Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

angelicals should be able to speak with a united voice. A united body would also be stronger in negotiating situations. A further reason why the AUCECEB set great store by unity was 234 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II that the state wished it so. In short, the issue was spiritual unity versus orga- nizational unity. Behind this difference in emphasis lay a fundamental difference on the concept of the church. Both sides agreed that the church must consist only of members who had made a voluntary commitment, a believers’ church, yet they followed divergent tendencies in practice. For example, the reformers stressed holiness above unity, with the result that they were happy to wait for the attainment of full unity in heaven. As they put it, “Our major goal is purity and unity, but above all purity.” The AUCECB was more prepared to accept a membership that still showed numerous fail- ings. They hoped that sanctification as a continuing process would gradually produce more holy living. Such differences in emphasis may be insufficient to claim that at its roots the split concerned dogmatic dif- ferences, but it is such differences in emphasis that have regularly served to distinguish denominations within the free church movement. The Init- siationiki holiness emphasis also explained why their concept of the church did not include Pentecostals and why in general they rejected ecumenism. From the beginning AUCECB spokesmen repeatedly stressed that the major threat to unity was pride. Initsiationiki documents, they claimed, were filled with a spirit of arrogance, revealing persons who considered themselves sinless and saw only the sins of the AUCECB leadership. This may have been a tactical cover-up to draw attention away from their own mistakes but by 1966 it became apparent that blanket condemnation of AUCECB leaders and all its supporters were not followed by humble ad- mission of the reformers’ mistakes. Even if it had been possible for Init- siatiuniki leaders to affirm that they had always acted from the highest mo- tives, that all personal, baser motives had been eliminated, a New Testa- ment ethic would have demanded from them that they ought to repent, even if they felt this was going the second mile.2¢ Christian reconciliation al- ways seeks the best for the other person. This also meant that, although Karev and others had legitimate grounds for accusing the reformers of pride, their own desperate clinging to office was also an expression of unusual self-esteem. The leaders appeared to believe they were indispens- able, that the future of the evangelical union depended on keeping them in office. We have now touched upon the most common and at the same time the most tragic cause for the failure of an evangelical union. Whereas the Apostle Paul argued that the great mystery which the church must demonstrate to the powers was that oneness is possible,2” Soviet