Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

he very term “socialist”, uniting with the nationalist-oriented Association of Christians at the parliamentary elections in 1928. In 1930 Bace and his co-workers in Riga organised the first conference of non-socialist workers, thus placing themselves outside the socialist movement. Behind these changes stands a pragmatic reason: in the second parliamentary elections (1925), the party had received only 515 votes, which meant that it was too small to have any serious impact on political life.** *8 Roberts Bace, “Kristigie pilsoni, neaizmirstiet savu pienakumu!”, Latvijas Stradnieks, no. 21 (26 September 1925), p. 2. *? “Latvijas Nacionalo Stradnieku partijas Rigas apgabala véléSanu saraksta Nr. 32 kandidatu biografijas’, Latvijas Stradnieks, no. 19 (5 September 1925), p. 2. © “Latvijas Nacionalo Stradnieku Partijas véléSanu platforma’, Latvijas Stradnieks, no. 20 (19 September 1925), p. 3. ‘! See for example T. Védzelis, “Politiska krize”, Latvijas Stradnieks, no. 1-2 (January/Febru- ary 1928), p. 6. * Eduards Paplinskis, “Darbi un vardi’, Latvijas Stradnieks, no. 2 (9 May 1925), p. 1. * I, Mednis, “Socialistisko partiju darbiba pirmas Latvijas Republikas parlamentaraja perioda (1920-1934)”, Latvijas Arhivi, no. 2 (1997), p. 32: “4 T. Mednis, “Labéja sparna politiskas partijas Latvijas Republikas parlamentaraja perioda (1920-1934)”, Latvijas Arhivi, no. 1 (1995), p. 24. 110 ee OO EE EEE EE SUES EEE a a ee Le ee a Socialist Trends among Latvian-American Baptists As we saw in the previous section, Baptists in Latvia did not develop a clear or long-term socialist agenda. However, Latvian Baptist history in America, where Latvians began to arrive in the nineteenth century in search of a better life, provides us with a different picture. The number of Latvian Baptist churches in America was never in their history very large,* but they were well known because of dynamic activities. In the beginning, Latvian emigrant churches were against involvement of their members in socialist groups. In 1907, members of the Philadelphia Latvian Baptist Church (then under the leadership of Janis Neibuks), the centre of Latvian Baptists in the United States, voted that members could not be Social Democrats. Two church members were given four weeks to leave the party, after which the church excluded them from the membership roll.“° However, already in these early years there were other cases demonstrating a change in attitude. Amerikas Latvietis [American Latvian]* edited by pastor Fricis Hins* in 1903 published a Latvian translation of the Rauschenbusch lecture, “Can a Christian be a Socialist?”*? Pastors who succeeded Neibuks” did not react as strictly against those who challenged the taboos of Pietist-Holiness subcul- ture. Some members of the church complained in their letters to Latvia that “the church practices drinking, smoking, playing cards, theatre and cinema attendance’.*' Neibuks was characterised a