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Volume 16, No. 2

Religious Conversions in Ajaria, Georgia

Mathijs Pelkmans

Editor’s note: Previous portions of this article were published in the East-West Church & Ministry Report 15 (Fall 2007), 6-8; and 16 (Winter 2008), 12-13.

 Continuity

Although non-Christians in Ajaria frequently employed the verb “to convert” (perekhodit’) to describe the actions of new Christians, many converts did not use the word because of the unwanted connotation of change. What they had experienced should, in their view, not be understood as a personal change or disruption but rather a regaining of the true self in Christianity. Conversion enabled a return to, not a new embrace of, Christianity. A young woman in Khulo expressed this notion directly: “I don’t have the feeling that I am switching from one to another religion. No! I have returned to my native religion.”

Tamaz, for example, stressed that Ajaria was historically Christian and that Christianity was the religion to which his forefathers adhered. He portrayed his conversion not as a change to something new but as the continuation of Christianity that had remained part of his Georgian culture, even through periods of interruptions. These notions were made meaningful by reference to the distant past, a past in which Ajarians were Christian.

 Enemies

When new Christians talked about history or culture, it was often in opposition to the “other,” which manifested itself in speech as “the Turk,” “the Ottoman,” or more broadly as “Muslims” and was presented as radically different from the “self.” The “other” was simultaneously a religious and a cultural “other.” This was well captured in the statement by a young woman who had been baptized several years earlier: “When I read the Qur’an, I do not recognize anything. It is not about our people, not about Georgians. In contrast, when I started to read the Bible, I recognized everything; everything struck me as familiar. The Bible is about people like me.” In this short comment, Islam and Christianity were neatly opposed. The Bible was presented as a book about Georgians. It was contrasted with the Qur’an, whose messages were portrayed as alien.

Significantly, the comments were not only about difference but also about danger. Muslims were thought of as having done a great injustice to the Georgians generally and to the inhabitants of Ajaria specifically, as the next comment shows: “I used to have nothing to do with religion; I was a simple farmer, although once in a while I went to the old [closed] church out of curiosity. But I did read a lot, for example, that the Turks had cut off 300 heads and thrown them in to the Chorokhi [River] and then sent a message to Skhalta that the same thing would happen there if people didn’t submit to Islam.” Similar stories about the cruelties of the “Turks” or the “Ottoman Empire” were told over and over again.

Christianity Equated with Progress

In the previous sections, I argued that conversion was imagined as a return to a glorious Christian past and that the stories that were told about becoming Christian underlined the converts’ national affiliation through an oppositional “other.” Important as these aspects were for legitimizing the personal adoption of Christianity, the “past” and the “other” also played an important role in ideas about the region as a whole. New Christians endorsed the idea that the “backwardness” of Ajaria could be eliminated by the “return” to Christianity. Through imaginings of the progressive nature of Christianity and its favorable comparison with “backward Turks,” Christianity contained a promise, one of progress and unambiguous (re)connection of Ajaria with “civilized” Georgian society.

New Christians, but also people without clear religious predilections, worried about the possible strength of Islam in Upper Ajaria. One person told me, “There simply can’t [shouldn’t] be a future for Islam. It is a dark, dark religion. It turns people into slaves of Allah.” A lecturer from the University of Batumi similarly invoked the idea of Islam’s backwardness. An encounter with an imam led him to express his worries about the activities of Muslim leaders: “You know what would happen if they were in control? They would send us straight back to the Arabia of the 7th century, to Muhammad and his camels.” The alleged regressive characteristics of Islam were placed in unambiguous contrast to the achievements of Christianity. Once, when visiting one of the medieval bridges across the Ach’aristsqali River, a Christian acquaintance told me the following: “Can you imagine, they [the Ottomans] ruled here for four centuries and during that period not a single bridge or monument was constructed, whereas these ingenious bridges were already built in the 12th century when Ajaria was Christian. Architects would not be able to construct them even today.” The medieval monuments and bridges were symbols of a desirable and unambiguous connection with the rest of Georgia. What the new Christians aimed for was to be a part of “civilized” Georgian society. For converts the “return” to a Christian past contained promises for the future

Christianity Equated with Education and Enlightenment

The theme of progress was also evoked when Christians stressed that better education would automatically precipitate conversion. “If a person is educated and so is his family, then they shouldn’t have a problem arriving at certain conclusions when reviewing our history. And if they are educated and understanding, then they shouldn’t forbid their children to become Christian.” Likewise, baptized Ajarians said that although their conversion had provoked negative reactions, “the educated people” had supported them. According to the converts, educated people recognized the importance of Christianity in the project of modernization.

Among the 64 adult Christians about whom I collected sufficient information, there were 22 teachers, six civil servants working at the town or the district (raion) administration, five nurses, and four physicians and other medical specialists; the remaining 27 people had occupations such as housewife or bookkeeper or formerly held a position (mostly middle management) at one of the clothing factories in town. They were almost exclusively representatives of the educated “middle class,” while farmers and technicians (former kolkhozniki) were virtually absent among the new Christians. The middle-class families valued education and sent their children to Batumi, Tbilisi, or other cities to attend the university. Members of these families took up positions in state structures and often lived part of their lives outside Khulo, mostly in the urban areas in Georgia.

The emphasis that converts put on their relationships and their social environment does not negate the sincerity of their belief in Christianity, but it does suggest that their life experiences played a major role in their acceptance of the Christian message. The prevalent idea among some converts that once people became educated, they would adopt Christianity was therefore true enough, albeit in a slightly different way than they saw it. It was not education as such, but the content of this education (with a strong focus on Georgian history) and the context in which this education took place (higher education was always located on Georgian “Christian” territory) that made “educated people” more receptive to the Christian message.

Proponents of Christianity cashed in on societal changes facilitated by Soviet rule and on a nationalist ideology that imagined Georgia as a coherent Christian nation surrounded by dangerous and “foreign” Muslim peoples. The fact that regional elites either had been Christian all along or relatively quickly converted to Christianity further contributed to the “Christianization” of the public sphere. These elites used their influence to establish Christian schools and to introduce Bible studies as an obligatory subject in “secular” education. Moreover, they excluded Muslim voices from the media and from scholarly writings. F

Edited excerpts reprinted with permission from Mathijs Pelkmans, Defending the Border: Identity, Religion, and Modernity in the Republic of Georgia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006).

Mathijs Pelkmans is a member of the Department of Socialist and Post-Socialist Eurasia, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany.

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Volume 16, No. 2

Love as the Basis for Friendship Evangelism

Sergei V. Nikolaev

Tough Times in the 1990s

Russia’s abrupt and flawed transition to a market economy in the early 1990s left many people in the former Soviet Union in greater poverty than they had ever known. Salaries were either not paid or, when paid, were insufficient to buy necessary staples. Many people lost their jobs as previously state-supported industries and institutions lost funding. Life was difficult for most people of the former Soviet Union as they tried to understand and survive in this new world. The United Methodist Church answered the need of the Russian people by providing many shipments of humanitarian aid, volunteers who helped to repair orphanages and Russian Orthodox churches, and other projects. In those hard years in the 1990s, the kindness of United Methodist Christians and their willingness to provide people with their first, free Bible resulted in continuing growth of interest in Methodism. American and Korean United Methodist missionaries also found an eager response as Russians desired to make the acquaintance of their former “enemies.” The answers that many found in their search for meaning encouraged some who had never been to any church to make the United Methodist Church their spiritual home. This resulted in the rapid growth of the church in those years.

In Russia’s United Methodist churches people found hope, not only for the present, but for eternity. Hope was hard to find in those days, with most people despairing of even surviving. The church also provided warmth and fellowship. At that time, when it was difficult to know whom to trust and what to believe, the openness and joy of United Methodist Christians in Russia was especially inviting.

Changed Circumstances

Today, however, more than a decade and a half after the fall of Communism, the situation in Russia has changed drastically. Today, the Russian economy is doing very well, and many people, especially in the larger cities, have confidence that their lives will continue to improve. The Russian Orthodox Church, too, has increased its power and position in Russian society. While many Russians are still atheistic in their beliefs, a significant portion of Russian society has accepted the Russian Orthodox Church as an inherent part of its cultural heritage. Using this claim to heritage, the Russian Orthodox Church has been pushing for harsher legislation against non-Orthodox churches and for mandatory classes in Russian Orthodoxy in public schools.

Defining Proselytism

Another component that makes evangelization a particularly sensitive subject is the charge of the Russian Orthodox Church that virtually any evangelization activity is proselytism. The United Methodist Church, in fact, is evangelizing by reaching out to those who do not attend church and who do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not trying to proselytize Orthodox Christians to another form of Christianity. Methodist theologian William J. Abraham has formulated an understanding of evangelism that is receiving more and more recognition among Russian United Methodists. In his book, The Logic of Evangelism, Abraham calls evangelism a “set of intentional activities which is governed by the goal of initiating people into the kingdom of God for the first time.” Nonetheless, any evangelistic activities must also be sensitive to the Russian Orthodox Church. All these changes have made the previous methods of evangelization ineffective.

 Evangelism at Its Best

The United Methodist Church in Eurasia has recognized the necessity for new approaches to reaching out to people in need of a relationship with Jesus Christ. One creative innovation has been the inauguration of a United Methodist Annual Competition for the Best Evangelism Project. Leaders gifted in the ministry of evangelism share their practices and experiences with pastors and lay leaders in all United Methodist annual conferences in Eurasia, answering their questions, encouraging dialogue, and promoting excellence in evangelism. Thus, the competition aims to lay the groundwork for creating a robust and indigenous culture of evangelism within the church. One outstanding evangelism servant in the past dozen years in Russia was Lydia Mikhailova, a pastor in the Russia United Methodist Church and the first district superintendent of the South Moscow District. She participated in the development of the original idea of the Competition for the Best Evangelism Project. Lydia was in her forties in 1994 when her husband died of cancer, leaving her with two young sons. She certainly was no stranger to trials. Born into a family that had been exiled from Ukraine to the Russian Far North to work in a timber-felling labor camp, Lydia had spent the early years of her life barely able to survive. The family was rehabilitated only after Stalin’s death. Still, the death of her husband sent her into depression. Grief-stricken, Lydia sought solace, which she found when a friend invited her to a church service at the United Methodist Church in Lytkarino, outside Moscow. Blessed by the comfort that only Christ can give, Lydia spent the rest of her life telling others about the good news.

Friendship Evangelism: Despite All Odds

Lydia came to the church through friendship evangelism, and she practiced that method of evangelism whenever she could. She was a “preacher of evangelistic love.” She found many ways to reach people with the gospel. Rather than becoming hardened by her tragic experiences and difficult past or forgetting about it as many try to do, Lydia conquered her past with God’s love. It can be said that love truly triumphed in her life. One outcome of this great love was her work to start a church in the Far North, where her family had once been imprisoned, as an evangelism project from her church in Moscow, where she served as pastor.

Although she died of stomach cancer a little more than ten years after her husband’s death, this decade was one of great joy and great fruit in her Kingdom service. In the two local churches that she pastored during her ministry (the majority of the district superintendents in Eurasia combine their ministry with service as pastors in local churches), as a skillful administrator, Lydia was able to secure buildings for both congregations. This was a great achievement in an extremely expensive Russian real-estate market and an urgent and primary need for each United Methodist congregation. People with broken hearts came to her churches and received healing and a genuine desire to live as people transformed through Christ. Both of her churches grew into two of the strongest in the district.

Even as she lay in the hospital three weeks before her death, she shared the gospel message and read the Bible to the other women in her ward. When she was sent home for her final days, the women cried and begged her not to leave them, so meaningful had been her ministry to them, even in her own time of weakness and disease. Lydia has left her church a powerful legacy. In her memory, the administrative council of the United Methodist Church in Russia established the Lydia Mikhailova Evangelism Fund to encourage the church to continue its emphasis on evangelization. F

Edited excerpt reprinted with permission from Sergei V. Nikolaev, “Teaching Evangelism in Russia,” New World Outlook 97 (May/June 2007): 25-27.

Sergei V. Nikolaev, who earned a Ph.D. at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, is president of the Russia United Methodist Theological Seminary, Moscow.

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Volume 16, No. 2

A Case Study of Evangelical, Non-Formal, Leadership Development

David E. Sveen with Mark R. Elliott

Pitfalls of Study Abroad

Many evangelical church leaders in Central and Eastern Europe have expressed reservations about sending their pastors to North America for training. In addition to the high level of English proficiency required and the high cost, home churches suffer when their leaders are away for extended periods of time. Also, church leaders believe it is best for pastors to be trained within their own cultural context. Finally, for those with families, study abroad can mean painful time away from spouses and children. And if families accompany pastors studying abroad, these dependents can become so acculturated to the West that they do not want to return home or have a difficult cultural readjustment upon returning home. Worst of all, in terms of developing the church in Central and Eastern Europe, some trained leaders and/or their families choose not to return home.

Authoritarian Leadership . . .

At the same time, many evangelicals from Central and Eastern Europe have recognized the shortcomings of what they describe as a totalitarian style of pastoral leadership in their churches. According to Nick Nedelchev, president of the Bulgarian Theological Institute in Sofia, “There is a desperate need for change from an authoritarian model toward more shepherd-like leadership. Mainly due to the decades of life under a communistic totalitarian regime, most church leaders in Southeast Europe have adopted the same model within the church. It maintains some structural stability but leads to a lack of true discipleship (since leaders view themselves as rulers rather than mentors or helpers), estrangement from the people, and lack of accountability.” (Sopron, Hungary, “Lessons from European Leadership,” May 2003.)

Fear, suspicion, and a general lack of trust, bred under Communism, continue to afflict post-Soviet societies in Central and Eastern Europe, including evangelical churches. One Western missionary serving in the Czech Republic notes a “hesitancy of men to step up and lead. There’s a picture of whoever steps up will get their head chopped off.” One Czech proverb underscores the point: “The tallest blade of grass gets cut first.”

. . . Versus Servant Leadership

Josiah Venture (JV) is a Western ministry that has seen the need in Central and Eastern Europe for evangelical leadership training that emphasizes serving, rather than controlling, the church. Established in 1993 in the United States, its work originally centered on the development of evangelical youth leaders in the Czech Republic through conferences, retreats, and training programs. An independent ministry since 2001, JV now directs a multi-national staff of over 150 full-time youth ministry specialists working in ten countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova, Slovenia, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Croatia (http://www.josiahventure.com/locations).

The Staz Leadership Internship Program

The present research centers on a non-formal, one-year internship program called Staz, the Czech word for internship, which was launched by Josiah Venture in 1996. Sending churches typically supported their interns up to 30 percent of costs, while Josiah Venture assumed 70 percent of expenses, covering room and board, books, mission trips, and a small stipend.

Findings cover 1996 to 2003, based on interviews with seven of the program’s ten administrators, and 20 of its 114 graduates as of 2003. Administrators, who were Czech (2), Slovak (1), and U.S. (1) citizens, all had university educations, with two having master’s degrees. The seven men and three women administrators ranged in age from 27 to 45. However, findings were drawn only from full-time staff who were all male. All administrators were married with children. Research was conducted in three cities of the Czech Republic: Prague, Malenovice, and Pisek; and two cities in Slovakia: Bratislava and Zilina.

Graduates of this non-formal internship program were predominantly from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with less than a dozen from other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Approximately two-thirds were men and one-third women. Most Staz graduates were between the ages of 21 and 40 during their internships. All graduates had at least a high school degree, with approximately half of those with trade school training in fields such as construction, transportation, and auto mechanics. Approximately 30 percent had university education with degrees in education, physics, chemistry, business management, and architecture. Most became followers of Jesus Christ after the poilitical changes of 1989. All were active volunteers in youth ministry prior to enrolling in the Staz program.

Prior to the Staz program, participating interns had viewed church leaders as unattached or distant from those they led. By way of contrast, Staz administrators modeled servant leadership and evidenced love for those they led. In addition, they demonstrated genuine care for their charges by spending time with interns and serving alongside them on mission trips.

The Staz program intentionally placed interns in close physical, spiritual, and emotional proximity to Josiah Venture administrators and staff. Interns and JV administrators spent a significant amount of time together sharing meals, taking walks, driving together to mission trip locations, and debriefing each day’s events over a cup of coffee at a local café. Furthermore, JV administrators invited interns into their homes for dinner. In contrast to graduates’ previous educational experience involving pronounced distance between students and teachers, the Staz program minimized that distance.

Experiential Learning

The methodology of this non-formal leadership training involved experiential learning with teachers working alongside interns in short-term mission projects. Instructors modeled as well as taught leadership in an atmosphere that encouraged faculty-student dialogue and interaction outside as well as inside the classroom. As one participant reported, “There was a lot of room for practicing things. I was forced to do some things I wouldn’t naturally do or I didn’t think I could do. The leader does something, then the leader does something with me, and then the leader watches me while I do it.” This practical emphasis in the Staz program was reflected in the division of time spent during the internship on instruction (approximately 40 percent) versus hands-on ministry, practical training, and special projects (approximately 60 percent).

Staz instructors questioned and probed interns’ reasoning or perspective on course material presented in formal seminars. They challenged interns to dig deeply into their assumptions and to think critically about what they believed about leadership. The methodology of the entire internship experience hinged on leadership theory demonstrated in practice. For example, as Staz leaders avoided the use of pirated software and bootlegged DVDs, they moved beyond teaching integrity to modeling integrity, thus leading by example, rather than directive.

In summary, the success of Josiah Venture’s leadership internship program centered on the creation of an atmosphere that was conducive to learning and the use of methodologies (infrequently employed in Central and Eastern Europe) that were equally conducive to learning. The educational environment stressed love, concern, collegiality, and care while the learning methods stressed hands-on experience, dialogue, and interchange between instructor and intern, and time together in a variety of contexts involving practical application of theory. F

Edited excerpts published with permission from David E. Sveen, “Leadership Development as a Non-formal Learning Experience in Central and Eastern Europe,” Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2004.

David E. Sveen is adjunct professor of Christian formation and ministry, Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, Illinois.

Mark R. Elliott is editor of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.

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Volume 16, No. 2

Book Review

Grant, Beth and Cindy Lopez Hudlin. Hands That Heal: International Curriculum to Train Caregivers of Trafficking Survivors. (Faith Alliance against Slavery and Trafficking, 2007). Reviewed by Oleg Turlac.

Hands That Heal is a set of training manuals dealing with human trafficking, a “business” earning $33.9 billion annually, just behind illicit drugs and weapons trade in profitability. It is a valuable tool for creating awareness and educating people worldwide concerning the problem of trafficking in women and children for sexual slavery. The manuals were published in 2007 by the Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAAST) with the participation of the Salvation Army, World Hope International, World Relief, and Project Rescue International (Assemblies of God World Missions). Published materials include a one-volume academic edition and a two-volume community-based edition. An accompanying CD-ROM contains numerous resources including Human Trafficking in the United States, A Manual for Hospice Care, and Survivor Stories.

Being a native of Moldova, the East European country that is among the front-line exporters of women and children for prostitution and slave labor, I can appreciate the value of this curriculum written from a Christian perspective. It emphasizes that a Christian response to survivors of sex slavery requires a truly biblical perspective on women and girls, affirming that each life is unique and sacred.

The curriculum is designed to assist those working in the field in helping trafficked women and children put their lives back together. It also provides shocking data about the present state of the trafficking industry and points out practical ways of helping those who have been trafficked to return to a normal life.

One of the authors’ goals is to provide an academic undergraduate curriculum that can be used in Christian universities and seminaries across the globe to introduce future ministers and social workers to the problem of trafficking and the needs of survivors. The curriculum could also be used by community groups that have a burden for women and girls who have been trafficked for prostitution.

Both the academic and community-based manuals are divided into 13 units, dealing with prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation, gender-related issues in trafficking, and the biblical framework for a Christian response to human trafficking. The curriculum serves as a helpful tool in understanding the physical, psychological, spiritual, social, and cultural needs of survivors. Each section provides discussion questions, recommends learning activities, and helpful Scripture references.

While these resources are available free of charge, suggested donations are $75 for the complete package, including the CD-ROM; $45 for the academic edition, plus the CD-ROM; $30 for the community-based edition, plus the CD-ROM. Contact FAAST, 625 Slaters Lane, Suite 200, Alexandria, Virginia, 22314; 888-466-4673 (toll-free); This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; http://www.faastinternational.org.

Oleg Turlac is professor of theology and spiritual formation at the College of Theology and Education, Kishinev, Moldova.