The Development Of Russian Evangelical Spirituality

Today, many evangelicals in the Russian-speaking world emphasize sanctification as a distinctive mark of their Christian faith. This is a unique characteristic, particularly in the European context. Their historic tapestry has been woven from a number of threads that originated in the second half of the nineteenth century. Missionary efforts of the German Baptists, a revival sparked by a British evangelist, and a pietistic awakening among the Mennonites in the South converged to form a tapestry that displays Protestant, Baptist, and Anabaptist heritage. Ivan Kargel uniquely participated in the formation and ministry of each of these threads. His life spans from Tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union. Kargel refused to adhere to a systematic view of theology. Instead, he urged believers to go to Scripture and draw from the riches of a life united with Christ. Kargel's influence today is keenly felt across the Russian-speaking evangelical world as they seek to identify the roots of their spiritual identity. This book examines the influences on Ivan Kargel and offers insights into how his life and work are expressed in the tapestry of Russian evangelical spirituality.

"... a fascinating read for everyone interested in Russia, religion, and modernity." -- Nadieszda Kizenko In the early 20th century, Baptists were the fastest-growing non-Orthodox religious group among Russians and Ukrainians. Heather J. Coleman traces the development of Baptist evangelical communities through a period of rapid industrialization, war, and revolution, when Russians found themselves asking new questions about religion and its place in modern life. Baptists' faith helped them navigate the problems of dissent, of order and disorder, of modernization and westernization, and of national and social identity in their changing society. Making use of newly available archival material, this important book reveals the ways in which the Baptists' own experiences, and the widespread discussions that they generated, illuminate the emergence of new social and personal identities in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia, the creation of a public sphere and a civic culture, and the role of religious ideas in the modernization process.

“Is all of Russia not in her church?” asked the great essayist, Rosanov. The question is likely to surprise many American Christians tempted, in spite of themselves, to believe a purely political propaganda. Russia—The Enemy—is both the historical Christian reality and the present hope. In a book of profound contemporary significance, the author has presented both a scholarly and moving history of the Church of Christ in Russia, from its beginnings to the present day, and a deeply sympathetic description of the Russian Church’s Tradition and Life. The author is herself a Russian, a scholar, and a convert from the Orthodox Church in which she was raised. She writes with simplicity and with loving familiarity of things she has not only studied but lived with her heart.

Since the disintegration of the USSR many Russian Baptists have actively engaged in evangelism, church planting, and acts of social service. This book is a response to the need to critically evaluate the effectiveness of past mission efforts and their undergirding theology. In this detailed study, Dr Andrey Kravtsev combines historical and qualitative studies to outline the understanding of mission developed by Russian Baptists during the Soviet era when they were almost completely isolated from global missiological developments. First, Kravtsev identifies four key missiological concepts and uses them to analyze the history of mission theology in global evangelical mission movements and the Russian Baptists. He then interviewed thirty leaders from the Russian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists to find their view of these concepts, and their convictions of the need to reconsider traditional missiological views. From his findings, Dr Kravtsev suggests five themes for facilitating the transition of Russian Baptist mission theology from the late-Soviet model of eschatological escapism, to a holistic, missional evangelicalism. This book places evangelical mission in contemporary Russian socio-political and ideological contexts and provides an important contribution for leading churches to a renewed missionary encounter with culture.

From sermons and clerical reports to personal stories of faith, this book of translated primary documents reveals the lived experience of Orthodox Christianity in 19th- and early 20th-century Russia. These documents allow us to hear the voices of educated and uneducated writers, of clergy and laity, nobles and merchants, workers and peasants, men and women, Russians and Ukrainians. Orthodoxy emerges here as a multidimensional and dynamic faith. Beyond enhancing our understanding of Orthodox Christianity as practiced in Imperial Russia, this thoughtfully edited volume offers broad insights into the relationship between religious narrative and social experience and reveals religion's central place in the formation of world views and narrative traditions.

By bringing the Orthodox spiritual tradition to the forests of the north, this remarkable fourteenth-century saint made Russia's period of political recovery also a period of spiritual renewal. Few have left such a powerful impression on a nation's history. 90 photos.

Few of the struggles Russia has undergone since the fall of Communism have been fiercer than that being fought between the long-repressed Russian Orthodox Church and a host of groups seeking to evangelize the Russian people. This volume assesses the legitimacy of the Orthodox attempt to reclaim the spiritual and moral heart of the Russian people and to retain their adherence in a new, pluralistic world where many Christians and followers of other traditions seek the right to establish themselves. Proselytism and Orthodoxy in Russia also brings together the latest scholarship on the new Russian laws regarding religion as well as suggesting guidelines for foreign missionaries in Russia.