As social scientists who have long been involved in Russian studies with special interest and concern for religion, we were pleased to see the article on the value and potential of the Keston Archive by Wallace Daniel in the spring [2016] issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report. The Keston Archive contains a wealth of historical documentation, and Professor Daniel’s presentation on the uses that can be made of this important collection is helpful to all researchers. We applaud Professor Daniel’s own contributions to scholarship in this area and his longterm support of the Keston Archive.
However, the account that he presented of the move of the Archive from Oxford, England, to Baylor University, Waco, Texas, does not note in any way the important role played by Christopher Marsh, the political science scholar who was the Baylor point person in arranging for the Archive’s trans-Atlantic voyage from England to Texas. It is as if the period 2007-2011 had no consequence, and Marsh appears to have become a non-person. On the other hand, we remember the excitement that surrounded the move and the energy that Chris gave to the project.
We also note that Chris used the Archive in his own work and valued it highly. Perhaps the best example was the book he published on Religion and the State in Russia and China (2011). The Keston Center/ Archive meshed well with Marsh’s other positions at Baylor as director of the J. M. Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies, as director of the (now-defunct) graduate program in church-state studies, and as editor of the Journal of Church and State, the leading journal in this critically important area. Marsh shared the fundamental values of religious and political freedom and upheld them diligently in his roles at the time. Chris Marsh has moved on—he currently teaches in the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas—but his legacy at Baylor in facilitating the Keston Archive move to Baylor and in setting up the institutional foundation for its availability and use by scholars should not be overlooked.
Jerry G. Pankhurst, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio
Vyacheslav Karpov, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan