Russian Evangelicals Penalized Most Under Anti-Evangelism Law

David Cabrera said:

Maybe the Evangelicals should mind their own businesses and not avoid going to a country that is just getting better after Communism.

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What is the proper business of an evangelical?

David Cabrera said:

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association isn't representative of all Evangelicals, plus I have Evangelical parents whom I had to convince I was still a Christian.

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Cracking down on Protestants is really part of anti-western xenophobia.

FireDragon76 said:

Cracking down on Protestants is really part of anti-western xenophobia.

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Back when I was an active intelligence analyst, we kept track of Soviet oppression of religious activity outside the Orthodox Church. It was pretty oppressive. They particularly disliked Baptists and Pentecostals.

RDKirk said:

Back when I was an active intelligence analyst, we kept track of Soviet oppression of religious activity outside the Orthodox Church. It was pretty oppressive. They particularly disliked Baptists and Pentecostals.

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Baptists have actually been in Russia a long time, too, almost as long as the Lutherans. Tolstoy himself was influenced by Russian Anabaptists and Quakers, that is why the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him.

The Russian state wants to uphold a national myth of Orthodoxy and Autocracy, so they persecute religious minorities that actually believe in human freedom.

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FireDragon76 said:

Baptists have actually been in Russia a long time, too, almost as long as the Lutherans. Tolstoy himself was influenced by Russian Anabaptists and Quakers, that is why the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him.

The Russian state wants to uphold a national myth of Orthodoxy and Autocracy, so they persecute religious minorities that actually believe in human freedom.

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Tolstoy was a prolific writer and influential figure who was teaching heresy, and so he was excommunicated. How many of our own American Christians are calling for the Roman Church to excommunicate the Govenor of New York for His new abortion law?

FireDragon76 said:

No, you just get a bullet in the head or poison in your tea.

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The founder of my parish got a bullet. He is an Orthodox Christian priest. His name is Alexander Hotovinsky. I know many others who suffered and/or perished who were Orthodox. In the United States people can do as they like when it comes to their religions, and they are protected under our laws. But this is only temporary. Someday, and probably sooner than you think, Christians are going to be fiercely persecuted here too, just as they are now in the Middle East.

FireDragon76 said:

That doesn't really surprise me at all.

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Doesn't (and shouldn't) surprise nor scandalize anyone. Shouldn't all members of the armed forces receive blessing from the Church for their service? And if a soldier feels a certain affection for his nation's leader, is he not permitted to express those feelings by kissing his leader's portrait?

The image in the photo is a portrait of Putin, not an icon. Unless he is someday recognized as a saint by the Church, there won't be an icon of him.

worshipjunkie said:

I'm not quite ready to call this unethical. It's clear he thinks that any attempt to evangelize those already Orthodox is wrong. He also seems to think that providing financial assistance is a bribe. It may be, it may not be- it could simply mean that the Protestant churches are offering aid the Eastern Orthodox are not. I have never in my life so much as heard of an Orthodox charitable organization. I'm sure some exist, but not the way they do in the Protestant and Catholic churches.

The Eastern Orthodox believe their church is the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, right? So they teach their faith and don't want people to leave it. That's understandable, but what about their faith is so weak that they can't hear the message of an evangelical, and they have to forbid that message by law? if they're "losing sheep", who's to blame; the person who preached to them, or the people that had their ears for many years and didn't apparently win them?

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Heresy, unfortunately, is far more devastating and problematic than you're giving it credit for. Do you know what was happening when Arius began stirring up Christendom with His "Christ is not God" teachings? Do you know how many people within Christendom were convinced that he was right and the Church wrong? A lot. So, it's not about losing sheep due to lack of good preaching. It's about the power of Satan's lies to trick and deceive people through the deception of false teachers.

Many Orthodox Christians lead charitable lives, regularly giving alms (charitable offerings) to the poor. In Orthodox countries the Church does operate the hospitals and orphanages and houses for the poor, etc. In the United States the Orthodox Church is in great minority and many Orthodox are new-coming immigrants, struggling to become personally established in a new home where they don't even speak the native language. Is it fair to compare the charitable achievements of American Orthodox Christians to Roman Catholics and Protestants who've been here since about Christopher Columbus's day?

RDKirk said:

What is the proper business of an evangelical?

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Repentance.

worshipjunkie said:

I'm not quite ready to call this unethical. It's clear he thinks that any attempt to evangelize those already Orthodox is wrong. He also seems to think that providing financial assistance is a bribe. It may be, it may not be- it could simply mean that the Protestant churches are offering aid the Eastern Orthodox are not. I have never in my life so much as heard of an Orthodox charitable organization. I'm sure some exist, but not the way they do in the Protestant and Catholic churches.

The Eastern Orthodox believe their church is the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, right? So they teach their faith and don't want people to leave it. That's understandable, but what about their faith is so weak that they can't hear the message of an evangelical, and they have to forbid that message by law? if they're "losing sheep", who's to blame; the person who preached to them, or the people that had their ears for many years and didn't apparently win them?

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Easy, it is based on manipulate methods.

redleghunter said:

I don't think the Gospel was created hundreds of years after the apostles.

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I think it is too generous to say hundreds of years since Protestantism was created in 1500

RDKirk said:

What is the proper business of an evangelical?

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Taking care of their own places.

David Cabrera said:

Taking care of their own places.

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Russian evangelicals?

Has Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor moved to Moscow?

Doing it “to the least of these” means proclaimer and hearer (overhearer) deserve equal treatment.

I despise how the Russian Orthodox Church has essentially just become an arm of the state, but I actually somewhat agree with these particular laws. There is no reason for Evangelicals to preach to the Russians. Russians have their own Christian faith, which is Orthodoxy. That should be respected.

redleghunter said:

Interesting. If you mean why wouldn't the ROC be under scrutiny elsewhere?

You bring up a good point some Orthodox in the US bring up from time to time. There's a ROC, Greek Orthodox Church et al. but not an American Orthodox church.

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Actually, there is an American Orthodox church. Orthodox Church in America

What some folk cannot or refuse to understand is that Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Catholic Church is witnessed and said by Orthodox to be 'the body of Christ' and the 'one, true Church; outside of which there is no salvation'.

Therefore, all other religions and Christian groups are sects and heresies that seek tear sheep away from Christ the Shepherd and His body; or robbers who seek to gain access to the sheepfold by a clandestine way that isn't the gate. Russia is building Churches and monasteries and gently trying to nudge folks back to Orthodoxy and the Gospel therein.

Evangelicalism is false sect & religion to their view; one that seeks to replace the Orthodox Christian religion and the preserved Gospel of Christ with a distorted Sola-Scripturist version, namely Evangelicalism.

You might not 'agree'. But to the Russians Evangelicalism isn't 'the Gospel'; it is tearing folks away from the 'Gospel' which is Orthodoxy. Why would they exchange the truth, salvation and Christ himself for something else? They would not.

Basically, Evangelicalism is about as Salvific, "good", or "true" to Russians as Paganism, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism is: false religions, only tolerated for the common good so that worse evils don't prevail were they to outright suppress or quash them even further.

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Nota Bene:
Also, Evangelicalism (on a Cultural level here) is associated with Capitalism, Democracy, and Western scavenging of the Russian state like vulture to destroy her: Russian common view it as a way (among other Western Ways) to divide Russia and pick her apart; to subvert and destroy her people.