Joel Ruml - 60 years

The ECCB moderator, Joel Ruml, will celebrate his 60^th birthday at the end of April. He has walked on this earth for quite a number of years. Alongside him we have come a long way which has been marked by well-known milestones and signposts such as: the Freedom of conscience, the Church's identity, Biblical anchorage, prophetic advice by the Reformation fathers, liturgical truthfulness, media readability, social sensitivity and justice. The prophetic function of the Church, therefore, is economic independence. We walk and see that the signs for the next fifteen years of pilgrimage point in one direction: the separation of Church and state.

Joel Ruml is one of many who are pointing persistently to this horizon. He continues the line of his father, Rev. Jiří Ruml, especially in his Calvinist orientation. For many centuries the separation of Church and State was established in Calvinist and Puritan countries. Those Churches separated from the State perform better than those that are in an economic or political dependence upon each other. State and Church institutions don't meddle here in affairs that do not belong to them. Church tax is not collected by the State and the Churches, in turn, don't undermine the civil administration because of hatred of this world and don't refuse to pay taxes for the common good of society.

Joel Ruml is one of the founding fathers of the independent magazine "Protestant", whose first editorial meetings were held in August 1989 where he oversaw the socio-economic column. He did not refuse to go, together with his wife Lydia, first into a village parish and then into a parish in a small town. He also got to know life in a city parish, thus he knows about the pleasure and pain of all types of parishes in our Church community. He knows about family ministry and Bible studies as well as chaplaincy work in juvenile detention centers, prisons and hospitals. From this probably comes his conviction that the transformation of our Church is feasible and not so terribly painful as it seems to some economists of our Church.

We wish Joel Ruml the joy, strength and courage of a pilgrim, to jointly arrive with the Church at the destination of the way: To become an independent and responsible Church in the midst of civil society.

Pavel Keřkovský