Church Without Walls: Post-Soviet Baptists after the Ukrainian Revolution, 2013-14, Joshua T. Searle, 2016

et society.*? After the Revolution, both the evangelical and the historical churches have been faced with the unsettling truth that personal faith and evangelism alone are no long sufficient. The revolutionary events in Ukraine have demonstrated that traditional understandings of the church’s responsibilities toward the state and society have been exhausted and are in need of revision. In light of this new reality, those of us who are Christians — particularly in Ukraine and Russia, but also in the West — need to ask ourselves some searching questions: Why is it that we as evangelical Christians seem to take an unseemly relish in exposing the sins of ordinary people in our churches, but maintain a cowardly silence concerning the sins of those in power? Do we not see that our silence is a sign of consent, and that with our acquiescence we untie the hands of the wrongdoers? Do we lack the moral imagination to envision the possibility of living in a country without bribes and without lies? Is it even possible to live the Christian life if the entire structure of society requires people to compromise their Christian principles of honesty, openness, integrity and compassion? If the state and society are corrupt, should we simply endure it and take no steps to address this social evil? If we lack the moral courage to take upon ourselves the legal responsibility for the government and the situation in our country, then why do we wonder at the immorality of society and the nihilism of ordinary people? If we as the church are not in solidarity with the people, then why should the people be in solidarity with the church? Who needs us if we have nothing to offer? Who will look out for us if we are not willing to be our brother’s keeper? Just imagine that you had been standing there in place of those on Kyiv’s Maidan, in the sniper’s line of fire — if that were you, would you want to enter a church that stayed neutral during the national disaster or that approved of the regime that was opposing its people? In this situation, I think that instead of calling the people to repent and make peace, we ourselves should repent for betraying the people, and for failing for so many years to speak truthfully to those in power and to stand on the side of the oppressed. °° Steven Chapman, “Collectivism in the Russian World View and Its Implications for Christian Ministry.” East-West Church and Ministry Report 6 (Autumn, 1998), 12-14. The Mission of a Free Church in an Open Society: From Evangelical Activism to Missio Dei After the Revolution of Dignity, Christianity in Ukraine is entering a new era. For too long, post-Soviet Baptists neglected theology, including ecclesiology, focusing on “mission” in its most basic sense as “evangelism.” Before long, the needs of mission dictated the need for missiology, and the questions of missiology came up against the need for a comprehensive theological analysis of the ties that bi