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

Baptist Union and other evangelical Christians in Russia.’”” Christian education Publications proved to be a precious tool for baptistic leadership in developing and shaping Baptist and Evangelical congregations. They brought a sense of unity, ”® Coleman offers quotes from several letters sent to Khristianin where people thanked God for the journal, for the encouragement it brought to them and the work of evangelism that it carried. They also wrote that the journal was read during the services, and was used as a study tool for the congregation. (Coleman, Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, p 34). ”” Cf. Johannes Dick, “Vsplesk Svobodi: 1905 God v Istorii Svobodnikh Tserkvei Rossii v Teologicheskoi Perspective” [“Splash of Freedom: Theological perspective on 1905 in History of Russian Free Churches” ], in N. A. Beliakova and A. V. Sinichkin, eds., 105 Let Legalizatsii Russkogo Baptisma [105 Years of Legalization of Russian Baptism] (Moscow, RUECB, 2011), p 94. ’8 The decision to publish the journal was made at the all-Russian congress of the Baptist Union in May 1907. The first issue of the journal was published in June of the same year. The revolution of 1917, subsequent civil war, and economic difficulties of the following years were the reasons for the publications to stop (from 1918 until 1925). The journal was published again from 1925 until 1929, when it was finally closed by the communistic authorities, as part of their war with religion (A.V. Sinichkin, “Istoriia Zhurnala “Baptist”” [“The History of the journal Baptist”) accessed on 19.03.2015 from http://www.kovcheg-spasenya.ru). 7? This was different from Prokhanov’s Khristianin, which appeared as more broadly evangelical and ‘showed no denominational narrowness’ (Brandenbugh, The Meek and The Mighty, p 134). 72 enabling even the most remote congregations to feel that they were part of a greater community of believers all across Russia and beyond. Journals offered some educational materials on baptistic convictions, church history and biblical theology, thus partly solving the problem of subjectivism in biblical interpretation. Finally, conversion narratives often published on the pages of evangelical journals helped to challenge readers’ spiritual development and cultivated a call to and urgency of evangelistic work.®° All of the above contributed to a formation of particular denominational identities. As | have previously stated, preaching was given special attention in publications. It was assumed that the best way to teach preachers was by providing an example. Thus every issue of Khristianin and Baptist contained at least one sermon from a famous baptist preacher (Spurgeon, Prokhanov, W. Fetler, Moody, just to name a few). Ample amounts of stories from various Christian churches and situations, both from Russian context and from Anglo-American Christian culture, were offered and used as important preaching material. Prea