Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

f study projects, and improvement of information exchange. This was intended to lead to the development of “a constructive-critical solidarity.”49 So far, observers are maintaining a healthy skepticism about possible achievements. Since the Russian churches joined the WCC, the latter has also been less able to develop dialogue with Marxism. Russian churchmen feel there is no need to engage in dialogue; all that is needed is practical cooperation. Practical cooperation has invariably meant conformity to state require- ments.®° There are, however, recent signs of a further development. In March 1979, churches from socialist countries met to share experiences on “Christian witness today,’ a meeting sponsored by a WCC commission. The participants agreed that there was “‘a recognition of the church’s posi- tive social role after half a century of the new socialist order’ and ac-— knowledged ‘‘the still unused potential for the churches to evangelize within their present context.”5! The final report is to be published as prepa- ratory material for a WCC world mission conference in 1980. The AUCECB also joined other international bodies, such as the Christian Peace Conference (CPC), and the Conference of European Churches (CEC), and participated in the Conference of Peace-Loving Forces and similar meetings. Ilia Ivanov and Alexei Stoian were regular representatives at CPC meetings but their role was largely passive. In recent years Alexei Bychkov has been utilizing statements from such international bodies, in particular the Helsinki Agreement, to express appreciation for the guarantees of human rights and religious freedom, thereby indicating that his church notices what the state has signed.52 In all these activities, however, there has never been a voice raised by Soviet churchmen ques- tioning specific Soviet policies that were unjust. At a regular meeting of the CPC Continuation Committee in September 1975, Professor James Will raised some questions that caused consternation and headlines. All he said was: I know that many of the churches in socialist societies have required of yourselves a period of prophetic silence in repentance for your earlier neglect of the proletariat and opposition to their revolution. You also have necessarily followed a strategy of proving your basic loyalty to so- cialist societies now led by communist governments. But isn’t that basic loyalty now sufficiently demonstrated that you may begin to speak pro- phetically again also at home?... I must ask my Russian brethren in The Foreign Connection 373 love and goodwill, but also seriously, is it really required that they only praise their society when we all know that nothing like perfect liberation or justice has been achieved there?53 Even slight qualifiers suggesting reserve in support of Soviet policy would greatly improve the image of Soviet churchmen. Relations with Fellow Evangelicals 1. Baptists. R