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

ober 2014), 72— 9. Stassen, G., A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012). Stassen, G. and Gushee, D., Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003). Turi, O., “Das religidse Leben und die zwischenkonfessionellen Verhaltnisse in der Ukraine seit der Wende”, in Vom Umbruch zum Aufbruch? Kirchliche und gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen in Ostmitteleuropa nach dem Zerfall des Kommunismus, edited by Dietmar W. Winkler (Vienna: Tyrolia, 2010). Volf, M., Public Faith, A: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011). Wanner, C., Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). Wanner, C., “Missionaries of Faith and Culture: Evangelical Encounters in Ukraine”, Slavic Review 63 (2004). Wawrzonek, Religion and Politics in Ukraine: The Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2014). Wilson, A., Ukraine Crisis: What it Means for the West (Yale: Yale University Press, 2014). Zizek, S., Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004). Zizek, S., Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (London: Verso, 2012). Church Without Walls: Post-Soviet Baptists After the Ukrainian Revolution, 2013-14 Recent events in Ukraine have forced post-Soviet evangelicals to address a question they had long avoided: ‘in what way is the gospel not only the source of personal salvation, but also the source of social transformation?’ This lecture advances the provocative argument that instead of calling the people to repent and make peace, the church itself 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. It is argued that Baptists in both Ukraine and Britain need to reject the kind of narrow pietism that over-emphasises individual salvation, and should instead rediscover their holistic mission, in which both the individual and society become complementary parts of the overall Christian vision of biblically-informed action on behalf of the overriding biblical imperative of social justice. The lecture concludes on a hopeful note by showing that despite their limited numbers, Baptists can be in the vanguard of a new movement (a ‘church without walls’) for the reformation of the church and the renewal of society, which moves towards an open future with hope for greater freedom. While drawing on the author’s experience of living and working in Ukraine, this lecture also addresses vital issues that affect the global Baptist community, such as the missional imperatives of social justice and solidarity and the limits of political authority. “This outstanding lecture by the British Baptist theologian, Dr Joshua Searle, offers something extremely