Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

f baptism and the Lord’s Supper belong exclusively to regenerated people: 7 4, Each individual local church functions as:an independent unit. 5. All:members:of each local church enjoy equal rights.. 6. Freedom of conscience is assumed for all. . one 7. It is important to maintain separation of the churches from the state.* Soviet Evangelical Theology 339 Observing how each of these principles has been applied in the Soviet set- ting helps to identify the unique aspects of Soviet evangelical theology. Contradictory emphases that do exist simply underline the fact that evangel- ical interest was in the working of the Spirit rather than a rational under- standing of faith. Roots of Baptist Principles It is possible to trace direct continuous roots back to the Anabaptists of the 16th century. For example, the descendants of the Anabaptists, the Russian Mennonites, had not only stimulated the birth of Stundism in the 1860s, a goodly number of Mennonite evangelists and teachers influenced Baptists and Evangelical Christians through joint publishing activity, joint evangelism, and cooperation in I. S. Prokhanov’s Leningrad Bible school. The major emphases of Anabaptism had also come down to 20th-century Soviet evangelicals through other free church denominations, especially the British and North American Baptists. The latter influence was more im- mediate and triumphed in the official agreement for the union reached in 1944. Hence it has become customary to speak of Baptist principles, The most significant Anabaptist influence was their commitment to a recovery of the life and virtue of apostolic Christianity. Franklin H. Littell, an influential historian of Anabaptism, has argued that the attempt at a res- titution of the true church of apostolic times produced a revolution within Christian history that “was so thoroughgoing as to be sui generis,”5 This is also the primary factor prompting George H. Williams to speak of the “Radical Reformation” while others have spoken of the “left wing” of the Reformation. The Anabaptists, as do 20th-century Soviet evangelicals, ac- cepted the major emphases of the Lutheran Reformation—sola Scriptura and justification by faith alone. But in their ecclesiology they went much further than Luther did (although Luther s early writings can be quoted in support of Anabaptist emphases)* by calling for a church of the committed where membership was a voluntary decision by responsible adults (therefore called believers’ church). They rejected any attempt by the state authorities to interfere in the church, thus being the earliest advocates of a separation of church and state in the modern era. Since they were im- mediately persecuted by state authorities, Catholics and Lutherans alike, they also produced some of the earliest writings calling for liberty of conscience. The Anabaptists also rejected sacramental notions of transubstantiation or consubstantiation,