Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

cquaintances defended them. An alternate, positive image of the Baptist, also common within the Soviet consciousness (especially among intelligentsia), described the Baptist as an ordinary man, a “plodder” with little formal education, but honest, hardworking, faithful to his convictions, and a good worker and family man, although with certain oddities such as abstinence from alcohol. Nevertheless, in the people's minds, this positive image did not remove the negative stereotypes associated with sectarians. Nowadays the Evangelical Christians-Baptists remain one of the largest Russian Protestant confessions. In post-Soviet Russia, there has been both a renaissance of traditional beliefs (those widespread before the atheist Revolution of 1917) and the beginning of a qualitatively new, post-atheist spirituality. There has been a massive shift from the great socialist project of the twentieth century to a capitalist, democratic system like those common in the West. Thus Baptists in the new Russia face the challenges of the constant change and upheaval of the historic transformation that their country and society are now experiencing. Within this unsettling context, stereotypes are frequently undergoing reinterpretation, and new meanings are sought within them. By using a “post-Soviet” or “post-communist” paradigm, it is possible ~ Archives of the Novgorod Oblast] (GANO), f. R-4110, op. 5, d. 5, 1. 69. 6 GANO, f. R-4110, op. 5, d. 31, 1. 290b-31. 140 to conduct a comprehensive analysis of socio-political transition in Russia and evaluate ideological tendencies in the region. Among other areas this would require development of a multidimensional analytical frame- work sensitive to economic, political, institutional, religious, social and psychological issues. In addition, it would focus on the problems of state and society-formation in the countries of the Eastern bloc, as the newly independent states often claim legitimacy by referring to a pre-Communist and ethnically rooted national and religious symbolism, often giving rise to ethnic and religious conflict. The result of such comprehensive analysis would be the essence of post-communist transition. Further research is necessary to analyse patterns of current Baptist identity in Russia and the processes of Baptist self-identification. Baptists in Russia today are viewed as sectarians in the context of general objection to the missionary activities of the western Baptist denominations in Russia. The Orthodox activist and writer Deacon Andrei Kuraev recently noted that Russian Baptists (and other evangelicals) lacked a developed, profound dogmatic teaching, and therefore “representatives of the primi- tive North American sects have come to enlighten Russia’.”” Kuraev seems more tolerant of Lutheran and Anglican missionary activities (on a small scale), but warns his readers about the sectarian missionary activities of both Western and Russian Bapt