Sergey Chervonenko with Mark R. Elliott
Mr. Lawrence Uzzell International Religious Freedom Watch,
Fishersville, Virginia
Dr. Alexander Zaichenko
Editor’s Note: The present article consists of excerpts from the author’s 2017 Asbury Theological Seminary doctor of ministry dissertation. In addition to published literature, it is based on findings drawn from 32 participant interviews and surveys: 74 percent pastors and ministers, 11 percent bishops, 11 percent Christians in business, and 4 percent deacons, primarily from central regions of Russia (65-70 percent) and the remainder from southern, western, and Far East regions. The author drew additional findings from approximately 27 pastors in a group meeting.
Russian Church Dependence versus Chinese Church Self-Reliance
After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of Communist Party rule, Russia experienced better than a decade of unprecedented freedom of religious expression. In this new environment Russia’s Evangelical churches faced altogether new challenges. One of the pitfalls posed by new freedoms may be illustrated by the experience of one Evangelical church in Russia that had about 100 members. A large church from overseas gave this congregation a sizeable donation. The pastor and church leaders thought, “How should we use this donation?” They made the decision to build a new church with seating for 300 people. They hoped someday to have this number of people. The donation covered about 50 percent of their building plan; and for the next couple of years the whole church budget was spent for one purpose—to finish the building. Nothing was spent on evangelism, Sunday school, or other ministries. Finally, after about three years, the new church building was ready. By that time, only about 50 members were still in the church; all the other people had left. The remaining 50 people were not able to cover all the expenses of running this new building. They suddenly realized the number of mandatory payments for electricity, water, taxes, heating, land, and so on, that they could not afford. After a few months, they sold the building.
In contrast, in China churches have stressed three basic principles: self-government, self-propagation, and self-support. Because of Communist government control after 1949, churches could not expect financial or other kinds of help from overseas. I believe the forced necessity of self reliance helped the Church in China become viable. In some ways, the government’s pressure helped the Church become stronger. As a result, the Chinese Evangelical Church, despite government restrictions, is growing more than the Russian Evangelical Church in freedom. Why is this happening? The Chinese approach has been, “We have everything we need to build our Church.” The Russian approach since 1991 has been, “We don’t have anything; please help us.” Why did this helpless attitude become so prominent in Russia, but not in China? Differing attitudes about stewardship may explain the difference.
Was the Tithe Canceled in the New Testament?
A host of factors help explain Russian Evangelical churches’ lack of self-sufficiency. A questionable interpretation of biblical teaching on tithes and offerings appears to be partly to blame. The theological perspective that Jesus canceled the tithe is widespread in Russia in both Orthodox and Evangelical churches. According to Russian Orthodox Church theologian Dionisiy Dunaev, “The Bible clearly says that Christ’s sacrificial death and His glorious Resurrection put an end to the Jewish ceremonial Law with its commandments,” including the “commandment of tithing.” Usually people associate the tithe with the Old Testament period and offerings with the New Testament period. The problem with this belief is that tithes and offerings are both in the Old Testament. It is not a case of Jesus canceling the tithe and introducing offerings. He clearly affirmed the tithe in Matthew 23:23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Here, Jesus approved both giving the tithe and justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
A pastor’s meeting in Moscow provided contrasting views on the subject of tithing. According to one pastor, “The tithe isn’t a commandment for us, but an example.” When I asked how and when this commandment was transformed into an example, he could not give an answer. Another pastor answered with these words: “Less than ten percent is lawless, ten percent is the Law, and more than ten percent is grace. We live by the grace of God.” This is a great approach. I asked, “How many of us are teaching this approach in our churches?” I received the answer— mostly faces of shame.
Holy Poverty
Historically both Russian Orthodox and Russian Evangelicals have viewed wealth negatively and holy poverty as the Christian ideal. Russian Orthodox saints, such as Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov are highly respected, even among nonbelievers. They were monks who lived in poverty in nature or in a monastery. Therefore, for Russian people the traditional belief is that holiness equals poverty. A struggle exists between holy poverty on the one side and the wish to know personally that “money can’t make me happier.” Christians want to be holy, but they do not want to be poor. So people prefer not to talk about money in church. If Russians do discuss biblical teaching on wealth and poverty, nine out of ten will remember Luke 16:13: “You cannot serve God and money.” They are believers in holy poverty.
The common theological belief is that Jesus was poor, and that He chose to live that way. He had no money and taught others, “Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts” (Matthew 10:9). Therefore, pastors and people in churches believe that ministers must live in poverty because only in this way can they truly follow the lifestyle of Jesus. The majority of people who believe in this kind of theology apply this approach to pastors and ministers, but not to themselves.
The most popular Bible verse on this subject is 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith.” Another popular verse is Luke 16:13: “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” In pastors’ minds, and therefore in churches, this is the biblical view on stewardship—money is some kind of necessary evil.
Another popular verse is the story of the poor widow who put everything she had in the treasury. Her gift was the smallest, but for her it was not part, but all of her money (Mark 12: 41-44). Usually, people in Russian churches have a different understanding of this text: God does not really need our money; it does not matter how much we bring to the Lord; therefore, a tithe can be any amount, even a “couple of coins.” This is an example of faulty exegetical reasoning. Christians with a better understanding of biblical texts on wealth and poverty believe that not money itself, but the love of money is the evil. Money is needed for one’s livelihood.
Avoiding the Topic of Money
Since conflicting views can lead to controversy, many pastors prefer to avoid the topic of tithes and offerings. Some pastors think about their ministry as something shameful, especially when they talk about tithes and offerings. They are ashamed to challenge people to bring their tithes to the church. In some churches money is actually a prohibited topic; they avoid using this word. If someone were to try to find contemporary writing in Russian on the topic of tithing, this search probably would uncover only one book, written by an American pastor who has lived in Russia many years (Rick Renner, Desyatina i pozhertvovaniya [Tithes and Offerings]). Russian pastors and theologians prefer to stay away from the topic. They do not want to preach about tithing. In churches during a worship service, some ministers (usually deacons) walk through the pews with offering baskets. People are singing a hymn and pretend not to see these baskets. When someone puts an offering into the basket, this person looks like they are doing something shameful. Thus, many pastors and their congregations still have an inner belief in holy poverty. This is the only theology they really know.
Soviet Confiscation of Church Donations
Other factors contributing to the longstanding poverty of Russian Evangelical churches stem from restrictions placed upon them by an atheist state. In the Soviet era the Communist Party prohibited Christians from getting a higher education, which restricted most believers to menial jobs, with little income for church donations.
According to testimonies of ministers who were pastors in the Central Baptist Church in Moscow, the government made it mandatory to give approximately 80 percent of all offerings to the Soviet Peace Foundation, whose goal was to spread Communism in other countries. As a result, this “charity” had a huge amount of money derived from involuntary church donations. The former president of the foundation, chess master Anatoly Karpov, said that in 1989 this “peace” fund had the equivalent of seven billion dollars. Church members knew about this, so they did not want to give offerings in church. People looked for other possibilities to give to God— through personal help to people, using their money for ministry needs, etc. Of course, church people did not talk about their efforts to avoid contributing to the Soviet Peace Foundation. While Christians did not give because they thought they had good reasons, the next generation of Christians did not give because they saw this example from the previous generation. The younger believers did not understand the meaning of withholding donations, just the behavior. In addition, in recent years in Russia the directors of several charity funds stole all the money and fled abroad. These scandals have greatly decreased the level of trust in any fundraising.
Prosperity Theology Ascendant
Another factor that undermined responsible, biblical stewardship in Russia was the rise of prosperity theology. Especially in the early 1990s many missionaries from the West and the East (South Korea) taught a theology of prosperity. They told people that the true Christian would be “healthy and wealthy.” It was very attractive for people who had lived behind the Iron Curtain in poverty. Especially in newly established churches this prosperity gospel became very popular among Evangelicals as an alternative to the ideology of “being poor is good.” People in their minds connected the prosperity gospel and a wealthy lifestyle, especially because its missionary advocates were from wealthy countries. This theology raised questions in some Christians’ minds: “Is it right that ‘be holy’ means ‘live in poverty’?” Needless to say, people came to church with wrong ideas of becoming successful, healthy, and wealthy. Investment became the byword: “Invest your money in God, and he will give back to you with a percentage more.” Such an idea corrupted tithes and offerings, transforming them into an instrument to gain profit. People in Russia received this theology of prosperity joyfully. They were happy to hear that God wanted to make everyone wealthy and healthy. People also saw the Russian Orthodox Church, which proclaimed poverty for Christians, but had golden temples. This discrepancy between proclamation and reality could not be hidden. So many people accepted the richness of the Orthodox Church as a result of its ministry to God. As an aside, poverty is a greater threat to the Russian Evangelical Church than the Russian Orthodox Church because the latter has a very close relationship with the government, it owns land and tax-free businesses, and it receives other support from the government.
Prosperity Theology Found Wanting
Many believers came to recognize that the teaching that “God wants to make every church member wealthy,” was far removed from biblical examples and real life. At first, many churches grew very fast with the proclamation of the prosperity gospel. After a short time, however, more and more people became disappointed—nothing changed in their lives. So they left the church and blamed ministers and God for lying. Many people who were captured by the prosperity gospel and who were disappointed in church and God because they never became wealthy, left the church because of unfulfilled expectations. Furthermore, Christians witnessed large financial scandals in big prosperity gospel churches in the former U.S.S.R. Such fraud by church leaders strengthened the holy poverty believers’ conviction that “money is evil.”
Western Donations Fostering Dependency
The growth of independent, self-reliant Evangelical churches in Russia has been undermined not only by long standing idealization of “holy poverty” and the contrasting post-Soviet rise of the “health and wealth” gospel and disillusionment with it. Paradoxically, healthy, growing churches have also been weakened by Christians from abroad seeking to strengthen them. Following the demise of Communism in Soviet Bloc states and the sudden lifting of restrictions on freedom of religion, vast Evangelical resources poured into the region. Unfortunately, too often the giving was more generous than discerning, especially as it enfeebled churches by sapping their initiative and compromising their independence. Freedom from the Communists did not necessarily mean real freedom for the Church.
Between 1990 and 2000 many different organizations, missions, and missionaries came to the ex-U.S.S.R. They brought their programs, plans, money, employees, and volunteers; but very often, local churches were not involved in the mission activity. Many older churches were not familiar with this kind of active evangelism, so most of them rejected it. Other churches accepted this activity and donations from overseas; that is what made them dependent on support from outside the church. Most Evangelical believers were happy to see the influx of missionaries and outside funding for a vast array of ministry projects. It was a blessed time for the churches, but it raised an old problem—people got used to it. The dependent mentality was actually inherited from the Soviet period. In the U.S.S.R., people thought that somebody else should solve every problem. After the U.S.S.R. ended, they had the same belief in the Church. Previously, the Communist Party solved all problems; now, missionaries and their money were to solve their problems. Total government control of the population had bred a mentality of helplessness, had stifled initiative, and had fostered an expectation that others would need to solve their problems. Someone else should take care of their needs—the government, later missionaries or an overseas church.
Recognizing Wrong Thinking on Tithes and Offerings
Some Russian pastors came to recognize the danger of accepting any and all aid from outside. They often agreed that missionaries did many good things in the early 1990s, but, as one pastor said, We were like agents of a mission in our church. We got money from the mission, sometimes good money, and we used it for a mission trip, evangelization, etc. But we missed a very important part—our church wasn’t involved in the process. By this I mean our people saw fruits of evangelization and mission trips, but all that was the result of the money and the work of someone else.
As a corrective, another pastor came to realize, “People must be involved with their money. Donations coming in from outside had a bad influence on us.” Pastors must stop being an agent of a mission. This does not mean that they must cancel all contacts and ministry with a mission. Rather, missions should work through and with the church. Church members must be involved in every activity with their own resources.
A Biblical Theology of Stewardship Today most Russian Evangelical leaders recognize that neither “holy poverty,” nor “health and wealth” theology, nor dependence upon outside funding provide a way forward for their churches. These beliefs stand on the margins of Christian life. Some very conservative churches still believe in holy poverty; a few charismatic churches still preach the prosperity gospel. However, most believers have moved from those extreme beliefs, trying to find a more balanced approach. They continue to search for a biblical theology of stewardship, especially given the fact that the Russian language has no equivalent for the concept of stewardship. According to John Westerhoff, stewardship is “nothing less than a complete life-style—a total accountability before God. Stewardship is what we do after we say we believe.” Communicating this approach to giving to Christians in Russia will require training in correct biblical stewardship that will include:
- biblical foundations for stewardship principles;
- good examples of stewardship, which people will want to follow; and
- the ability to teach stewardship to others and how to make it a personal lifestyle.
Teaching by example means pastors must be the first to practice stewardship. They should teach about it and show the congregation how to be stewards of God’s gifts.
In addition, churches in Russia need to develop transparency regarding their finances in order to protect their reputation. Many church leaders ignore this important activity of communication with their donors. The usual financial feedback is just a notice of how much is spent on which needs. An example of bad stewardship comes from a businessman who gave a church 200,000 rubles ($3,000) every month to run a rehab center: “I don’t know where my money goes or how they spend it.” He received no reports from the pastor of that church.
One encouraging finding from a recent survey of Russian Evangelical pastors noted that the majority affirmed that churches need a biblical theology of stewardship (31 percent) or affirmed that pastors need training in stewardship (36 percent). Equally encouraging was the fact that, unlike in the 1990s, none believed that fundraising in the United States or Europe was the way forward.
The next step that is needed is to prepare resources on biblical stewardship for teaching pastors, lay leaders, and church members. One possible way to do this is to have seminary professors prepare and teach courses on stewardship. Also advisable would be short-term seminars and books on stewardship produced by Russian Evangelicals who know the cultural context better than Western Christian business speakers.
Sergey Chervonenko is the director of Moscow Evangelical Christian Seminary. Edited excerpts published with permission from Sergey Chervonenko, “Stewardship in the Church: the Theology and Practice of Tithing, Offerings, and Stewardship in Evangelical Churches of Russia,” Asbury Theological Seminary, Doctor of Ministry dissertation, May 2017.
Editor’s postscript: See also Hans Vaxby, “Striving for Congregational Self-Sufficiency in Eurasia: A United Methodist Case Study,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 19 (Summer 2011): 1-3; Anonymous, “Kazakh Church Dependence upon Foreign Support and Ways to Overcome It,” EastWest Church and Ministry Report 20 (Fall 2012): 1-5; Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts; How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself (Chicago: Moody Press, 2012); and Robert D. Lupton, Toxic Charity; How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (and How to Reverse It) (New York: HarperCollins, 2011)