Seminary – AKA “Semetery”: the place where young people who love God go to have their faith shaken and their enthusiasm killed forever. At least that’s how seminary was portrayed to me as a young Christian who was eager to serve the Lord.
Today, as a pastor and seminary student, I have to say that I actually agree with that. I can see how seminary can kill a young person’s faith and enthusiasm. However, I think that seminary is a good thing, and something pastors should do. For me, going to seminary has been one of the best decisions I’ve made, both personally, and for my calling as a pastor.
I didn’t start going to seminary until after I had already been ordained and pastoring for years. The group of churches I was ordained in didn’t require formal seminary training in order to be ordained; they simply required 4 years of theological training, which could be received in an institution like a Bible college or seminary, or on the job, through apprenticeship/discipleship. I did the latter. I was encouraged that men like Peter were unlearned men whose training came from having been with Jesus.
When I had been a pastor for a few years, I began to really feel the desire to deepen my understanding of theology, church history, and the many other topics that are taught in seminary courses. A friend of mine turned me on to a great school in England, which I have been attending now part time for several years. I’m not doing it because I need a degree in order to become a pastor; I’m doing it to make myself a better pastor.
We need to train the called, not call the trained.
And I have to say – I think this is the ideal way; I believe that we should be training the called, not calling the trained. If someone has a calling on their life and an enthusiasm to serve the Lord, then why would we lock them up for 4 years and tell them to read a bunch of books before they can go out and serve the Lord? That’s now what Jesus did. Read the first few chapters of the Gospel of John – you see people who had little to no theological understanding leading people to Jesus. The woman at the well went and told the whole town about Jesus. The man born blind simply testified to what had happened to him. However, enthusiasm can only take you so far, especially as a pastor. The job of a pastor is to teach and the lead as a shepherd, and they need to be able to do that with understanding about God’s Word and people.
The Problem with Being Self-Taught
I know that many people would respond that one doesn’t need to go to seminary in order to get a theological education. Surely there are a number of books available, and if one is a disciplined student, then they can simply educate themselves while doing the work of the ministry.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones is perhaps the greatest example of a master preacher and pastor – certain one of the greatest of our modern age. He was known by those who looked up to him as “The Pastor”. Dr. Jones never went to seminary nor had any formal theological training. He had studied to be a medical doctor, and later switched to Christian ministry, becoming a pastor. Dr. Jones is often cited as a perfect example of how one does not need to be sequestered in a seminary in order to receive theological training – it is possible to be self-taught.
Here’s the problem with being self-taught, which I realized years ago, when I desired to deepen my knowledge base and started trying to teach myself: When you teach yourself, YOU pick what you want to learn and read. The great thing about being part of a seminary program is that I am forced to read and consider viewpoints which I would have otherwise avoided. Basically, self-taught people tend to read things which simply bolster the positions which they have already held.
For some people, being faced with views other than those who they already hold leads them to confusion and uncertainty. Certainly I have become a lot less dogmatic about things I used to be dogmatic about, because I more understand now the complexity of the questions and arguments. And it is this uncertainty which leads to confusion and disillusionment for many young seminarians who go to seminary because they want to know God more and because they have a passion for the Gospel and for serving others like Jesus did. They go to seminary hoping to be set on fire in a greater way and be given tools to minister effectively, and find themselves bogged down in discussions which bring into question things which they never thought were issues! And then the Bible becomes a book you read for school, and you hear people splitting hairs on seemingly irrelevant theological arguments, and it can easily kill one’s enthusiasm.
The study of theology is faith seeking understanding – Saint Anselm
As Anselm said: The study of theology is “faith seeking understanding”. And I believe it should be treated that way. Karl Barth taught that Christian theology should be an endeavor done by Christians who are committed to Jesus Christ. I agree with that. I also believe that if someone has a desire to serve God, we should encourage that, rather then kill it by making them jump through a bunch of hoops first. Let’s see who is called and then be diligent to train them, rather than training people to death and then asking them to be called and enthusiastic about the Gospel.
What do you think? Seminary, or not to Seminary? Comment below!
“Christianity teaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.”
I came across this quote from Dietrich Bonhöffer listening to the audio book of Eric Metaxas’ book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. – (which is actually available for free if you sign up for a new account with Audible!)
I believe in miracles because I have one walking around in my house. Here’s our story:
In January of 2010, my wife Rosemary was in her final month of pregnancy with our second child, a girl whom we had decided to name Felicia, which means “happy”. It has been a pretty smooth pregnancy, with one exception: in the last trimester she experienced intense itchiness in her skin, like it was on fire. It was so unbearable that she was unable to sleep and sometimes resorted to standing outside in the cold to numb her skin. We now know that this was caused by a condition called cholestasis, in which the liver stops functioning, and isn’t cleaning the blood. This condition went undiagnosed, and led to what happened next.
Rosemary went into labor naturally, and was quietly getting ready to go to the hospital, but at one point her contractions suddenly went from being 9 minutes apart to being 2 minutes apart. She had a sense that something was wrong with the baby, so she told me that we needed to leave immediately, and left our 2 year old son with our neighbors and we rushed to the hospital.
We arrived at Markhót Ferenc Megyei Kórház, the hospital in Eger, Hungary which was about a 10 minute car ride from our home, just a minute or two after 8 o’clock that morning. The nurses took Rosemary into the room to measure her vital signs, while I waited outside in the hallway. At this point I assumed that everything was fine, and that I would be welcomed into the birthing room shortly, as I had been with our first child who was born in that same hospital. I started emailing my parents on my phone, letting them know that the baby was on her way.
Only a few minutes later, the door to the birthing ward was flung open, not by a nurse inviting me in as I had expected, but by the doctor, who came running into the hallway, nervously yelling to others down the hall to come immediately. He then turned to me and said, “There’s a problem with the baby”, and disappeared back behind the door of the birthing unit.
Over the next few minutes, 20 or so doctors and nurses ran past me into the room where my wife was. I didn’t know anything, and when I asked the nurses what was going on, they told me they couldn’t tell me anything — only the doctor was allowed to do that, but they privately said that it was bad and the baby may not survive. At one point a nurse ran into the birthing ward carrying a plastic tube of some kind, and a few minutes later 3 nurses ran out holding a little body wrapped in towels, while one of them pumped frantically on that same plastic device as they transported her to another area of the hospital. After about an hour of nervously waiting for any news, I saw our doctor, who knew I was a pastor, and as he ran past me in the hall, simply said: “Pray!”.
Three hours passed as I waited for the doctor to call me in and tell me what had happened. I was called into the office of Dr. Kovács Krisztina, the head of the neonatal department. She explained that when they had first called Rosemary in for examination, they were not able to find the baby’s heartbeat, and they had to do an emergency caesarian. She explained that they didn’t know why, but that our daughter had gone without oxygen for quite a long period of time. At this point I asked the question which had been on my mind for hours: “Is my baby alive?” “Yes, she’s alive, but there is a good chance she will not live through the next 24 hours. And if she does, then you can be sure that she will have life-long serious disabilities, because she went so long without oxygen, that she has suffered serious brain damage.” Her APGAR score was a 1, the lowest score possible. She was not breathing at all, and the only reason she got an APGAR of 1 was because she did have a faint heartbeat.
Dr. Kovács explained to me that there is only one treatment for babies in this condition, but it is very experimental, and so I would need to sign a consent form. The treatment involved putting the newborn baby into a morphine induced coma and then subjecting them to hypothermia to try to salvage what was left of their brain and other vital organs which had started to die due to the lack of oxygen. I signed the papers, and then was taken into a room, where Felicia—whose body was completely grey and lifeless except for the fact that a respirator violently caused her chest to rise and fall—was in an incubator, and she was wheeled in to where Rosemary was. Rosemary had been put under during the emergency surgery and was just coming to—and they made her reach in the incubator and touch Felicia. Basically, they were making sure she got the chance to meet her baby and say goodbye.
Right after that, Felicia was wheeled outside, where she was taken by a special ambulance from the Peter Cerny foundation, which helps babies get to the Semmelweis university hospital neonatal intensive care unit in Budapest. Semmelweis is the best equipped hospital in the country for neonatal ICU, but they have limited space—room for 10 or so babies at a time, so they only take the worst of the worst. When Felicia arrived, we were told that she was in the worst condition of any of the babies in that unit.
I went home and packed up my son to go to Budapest to be with Felicia—and I quickly wrote a blog post asking people to pray for a miracle. I would continue writing posts about Felicia, which were then shared on social media and sent around the world. Thousands upon thousands of people began praying for Felicia’s healing from every corner of the globe, and messages began filling my inbox from places like India and Africa, from people I had never met, telling me they were praying for God to heal our little girl for His glory.
For the next 2 weeks, Felicia was unconscious. She had wires and tubes sicking out of every part of her little body and she was on a respirator, because she was not able to breathe on her own. During that time the doctors conducted a blood test and found an enzyme in her blood that indicated brain damage. A normal level of this enzyme would be 25 count – Felicia’s level was 1500 count; very disheartening news. The doctors told us to prepare for the worst. They were unsure if she would ever wake up from the coma, and even if she did, it was unsure if she would ever breathe on her own, not to mention whether her nervous system or vital organs would function properly. Not only had she gone without oxygen, but she had inhaled meconium, which filled her lungs and throat, which had developed into pneumonia. She had also inhaled meconium, which had then infected her digestive tract. We were told there was a good chance she would be in a vegetative state for her whole life.
In the NICU during the coma
All we could do was pray. And so we asked everyone we possibly could to pray for her – churches around Hungary and throughout the world began praying for her. People I had never met began approaching me and telling me, “I’ve been praying for your daughter!” Our church in Eger came together to support our family; the community of Calvary Chapels in Hungary rallied around us, praying for us and encouraging us constantly.
After 7 days of being in the coma, Felicia woke up. Rosemary got to see her that day for the first time, but it was bittersweet. Although Felicia was alive and awake, she showed signs of being handicapped. Her eyes were crossed, she could not focus on anything, she could not swallow, and did not move. We left that night with a sense of heaviness, but once again wrote a blog post asking people to pray for Felicia to be fully healed.
The next day we walked into the ICU to find a different baby in Felicia’s bed; it was her, but she was so different than the night before, that we hardly recognized her! That night, her condition had changed completely. She made eye contact, was moving, had started swallowing milk and making noises!
After another week in that unit, Felicia was transferred to intermediate care, and then to Developmental Neurology at a different hospital in Budapest. She had suffered brain damage; even though seemed to be doing better, she was still very sick; she basically had no reflexes. Rosemary spent a week in the Developmental Neurology department being trained by doctors to do reflex therapy with Felicia at home in order to create new pathways in her brain, taking advantage of the abundance of stem cells that babies have. During this time we continued to pray for her healing.
For 8 months, we spent 6 hours a day doing therapy with Felicia. At times we had people come live with us to help cook and clean, so we would be free to care for our little girl. At one of our regular visits to the neurology department, after 8 months of therapy, we were told that Felicia was healed. She now had all the normal reflexes that a baby her age should have; reflexes being a key indicator of healthy brain function.
All the doctors and the nurses who witnessed Felicia’s recovery told us that it was a true miracle—that they had never seen a baby who was in that bad of a condition – the worst in the entire country when she arrived – get better, and not just get better, but to the point of having no symptoms! Felicia had 5 different doctors who treated her, and each of them told us that surely God must have healed her.
On Felicia’s first birthday we had a party. To this 1 year old girl’s party, people came from all over Hungary and even from the United States. Most notably, the head doctor of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Semmelweis, who had personally attended to Felicia during her time there, Dr. Szabó Miklós, as well as Dr. Kovács Krisztina came to the party, and Dr. Szabó spoke, and told everyone that as a doctor, he can attest to them, that Felicia’s healing was a genuine miracle. He said that he never accepts invitations from the families of his former patients, but he drove up to Eger from Budapest for Felicia, because her story was so special and remarkable to him.
God healed Felicia. When Felicia was 18 months old, we were told that she would no longer need a neurologist. She was given a completely clean bill of health!
In 1 Chronicles 16, David says:
[8] Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!
[9] Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!
[10] Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!
[11] Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!
[12] Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he uttered,
[23] Sing to the LORD, all the earth! Tell of his salvation from day to day.
[24] Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!
[25a] For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
[28] Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!
[29] Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
[31] Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, “The LORD reigns!”
Again and again in this song of David – he says “tell” of his wondrous works. Remember the miracles he has done, and bring glory to God by declaring those things to the nations, so that all will see that He indeed is Lord of heaven and Earth!
Today Felicia turned 4 years old, and she is completely healthy in every way! She is a true miracle.
We will never forget, and we will continue to faithfully tell our story for His glory.
As a Broncos fan, this season of Broncos football has been one of the best ever, especially with Peyton Manning having his best season ever. I’m hoping Peyton and crew can bring the Lombardi trophy back to Denver once again on February 2!
From what I can tell, Peyton is a stand-up guy, a true sportsman. Whether professional athletes should be role-models or not, the fact is that they are, for better or for worse. Seems to me that Peyton fits in the “for better” category. I remember a few years ago when the media was reporting on how Tom Brady was a great quarterback but not a great person. Seems to me that has changed as well – but of course there is John Elway: adored in Denver as a great quarterback, but generally regarded as a rotten person.
I’m glad to know that Peyton’s a brother in the Lord!
Whether your marriage is the strongest it’s ever been, or is hanging on by a string, or is anywhere in between – you are invited to join us for a marriage retreat in Estes Park on March 7-8, 2014.
We look forward to a refreshing time of quality time together getting back to the foundational principles that make for a happy and healthy marriage.
One of the questions I am frequently asked as a pastor is whether people who are in debt should tithe to their church, or if they should rather dedicate that money to paying off their debt.
UPDATE: Since this post was written, my wife and I have paid off our debt. More about that in this post: Debt Free!
First of all, I should say that the New Testamnet does not require that a person give a tithe (10% of their income donated to the congregation where they worship) per se. Although this requirement did exist in the Old Testament for the nation of Israel, the New Testament teaches that we are to give unto the Lord not out of obligation but from a cheerful heart, to contribute to the work of the Lord and the community of faith. Many, however, including myself, believe that the Old Testament standard of a tithe, although not required by the New Testament, is a good guideline for giving.
According to Business Insider, the average American household is $6,500 in debt – that’s consumer debt not related to their mortgage.
The average American household carries $6,500 of consumer debt
There is a good chance that MOST people in any given church in America are in thousands of dollars of debt. That means that there are multitudes of faithful Christians who desire to honor God with their money by giving to Him of their first fruits and investing in building His Kingdom and spreading the Gospel – who wonder if giving a few hundred dollars in tithe to their church every month should rather be directed towards paying off their debt.
The short answer? Yes, I think you should regularly give tithes and offerings, even if you are in debt.
I know that some people will not agree with that – but please understand that I do not say that lightly at all. I too am in debt, and yet I tithe. I don’t want to be in debt, in fact, I’m working very hard to get out of debt. Last year we had some unexpected expenses which we deemed worthy of going into debt for. So, I say this as one who is in the same boat – carrying debt and struggling with whether to give a tithe or offering to my church or use that money to help pay off our debt.
I too am in debt, and yet I tithe
Here is why I tithe even though I have debt:
The tithe is not God’s way of raising money, it’s God’s way of raising kids.
I tithe because it is a values issue, and it trains my heart. By making the first check I write every month my tithe check, I am making a clear statement of my priorities and values. And it sends a message to my heart, that for us, we would rather invest in the Kingdom of God and the furtherance of the Gospel than just buying more stuff.
‘But, wait’ – you might say: ‘You wouldn’t be using that money to buy more stuff, you would be using that money to pay off your debt for the stuff you already bought.’ That’s nice in theory, but in practice, most people, with a few hundred more dollars in their pocket, won’t regularly devote that money to aggressively paying off their debt, it will just be a cushion on their budget.
The key to getting out of debt for many people is changing your lifestyle, not having a little more money – and tithing helps you change your lifestyle.
People who have more money – guess what they do? They spend more money. I watched a documentary on Netflix the other day about how an astonishing number of professional athletes go broke within just a few years of retirement. They had a lot of money and they spent a lot of money. What we need is a lifestyle change, not just more money. I have found that letting go of some of my money and giving it to God as the first thing I do when I get paid releases me from the grip of money – and helps me to change my lifestyle.
I have found then when I tithe vs when I don’t tithe, I don’t really end up with more money in my pocket, or get ahead with getting out of debt.
A sacrifice is only a sacrifice if it hurts.
David said, I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which cost me nothing (2 Samuel 24:24) The woman who gave 2 mites – it was a relatively insignificant amount to the rest of us, but for her IT HURT. And Jesus publicly commended her for giving in a sacrificial way, although she could have just as well used that money to buy milk or bread which she probably had need of. She gave sacrificially, and Jesus not only commended her for it – God made sure it was recorded for all time so that generation after generation could learn from her example.
Worship and sacrifice are very closely related. We all sacrifice for what we worship. If we don’t sacrifice as an act of worship, well just put some thought into what that says about who you worship…
God is looking for vessels He can pour into, who will then pour back out what He has given them in ways that He desires. If we show ourselves faithful stewards with little, he will entrust us with more. I believe that God honors those who step out in faith and give radically and generously – because He is a God who also gives radically and generously, and when we do that, it aligns us in a greater way with His heart.
Is this a hard, fast rule? No. It’s a principle. But yet, it is the one principle, which God challenges us to test him on (see Malachi 3:10).
God loves a joyful giver. He doesn’t want people to give out of a sense of coercion or obligation. But this is a principle of which God says: “If you want to live the full life that I have designed for you, if you want to experience joy, then walk in this way,” – ‘the way everlasting’.
This Sunday at White Fields I taught 1 Samuel 2 and the story of Hophni and Phineas, the priests who were doing shameful things in the Tabernacle. (Click here for audio of that sermon: “Messed-Up Ministry”). There was a detail of that story that at first seems a bit odd and obscure, but is worth serious consideration.
In 1 Samuel 2:15-17 we read about how the Law required that the fat be burned off the meat before it was eaten. The law about this is found in the Book of Leviticus – and as I mentioned on Sunday, the reason for this is because at that time, the fat of the meat was considered the best, most luxurious part. But God required that when a sacrifice was made as an act of worship, the fat be burned, which would create a lot of smoke and it would be a “fragrant offering” unto the Lord. Any of you who like the smell of bacon cooking know what I’m talking about. Those of you who are vegans, well, you can eat your tofu bacon and pretend you know what I’m talking about!
The fat belongs to the Lord
But the idea that the fat belonged to the Lord represented a fundamental belief that we should give the best to God. Many people are in the habit of doing just the opposite – keeping the best for themselves, and giving the rest (the left-overs) to God. Rather than making their offering check the first check they write every month, they wait until the end of the month to see if they have anything left over. God asks that we give him the best, not the rest.
But there’s something else worth taking note of here: when the people in those days gave the fat of the meat to the Lord, they thought they were really giving up a lot – they were really “sacrificing” something, in obedience to God. They were giving up luxury and “the good life”. However, what we now know is that fat kills. At our last men’s prayer breakfast, one man brought a creation called the “bacon explosion” made of various lard extracts which I am convinced reduced my life span by 2 months per bite!
But here’s the point: by telling them to sacrifice the fat on the altar, not only was God teaching them an important values lesson, but he was also sparing them from something which was bad for them, even though they couldn’t possibly know that yet! It would only be thousands of years later that people would realize that God wasn’t only asking them to give something up, he was actually protecting them – even though they didn’t understand it yet, much like all of us parents do with our children.
God is good and all his ordinances – the things he tells you to do and what he tells you to steer clear of – each and every one flows out of his love and care for you.
This past Sunday at White Fields church I spoke about how when we give everything over to God, although we often fear what we will lose, the reality is that we always get more than we bargained for. Like Jesus said, it is when we give our life fully over to him that we find true life and really start living. (you can listen to the audio of that sermon here)
One example of this that came to my mind, but I didn’t share on Sunday was a quote by David Livingstone – the 19th century British missionary who gave his entire life in service to Christ, exploring and evangelizing the interior of Africa. Today, as a direct result of his work, sub-Saharan Africa has become a place where Christianity thrives, where 200 years ago it was almost non-existent.
David Livingstone – Missionary and Explorer of the interior of Africa
Livingstone made several trips back to England during his time as a missionary in Africa, in which he would go on speaking tours. He was considered a national hero in England, and was invited to speak at universities and to dignitaries.
One of the questions most frequently asked of Livingstone was how he was able to make such a great sacrifice, as to give his life in service as a missionary. He was an educated man who could have had a comfortable, upper-class life in England, but instead he chose to spend the prime of his life in the bush of Africa.
Here is what Livingstone said in response to this question in a speech he gave at Cambridge University in 1857:
For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.
I have been toying with the idea of posting some of the articles I’ve written for seminary up on this blog for people to read and discuss. A few friends mentioned they would be interested in this one in particular. The following is an article I wrote for a class on Twentieth-Century Church History. Feel free to chime in and leave a comment below. (Just a heads-up that it’s written in UK English; those aren’t misspellings!)
The twentieth century, along with being a time of great technological development, was a period of some of the most intense persecution of Christianity the world has ever seen. Multiple sources have estimated that more Christians were killed for their faith in the twentieth century than in all other centuries combined. Much of this persecution happened under the rule of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia. Not least among the persecuted churches was the Orthodox church in Russia. However, the Orthodox church did not cease to exist, and now enjoys a constitutionally privileged position in Russia. Tertullian famously wrote, ‘the blood of Christians is seed’; the implication being that persecution, rather than causing the extermination of Christianity, actually causes it to become stronger and to spread. Was this the case in regard to Orthodox Christianity in Russia during the communist period, or did the persecution ultimately reach its objective?
First of all, we must consider what the objectives of the government persecution were. As the largest and most influential religious organisation in Russia, the persecution of the Orthodox church by the Soviet government was both ideologically and politically motivated. Ideologically, one of the ultimate objectives of Marxism was the elimination of all religion. Politically, the Orthodox church had been very closely tied to the ruling houses of Imperial Russia, and thus, in the minds of the communists, was part of the old system which they were trying to overthrow. The fact that during the Russian civil war many prominent Orthodox supporters fought on the side of the ‘Whites’ certainly contributed to the persecution of the church once the ‘Reds’ eventually triumphed. Although all religions and Christian groups suffered persecution during the communist period, the Orthodox church was often treated uniquely; there were times when non-Orthodox were allowed greater freedom in the hope that their growth would weaken the Orthodox church, and there were times when the government sought to work through the Orthodox church as it did through its puppet regimes, to influence people or gain popular support for its agendas.
Some historical context is helpful for understanding the place of the Orthodox church in Russia prior to the communists coming to power. The official christianisation of the Russian people is recognised as having taken place in 988, when Vladimir I led the citizens of Kyiv to the Dnieper river for baptism. One of the factors in Vladimir pronouncing Christianity to be the official national religion was that he believed it would be a means of unifying his divided people by giving them a common sense of identity. Vladimir aligned his people with Constantinople, the ‘second Rome.’ Vassily III was the first Russian ruler to take the title of ‘tsar’, which comes from the Latin ‘caesar’. In 1589, the Patriarchate of Moscow was established; the Patriarch of Constantinople recognised Russia as the political but not ecclesiastical successor to Constantinople, and the tsar was acknowledged as successor to the Byzantine Emperors, but Moscow was not acknowledged as the ‘third Rome’, though its form of Christendom and church-state relations followed that model. Russian history after this point was marked by a struggle for authority between church and state; at some points church leaders claimed supreme authority, while at others the church was reduced to a department of the state and the clergy as state servants. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Peter the Great suppressed the Moscow Patriarchate in favour of a synod which ran the church as a department of the state, limiting its freedom. Thus, in Russia there was a tradition of autocracy reaching back several centuries, in which the Orthodox church, while enjoying considerable privileges, was subjected to the state. When the communist regime made the churches answerable to a government department, this was nothing new to the Orthodox church. The traditional patterns of church-state relationship in Russia meant that the Orthodox church was surprisingly able to adapt to life under communism, where they found themselves once again in a struggle with the state for authority and once again subjugated to the state. In some ways the situation the Orthodox church found itself in under communism was one they were well-prepared to cope with because it was more familiar to them than, for example, Western-style pluralistic democracy would have been.
The Orthodox church suffered great losses during the communist period, but they also received some surprising benefits. After the Bolsheviks took power, a prolonged period of repression began, rising steadily throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s. The Orthodox church was virtually ‘decapitated’; between 1918 and 1926, over 100 bishops were executed and thrown in prison, along with tens of thousands of priests—85,000 clergy were put to death in 1937 alone. Stalin, a dropout from an Orthodox seminary, continued Lenin’s policy of persecution. During the first decades of Soviet control, the number of functioning Orthodox churches was reduced from around 55,000 to about 500, and the number of monasteries was reduced from 1,025 to 0. The Orthodox church, at least on the surface, ceased to exist; it was forced underground, with believers being led by clergy who took up ordinary occupations to mask their religious activity and to support themselves. We are only left to wonder if the Orthodox church in Russia would have survived at all had this level of persecution continued, because in 1943, Stalin introduced a reversal in policy and allowed the Orthodox church a limited amount of freedom in exchange for their support of the war effort. Such changes in policy happened a number of times during the communist period, with bursts of persecution and moments of reprieve, but it was always generally suppressive, and it was clear that the view of the future held by the communist powers was one which did not include religious groups of any kind, much less the Orthodox church. However, the Soviets were not opposed to using the church in the short term as a mechanism for influencing and controlling people in their empire, as Stalin had in 1943. Furthermore, it was easier to control centralised institutions than underground bodies. Thus, from 1940 the Uniate churches of Ukraine and Central Europe were forcibly united with the Russian Orthodox church and the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate was extended after 1945 to include Orthodox churches in Bulgaria and Romania as they came under Soviet political domination. The Russian Orthodox church had a history of attempting to extend its influence, and ironically, it was the Soviet regime who helped them to do so during the communist period.
The way the communist government of the Soviet Union approached the Orthodox church in Russia differed from policy of the communist government in China towards Christianity. The main reason for this is because communist social thought did not have to undo Christian cultural influence in China as it did in Russia, which had been shaped by centuries of Christian allegiance. In China the Christian community had always been a minority; it was smaller, less influential, and closely associated with foreign influence. Russia, on the other hand, had experienced centuries of Christendom, in which the Orthodox church, far from being considered a foreign entity, was part of the historical and national identity of Russia and the Russian people. This is precisely what Soviet policy sought to undo, as well as the reason why this was as incredibly difficult task, which they never fully succeeded to accomplish. It seems that this was ultimately accepted by the Soviet government, who in 1988, at the millennium of the christianising of Russia, not only allowed, but even participated in the commemoration by minting a gold coin. In the newfound liberty after the end of communism, the Orthodox church rushed in to fill the void in national identity left by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Symbols and paraphernalia of Orthodox worship began to reappear and the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his family were disinterred and reburied in an Orthodox cathedral in Saint Petersburg. In 1997 a new law in Russia put the Orthodox church in a constitutionally privileged position and limited the freedom of other religious groups. Orthodox priests have been seen blessing Russian army recruits going off to war in breakaway provinces. It would seem that these are signs of a return to Christendom and the failure of the decades-long Soviet policy of persecution.
Statistics, however, suggest that the government persecution of the Orthodox church was not without effect. It is estimated that by 2000 there were around 80 million self-identified Orthodox Christians in Russia—about half the population. The other believers of all religions made up roughly 15 million, leaving approximately 65 million Russians professedly without any religious belief—an astonishingly high proportion compared with countries outside the former communist lands. Of that 80 million, somewhere between 3-15 million actually attend church even once a year. This disparity between practice and professed identity has led some to suggest that Russia is in fact one of the most secularised societies in the world.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, one of the greatest challenges that Orthodoxy has faced is how to cope with Western-style pluralistic democracy. The collapse of the Soviet state, while allowing the church far greater freedom than it had had at any time since 1917-1918, came at the expense of its ability to influence many of the churches once under the Soviet sway. One of the great legacies of communism has been internal church division. The reappearance of the Uniate churches and the formation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as well as schismatic Orthodox churches in Russia, Ukraine and abroad have significantly weakened the Moscow Patriarchate. Whereas the Orthodox church in Russia, for many centuries under tsarist rule and then still under communist rule was one, unified, ‘national’ church—Orthodoxy in Russia and its former areas of influence is now splintered and divided. Thus, it seems that the vision of a renewed Christendom is something which can never again exist in the same way it did during Russia’s imperial period. The legacy of the communist era is that it forced Russia out of Christendom in an irreversible way.
How effective was the government persecution of the Orthodox church in Russia during the communist period? On the one hand, in the wake of the communist era, an astonishingly high number of Russians profess no religious belief and the once-united Orthodox church is now splintered, divided and weakened. In this sense, the persecution was effective. On the other hand though, it failed to accomplish its ultimate objectives of destroying the church and its role in society. Although there is evidence that church attendance was in decline during this period, it was also in decline in the West; state persecution did not make much difference. In fact, in some ways, Soviet policy helped to strengthen the church by keeping it united and by increasing its sphere of influence. Considering the rapid decline of Christianity in Western Europe—and even more recently in countries like Poland, which remained extremely loyal to the Roman Catholic Church throughout the communist period, but has seen decline in that area since it has become more of a Western-style democratic society—one is left to wonder what would have happened if the communist authorities would have not persecuted the Orthodox church, but had treated it as irrelevant and quietly excluded it from public life, as the democracies of Western Europe did as they transitioned out of Christendom. If the Soviets would have done that, I expect that Orthodox faith in Russia would have gone the way of Lutheranism in Sweden and Anglicanism in England—and maybe it is now, but the transition would have been, I believe, quicker and easier. Forbidden fruit is always sweeter; persecution only strengthens the resolve of the faithful. The real way to kill a religion is not through persecution, but by making it appear irrelevant and making its adherents complacent and uninterested in it.
Bibliography
Ferguson, S.B., D.F. Wright and J.I. Packer, eds, New Dictionary of Theology (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988)
Grass, T., THY305 Twentieth-Century Church History (Cheltenham: University of Gloucestershire, 2013)
Vos, H.F., Exploring Church History, Nelson’s Christian Cornerstone Series (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994)
Walters, P.M., ‘Russian Orthodox Theology’ in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. by S.B. Ferguson, D.F. Wright and J.I. Packer (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), pp. 599-605
Theology for the People 