The authors of A Future and a Hope argue that the evangelical movement in the former Soviet Union (FSU) needs to broaden its concept of mission, focusing not only on the salvation of individuals from personal sin, but also on the wholesale transformation of society. To that end they believe theology and theological education should play a catalytic role in bringing about this change in orientation. The book is an East-West collaborative effort. Joshua Searle served for a time as dean for global relations at Donetsk Christian University, Ukraine, and is now tutor in theology and public thought at Spurgeon’s College, London. Mykhailo Cherenkov was born in Saratov, Russia, to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother. He served for one year as rector of Donetsk Christian University and is now vice president of the Kyiv-based Association for Spiritual Renewal.
Although the authors desire to influence the evangelical movement throughout the FSU, they write from a distinctively Ukrainian perspective, expressing strong disapproval of what they call the extreme nationalism of Russian Protestants vis-à-vis Ukraine and accusing Russian news outlets controlled by the state of engaging in a “systemic campaign of falsification and fabrication” with regard to recent events in Ukraine. One entire chapter is dedicated to “The Church after Maidan.”
The authors lament the stagnation of church growth in Ukraine, citing what they call reliable data indicating that the percentage of Protestants in the Ukrainian population has declined from two percent in 2000 to just eight-tenths of one percent in 2013. There is much in this book that will likely not sit well with many leaders of the evangelical movement in the FSU. Indeed, the writers concede in their preface that at times their analysis may come across to some readers as “unduly critical and pessimistic” (p. xiv). ‘
Rarely, the authors assert, do post-Soviet evangelicals demonstrate solidarity with society, and they chide Slavic evangelical scholars for failing to develop a genuinely contextual missiology that would equip the churches of the FSU to engage with social issues. The focus of mission, they insist, must shift from the church to the kingdom, since they believe that authentic mission “is concerned with the wholesale transfiguration of the kingdoms of this world into the ‘Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ’” (p. 11).
The authors argue that “the individualist modes of evangelization that were exported to Ukraine by Western missionaries in the years following the implosion of the Soviet Union” are “unsuited to the communitarian context of post-Soviet society” (p. 14), and that “the focus of evangelicals must move away from an exclusively introspective concern about ‘personal salvation’ and a ‘personal relationship with Jesus Christ’ ” (p. 13). Indeed, they go so far as to agree with Baptist theologian James McLendon’s assertion that “[the] focus on making converts constitutes a demonic perversion of the true task of mission” (p. 107), and they assert that “fundamentalism and dogmatism are possibly the most dangerous heresies that have ever threatened the Church” (p. 93). Statements of this sort are likely to receive strong pushback from mainstream postSoviet evangelicals who adhere to a more traditional evangelical perspective.
Searle and Cherenkov also write that “we can no longer posit clear distinctions between the holy space of the Church and the secular world outside” (p. 102). Religious and theological processes, they say, must be seen as “inextricably connected with socio-political processes,” and they add that “the church should seek to exercise proper discernment concerning which social trends are consistent with the vision of the Kingdom of God” (p. 3). Indeed, they resonate with Walter Rauschenbusch, one of the founders of the social gospel movement that came into vogue a century ago, in his affirmation that “the essential purpose of Christianity is to transform human society into the Kingdom of God by regenerating all human relations and reconstituting them with the will of God” (p. 6). Again, many evangelical leaders will likely bristle at the suggestion that the transformation of society, rather than the conversion of individual sinners, is the essential purpose of Christianity. They are likely as well to take exception to the suggestion that the Kingdom of God might appear on earth in all its fullness prior to the second coming of Christ.
The authors also call for evangelicals to assume a more conciliatory stance toward Eastern Orthodoxy. The specific mission of evangelicals concerning the Orthodox, they say, should be “to convert the nominally Orthodox into the evangelical Orthodox, and not into Baptists or Pentecostals” (p. 21). “For believers from evangelical churches,” they add, “the Orthodox are, first and foremost, brothers and sisters of the one Universal Church, though it be divided” (p. 126).
While not everyone will resonate fully with the theological stance espoused by Searle and Cherenkov, anyone interested in the evangelical movement in the FSU will benefit from this book. The authors are well-informed, and they highlight a number of important issues with which post-Soviet evangelicals must grapple.
Ray Prigodich is the book review editor of the EastWest Church & Ministry Report. He formerly chaired the Department of World Christianity at Denver Seminary and served as academic dean at Donetsk Christian University, Ukraine.