April L. French
Shirinai Dosova’s interview offers a glimpse into the views of a well-known female pastor within an evangelical milieu that predominantly holds to a theological convention of female submission at home and male leadership in church in a region with a strong history of patriarchy. Indeed, the vast majority of women in post-Soviet evangelical circles adhere to some version of these views, akin to what Nadieszda Kizenko, in her recent study of women in postSoviet Russian Orthodoxy, refers to as “feminized patriarchy.”1 One can only imagine the resistance faced by Dosova and other women who are preachers and ministry leaders in the former Soviet Union.
Clarifying Terminology
While Dosova’s experience is instructive and her thoughts insightful, I would like to offer additional comments from my perspective as an historian of Soviet-era religion and an observer of evangelical congregations in Russia for the past 14 years. Since my most recent time in Russia was spent in congregations within Evangelical ChristianBaptist (ECB) churches, much of my commentary will have to do with this denomination. Before proceeding, I would also like to clarify terminology. In the interview, Dosova mentions two categories of churches: “conservative churches” and “new churches.” We should be careful when using such terminology, since the “new churches” to which she is referring were largely established by missionaries from countries such as the United States and South Korea, where evangelicals often hold well-articulated conservative positions with respect to women and have brought their own brand of theological conservatism to Eastern Europe and Eurasia— including forms of Calvinism that had been relatively unknown within evangelical circles in the tsarist and Soviet periods. That said, Dosova’s assertion that these “new” churches usually do not demand head covering for married women holds true, whereas long-established registered and unregistered ECB, traditional Pentecostal, and Mennonite churches do tend to strongly encourage this practice.
Evangelical Women’s Domestic Dreams and Realities
My time in evangelical congregations leads me to conclude, contrary to Dosova, that evangelical women in the former Soviet Union do continue to hold predominantly to “traditional, patriarchal family patterning.” Even if some young evangelical women pursue careers, most who take their faith seriously also desire to find godly men for whom they can be godly, submissive wives and with whom they can raise children who will then become godly husbands and wives. This hope is not at all tied to Islamic influence, as one reading of Dosova’s interview might suggest, but to the long-standing evangelical teaching and modeling of the importance of family. And although the Russian secular world has influenced evangelical women—perhaps most significantly in large cities where some women might be able to “make good money,” as Dosova suggests—this does not automatically preclude them from desiring a strong, traditional, evangelical family.
Domestic Abuse
Some evangelical women, however, do not obtain the kinds of families they desire. Despite the Russian Orthodox Church’s recent, baffling stance that laws against “so-called domestic violence” are “antifamily,”2 the domestic abuse of women is rampant throughout the former Soviet Union, and evangelical women are not immune to such treatment. While many evangelical marriages in the former Soviet Union are strong and stable, others are fractious and unsafe. In her interview, Dosova mentions the stance of “older ministers” who “teach that the wife should accept suffering for the sake of her children and for the sake of her husband’s salvation.” A close reading indicates that those who hold this view insist that only unbelieving husbands abuse their wives, with the assumption that a believing husband would never do so. In my conversations with laity from ECB churches in Siberia, I have found that this view is widely held—along with its gendered corollary that if a woman is being abused, she is bringing it on herself, since she is not being submissive enough. Such views lead to some male church members inflicting violence upon their wives (and children) with impunity. This license is the case because evangelical women are much less likely to report such behavior if their congregations are convinced that believers would never do such a thing or insist that the women must not have been submissive enough. I am not claiming that all evangelical men treat their families this way—far from it—but, rather, I am arguing that such a culture allows the perpetuation of abuse against women and children, with little or no recourse for the victim(s) or accountability for the abuser.
Evangelical Women’s Ministry in Churches
Dosova’s observation that women constitute 65 to 70 percent of evangelical congregations holds true based on my firsthand observations of various congregations in post-Soviet Russia. This is actually a decrease from the years 1943-1991, when evangelical women averaged approximately 80 percent.3 In that period, women were highly active in ministry within their congregations—serving in administrative positions; in direct ministry positions such as deaconesses, leaders of (illegal) children’s Sunday schools and youth groups, and even occasionally as preachers and congregational leaders (but never pastors); in hospitality; in musical and artistic ministries as choir directors; and as respected writers and reciters of poetry in worship.4 I would argue that women’s active participation in their congregations—their “leadership from within”—has continued essentially unabated, even in the context of evangelical men’s ongoing assertion of primary leadership. That said, I still respect Dosova’s observation that “more women are involved in ministry” now than in the late 1990s, because she is speaking from her own extensive experience within evangelical congregations.
Dosova claims that “[n]ot enough men are volunteering their time to the church of their own free will, . . . forcing churches to recognize the ministry of women and to give them more opportunities to work in the church.” This argument reflects a common temptation to ascribe women’s active ministry to insufficient male presence or to the unwillingness of men to lead—something I would call the “Deborah argument,” based on a rather frequent explanatory interpretation of Deborah’s leadership as a judge over Israel (Judges 4-5). Yet, reality is often much more complex. For example, Dosova’s own ministry likely came about not because men refused to volunteer for leadership positions, but because she has strong gifts in leadership and evangelism, which has led people to seek her out regularly for spiritual guidance.
Attitudes of ECB Men toward Women in Ministry
Several key ECB leaders in Siberia—all of whom believe that only men should lead congregations—are nonetheless proponents of the active ministry of women. For example, two pastoral leaders in Novosibirsk attribute their initial training as Bible study leaders and preachers to the two women who led their youth groups in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, they encourage women to serve as youth leaders.5 Another ECB leader with a provincial leadership role in Siberia is lobbying on a national level for training and sending out women as regional and international missionaries. Despite facing resistance to such a proposal—because, according to some, “only men can be missionaries”—he continues his steady efforts to change ECB policy in this regard.6 The resistance Dosova continues to face is due to her being a pastor. As she says, “The brothers in [some evangelical] churches are . . . uncompromising with respect to the service of a woman as a pastor.” Given this reality, it is encouraging to know that Dosova has been sensing a positive change in the way certain ECB leaders relate to her. It is my hope that such changes will continue and that more women will be empowered to use their gifts for ministry in the former Soviet Union. ♦
NOTES:
- Nadieszda Kizenko, “Feminized Patriarchy? Orthodoxy and Gender in Post-Soviet Russia,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38 (No. 3, 2013), 595- 621. Dosova herself teaches on the feminine domestic ideal in an inductive Bible study based on Kay Arthur’s Marriage Without Regrets. See Shirinai Dosova, “Rol’ zhenshiny,” partial Vimeo video, Part 2 of Lesson 3 from “Brak bez sozhalenii,” https://vimeo.com/19007903; Kay Arthur, “Marriage #10: How to Be an Excellent Wife,” Precepts for Life, http://www.lightsource.com/ ministry/precepts/marriage-10-how-to-be-an-excellentwife-465349.html.
- This view was put forth on 20 March 2015 by Archpriest Dmitrii Smirnov, a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Committee on Family and the Defense of Motherhood and Childhood. See Fr. Dmitrii Smirnov, “Vystuplenie protoiereia Dmitriia Smirnova na Obshchestvennom sovete P. Astakhova,” Dmitrii Smirnov’s blog, 5 April 2015; http://www. dimitrysmirnov.ru/blog/cerkov-56880/; and Jennifer Monaghan,“ Russian Orthodox Priest: Parental Violence Campaigns Are ‘Anti-Family’,” Moscow Times, 24 March 2015; http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/ russian-orthodox-priest-parental-violence-campaignsare-anti-family/517976.html.
- Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Irkutskoi Oblasti f. R-2951, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 17-18, 23-27, 53-54, 69-71, 108-116, 155-162, 176-185, and 198-205ob.; Arkhiv goroda Minusinska f. R-33, op. 1, d. 210, ll. 69-76; and d. 597, ll. 1a-8.
- April L. French, “Leadership from Within: Women in the Evangelical Communities of Siberia, 1941- 1991,” unpublished conference paper, St. Petersburg Christian University conference: “Women: Christian Perspectives,” 21 April 2016.
- Iulia Kononenko, “Mozhet li devushka rukovodit’ molodezh’iu,” 95 let Tserkvi EKhB v Novosibirske (1998), 33; Eduard Adol’fovich Genrikh, oral history interview with author, Novosibirsk, 9 May 2015; Andrei Grigor’evich Mel’nikov, informal conversational interview with author, Novosibirsk, 29 April 2015; Svetlana Sergeevna Strukova, oral history interview with author, Novosibirsk, 27 April 2015.
- Based on a private conversation, June 2015.
April L. French, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Brandeis University, Boston, Massachusetts, is the editor of An Inner Step toward God: Writings and Teachings on Prayer by Father Alexander Men (Paraclete Press, 2014). Her dissertation (in progress) examines the lived religion of evangelical women in Siberia, 1941-1991.