Malkhaz Songulashvili, Evangelical Christian Baptists of Georgia: The History and Transformation of a Free Church Tradition. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015. Reviewed by Sergei Filatov.
Malkhaz Songulashvili’s treatment of the history and current status of the Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church is fascinating reading, the most interesting volume I have ever encountered on Baptists in the former Soviet Union. This study is compelling not only because the author is a gifted writer, but because Georgian Baptists, as far as I can tell, are a unique phenomenon.
Historically, Protestants have typically rejected popular folk religion as, by and large, pagan in origin. However, Georgian Baptists cherish various elements of Georgian popular belief. They, for example, actively incorporate popular culture into their spiritual life and worship. More so than traditional Protestantism, Catholicism, or Russian Orthodoxy, Songulashvili writes that Georgian Baptists easily have found an ally in secular art and literature. In contrast, Baptists, traditionally, have sought the truth in the Bible, not in secular novels and poetry. In this connection we meet a surprise with Georgian Baptists who not only draw upon Georgian secular culture, but upon the riches of Georgia’s Orthodox culture, including its prayers, church music, candles, and vestments.
In addition, Georgian Baptists differ from most other Baptists in the area of morality and lifestyle, for example, in their acceptance of alcohol consumption. Maybe it is not the most important feature, but for many Russians (and I am Russian), the Baptist ban on alcohol has been its best-known characteristic. The ordinary Russian man in the street, meeting Songulashvili, would not believe he is a Baptist. Also, Songulashvili writes that Georgian Baptists ordain women to the priesthood.
I was surprised how much Songulashvili invoked links between his church and the Anglican Church. Perhaps in Anglicanism he finds inspiration for his religious quest. Nevertheless, Georgian Baptists still consider themselves Baptists, even though some of their beliefs and some aspects of their worship call into question their relationship with traditional Baptists in other countries, and more broadly, with other evangelicals.
Summing up, I would say the phenomenon of Georgian Baptists is a mystery. Songulashvili offers some explanations, but most of them do not seem convincing to me. The only explanation I can offer— and it is tentative—is that Songulashvili’s Georgian Baptist Church is essentially a new denomination. Having arisen since the end of the Second World War, its context is an era in which the old feuds between Protestants from one side and Catholics and Orthodox from the other side are ancient history and in which religious searching in Georgia has been mainly the lot of opposition-minded intellectuals such as Malkhaz Songulashvili.
Sergei Filatov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.