanted to pursue a career in scientific research but God told me He had other plans. So you come to the point where you decide whether you want things your way or God’s way. I can’t say that obeying His call was easy. But I have never regretted it.
As the shepherd of the flock, what do you think are the major issues the Methodist Church and the wider Malaysian Church need to address?
I would like to sum up my answer in three words: holiness, unity and revival.
Holiness because this should be the hallmark of the church, which is to be “a holy nation”, for God is a holy God. But the signs are evident that the world has infiltrated the church. Can unbelievers see Christians live out a distinctively different lifestyle from the rest of the world?
Unity because the church is still deeply divided. I attended a prayer conference recently, and I met an intercessor whom I have never met before. As we started talking, he said, “I go around helping intercessors to pray together. But the problem is getting the pastors to pray together!” We need to ask ourselves: “To what extent are we driven by our own agenda or our church’s agenda as opposed to a far larger concern – the growth of the whole Malaysian Church?”
This brings us to the final concern – revival. The Holy Spirit has visited the church in our country many times before. Think of John Sung’s ministry (1930s), the evangelical growth in the 1950s and 60s, the SIB revivals (1970s and 1980s), the charismatic movement (1970s) and so forth. These events bear the marks of genuine revival. But why has revival not been sustained? I think it is because the Holy Spirit has been grieved (Ephesians 4:30). He is indeed a very sensitive Spirit. And among the things which grieve Him most must be sin and disunity. I believe that if we truly repent of our unholy lives and disunity, and humbly plead with God to send His Spirit amongst us again, a sustained revival may yet come to the church. I believe that the Spirit is calling us to deep-seated repentance and humble, persistent prayer that Christ may be truly Lord of the Malaysian Church and our nation!
・Rev Hwa Yung is the Bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia. Apart from his local ministry, he is heavily involved in the work of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and the Lausanne Movement.
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