Who are our own and where is our Motherland?
Church at war: overseas front
There is an opinion that we are citizens of the heavenly country, and therefore there is no place for patriotism on earth, so we should not give any preference to any other homeland. But what does it mean to be a patriotic Christian? Patriotism, as love for the homeland, includes specific people, a place of residence, a cultural aspect, the character of a people, a matter of faith, and a vision of the future. So when I ask myself this question, I think about three of them dimensions: "neighbor", "earth" and "heaven".
Before my inner vision covers the borders of the country where I live, or tries to reproduce the picture of the heavenly city, I easily and immediately imagine the faces of the people who live next to me. The Bible calls such people neighbors. Only then do I multiply them and as a result I get the categories of countries and peoples. And at the very end of these multiplications and expansions, illuminations and transformations, I get the category of Heaven, which will become the eternal Motherland for countless people and nations.
But first of all, I see a person. I don't even have to try to imagine her. She is near, she is always near. Her eyes ask. Her hands are being asked. Her soul seeks understanding and compassion, hope and meaning. Yes, it is through love for our neighbor, helping him and being thankful for him that we learn to love and glorify God.
"Patriotism of the land" is the second level for understanding patriotism as love for the homeland and responsibility for it.
A Christian is one who believes in Christ, who was born in Palestine and was crucified under Pontius Pilate; in Christ, Who was incarnated in the history of our world - in that ancient era, but also in ours.
If we believe in Christ, we cannot ignore history, the society around us, the problems and needs of the people. Here the order is as follows: first to the neighbor, then to others; first to the Jews, then to the Hellenes, and only then to the barbarians. First — to their own, then — to their neighbors, and only then — to distant ones. First to the Ukrainians, then to the Europeans, and only then to the barbarians.
Regarding the place, patriotism also has its own order: first, be a patriot of the place where you are (city or village, then region, country, world). Even if we belong to another nation, we must be patriots of the country in which we live. The prophet Jeremiah addressed the captive Jews on behalf of the Lord: "And take care of the peace of the city where I have exiled you, and pray for it to the Lord" (Jer. 29:7). Being a "patriot" of a foreign country is strange for those who do not see the will of God behind everything that is happening. If we recognize in this the Lord's plan and accept it, then we wish the good of the land of our residence. And then good comes to us.
Of course, there is always a danger of falling into the heresy of ethnophiletism (considering one's people special, chosen and humiliating others), but there is no less danger of falling into the sin of treacherous indifference to the troubles of one's people, forgetting Jerusalem, sitting on the banks of the Babylonian river. Extremes of xenophobia (building a country for one's own on hatred of others) and xenophilia (glorifying all others and defaming one's own) are always at risk.
Aware of these extremes, we do not elevate Ukraine above others and will not allow others to humiliate it. We understand it as the best country because God gave it to us. She is the best for us, just for us. She is in danger and we are responsible for her. First of all, for her: for our neighbors who live in our house and on our street, who are threatened by the troops of Russia-Belarus, terrorists of the DPR-LPR, and foreign mercenaries.
They will tell us: "But you have to love everyone, including mercenaries and separatists." I will answer: in the conditions of war, you cannot love everyone equally and at once, Christian minimalism works here, when you need to take care of your own, build good neighborliness with everyone, without increasing hatred, so that later you can restore balance and gradually learn to love others. You can't love a murderer, but you can't love him back. And yes, a step step by step, go to love. One must love with open eyes, calling everything by its name, but recognizing in everyone the image of God and therefore giving a second chance.
"Heavenly patriotism" is a Christian's loyalty to his future Fatherland, which already has an imprint on the earthly Fatherland. The Apostle Paul gives us the "Fathers of Faith" as an example, who did not have the promise during their lifetime, but saw it from afar and sincerely awaited its arrival. They openly accepted that they were only temporary guests here on earth. Those who say so clearly show that they are still in search of their own land. If they thought about the land they left behind, they would be able to return there. However, on the contrary, they dream of a better, heavenly country (see Hebrews 11:13-16).
That is, we are still waiting, we are leaving, we are on our way. We do not belong entirely to the world of the past and present, to the world of people and borders. In another place, Paul says that “our life is on heaven, from where we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change the body of our humiliation" (Phil. 3:20-21).
Here the word about change is very important. We wait for Jesus not to leave the earth to perish and thus betray it, but to change with the world for a new life. The Apocalypse of John paints a picture of how the Heavenly City descends to earth (Rev. chapter 21). In this way, the Kingdom of God becomes omnipresent, this is how they are fulfilled prayers of Christians, so that it would be "on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt. 6: 9-10). Therefore, we should not choose between heaven and earth, we should love our neighbors, earth, and heaven with the same love.
Here the questions arise: which of the homelands do we belong to; how "heavenly patriotism" correlates with "earthly patriotism"; what the incarnation of God means for our citizenship; how Christology affects social teaching; What does our Christian vision of the future oblige us to do today?
The two homelands are connected through "incarnation" and "change". The "heavenly" world is not nearby and not somewhere there, but everywhere: in our love for the earthly homeland, in the correct Christian love for it, when we see in the earthly homeland the creation of God, His gift, His signs and traces, the land inhabited by Him, entrusted economy, a sign of the future, an outline of the Heavenly City.
Our earthly is the little that He entrusted to us before giving more. One must accept one's place, surroundings, life as something unique, prepared for us by God, as His portion for us. Where we had to live and what we had to answer for, we need to recognize not coincidence, but God's purpose and His will.
This is how God and Man Jesus lived - Son of a carpenter, Galilean, Messiah. His birth in Judea was no accident. He was not very interested in the Roman Empire and its politics. He was interested in people. He never passed a neighbor. He fed, healed and blessed his own and others, including the occupiers who asked for help. He loved Jerusalem, he loved his earthly homeland. But he prepared the future, he saw people saved, and the earth changed, he saw the New Jerusalem. I myself want to be like that and I want to see our Christianity like that - like Christ. Then the sky will not hide the earth from us, but the earth of people. Then the neighbor will always be more important than the TV. Then God will be among us and we will be His people. Then we will see the future through His eyes and will be able to realize this future at least in part in our country.
So, a patriot Christian is someone who can combine all three of these concepts in his care and love: neighbor, earth, and heaven. In the light of Jesus' example, which should be followed. In solidarity with the neighbors for whom we are responsible. Responsible for God's creation, which we are entrusted to manage. In the plan of the Kingdom, which grows out of our earth and connects us with heaven.
Patriotism is when we start with love for the smallest and nearest, seeing in this our responsibility before God and the perspective of His Kingdom.
The war in Ukraine requires from the church not only an assessment, but also radical self-reflection and active participation. Instead of talking about the church and war, it is worth thinking about the church at war as the only correct way of its mission. As a pastor of a local church, I offer an insight into the direct experience, observations and feelings of how the war in Ukraine affects the life and ministry of Slavic evangelical churches in the USA, and I highlight the ten most pressing challenges of wartime: a sense of confusion and helplessness before the unprecedented scale of evil; the destructive influence of propaganda, which divides people; division between those who are "there" and "not there"; acute deficit of words; crisis of prayer; the "gospel of moderate prosperity" heresy; disaster in relations between neighbors; false forms of church unity; a consumerist attitude towards the church of Christ as "our church"; naive interpretations of the Bible regarding "politics". Despite all the complexity and urgency, these challenges mobilize the church and open up new opportunities for its spiritual renewal.
The war in Ukraine is a visible manifestation of a global and profound conflict. No matter who we are and no matter how far away we are, this war affects all of us - personally, informationally, politically, economically, morally, spiritually. Moreover, this war not only touches us, but also draws us into itself. In this war, it is impossible to remain an observer or a bystander, denying one's responsibility and repeating: "This is not my war, I am not there, I have nothing to do with it, I am out of politics." Everyone who learns about what is happening participates with words, prayers, finances, tears (or swearing, curses, kicks) and thus ends up on one side or another of a global and profound conflict. I call this conflict global because it was started by the largest state in the world in terms of area and nuclear potential. I call it profound because, in addition to political and economic ones, it has cultural, worldview, and spiritual dimensions. Even during the war, the spiritual nature of the conflict was revealed in its entirety - the dark, evil, demonic element showed itself without cultural masks and diplomatic smiles. After all, only a madman and/or a possessed person could threaten the entire world with nuclear war. I see signs of both. Therefore, what is happening in Ukraine cannot be understood in the categories of usual politics, here it is necessary to see religiously motivated aggression against one's neighbor, and in the person of one's neighbor - against the whole world, against the entire order of things, against God. What does this mean for us as Christians? This means that we all must accept the war in Ukraine as our war - our pain, our responsibility, our opportunity to rethink ourselves as a church and serve our neighbors.
I am not in Ukraine and not in the military, I am the responsible pastor of one of the Slavic evangelical churches in the USA, but from the first minutes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine I felt like I was at war. On that day, our usual life ended. What has changed in our personal and church life, in our priorities, themes, theological accents? What is happening on our part of the front? This is my next reflection, an attempt to comprehend and summarize in ten points our church experience of the first two months of this war, a war terrible in its cruelty and meanness, scale and consequences. I am sure that most of these theses will concern not only diaspora churches, as they express general, global trends of church life.
First. From the very beginning of the war, we had to face a sense of helplessness before the overwhelming power and scale of evil. For people of faith, this feeling is quite well known: we cannot save the world, nations and cities; it remains for us to trust God and do what we can. We know that we live in an exhausting wait for the Kingdom of God, when it seems like "already", but "not yet". We understand the reality of the sinful world and at the same time we expect that in response to our prayers the Lord will restrain this evil, protect us and show His power. We feel helpless, but we hope in God's omnipotence. Such helplessness can be called useful. It reminds us that we are not in control of history, but God. And only God. Agreeing with this, we expect God to intervene, and if this does not happen, then we do not know what to do next. That is, our logic of faith is extremely simple: we are powerless, but God is all-powerful, so we need to ask Him - and He will help, intercede.
This time, such logic did not work. This time we had to believe without understanding the logic of faith, against all logic. This time we faced a crisis of faith, familiar, typical, convenient faith.
Moreover, we faced the silence of God. They needed help and prayed like never before. But the war continued and intensified. I had to hear from others and ask myself many painful questions about the silence and exclusion of God, about His strange behavior and pretended helplessness, about the effectiveness of prayers, about the futility of love for possessed enemies. At first we prayed: "Lord, stop this war." Then they began to pray: "Give us to persevere, multiply our faith, save us from despair."
Second. We learned that the most terrible weapon of mass destruction is propaganda. We had to experience deep disappointment in those relatives, friends, brothers and sisters in faith who observed what was happening quite calmly, and even justified it with references to the Russian mass media.
It would seem that now all adepts of the "Russian world" should see eye to eye, protest, cry out of shame and horror. It would seem that now everything will become clear to everyone - it's not "green men" without identification marks, it's a hundred thousand soldiers of the regular Russian army who crossed the border and invaded Ukraine. However, the stubbornness in lying turned out to be unshakable. People who shouted "They are not there" in 2014 calmly answered in 2022: "Yes, it is necessary, we fully support it." They no longer denied the war, but called it a "special operation" - that way it was easier for the conscience, that way everything fitted quite well into their picture of the world. Such logic is evil - at first it is furiously denied, and then calmly justified.
We faced the terrible power of lies. She impressed people's minds and hearts with unprecedented effectiveness. One might think that such people should have immunity to propaganda, that they should have a special sensitivity to distinguish between good and evil, that they should have a special moral and spiritual compass. Unfortunately, it turned out that it is possible to read the Bible and at the same time justify the most cruel and despicable war. Why so? Because the hermeneutic lenses are not original, not biblical, but propagandistic.
Yes, propaganda changes our attitude to war, but not only that. The worst thing is that propaganda changes even our way of reading the Bible, our understanding of God, our expectations from the Church. The question is no longer that people who justify the war do not read or read the Bible poorly. The question is different: how exactly do they read, through which lens do they look, within which picture of the world do they live?
The third. A new division arose among the believers, very deep, almost irreversible - on those who were there, who passed through the direct experience of the war; and for those who were not there, who did not survive the war. This is an absolutely strict and even tough, albeit natural, criterion. If in the question "are you for or against?" the choice of a person is assumed, then in the question "were you there or not?" there is often no choice.
It is clear that people who were "there" see everything differently - both the world and the church. They read the Bible differently, pray, talk, sing, eat, dress, celebrate. They have a different list and order of priorities. I felt terrible pain from the fact that I was becoming a stranger to my brothers and sisters who remained there, on their Ukrainian Calvary. And I know that all our efforts to be useful at a distance do not change this deep chasm between "there" and "here", between those who went through the horror of war and those who were able to avoid it.
Undoubtedly, the experience of war changes people very quickly and deeply. For believers, this experience can be valuable in terms of personal formation or transformation, preparation for service, and spiritual discipline. In this war, new images and trends, new leaders and theological ideas of Ukrainian Christianity were born. I really want us to avoid unnecessary arguments and conflicts about who was or was not, who did more or less, who is stronger or smarter than whom, who is a hero and who is not at all. It would be more appropriate to discuss the good that someone did or said. It's not good to discuss what someone didn't do or say. You should not waste time criticizing what has already survived and does not work, it is better to advise new ones.
It is clear to everyone that although Ukraine is taking a hit on itself, it will not be able to win without the help of its allies. This is how it is necessary to think - and the future of Christianity in Ukraine will be unique, hardened in the fire of war, but at the same time open to communication and cooperation. Let us hope that Western Christianity will also use this chance for its renewal. Then, from this temporary division, new forms of Christian unity and interaction will be born.
The fourth. Faced with an unheard-of rampage of evil, we could not find words to describe and explain the events, comfort and encourage the victims, reprimand and convince the opponents. Even in personal conversations there was a lack of words. It was even more difficult to preach and it was unbearably difficult to talk with apolitical or aggressive supporters of the "special operation".
Ми постiйно думали, переживали, молилися про тих, хто залишився там. Але у тих, хто «не там», не було права на повчання або поради. Не хотiлося вiдволiкати тих, хто служить пiд бомбуванням. I не хотiлося говорити банальнi, заповзанi фрази.
There were very few words. It became difficult to talk - even with friends and like-minded people.
Our current lack of words can testify to a spiritual search and humility before God, refusal of hasty conclusions and patient waiting for a word from God. But what if this lack of words reveals our inability to speak honestly, openly, essentially, sympathetically, with love? One way or another, the war and the post-war period need a new vocabulary, a new manner and tonality, new topics and questions, new ways of communication. We will talk about other things and we will talk differently.
Fifth. Prayer became our main way of communication. From the first day of the war, we began to meet in the evening in the church hall to pray for Ukraine. The format of these meetings was very simple - the reading of a short text from the Bible (as a rule, we read the Psalms), the prayers of all who wished, and at the end - "Our Father". After two weeks, they began to add short testimonies, thanks and requests to the reading of the Scriptures and prayers.
At first, the understanding came that this prayer is needed not only by our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, but also by us, so that we can remain a church. Therefore, prayers for our church, especially for its unity and mission, were added to the prayer for Ukraine.
The question arose quite often: how should one pray? It was important to encourage sincerity, honesty, openness and simplicity so that people could express their feelings without fear or embarrassment. At the same time, it was important to emphasize the faithfulness, goodness, and omnipotence of God.
At first, we prayed for the mercy of God, which would be manifested in the cessation of the war, in the salvation of the most vulnerable categories of the civilian population. Then they prayed for God's strength for the defenders of Ukraine - soldiers, firefighters, doctors, volunteers. President Volodymyr Zelensky was often mentioned, praying for strength and wisdom for him, but also for his personal spiritual revival. They prayed for the most hot spots and the most affected cities. Such prayers contained many specific names, details, and requests.
They also asked for God's intervention in the course of hostilities, so that He would "close the sky" from missiles and bombs. And every day they prayed for the ministers of the evangelical churches of Ukraine, the awakening of the people, the spirit of repentance.
It became noticeable that every day people became bolder in their prayers, learned to express themselves, to call everything by their names, not to be ashamed of their emotions. Daily prayer for Ukraine became a good spiritual school and practice, it mobilized new leaders, changed the mood of people, the atmosphere in families and in the church.
Sixth. It turned out that quite a large number of church people confess no
The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and "the gospel of moderate prosperity"; not the Gospel of the cross, but the "gospel without the cross", the "gospel of convenience". In words, Baptist churches have long distanced themselves from the "prosperity gospel" in its extreme forms, but this does not mean that its very idea has been understood and condemned. There was a lot of uproar about this, but little theological insight. As a result, we became victims of new variants of the same infection. Thus, the "gospel of moderate prosperity" is the most persistent and widespread heresy of our time.
The "gospel of immeasurable prosperity" impressed the very greedy, ambitious, restless. The "gospel of moderate prosperity" tempts all who are content with what they have; all those who do not try to have more at any cost, but at the same time are not ready to lose what they already have and are ready to protect what they have acquired at any cost. The first wanted to have more. Others did not want to have less. These are all different forms of one and the same heresy.
There is one more feature. The "gospel of immeasurable prosperity" is focused on material needs. The "gospel of moderate prosperity" is a parasite on everything, including the highest values and good intentions.
Lovers of such a "gospel" are sure that they are doing a good deed, protecting their souls, nerves, families, and churches from the challenges of war: "There is no need to talk about the terrible! The gospel should reassure! Talk about heaven, about eternity. Why do we need to worry? Why these terrible photos? How much can you talk about Ukraine?".
This request for a convenient gospel puts the pastor of the church in front of a difficult choice: to speak the truth or to entertain, babysit, lull people; to preach the Gospel or to please your audience, to be faithful to God or to walk on a leash in the hall?
When we hear the words: "Enough about the war, don't stop us from living, let's go on like before" - this is an alarm bell. This is a sad sign that the "gospel of moderate prosperity" has become too comfortable and familiar for the majority of the congregation and is now trying to rule the church pulpit. That is why "martial law" is a chance for church renewal, a chance to return to seriousness and depth, uncompromising faith and honest self-esteem.
Seventh. The issues of relations between Russians and Ukrainians escalated to the edge, but no less deep division occurred within the communities - into indifferent and solidary.
Russians are divided into those who are ashamed of this war and declare solidarity with the victim, and those who justify this war and thereby support the aggressor. As it turned out, there were much more silent supporters of the war than aggressive ones.
They were betrayed by demonstrative aloofness, reluctance to pray for Ukraine, irritation at the reminder of the war.
All that "normal" Ukrainians wanted from "normal" Russians was to hear words of condemnation of the war and sympathy for the victims. But even this minimum truth for many Russians turned out to be an unbearable burden, too much inconvenience. And those who dared to declare solidarity with Ukraine became exiles and traitors to their people.
Surprisingly, the terrible plans of the Russian president to "denazify" Ukraine found an echo in the hearts of many Slavs. As one Muscovite told me: "You said at the sermon that during this war, all of us, no matter where we come from, should feel like Ukrainians. But this is wrong. We are believers, which means we are citizens of heaven. There are no Ukrainians among us."
In fact, the difference between Ukrainians and their northern neighbors has never been so impressive. To the extent that the Ukrainians united as a people in protecting their country and taking care of each other, so the Russians united in attacking or justifying an attack on a neighboring brotherly nation. It is sad, but the signs of such separation are also visible in the church environment.
Here we are dealing with a real spiritual crime: the justification of Russia's criminal plans against Ukraine, the false biblical justification of genocide. Those Slavs who, observing the war, remain silent and justify their silence, or reason in the spirit of "so what was it for," become accomplices in the crime. Silence is a form of passive compliance. And shifting responsibility for the war to Ukrainians or angry rebuke for imaginary sins is an active form of complicity, it is a spiritual attack on one's neighbor.
The pain of the suffering Ukrainians should echo in the heart of every Russian with burning shame. For those Russians who want to be in the same church with Ukrainians, there is only one way left - decisive and, preferably, public renunciation of the thieves of their people.
Eighth. We had to experience again the value and at the same time the fragility of our church unity. Preserving the unity of the church during the war is a difficult task. Not only because there are people of different views, nations, languages, and cultures in the church. But also because the very basis of unity is understood differently or not at all. The easiest way is a visible unity, which is achieved through silence on difficult topics.
Unity, which is placed above the truth, which ignores the pain of the neighbor, which forbids difficult questions, which smells of indifference and from which the cold blows, is killing the church. This is the unity of spiritually dead people.
It is worth asking ourselves the question: around what and on what basis do we want to be united? What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of unity? What compromises are we ready for and what will the path of such compromises lead to?
If we are united in Christ and around Christ, then the violator of unity will not be the one who raises a difficult question about the church's reaction to the challenge of war, but the one who, with his indifference, turns his back on his suffering neighbor, and, therefore, on this Body of Christ, and, therefore, on Christ himself.
The ninth With the beginning of the war, we began to think more about the church, that is, about what it means to be a church and how to remain a church. What can and should we do in these circumstances as a church? How often are you ready to pray? What are you willing to share? How to conduct services during the war? What to sing and preach about? What and how to celebrate? What should our church become after all this?
These questions are related to a more fundamental one: should the church focus on people's requests or primarily on its mission entrusted by God?
This question itself can deprive us of the feeling of "stability", confidence, comfort. After all, we are used to thinking of the church as "our" church. Therefore, the natural reaction of people is to try to leave everything as it is, that is, to leave it adapted to their needs, habits, and expectations. However, in the conditions of war, this is no longer possible.
We begin to understand that the church is an endless crisis, that we have not been a complete church, that we must learn to be a church by going through an endless series of crises and renewals.
I think more and more that inside every church there is a faithful remnant, a church within a church. This church within the church is the foundation of everything. Unfortunately, there are consumers who come, demand, compare, leave, change, but they have no right to dictate their expectations and rebuild church life for themselves.
Earlier, when I was asked how many members we have, I answered, without thinking, according to statistics. Now I'm not so sure. How many members do we have? I know the numbers. And how many of them come to daily prayer meetings? How many of them can say that with the beginning of the war, their lives changed, that they live every day as if they were at war, praying, working, fighting together with the Ukrainians? How many will there be? And where are all the others? What is wrong with them?
The war raises the question that the church should rethink itself and its mission as the church of Christ, as the suffering and compassionate Body of Christ.
Tenth. We have seen the sad consequences of naïve interpretations of the Scriptures regarding war and peace, politics and power.
Where, to any question about evil and lies, injustice and crimes of the authorities, they answer that "... there is no authority except from God, and the existing authorities are established by God" (a very arbitrary paraphrasing and even more arbitrary interpretation of the words from Rom. 13:1-7), there reigns elementary illiteracy regarding the Bible, along with culture adaptation and sycophancy, slavery and fear. It is worth remembering that "all power" belongs only to Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18), these are His words about Himself and no one else.
Where, to any question about the war, the answer is that "the church is out of politics", it indicates a complete misunderstanding of Christ's authority over the world, along with indifference to the victimized neighbor.
Where the request for help is answered that "we do not know what is happening there, but we will pray for the parties to the conflict and the coming of peace", there is complete chaos in theological and ethical issues (the words "we do not know" should be understood as a confession: "we do not know how to understand and apply the Gospel in this situation") and a demonstrable unwillingness to understand who is the criminal, and who is the victim (it is worth noting that with such incomprehensibility, the victim remains without help, and the criminal continues his evil deed without rebuke and punishment).
As a rule, the "church outside of politics" turns out to be blind and helpless in relation to external influences; uncritically understands everything that the government dictates to her (more precisely, anyone capable of seizing power); becomes a convenient object for manipulation. Therefore, the churches that preferred to remain silent about the war or to pray "for peace in Ukraine" actually found themselves in the grip of Soviet/Russian propaganda.
Unfortunately, the positions of our evangelical churches regarding the war are based not so much on the Scriptures and a healthy theological tradition as on the stereotypes of the Soviet era. This can be observed even at the level of official statements: in them we see the ideological stamps of the past, as well as the first attempts to get rid of them and call things by their proper names.
In the "Address of the Northwest Committee of the United States of America EHB" (See link: https://nwasbc.today) we find words about "indifference", "sorrows", "trials of faith" in connection with the war, but not a word about who attacked whom. Moreover, calling for prayer, the leaders of the association do not express any position and call on others to refrain even from news and conversations about a possible church position. This call is the main and strongest point in the appeal: "At the same time, we will keep ourselves and refrain from participating in disputes about politics; we will not enter into controversy and leave comments in social networks and on any other Internet platforms on ongoing events; we will not judge each other on the basis of nationality, remembering that we are brothers and sisters in the Lord; we minimize the time we watch the news, remembering that it does not bring us any benefit." "Open Appeal of Baptist Associations and Unions of the USA" (See link: https://www.pcsba.org/index.php/ru/news-ru/current-news-ru/1989-open-appeal-of-baptist-associations-and-unions-ru.html) pursues another goal - not to calm the excitement and to stop the discussions, and to direct them in the right direction: "Our duty is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, intercessory prayer for peace, condemnation of sin and countermeasures against evil. As Christians, based on the teaching of the Bible, we must openly express our assessment of events and actions."
Based on this goal, the leaders of the church associations give their moral and spiritual assessment of the events: "We condemn the open aggression of Russia against Ukraine... This is condemned by the Word of God as a sin and qualified as a crime against humanity."
There is also a frankly political point in this statement: "We call to show our civil position and appeal to the US authorities with a request for assistance to Ukraine in resisting aggression."
The address ends with a call to avoid "disputes and conflicts" and to unite in "compassion and help the victims."
In these two documents, there is a noticeable difference between the one-sided Soviet and more balanced modern (and at the same time more biblical) approaches to the topic of politics, power and war. It is obvious that the attempt to avoid the topic of war in order to save
"fraternal relations" between Russians and Ukrainians in Slavic churches will not give the desired result. It is possible to maintain or establish relationships only under the conditions of honesty, openness, truthfulness, and finally, the usual courage to speak. And speak with correct, understandable, not empty words, talk about everything that hurts, including "politics".
So, if we understand the church in a missionary way, then the church should be where it is needed. Submissive to Christ, faithful to its vocation, the church finds itself in the message, movement, service. Today, the Ukrainian church finds itself at war. And all other local or national churches, which are ready to suffer together with the Body and serve together with Christ, also find themselves together with her - at war. This also applies to diaspora churches.
What does this mean in practice? This means going through what they (we) will have to go through, at least, through ten experiences of wartime: the feeling of confusion and helplessness before the unheard-of scale of evil; the destructive influence of divisive propaganda; division between those who are "there" and "not there"; acute deficit of words; crisis of prayer; the "gospel of moderate prosperity" heresy; disaster in relations between neighbors; false forms of church unity; a consumerist attitude towards the church of Christ as "our church"; naive interpretations of the Bible in relation to "politics". These experiences deprive us of peace, but at the same time remind us of the essence and mission of the church. Avoiding these challenges, ignoring the call of Ukrainian brothers and sisters for help, we cease to be a church. Going through difficulties together with them, we learn to be a church - truly united, suffering and compassionate. To be a church today means to be a church at war.
(Translated from Russian by Iryna Karhut)