Second Feature

A new era for evangelicalism in Ukraine began in 1988, the year when Ukraine celebrated the1000th anniversary of its Byzantine baptism forced by Prince Vladimir in Kyiv at the Dnepr River. 1988 was still a communistic time with the USSR intact, but the State’s desire to persecute evangelicals deteriorated through years of Perestroika and Glasnost. This was the very first time in Soviet Union history when evangelicals en masse came out of their “underground” churches with the Gospel message and sounds of Gospel hymns. I still remember KGB agents standing around Central Square in Kyiv with their walkie-talkies wrapped in newspapers, but they did not touch anyone. Freedom had arrived; Bibles and evangelistic tracts were freely distributed and people on the streets eagerly listened to the Gospel message. Everything was easy: just read them the Bible and ask them to come to church, or give them a tract and have them answer questions there. Reported numbers of conversions grew sharply, but it seems that the same people were approached and counted by local believers and short term missionaries several times over.

If there was anything close to the revolutionary fervor after the breakup of USSR, it was evangelical excitement in the newly granted freedom to preach, start new churches, and do mass evangelistic campaigns. There were crowds on streets, crowds on stadiums, and crowds in churches. Everything looked easy, opportunities were limitless, and interest in the Bible and the Gospel seemed insatiable. No one bothered to notice that the same appetite for the spiritual and the religious was shown to practically every religion, cult or religious pretender. Anything vaguely mystical fared very well and brought immediate dividends. Generations of suppressed spirituality resulted in tremendous crowds of voracious consumers at the spirituality smorgasbord. Obviously this could not last forever, and after just a few years the initial spike of interest in spirituality began fading away.

After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, materialism became the more immediate need in the crumbling economy of former USSR countries, and nationalistic issues rose in importance. Not only was easy evangelism or “easy believe-ism” pushed aside, but more importantly, the largely neglected issues of systematic Biblical teaching, consistent discipleship and qualified teachers and ministers became evident.

In each Ukranian evangelical church there was a romantic fascination with evangelism, church growth and education, but no one was concerned (or perhaps even able) to evaluate the theological, structural or spiritual condition of churches coming out of heavy persecution, which had suffered years of deprivation of education and literature, and years of cultural isolation. No one cared to come to terms with the recent past. Everything was so exciting that the siege mentality that had prevailed in the former times receded somewhat, but it was still there. Massive evangelistic meetings helped to start many new churches. The number of churches in just the Evangelical-Baptist Union more than doubled in ten years from 1994 to 2004. Many schools were established—colleges and seminaries—by people who were not themselves theologically (or even secularly) schooled. People who had never been taught principles and traditions of solid evangelical education tried to build everything from scratch. Some seminaries called themselves Christian Universities, but it was only in name; no liberal arts degrees were developed or proposed.

By the end of the decade after the breakup of the USSR and the emergence of an independent Ukraine, it was evident that massive evangelistic meetings were becoming less effective. A return to personal evangelism and systematic discipleship was required. In time it also became clear that traditional churches without educated pastors, working teams of ministers, or sturdy evangelistic tools were not growing. In fact they were slowly dying, and the tremendous growth in numbers turned out to be much more a matter of quantity than quality. And, most regrettably, solid evangelical education began in some cases to provoke traditional churches’ tendency to remain in isolationism inherited from communistic times. The older generation of believers and ministers seemed incapable of coping with lightning-fast cultural changes to stay afloat in the new economy of professional performance, in spite of young peoples’ exceptional openness to evangelistic outreach, missions and education. It became obvious that educated people and the emerging younger generation of believers (particularly those without any evangelical background) required solid Biblical teaching, dynamic, flexible church ministry, and lively, non-liturgical services.

The intention was to solve these problems by establishing theological schools and developing church-based education. In the case of churchbased education, materials developed in the West for use in other totalitarian countries proved helpful. Bible Education by Extension (BEE) also brought impressive results. Relationships with formal theological education were not so easy, however. Theological schools started by people without theological training and experience in solid evangelical theological tradition easily fell prey to a European-style academism that was detached from or even outright indifferent to the needs and struggles of the churches. Others fell prey to the temptation of a self-serving fundamentalism that was more concerned with sectarian traditional values than solid theological education.

In the first case, academic exercises became more important than the practical use of exegesis, hermeneutics and systematic theology to address the pressing need of educating churchmen, instructing willing people in pew and countering the temptation of cultural (Orthodox or Catholic) pseudo-spirituality. In the second case, stressing the inerrancy of a certain group or structure or church and brushing away anything or anyone not in total agreement with the group’s ideas or recognized leaders became more important than teaching how the Bible addresses contemporary issues or speaks to current struggles. Proof-texting and brainwashing substituted for biblically and theologically informed critical thinking that is so indispensable for addressing contemporary culture.

This situation in formal theological education did not help already disoriented churches that were perplexed by the influx of the new believers who came in without the slightest knowledge of church culture and traditions. Perceived—and in some cases actual—liberal tendencies of academic theology pushed most traditional churches toward familiar fundamentalist isolationism and education that tended to reinforce itself. The only solution that appears capable of restoring healthy evangelicalism in the former USSR is the biblical one of pouring the wine of the Gospel into new skins. This solution is not always the happy one even for the most open and progressive young evangelicals because very often it means choosing between local forms and traditions and foreign charismatic or quasi-charismatic churches or movements. The pressing need for local churches planted by evangelicals educated in the best conservative theological environment has become obvious.