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

s, 1986), 116. e Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (London: SPCK, 1995), 40-55. BHA. Bepases, Acmopua u cmvica pycckozo Kommynu3zma (lapwx: YMCA, 1937). ™ Ellul, False Presence of the Kingdom (New York: Seabury, 1972), 103. * Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Louisville: Fortress, 1986), 89. speak of love and at the same time be part of institutional structures that perpetuate injustice.””° Therefore, as Christians, we cannot speak with integrity about loving our neighbour unless we are prepared to confront the social structures of corruption and oppression that create wealth and power for a privileged few, while the vast majority are deprived of dignity and freedom. There is, therefore, as Ellul claimed, “no separation between the preaching of the Gospel as such and the actualising of it in political structures.””” The church is thus called to become a humanising force in society that upholds spiritual values of truth and compassion. The church aims to facilitate the emergence of what Berdyaev calls “a form of social organisation in which the principles of personality, society and the state interact and mutually limit one another, giving the individual the greatest possible freedom of creative spiritual life.””® This requires the church to recognise that it is an integral part of civil society, which it is called to transform from the inside by transfiguring the degenerate (post-)Soviet vices of corruption, vulgarity and disrespect with the Christian values of integrity, honour and courtesy. This kind of transformation demands a radical reformation of the church’s engagement with post-Soviet society. Civil society has a right to demand transparency, honesty and accountability from the church. Too often, the church has hypocritically absolved itself of political responsibility in the name of “gospel principles”. However, while talking about salvation and eternity, all too often the church has engaged in underhand business deals and political machinations in order to maintain its interests. Therefore, Christian values of honesty, dignity, freedom, justice and compassion need to be inculturated and embedded not just in explicit church activities, but in the mundane realities that govern social and personal relations in the nation as a whole. As Alexander Herzen averred, “There will be no freedom in the world until what is religious and political are turned into what is human and simple.”” The gospel message of the coming Kingdom of God can become a powerful change agent within post-Soviet society. The Ukrainian Revolution, in which hundreds of thousands of Christian participated — and in which dozens of Christians lost their lives to the bullets of Yanukovych’s Berkut snipers — has the potential to become a symbol of hope for church and society not only in Ukraine, but throughout the post-Soviet spac