Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ord Radstock. In 1874, Lord Radstock had begun his preaching ministry in Russia, teaching the Victo- rian version of evangelicalism and revival in the salons of the Petersburg high society. Dr Frederick Baedeker, who also preached this form of Chris- tianity, was in Russia at that time as well, travelling and teaching the Chris- tian ideals and spreading the teachings of the Evangelical Alliance. Thus, while in St Petersburg, Kargel became acquainted with Victorian evangeli- calism, which reflected a pietistic understanding of the church rather than a denominational approach.” '4 In April 1876, Kargel reported that after a baptism, the congregation had thirty-four members. (“Russia. St Petersburg’, Quarterly Reporter of the German Baptist Mission (April 1876), p. 8.) In July 1878, Kargel reported that he had forty-five attendees, but that he had rented a hall that seated 150. (“Mission to the Germans’, Baptist Missionary Magazine, vol. 57, no. 7, (July 1877 [sic]), p. 274. [The date is misprinted on the cover of the journal; it is actually 1878, the sixty-fourth report of the American Baptist Missionary Union.]) In his fourth quarter report of 1879, Kargel reported that membership of the St Petersburg con- gregation was sixty. (“Recognition of the Church at St Petersburg, Russia’, Baptist Mission- ary Magazine, vol. 60 (May 1880), p. 125.) Presumably attendance was larger than member- ship, because in January 1880, Kargel reported that the meetinghouse was too small. (“St Petersburg’, Quarterly Reporter of the German Baptist Mission (January 1880), p. 9.) 'S For Kargel’s description of taking the oath of allegiance to the Tsar see “Erste Fruchte der neuen Freiheit in Russland’, Der Wahrheitszeuge: eine Zeitschrift fiir Gemeinde und Haus (April 1880), p. 54. '6 “Russia, Further news from St Petersburg’, Quarterly Reporter of the German Baptist Mis- sion (April 1877), p. 4. '7 When I refer to a “Pietistic understanding” of the church, I am describing a perspective that understands Christian fellowship to be based on the evidence of a personal relation- ship with Christ, which has transformed the individual. The visibly changed life is a clearer marker of true faith than membership in a denomination or the verbal assent to a doctrinal creed. When I refer to a “denominational approach’, I am describing a perspective that emphasises denominational differences to the point of being narrowly exclusive with their 78 Lord Radstock’s particular stream of Pietism is flavoured by his back- ground in the Open Brethren Church,"* his involvement in the Evangelical Alliance and the romanticism of the Victorian era in England. Beginning in 1880, Radstock regularly attended conferences of the Keswick Movement, which promoted the “Higher Life” ideal of holiness and pietism. He found the conferences inspirational and relationally beneficial.'? His activity in England among military officers and aristocracy focused on