In Ukraine, Protestant thinking on politics and government has undergone a radical shift. The East-West Church Report here features highlights of a recent discussion between two local Pentecostal pastors on this topic. It offers deep insight into how this shift marks a departure from Soviet-era Protestant attitudes towards the same issue, and how this new thinking feeds into broader pro-democracy initiatives in Ukraine. (The editor finds a similar phenomenon in neighboring Belarus, which will be explored in future issues of the Report.)
Sergei Demidovich serves with Good News Church in Sloviansk [Russian: Slaviansk], a small city in the portion of Donetsk Region now under Ukrainian government control. For several months in 2014—the initial phase of the ongoing conflict—separatist forces took control of Good News’ church building. For seven hours during this period, they blindfolded and held captive Bishop Aleksei Demidovich, Pastor Sergei’s brother. (For a detailed account of these events, see the East-West Church Report, vol. 27, vol. 2 [2019], 6-11.)
Jaroslaw Lukasik is originally from Łuków in eastern Poland. In 1993 he moved to Belarus as a student of the Belarusian language and became active in the local Pentecostal community. Under pressure from the increasingly draconian regime of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, he was deported in 2007 and now lives in Kyiv, where he is involved in numerous Protestant outreach initiatives. (For details of these, see the East-West Church Report, vol. 27, no. 3 (2019), 1-4.) The East-West Church Report has received permission from Jaroslaw Lukasik to reproduce this dialogue in condensed form. The original discussion took place in Russian and was broadcast on 18 June 2020 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwFNHfRkCcc.
Sergei Demidovich: Let’s start with the basics. What is politics?
Jaroslaw Lukasik: The art of governing, which involves one of the most important concepts—power. As Christians who read the Bible, we know that power is God’s prerogative. From the first page to the last, God is revealed as someone who has power. And we humans are by nature oriented upon power; we are called to it. In the first book of Genesis— when God creates humans—we read: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Immediately after that, it says: “let them have dominion” [Genesis 1:26].
So, God has power, and He shares that power with humans. The likeness of God within human beings on earth is that we are created in order to have dominion. But God’s power rests upon truth and love—He is truth and love. And so, power, according to God’s design, is an instrument with which to realize truth and love. We see the same thing in the family: Why do parents have power over their children? Because they know truth, and they love them. The same applies to politics. Whom do we want to see in power? This may sound unrealistic to some people, but in fact what we all want is a professional, someone with a positive worldview who knows their country, loves it, and serves it. If other kinds of people seek to enter government or end up there, then we—the public, journalists—criticize them.
SD: There is that well-known phrase from the Bible: “There is no authority except that which God has established” [Romans 13:1]. Would you explain this?
It is often interpreted as not resisting—or juxtaposing ourselves against—those in power. We Protestants are noted for this. We often say: “All power comes from God, and we are not politicians.”
JL: All power indeed comes from God in the sense that God created the earth, and it is held in order.
SD: You mean, the principle of power means that there is no anarchy with God?
JL: Yes, including political power, which comes from God. This acquires even more significance in the light of the Fall. Evil entered the world through the human heart, which wanted to receive the dividends of love, so to speak, outside of truth. Human beings want power that is not based upon truth and love; they strive to win power by force. God therefore creates certain structures—the state is a divine institution—with which to contain this human tendency towards chaos.
SD: Isn’t it evil to desire power?
JL: Well, the First Letter to Timothy says: “If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work” [1 Timothy 3:1]. So to some extent we should strive for power when we realize that we know truth, providing that other people confirm this empirically, and when we love and when we have vision and knowledge about what needs to be done—not just desire for power for its own sake. If people act just for the sake of power, then that is pride.
SD: If a person is apolitical and not interested in this world, can we then say that this person either does not know truth or does not love, in terms of their country?
JL: You know, in ancient Greece there were people who were “apolitical”—who did not take part in the life of the polis or administration of the city, which was the state. They were called “idiots!” [Editor’s note: From Greek idios, meaning “private.”] That has a very different meaning now. (Laughs.) In fact, there is no such thing as being apolitical. People who say they are not interested in politics or only discuss it privately are still subject to someone else’s politics.
SD: Moreover, when someone says he is outside politics but understands the situation—understands that it is dangerous to adopt a particular position— that is political. He understands: “Ah, right now it is better not to be political.” In private conversations I have repeatedly heard our eastern brethren [i.e. fellow Protestants from Russia] saying: “We understand everything, but…” However, we did not finish the question concerning politics in the Bible. People often agree that politics is present in the Old Testament, where God deals with the [Jewish] people. But in the New Testament we have: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” [Matthew 22:21]. You often hear people say that Jesus did not engage in politics. I once confronted Aleksandr Shevchenko about his [2015] book The Church and Civil Society. [Editor’s note: Originally from Ukraine, Shevchenko pastors a Russian-speaking congregation in Sacramento, California.] There he says—I’m trying to recall accurately—that the Church has the Bible whereas the state has the Constitution; that Church and state are parallel and do not meet. To me, this is nonsense. We are not looking to attack anyone here. But are there not parts of the New Testament where we can see that we as Christians are responsible for society, and that we cannot absent ourselves? Does this idea that the Church is separate from the state come from the Bible?
JL: The Church is and should be separate from the state, but we need to understand what that particular terminology means…
SD: This is where I think we need to be clear. Very many Christians, after imbibing those types of books and sermons, say: “Politics is all dirt, we are outside it. We are waiting for Jesus and are engaged purely in the Gospel and people’s salvation.” But is there such a thing as the “pure Gospel,” oblivious of the place where you live? Not responding, for example, to participation in legislation or other initiatives?
JL: Well, what is people’s salvation? Is it when people come forward in church and proclaim that Jesus is their Lord and Savior? Very well, a person has proclaimed this and turned their life around. But now they have to live an ordinary life with Jesus, that is, live in accordance with God’s commandments. That includes being a citizen who has been born again. I don’t understand how the Constitution supposedly is for the state, whereas we have the Bible. I have multiple identities. I am one person, but I am a father, son, husband, brother, and so on. Each of these presupposes different duties. I am simultaneously a citizen with civic duties.
God isn’t abstract. He isn’t nirvana, as might appear to some people. He created a concrete world with content, including power, love, truth, laws of gravity and thermodynamics. We are supposed to live in it in accordance with God’s truth, being the image and likeness of God, while realizing that it is all in a fallen state—that we live in a world where sin reigns. Until Christ comes for the second time, our task on earth as born-again people is to acquire the kingdom of heaven, as one Orthodox saint said. [Editor’s note: St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759- 1833) maintained: “The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.”] It is to be as close to truth as possible and to spread the principles of the kingdom of God. What we understand through faith—through reading the Bible, prayer, communing with God— we realize step by step, in our families, in our neighborhood, and in our state, wherever we have power and influence.
But to return to the Old and New Testaments—I think a person would have to be very naïve to say that there is no politics in the Bible. In the Old Testament, the narrative is about the state—how God forms a culture, a people. When it says that a king acted worthily in the eyes of the Lord, whereas another king acted unworthily and led Israel into error through his policies, God is evaluating certain political matters. The Old Testament says that spiritual matters depend upon politics. But what does the New Testament say? That politics depend upon spirituality. The clear message of the New Testament and the whole Christian tradition and history that flow from it is that political processes depend upon what truth and love is found in the hearts of concrete personalities.
SD: So politics is something a Christian should be engaged in?
JL: It is a very important sphere that influences our spiritual life. The laws and culture in a state have a very strong influence upon us. We must realize this and take an interest in forming the right political culture in our community.
SD: Why does this fare so poorly in our country? There are a considerable number of Christians here. In earlier years there were more supportive members of the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament], such as Pavlo Unguryan. There was a serious lobby for legislation in support of Christianity.
JL: I think the problem is that Evangelical Christians across the post-Soviet space still have a lack of vision for their countries. Here we are speaking primarily about Ukraine, which I would say is generally a little ahead in this regard. It is true that [Latvian-based New Generation Pastor Aleksei] Ledyayev talked about going into politics and the need for Christian government. [Editor’s note: In 2002 Pastor Ledyayev called for a “new world order” in which Christians would strive for political power in order to oust evil forces otherwise dominant over it. In August 2021 the Russian authorities banned four Latvia- and Ukrainebased entities associated with his New Generation Church as “undesirable organizations” posing a threat to state security.] But first, let’s try to understand. Based upon what we have said so far, if you aspire to power then you are claiming to know some kind of truth about this country, to have a vision for it. Not just for a particular sphere, such as concern about a kind of LGBT lobby—although that is an important topic. We need answers from the Lord. After analyzing the Bible, our history, and the events happening around us, we need to arrive at a vision: What kind of Ukraine does God want? What should it be like in the field of economics, for example? Private property and land: capitalism? How big should the government be in terms of how far it is able to interfere in the lives of ordinary people? There are many questions to which we need answers. I believe that Christians are called upon to devise our own model of patriotism in this way.
SD: I am listening to you, but all this does not speak to our form of Christianity. I have been a believer since childhood. What we were taught as children—when the government was Soviet—was: “We are not of this world.” That was very clear. “This world and everything in it will perish. The Lord will take us to Himself and wipe away every tear.” Those were the times. It was impossible to imagine anything different; that is, we never had any ideas about changing the world. We always held to the position—and this is where I think [Pastor] Aleksandr [Shevchenko] got his ideas from—that we need to drag people out of the world. Evil is out there, in the world, while salvation is here in the bosom of the Church. And what was salvation? A person must not sin in a personal sense. There was great emphasis upon us being the light of the world. What did that mean? It meant that we should not lie or steal like other people.
“I work at a factory where everyone steals things, but I don’t; everyone swears, but I don’t; everyone drinks, but I don’t.” Do you understand? Christianity was always distinguished by the fact that we were not of this world. We didn’t stake any claims. We were barred from further education, after all. With the collapse of Soviet power this Christianity entered a new era of freedom. Of course, we began to receive visitors—[foreign] evangelists, and we ourselves traveled. I studied in Germany; others went to America. We saw a different world. We have been trying hard, but it seems to me that in our core—especially those of us from the more classical Protestant traditions, not the newest Charismatic churches—we retain the earlier paradigm in our heads. So everything you are speaking about has nothing to do with us—it is as if we are still held captive by some kind of modesty or provincialism. We take responsibility for the territory of our churches, but we don’t think about processes happening outside. How do we change this? The modern Charismatic movement went deep into politics, but the political machine—evil and corrupt—crushed many. It swallowed them.
JL: Believers living in the Soviet Union really were a light to the world. They were the salt of the earth if they didn’t steal at work, swear, drink, or participate in sinful activities.
SD: “Believer” was a synonym for “honest” back in those days. I have a very vivid example. My brother [now Bishop Aleksei] worked as a train driver and, due to the fault of an assistant who was not at his post, his train hit a woman. She survived— she was thrown to one side— and an investigation followed. When the section manager arrived, everyone was shouting, insisting that the assistant had been at his post. The section manager said: “Quiet! Demidovich, come here!” He wasn’t interested in all the other people there—he knew who would tell him the truth. “Where was the assistant?” Aleksei just stood there—he was in danger of letting down the whole team, you understand? Then he mumbled something about the assistant being at his post. That night he couldn’t sleep a wink. He rushed to get on the first commuter train—it wasn’t even his shift yet. He went straight into the section manager’s office and said: “I can’t live with this—I deceived you yesterday!” Now, you see, that section manager will have the motto “A Christian doesn’t lie” in his head for the rest of his life. But today, Jaroslaw, this means almost nothing. I ran a café where believers worked, and they stole things. Other employers say the same.
JL: The difference between our lives in the Soviet Union and today is an interesting topic. But let’s focus on this theology of isolation, which has its roots in the theological tradition of Pietism. The Pietists were German Lutherans who, by their spirituality, separated themselves from the nominal state church, beginning in the late 17th century. Engaged in a search for God, they divided the world into spiritual and non-spiritual. Spiritual matters included prayer, attending church, and moral family life. Non-spiritual matters included everything to do with finance, education. Politics, above all, was regarded as a dirty business that should not be touched. Unfortunately, this tradition has spread to post-Soviet Protestantism—after all, there were many Germans who founded churches here in the 1920s, like [Gustav] Schmidt. [Editor’s note: Born in 1891 in what is now the Ukrainian region of Zhytomyr, Schmidt co-founded a Pentecostal mission to Russia and Eastern Europe in 1927.] There were already Mennonites here, so this idea spread.
You can understand our church people in the Soviet period. Believing in God was already politics. But how many years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union? Thirty! We are living in a different time. The Soviet army was one thing, but our own Ukrainian army defending our borders is quite another. Friends, it is time that we started adjusting, or else we will lose this splendid historical opportunity that God has given us to spread the Gospel, to carry out Christ’s Great Commission. This has a cultural component, even a political component.
Yet while older churches often retain this Pietism, this isolationist theology, the situation is changing. We have seen this in Ukraine over the past few years, as with the program to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which sought to form a political culture in which Christian values reverberate. [Editor’s note: See the East-West Church Report, vol. 27, no. 3 (2019), 1-4.] But we are still a century behind. Today’s Christianity has lost its cultural mandate, its mission of preaching the Gospel on the level of culture.
SD: What do you think might be done now in Ukraine? What should we be hearing from church leaders?
JL: Well, if we do not fulfill Christ’s Great Commission in the sphere of culture, then we are carrying out only part of what Christ told us to do. This is a very serious moment, and we must think carefully. First, we should not imagine that we should immediately enter politics. That would be even worse— there have been very many experiments when Christians entered politics, and they ended poorly. Second, our Christian political actions must be like the tip of an iceberg that rests upon our social and cultural activities—a whole host of Christian NGOs, missions, and charities creating their own model of patriotism with its own internal culture. Our political activity will be the culmination of all that.
