Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

re- ligious liberty without any comment about religious liberty in the Soviet Union, resulted in local believers deeply distrusting this foreign connection. Foreign evangelicals visiting local churches in the Soviet Union have been asked with increasing frequency to give their views on the World Council of Churches. It is quite apparent that local church members, reliant only on the communiqués printed in Bratskii Vestnik, are poorly informed about the range of activities and interests, and the varieties of religious persuasion 370 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il that are included in the WCC. But the questioners are very uneasy. Churches in Kirgizia once voted to reject WCC membership, but that deci- sion had no weight constitutionally. At the 1979 Congress, spokesmen from Central Asia urged withdrawal, or at least a shift to observer status—stress- ing that to take no action put local church unity in danger back home. Others at least begged for better-quality representation, since they recognized that the AUCECB has no option but to remain a member. Initially the WCC had tried to woo the Russian Orthodox Church, but when the latter decided to join, the rapid-moving events caught the World Council by surprise. WCC leaders were well aware that the joining of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1961, followed by six other Soviet denomina- tions in 1962, had major political implications. Paul Anderson, longtime So- viet expert and adviser to the WCC, expressed a concern that the par- ticipant WCC churches should acquire a more thorough knowledge of the principles, policies, and procedures of the Soviet government and the Com- munist Party. And he went on, “In my opinion the expertise here de- manded from the World Council leaders is still not very impressive. 4° This has been a continuing problem. In a recent book on the Russians and the WCC, Hans Hebly pointed out: In Western church delegations at ecumenical meetings there is an abundant amount of expert knowledge of the Third World. But how many Sovietologists were present at Nairobi? For some people the so- cialist world is a vague ideal, for others it is a bogeyman, but realistic expertise is scarcely available.*! It is hardly any consolation to point out that the Soviet delegates were un- able to send any experts on most questions of concern to the World Council, because such experts did not dare associate with Soviet churches. In another study of the WCC, Hans Hebly quoted numerous state- ments issued by the WCC which criticized the lack of religious liberty in the Soviet Union. Such statements disappeared from official resolutions once the Russian churches joined.42 In order not to cause reprisals on member churches in Eastern Europe, World Council spokesmen exercised great reserve in speaking about religious liberties in Eastern Europe. They did, howe