Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

not return from prison.58 One So- viet writer claimed that Pentecostal leaders had waged anti-Soviet propa- ganda against collectivization during the 1930s, “therefore their council was dissolved.”5® According to this source, after the war Pentecostal leaders began to petition the authorities to reestablish a council and to register con- A New Evangelical Union 93 gregations but were refused. Therefore they turned to the AUCECB. Pentecostals differed from Evangelical Christians and Baptists in no way on the essentials of the faith but placed a stronger stress on the Holy Spirit (sometimes referred to as “the second work of grace’) which gave them the strength and power to live a victorious Christian life. Following the model in Acts 2, they felt that the proof of the filling with the Holy Spirit was evident through speaking a strange tongue (glossalalia) and through other gifts of the Spirit, such as healing. This emphasis on experiencing the Holy Spirit produced an emotionalism that ‘was particu- larly attractive among the lower classes. Baptists, in contrast, relied on a more Wesleyan concept of sanctification which involved gradual progress in experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit but rejecting ecstasy. Baptists rejected glossalalia, seeing it as an expression of the Holy Spirit’s presence which had been limited to the apostolic church. An additional reason for tension between Baptists and Pentecostals on the teaching of the Holy Spirit was that extreme Pentecostals went so far as to claim that only persons baptized by the Holy Spirit (ie., having spoken in tongues) were truly Christians. Neither side was eager for the union. Pentecostals had no other legal possibility. This explains why the August Agreement, which spelled out the terms of union, reads like a Baptist ultimatum. The full terms of the August Agreement were not published officially until twelve years later, but the of- ficial letter going out to the churches in September 1945 did quote the cru- cial points of the agreement concerning glossalalia and foot washing. The agreement stated that congregations of Christians of Evangelical Faith® (since no official union existed) were united with congregations of Evangelical Christians and Baptists into one union. The agreement promised that representatives.from the Pentecostals would be included on the executive staff. Throughout the subsequent history they were usually also represented on the council itself. Persons ordained formerly by the Pentecostals were recognized in their spiritual calling; the titles “senior presbyter,’ “presbyter, and “deacon” were specified. But on the theological differences, a number of points in the agreement forced the Pentecostals to agree to abstain from practicing glossalalia in general meet- ings. Point 9 of the agreement went so far as to have both sides promise to provide an educational program against manifestations of the Holy Spirit that m