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

his own life will he 758 let himself be made a slave of these Powers.’ He then refers to Berkhof concluding that, By the cross (which must always, here as elsewhere, be seen as a unit with the resurrection) Christ abolished the slavery which, as a result of sin, lay over our existence as a menace and an accusation. On the cross He “disarmed” the Powers, “made a public example of them and thereby triumphed over them...” The weapon from which they heretofore derived their strength is struck out of their hands. This weapon was the power of illusion, their ability to °° Yoder, Politics of Jesus, p 143. Wink argued that the powers, being created by God, cannot exist separated from God’s purposes, and are impotent to claim independence and autonomy from their Creator, ‘Even in their apostasy and dereliction from their created vocation, the Powers are incapable of separating themselves from the principle of coherence. When subsystems idolatrously violate the harmony of the whole by elevating their own purposes to ultimacy, they are still no more able to achieve autonomy than a cancer can live apart from its host. Like a cancer, again, they are able to do evil only by means of the processes imbedded in them as a result of their good creation.’ (Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992), pp 66-67). °® Yoder, Politics of Jesus, pp 144-145. °” Campbell, The Word Before the Powers, p 48. °8 Yoder, Politics of Jesus, p 145. 178 convince us that they were the divine regents of the world, ultimate certainty and ultimate direction, ultimate happiness and the ultimate duty for small, dependent humanity. Since Christ we know that this is illusion. We are called to a higher destiny: we have higher orders to follow and we stand under a greater protector.” The triumph of Christ results in the formation of the Church, the transformed community of disciples that are called to represent Christ through their lives and preaching. The Church is called to offer a viable alternative of life lived under the guidance of the Spirit, liberated from the corrupt powers of the world. ‘The church must be a sample of the kind of humanity within which, for example, economic and racial differences are surmounted. Only then will it have anything to say to the society that surrounds it about how those differences must be dealt with.’ The idea of the Church being a prophetic voice in a society, at the same time showing God's solution to the ills of the world, can be a good concluding point to a work on social ethics, Church and politics or any other field, where there is some kind of contraposition of the way of Christ, and any other way, leading in the opposite direction. However, when the subject of the research is the church herself and her practices, the idea of powers becomes ever more important. There is a danger of false dualism per