Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

persecuted believers under communism. The Wurmbrand mission lists four main goals, two of which are “to bring to Christ leftists and communists in the free world, and to warn Christians in the West of the dangers of com- munism by informing them about the atrocities committed against our . brethren in faith in the communist countries.”25 Instead of this latter goal, Underground Evangelism purposed “to strengthen the spiritual life of Christians of the free world.’ Underground Evangelism also articulated a fifth purpose: “to assist in the release of Christians in prison for their faith.” Several years after David Hathaway was released from prison, he became the head of Christian Prisoners Release International, an independent organization financially underwritten by Underground Evangelism. The organization spent thou- sands of dollars organizing simultaneous demonstrations on May 8, 1976 in many cities on behalf of Georgi Vins. Since then that organization has been less prominent and its leader was dismissed for morality reasons. Some suc- cess was possible in helping Romanian evangelical prisoners. The East European missions have developed similar structural pat- terns. Most of them are voluntary societies, therefore interdenominational. The board of directors, usually small and self-perpetuating, makes decisions to be executed by the salaried staff. A larger body of advisers are there pri- marily to indicate patronage. Underground Evangelism has a policy-mak- ing board of directors controlled and directed by Joe Bass, founder and president. A six-member international committee, which is the chief policy- making and budget-setting body, includes only persons directly employed by the organization.?” Because in such a ministry the lives of Christians in Eastern Europe could be put in danger by too much publicity, Eastern European missions have surrounded themselves with an aura of secrecy. Of the large missions, Assessment of East European Mission Societies 399 the most secretive is probably Open Doors International (Brother Andrew) whose offices are scattered in several villages in Holland, and telephone numbers are hard to obtain. Each mission maintains its operating secrets and will only describe a specific Bible-smuggling technique after it has been exposed, This concern for secrecy is understandable but provides tempta- tion for gross abuse. State law requires minimum financial reporting, and since most missions are voluntary societies, they can afford to report overall expense with little detail. Another complicating feature in obtaining an overview of East Eu- ropean missions is the fact that they have tended to proliferate at a disturb- ing pace. A number of ex-Underground Evangelism workers started their own missions.”* Most of the larger missions opened branch offices in other countries which sometimes resulted in complicated organizational in- terlinkage. The Wurmbrand mis