Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ion.” The Core of Pietism: Personal Faith Pietism focused on personal faith and its expression in the believer's life. Spener succeeded in establishing conditions for the development of personal faith within the Lutheran Church, avoiding the danger of sepa- ratism and spiritualism propagated by some of his co-workers.”’ A new accent on moral sanctification made the lay people responsible for proper Christianity in the same manner as clergy. Also, from its early days Pietism stressed revival and personal conversion. According to August Hermann Francke (1663-1727), the path to true Christianity led through the expe- rience of a breakthrough in the battle for salvation of the soul.” Such a conversion experience played a decisive role in the life and spirituality of a believer. It is quite natural that revival preachers such as Pastor Wist, with their message of repentance and conversion, gained enormous popularity in the German colonies in South Russia, which had already experienced the influ- ence of Pietism. With “revival” in mind as the main factor of church life, the Pietist Wiist has been considered in Mennonite history to stand second only to Menno Simons.” From this point of view, as the famous Mennonite historian P.M. Friesen explained, the main emphasis of the Christian life is “having Christ dwelling in ones heart through faith, to be with one’s life an open letter of Christ, spreading His name to the ends of the earth, and ‘to win the world for Christ, even if with one’s own life-blood (Menno Simons)”. In this way, through Pietist influence, “experience” as a primary manifestation of faith found its way into the Mennonite communities in Russia. The Russian and Ukrainian peasants at the cradle of Russian and Ukrainian Baptism, including Fedor Onishchenko, Mikhail Ratushnyi and 0 While Stundism in this sense ended when congregations began practicing believer bap- tism, the Russian Orthodox Church continued to use the term Stundist into the Soviet period. See Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov v SSSR, pp. 62-66. 21K, Galling (ed), Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd edn, vol. 1 (Tiibingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1957), s.v. “Spener, Philipp Jakob’, p. 1553. 2 Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd edn, vol. 6, s.v. “BufSwesen’, p. 239. 3 Friesen, Die Alt-Evangelische Mennonitische Briiderschaft, p. 174. 4 Friesen, Die Alt-Evangelische Mennonitische Briiderschaft, p. 174. 38 others, all went through the phase of the personal experience of salvation. This was the strongest reason and argument for their faith that they could provide their opponents, and at the same time, it was most difficult for their opponents to understand; This misapprehension put its mark on the subsequent history of Baptists in South Russia. Personal involvement in matters of salvation assumed an increased personal responsibility. Not accidentally, the Baptist beginnings in South Russia coincided