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

rezskii, “O Kalvinizme, Kharismatii, Voiennoi sluzhbe i Mnogom Mnogom Drugom. S Predsedateliem RSEKHB Y. K. Sipko Beseduiet |. V. Podberezskii” [“About Calvinism, Charismatics, Military Service and Many other things. |. V. Podberezskii’s Conversation with Y. K. Sipko, the President of RUECB”], in Khristianskoie Slovo [Christian Word], No 2, 2003, p 35). 59 The Bible is the divine revelation, given by God to people; it is a full and infallible guide and authority in all matters of religion and morality. One should believe all that it teaches and obey all that it requires; consider all that it suggests as being right and good; avoid all that it condemns as being inaccurate and harmful. However, one should not impose upon another’s conscience as a religious obligation the things that are not commanded or taught. The New Testament is a constitution for a Christian, a charter of freedom, the only authoritative code of laws, a guarantee and a justification of all Christian assurance.?” Although Baptists differed from Stundists, Evangelical Christians and Molokans in a number of ways and practices, their core convictions were the same with biblical interpretation at the heart of it. Despite having ordained presbyters (which remained a divisive issue for various Stundist groups for many years) Baptists had a significant number of lay preachers.*° Their messages were not much different to what was heard in Stundist and Pashkovite meetings — the importance of repentance and transformed, holy living, and the need to study the Bible and follow its teaching. Similar to other baptistic believers, among the Baptists there existed a wide diversity of interpretations, which inevitably resulted in severe criticism from the Orthodox Church. Evangelical Christians Puzynin in his analysis of Radstock’s biblical interpretation and theological views, argued that the roots of the hermeneutical approach, practiced by Pashkovites (Evangelical Christians), should be placed in Anglo-American evangelicalism. He points to the fact that Radstock for a number of years belonged to the Brethren movement, thus was coming with certain theological presuppositions 5 VG. Pavlov, “Pravda o Baptistakh” [“The Truth about Baptists”], in Karetnikova, Al’/manakh Po Istorii Russkogo Baptisma, p 266, quoted after Kuznetsova, “Early Russian Evangelicals...”, p 75. © Even today, in the majority of traditional Russian Baptist congregations, almost every baptised man is expected/asked to participate in the “ministry of the Word.” The difference, however, is in far greater role that a pastor (and other leaders of the church) plays in forming a group of preachers, and controlling other people’s access to the pulpit (for more in-depth review of the current state of Russian Baptist preaching go to Chapter 5 of this research). 60 to the Scripture, despite his insistence that he was ‘just reading the Bible.’?’ According to Puzynin, Lord R