Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

nd give it permanence. In spite of the decision not to restructure the organization in order to please the Pentecostals, the AUCECB decided to engage evangelists and assistant senior presbyters whose primary task was to concentrate on unity between Pentecostals and Baptists. This again demonstrated a reliance on personalities rather than structure. When Peter Shatrov lost the confidence of the delegates, the Pentecostals understood it as an affront. Forming a separate union depended on getting state approval which seemed possible. It also depended on gaining the support of the independent Pentecostals. In the end caution prevailed but a parting of the ways seems a matter of time. 5. New Confession of Faith. Since 1966 the AUCECB has been at- tempting to draft a new confession of faith. In 1977 Bychkov reported that they had collected and translated the statutes and confessions of faith of a New Frontiers After 1974 44] variety of evangelical bodies in Poland, East and West Germany, and America.® A new confession of faith was intended to help them articulate their theology. The challenge before them is to attempt an evangelical - theology unique to the Soviet context. Will it serve to identify new goals for the future? Will such a confession of faith be able to surmount the denomi- national rivalries and still not be too watered down? A draft which a number of local congregations had already approved was ready for the 1979 Congress but the leaders did not feel confident to submit it. It was finally printed in draft form in Bratskii Vestnik 4/80 with a request to send in com- ments. 6. Youth Work. This is clearly a major frontier for the eighties. The AUCECB remains severely restricted. Leaders are concerned about losing young people to the CCECB, who they feel play on the minds of young ‘people against them. Such criticism, however, achieves little. The leaders, including local presbyters, are challenged with the risk of encouraging and directing the creative energies of the youth while avoiding the wrath of the authorities, Should they restrain the young people through excessive cau- tion, the events of 1961 may be repeated. More of the taboo on youth work was broken at the 1979 Congress. Will the youth department that delegates asked for ever become reality? 7. A Missionary Challenge. Soviet evangelicals are a minority group in a population of 260 million people. Recently Soviet scholars claimed that 90 percent of the population is atheistic.6¢ The majority of these are by now fully pagan in the sense that they are entirely ignorant of religion. Their atheism was not a deliberate choice after a careful assessment of the claims of Christianity. Alexander Karev often urged the members to commit themselves to a church seeking to restore New Testament Christianity. That task was also affirmed by Bychkov. The restitution of apostolic Christianity must also in- clude the missionary vis