Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

he apparent purpose is to produce a uniform belief system, the belief of an Evangelical Christian-Baptist. ALL. Mitskevich gave a progress report at the 1979 congress indicating a proposal was ready and urging widespread adoption, but he also had to report that the presidium was not yet ready to submit it to a vote by the delegates. Leaders indicated privately that denominational differences had not yet been resolved. It was finally printed in 1980, as a provisional draft, and readers were invited to send in their responses. What Is the Key to Endurance? A barkeeper once said of a Baptist: “He does not drink; their religion is the best of all; they do not swear and they have peace and love.” That observation reflects appreciation and astonishment. Paul Steeves felt that people joined the Baptists because “it provided an easy way to obtain release from an intense burden of felt guilt for human fallibility.”°” Others joined because Baptists offered certainty in the face of death. They offered purposeful living, the compassionate environment of a congregation and the comfort of emotional experiences. Soviet Evangelical Theology 353 Not only did large numbers of people join, they remained committed members even though there were periods when the less-committed were frightened away. Hans Brandenburg, who knew the movement intimately during the early years of the century, identified five factors which he felt had given the evangelicals the power to endure and to expand.°8 First of all, he detected in the movement a healthy balance of objectivism and sub- jectivism. It was a Bible movement having an objective basis for its theology. It was deeply subjectivist and individualist in its emphasis on the personal conversion of each member. Putting the matter simply, each preacher knew that in his sermon he must quote the Bible (liberally) and must offer a plea for salvation to his hearers. It was a missionary movement whose members manifested a strong sense of calling. During the 1920s growth was very rapid and the evange- listic strategy quite simplistic. In the postwar period there has been a development away from the earlier superficial evangelism to an evangelism with more depth which relies heavily on the close relationships between local church members and the proselyte. The evangelicals’ sense of mission was strongly influenced by an eschatological awareness that the second coming was imminent. Wilhelm Kahle pointed out that the mobility of many of the early leaders was due to a highly developed sense of the short- ness of time, that it did not pay to put down roots in this world.5® Most of the evangelicals were committed to a “quiet eschatology” which would find them busy evangelizing and suffering.6? The chiliastic tendency was# evident only among small groups of Pentecostals.*! Brandenburg also drew attention to the way in which the evangelicals dealt with the so-called scientific attacks of