Towards Understanding of the Practice of Proclamation: The Core Element of Russian Baptist Worship, Timofey Cheprasov, 2015

, we should be able to tell by the rhetoric of the preacher whether he or she is “legitimate.” Here, then, is a call for educated listeners. Preachers who keep their listeners ignorant may well be hiding their own fear that they are not really preaching biblically.”° Now, this second element of educated listeners is often missing from the equation in Russian Baptist communities, leaving both the “prophets” and their listeners vulnerable and unprotected from the potential abuses of power. Moreover, instead of learning to read the biblical story afresh, without the strangling lenses of the tradition, allowing and enabling regular church goers to become the practitioners, the *° Brown, Transformational Preaching, pp 239-247. 6 Ibid., p 243. 121 interpreters of the Word, the church establishment (sluzhiteli) often plays a negative role, suppressing sincere questions, emphasising the value of traditions (even those without any biblical foundations, like prohibition for women to preach) at any cost. This specific attitude to leadership in Russian culture, which views church leaders as people anointed by God, and which allows a lot of space for mystical direct involvement of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believers through participation in a holy event of worship and listening to the Word,”’ further contributes to the formation of what Sipko calls ‘ministerial holy immunity.’”® Nikolai A. Kornilov, a professor of history at MTSECB, makes an important observation about the nature of biblical authority in churches. He argues that although the church teaches that people have to believe the Bible, in reality, people are taught a set of convictions defined by the leaders of this church, Union or denomination. This is very similar to the teaching of the Orthodox Church — ‘believe everything that the 29 The lack of engagement of ordinary members in in-depth Church is teaching you. reading and understanding of the biblical message and in its application to the lives of the readers, and substituting it with some mysterious “teaching of the church” poses serious problems for witness of such congregations. Kornilov wrote, When the Bible is given in an ideological wrapping, as a solution to all griefs and problems, it becomes very dangerous. This is because if it does not work as such solution, it is be instantly rejected. Or this would lead to fanaticism. Apart from this, any ideology quickly loses appeal in Russia. This includes biblical ideology. Without real changes in people’s lives, no ideology, no teaching would be accepted. If a church is only teaching the Bible, and not helping people to deal with their everyday problems and griefs, such congregation, such church becomes redundant for people. That is why we, Christians, are the first reason for the destruction of biblical authority. First, we do not know it [the Bible]. We do not study it. We only quote it, use it to ?7 See discussi