Baptistic Theologies, 2009

tity’, pp. 154-6. 36 The approach can be illustrated, though for a Methodist case-study, by D. W. Bebbington, ‘Culture and Piety in the Far West: Revival in Penzance, Newlyn and Mousehole in 1849’, in Cooper and Gregory (eds), Revival and Resurgence, pp. 225-50. 14 Baptistic Theologies 2 Revival and Baptist Beginnings in Russia Johannes Dyck In the Baptist historical tradition in Russia, revival and the Baptist movement are inseparable. The first usage of the term revival as applied to the evangelical movement in Russia dates back to 1862; 1 * 3 and in most recent publications" the term is still extensively used. This long time period has made the term a real Baptist one and filled it with specific confessional meaning. In the confessional historical literature, the term revival has two connotations: first, it means a new beginning, and second, renewal. The second connotation of the term revival was created after the split within the Evangelical Christians-Baptists community in USSR in 1961. According to the historical paradigm of the Reform (or non-registered) Baptists, baptistic life was not in a good way and things did not improve until the 1961 revival. In a sense, 1961 became a new set of coordinates, and recently an attempt was made to put into this coordinate system the previous history of Baptists in Russia. This study deals with the first connotation and focuses on the establishing of Baptist identity. Nature of the Revival In Russian Baptist historiography, two attributes to the term revival have been applied: spiritual and evangelical. In the mind of Baptist historians, the attribute spiritual describes the nature of the revival. The first fruit of the revival, the peasant Onishchenko from the village of Osnova in the Odessa District of Kherson province, later shared his experience this way: 4 1 'Siid-RuBland. Verfolgungen’, Missionsblcitt der Gemeine getaufter Christen, 7 (1862), p. 107. “ S.N. Savinskii, Istoriya evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov Ukrainy, Rossii, Belorussii (1867-1917) [The History of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia] (St. Petersburg: Bibliya dlya vsekh, 1999). 3 V. Khorev. Tserkov’ dolshna ostavat’sya tserkov’yu: neobratimye desyatiletiya 1917-1937 gg. V istorii evangel’skogo i baptistskogo dvishenil [Church has to Remain a Church: irreversible decades 1917-1937 in the history of the Evangelical and Baptist movements], Istoriko-analiticheskii otdel MSTs EkltB [Department of History and Analytics of the International Union of Churches of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists], 2008. 4 Savinskii, Istoriya, p. 97. Revival and Baptist Beginnings in Russia 15 In former times I was like a pig: I have been a beast, and even worse... Once I have been praying, praying in the field, weeping and crying: o Lord, give me understanding, correct me! I do not know who, I haven’t seen him, as if somebody took off my clothes, and I