I certainly don’t want geo-politics to take the center stage
in our missionary work, but there is no denying that this is the single
greatest issue influencing our ministry context. The issue is changing the
shape of the church in Russia; it is driving a wedge between the Russian and
Ukrainian churches, which is very deep. The conflict is yet another reflection
of the trend that authoritarianism is tightening its grasp in Russia. We have
seen this happening throughout the Putin years.
But if you would have asked me back in January (2014), if a
crisis of this nature and magnitude was brewing, I would have laughed! As
Russia consciously returns to its Soviet roots, its policies and politics are
becoming less and less transparent. It is in their best interest to keep the
rest of the world (including the Russian people themselves) guessing as to what
their next step is, or even their goals are. The element of surprise is always
a strategic advantage.
This crisis has not had an effect on our present
visa problems. In the slowly tightening grip of authoritarianism, Russia has
been tightening its visa requirements across the board. Our present delay has
more to do with bureaucracy both in the US and Russia, than it has to do with
this crisis. The crisis would probably have to escalate into an open conflict
between the US and Russia for it to affect our permission to enter Russia. If
you want to read more about the visa situation, click here.
In brief, Putin began a policy to return Russia to its
former glory and world power status. Without a compelling program or ideology,
all Putin could do was enter into opposition against the United States.
Opposing the US position every chance it got, and questioning the validity of
the worldwide political and economic bodies led by the values of the US and the
liberal, democratic west. In doing so, he also had to call into question the
legality of the break up of the Soviet Union, blaming the United States for
orchestrating its demise and keeping it weak. One writer has summed it up well:
Putin does not seek “the
destruction of the hated United States,” a goal that he could achieve “only at
the price of mutual suicide.” Instead, his goals are “significantly more
modest: the maximum extension of the Russian World, the destruction of NATO,
and the discrediting and humiliation of the US as the guarantor of the security
of the West.”
To put it in simplest terms,
Putin’s actions would be “revenge for the defeat of the USSR in the third
(cold) world war just as the second world war was for Germany an attempt at
revenge for defeat in the first.”
Ironically, this action begins 23 years after the fall of
the Soviet Union (1991-2014), as Nazi Germany’s first expansionist attack on
Czechoslovakia came twenty years after the Treaty of Versailles (1918-1938),
both on the heals of hosting an Olympics. Are we bound to repeat history?
On the one hand Ukraine has never been its own cohesive
nation, and has never been really separate from Russian borders since the 17th
century. Kiev was the capital of the Kievan Rus, where the Slavs were baptized
into the Orthodox Church in 988. Ukraine contains many other cities closely
tied to Russian history (Odessa, Yalta, Sevatopol, Simferopol, and Poltava
among others), which it is inconceivable to Russians for them not be part of
Russia. But the abuses and domination of Russia has alienated much of Ukraine
(esp. western Ukraine) from Russia, which does not understand the resentment.
But Russia has resentments of its own. All of the nations
that the Soviet Union attempted to “russify” have now either joined the
European Union, or NATO, or both, making the Russian ethnic contingents there
persecuted minorities. Moreover the line between the Russian sphere of
influence and “the west” has moved from the Iron Curtain 1100 miles from Moscow
in 1989, to just 627 miles from Poland NATO, and 380 miles from the Baltic
States in the EU. Now if Ukraine joined, Russia not only loses its naval ports
in Crimea, and control of a major pipeline of natural gas to Europe, “the west”
would them come within 285 miles of Moscow. That would be like the US having a physical
border with Cuba at the tip of Florida, then letting Cuba taking Florida, then
Georgia, and South Carolina, bringing its sphere of influence within the same
distance (285 mi.) from Washington D.C.. We would certainly not be comfortable
with that. Similarly, Putin is drawing the line with Ukraine. In hindsight,
there were certainly injustices taken on by Russia in the fall of the Soviet
Union, but Putin need not have gone about correcting them in this way!
Ironically, each of Putin’s goals seems to be backfiring.
His attempts to reign in and subject Ukraine is galvanizing Ukrainians against
Russian influence. His attempts to make NATO crumble are effecting a renewal
and strengthening of NATO goals and commitments. Putin speaks of fascism in the
Ukraine against Russians, but uses the language of a Russian fascist to answer
it. His bravado in the face of increased isolation and sanctions, and bold
faced lies to his own people about the fate of their soldiers may cause Russia
to turn its back on Putin, and ironically bring about another social revolution,
just as the 100th anniversary of the Communist Revolution approaches
(2017). I have long said: “The only constant in Russian history is violent,
unexpected change.” Up to this point we had only personally experienced mild
and insignificant examples of this rule. In this case you can see and feel the
attitude of a whole nation changing.
Probably the most tragic split this crisis is causing is
that in the evangelical church. Ukraine was the Soviet Union’s “Bible belt.”
Almost half the pastors and church planters in Russia are Ukrainian! The best
analogy to this in American history would be the division of the North and
South churches in during our Civil War. The Ukrainian churches want Russian
churches to publically denounce Putin’s actions. Russian churches cannot make
such a bold statement and risk being labeled pro-western traitors in their own
country. How quickly the Russian church has remembered the fears of living
under a totalitarian regime!
Below you will find a series of links to articles which I
have found most helpful to understanding why this conflict has arisen, what is
going on, and what are the main factors involved in its escalation or
resolution.
“East-West Church and Ministry Report.” Summer 2014.
“Putin Ends the Interregnum.” The American Interest. Aug 28,
2014.
“Putin’s Covert Invasion of Ukraine.” Der
Speigel, Sept 2: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/russia-expands-war-in-eastern-ukraine-amid-web-of-lies-a-989290-2.html
