Answers to a Challenge

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, saw the Roman Empire falling about him. A few months after he died (430 A.D.), the invading Vandals took Hippo, then a major North African strongpoint. In the ages that followed, the great cities of man crumbled, but their citizens found a spiritual home in Saint Augustine's City of God. To this day, Christian churches of all denominations draw upon the theological system that Augustine tirelessly nailed down before the storm broke. Yet the 20th century is haunted by a question: Is Christian civilization going the way of the Roman Empire? Perhaps, say prophets such as Britain's Historian Arnold J. Toynbee. Surely, said a Christian theologian last week during a visit to the U.S. from behind the Iron Curtain.

Noting the 1,600th anniversary this year of Augustine's birth, Czechoslovakia's Dr. Joseph L. Hromadka said at Princeton: "Saint Augustine . . . laid--in a way--a foundation for ... what we have called Christian civilization . . .

Now the historical structure of this civili zation finds itself in an agony . . .

"We have to sense the imperceptible and yet real shifting of the center of gravity from the Christian nations to the non-Christian world . . . So-called Chris tian civilization finds itself in disintegration . . . Christian nations have failed to carry out, in time, the indispensable, long-awaited social adaptations . . . and to assist other nations in their struggle against misery, poverty and ignorance."

What Hope? Theologian Hromadka says he is no Communist, and his brethren largely believe him. But he thinks it fit to collaborate with his country's Communist regime, and for that reason it was easy to dismiss Hromadka's speech as the melancholy result of peaceful coexistence and a sharpened sense of doom. Nonetheless, his warnings, did constitute a challenge. In the U.S., it was a good week to look for some answers. Hundreds of Chris tian churchmen from all over the world were meeting in half a dozen U.S. cities to discuss the condition of their faith (see below). The World Council of Churches was preparing for next week's big meeting at Evanston, Ill., whose theme is "Christ the Hope of the World."

As usual, there was no clear agreement on just what form that hope should take. Many churchmen, notably the Americans, emphasized "practical" action here and now. Said the World Presbyterian Alliance meeting at Princeton (where Hromadka spoke): "Strive to break down racial barriers . . . Promote understanding between classes . . . Provide an opportunity for every man ... to earn a livelihood . . ." Other churchmen, rallying round the eschatological view that sees the Christian hope at the end of the world and not in it, argued that Christianity's place was not primarily in political or ideological battles. Contemplating "the hydrogen and perhaps a cobalt bomb," Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill of the U.S. Protestant Episcopal Church sounded a note of resignation. Said he at Minneapolis: "The possibility of the end of the world is not so tragic. Christians have always known that we are sojourners and pilgrims, and that we have here no continuing city."

Who Is Winning? In Hiroshima, Japan, meanwhile, Christianity made another comment on the Bomb--by dedi cating the handsome new Church of Our Lady of the Assumption on the site where the old one stood before it was destroyed nine years ago by the first ABomb. Jesuit Father Hugo Lassalle (who himself survived the bombing) built this World Peace Memorial Church with contributions from Japanese converts plus a $100,000 anonymous contribution from the U.S. In this new church, standing at the birthplace of the atomic age. Christians of all denominations might find a symbol. Various Christian assemblies last week gave at least an appearance of being busy, energetic, and less concerned with lamenting destruction than with building anew.

Altogether, Christianity could be seen as still a long way from the disintegration which Dr. Hromadka saw just around the corner. Before and since the Vandals sacked Hippo, Christianity survived many agonies. But the Vandals inside and outside the city in A.D. 1954 were a different breed from any who had come before. No Christian, 1,600 years after Saint Augustine's birth, could say with full confidence that the churches were winning the fight against them.

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