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Volume 18, No.1

Protestant Theological Education in Central Asia: Embattled but Resilient

Insur Shamgunov

Editor’s note: The first part of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 17(Fall 2009): 5-8.

The political, religious, and economic situation in Central Asia is changing so rapidly that theological schools must constantly adapt their training programs. No one can predict whether some of these schools will even survive current pressures. As noted in the first portion of this article (Fall 2009), some of the challenges facing theological education are external: political pressure, growing materialism and indifference to Christianity, stagnation in church growth, and social ills in society. Other challenges come from within the institutions.

Declining Enrollments

Initially, one Kyrgyz institution under study sought to train pastors only. However, it eventually broadened its scope to include training for lay ministers as well. The principal admitted that the decision to broaden enrollment was influenced by the recent decline in church growth and the corresponding decrease in candidates for the ministry. After graduating three classes in a three-year, full-time program, this school changed to a modular format in 2004, consisting of two-week training sessions with breaks of two weeks between modules. Again, one of the main reasons for changing the program was the declining number of applicants willing to study full-time.

The principal related the enrollment decline to the unwillingness of local pastors to send their members to study, which, in turn, arose for several reasons. First, many pastors did not understand the importance of solid theological doctrine, believing that for regular church members, weekly sermons alone were sufficient for their spiritual nourishment. The principal was concerned that such narrowness and lack of theological education have already led many people in his denomination to construct false doctrines. Second, he felt that some pastors were afraid of competition, as younger leaders became more educated than themselves, a theme that will be developed in more detail shortly. Third, he was concerned that many pastors had a short-term, rather than long-term, vision for developing church leaders. Thus, pastors would not let their most talented and capable emerging leaders attend seminary because they needed their help in the church. Instead, some pastors sent church members to study who were not currently engaged in ministry and who were not motivated to do so, hoping perhaps that the school itself would motivate them for ministry.

In my most recent conversation with the principal of this Kyrgyz theological college (9 November 2008), I learned that only a handful of applications were received for the 2008-09 academic year. As a result, the school changed its training format to an evening program, with teaching decentralized in four main regions of Kyrgyzstan. The principal believed that interest in training in local churches still existed, but because they were no longer growing, they had exhausted the pool of candidates wishing to study full-time. He concluded, as a result, that training had to become locally based and run as evening modular classes. Another strategy this same principal was considering was the addition of secular subjects to the curriculum. He related that in many cases, parents of young Christians did not believe a theological education could offer their children a sustainable future.

Adapting to New Realities

A theological college in Kazakhstan also experienced a decline in applications and decided not to admit any new students in the 2007-2008 academic year. The principal was considering several ways of addressing the problem, including the introduction of a new program for social workers. According to this principal and his dean, one of the main challenges the college faced was strong opposition from senior denominational leaders. Many of the elder pastors were not theologically educated themselves and so were suspicious of younger church members receiving such an education. The pastors felt they were competing with seminary graduates, asking difficult questions that they could not answer. Some of them viewed theological education itself as “liberal,” although the institution would be considered very conservative by Western theological standards. For some pastors, the college was “liberal” simply because “some teachers were Americans and Calvinists.”

One graduate, a Kazakh pastor in his 50s, offered an insight into the older generation’s contempt for education: Older pastors had led the church through Soviet persecution and therefore did not have a chance to receive an education. They could only learn from each other, or attend occasional conferences, or read their one-and-only denominational journal. Therefore, the older generation felt that their own experiences proved that education was not necessary. They initially resisted the cultural contextualization of Kazakh churches, namely, using the Kazakh language and traditions during services, or using the word Allah for God. But they changed their views. Pastor Anton, who belonged to a denomination that existed during the Soviet era, complained that most senior leaders emigrated to the West soon after perestroika, being “seduced by money.”

A third institution in my study, a college in Kazakhstan, also suspended its main program in 2007 after having graduated over 250 pastors and other church leaders from its nine-month pastoral training program. Again, a decline in church growth led to a corresponding drop in enrollment. After enrollment began to fall, the college moved its training into the regions and opened ten satellite schools in four Central Asian countries. This program, called “Christian Education in the Regions,” consists of short training modules for leaders and active church members run by instructors coming from the central school. In response to falling fulltime enrollment, this institution, established to train church planters and pastors, re-oriented its program to train small group leaders. The principal pointed out that this change occurred not only because of a lack of students, but it also reflected the recent general shift in church-planting philosophy in Central Asia: from “classic” churches with one large Sunday gathering, to cell churches, replicating Korean, Chinese, and Latin American models.

In Kazakhstan in the spring of 2008 the government required all religious institutions to operate with an educational license. Not wanting to break the law, one school stopped offering its master’s of ministry degree. However, the school later realized that with its registration as a religious organization it could still offer small, informal seminars without offering any certification or degrees. The dean was considering a number of possibilities for moving forward, including relocating the program out of the country altogether, or trying to merge with an existing licensed university.

Causes for the Enrollment Decline: In Summary

All colleges under study are currently facing very significant challenges, above all, declining enrollment. Explanations include Central Asia’s dramatic societal, economic, and political changes, the general decline in church growth, emigration, the poor financial prospects for pastors, the low value of a theological diploma in a secular job market, as well as the bias of some church leaders against theological education.

Guidelines for Evaluating Theological Education

Donald Aleshire, executive director of the U.S. Association of Theological Schools, rightly draws the attention of theological educators to the importance of not only assessing student learning, but evaluating the educational program itself: “It is altogether possible that students could graduate knowing everything they were taught, but because they were taught all the wrong things, not function well in ministry.”1 This warning is particularly important since theological programs in the former Soviet Union are mostly aping standard, well-established Western theological curricula.

Moreover, the region’s most influential policymaker in the area of evangelical theological education, the Euro-Asian Accrediting Association (E-AAA), seems to have made little attempt to take into account what graduates themselves are actually getting out of the programs, the main emphasis being academic recognition for its member schools. Thus, in 1998, one of the leaders emphasized that the standards for the theological programs’ assessment would not be based on the graduates, but on various aspects of the “academic process,” such as “hours in class, testing methods, pages read, organizational stability, organizational legality, office management, program leadership and administration, [and] student activities.”2 National church leaders express concerns about the inadequacy of an un-contextualized and uncritical transfer of Western theological curriculum into a very different cultural and social setting

A Classroom-Ministry Disconnect

Graduates interviewed generally shared a positive view of their training: They believed that it had positively influenced their character formation and that it had provided them with helpful biblical knowledge, certain ministry skills, and a desire to continue learning. Strikingly, however, most graduates could not articulate links between the training they had received and their ability to deal with their current professional problems. The majority of graduates pointed to the particular value of the knowledge they received from experienced practitioners, or the knowledge they acquired while involved in practical ministry during their studies. In many cases training failed to equip students to integrate classroom studies with practical ministry; it also lacked spiritual mentoring and it placed a disproportionate emphasis upon subjects that had few obvious links to practice.

In most cases Western theological education in Central Asia has not been contextualized. Culturally adapted training means translating a theological curriculum into the local language, substituting nationals for foreign teachers, and finding local examples to illustrate subject matter. Better yet, nationals write their own curriculum and develop their own indigenous theologies. This is the point of view that I heard from both national leaders and from many expatriate missionaries involved in church development and theological education in the region. This much I expected.

However, one of my most surprising findings was that only a quarter (nine) of the graduates interviewed pointed to cross-cultural issues as bearing any significance for effective learning. Rather, the majority were more concerned with the practical application of what their teachers taught, which in turn was linked not to their teachers’ cultural background, but primarily to their practical experience, personal spiritual maturity, and teaching expertise. Although graduates did praise a few talented and experienced national teachers, many pointed out that it was better to have experienced, seasoned foreign teachers than young, inexperienced national teachers. Even worse was to have foreign teachers with no serious ministry or teaching experience. Moreover, counter to my initial assumptions, many graduates commended and used ideas they borrowed from popular Western Christian authors to develop their own thinking and practice, including Larry Crabb, Philip Yancey, Rick Warren, and John Maxwell. Graduates were intelligent and reflective enough to be able to contextualize these ideas to their local situations for themselves.

Graduates who believed they received the most benefit from their training for their later professional practice were the ones who were either actively involved in a local church ministry or who actively participated in student mission activities during their training. The theory-practice gap was minimal for them, as they were able to quickly transfer the learning that they needed and to rapidly contextualize information for immediate use. At the same time, the majority of the criticisms from graduates were directed not at culturally un-contextualized theological training, but at the larger issue of the theory-practice divide, which is relevant not only to Central Asia, but to theological education everywhere.3

Theological education in Central Asia seems to have inherited the common flaws of theological education elsewhere. The major concerns are the same as in the United States: the applicability of theological knowledge, the lack of practical ministry, and the need for spiritual formation. In other words, the challenge seems to be not so much contextualizing theological education for Central Asia, but contextualizing theological education to real-life ministerial practice, regardless of the locale.

Faculty Modeling and Mentoring: Incidental Versus Intentional

Although the Central Asian institutions studied were relatively successful in the spiritual formation of their students, it was the incidental outcome of the personal influence of their teachers, rather than the formal content of their training. Instructors who are experienced and spiritually mature practitioners serve as models, mentors, and sources of authoritative practical knowledge for students. The importance of modeling and mentoring for the training of ministers was confirmed by another finding: about a third of the pastors found mentoring support essential for their further professional and personal development after graduation.

 The importance of mentoring for professional development is widely discussed in the literature on professional training, and in many cases is accepted as an integral part of professional development.4 Unfortunately, this is not the case in theological education in general, where mentoring is often viewed as “nice,” but not essential. As my findings show, theological institutions in Central Asia are not an exception to the general rule. While one Kyrgyz institution took mentoring seriously through its “curator” (spiritual supervisor) of students, most of the modeling and mentoring that occurred in the schools under review happened informally and was virtually a by-product of the training experience.

 Addressing the Crisis in Theological Education: Four Options

Evangelical theological education in Central Asia is at a critical stage because of weak ties with local churches, the severe shortage of students, the increase of government pressure, and the oversupply of various training courses which affects the quality of teaching. Several graduates considered the sheer number of theological institutions detrimental to the quality of ministry training. The supply of training opportunities has outgrown the demand. Church leaders often have chosen schools for their ministerial candidates based on free tuition. This has created a problem through negative competition: institutions with higher admission standards have been losing applicants because many Western-funded programs charge no fees. It would appear that to avoid extinction, major changes must be undertaken. Fortunately, theological colleges in Central Asia should be able to adapt more easily than their Western counterparts since these institutions are very young, are small in size, and are not yet burdened by traditionalism. They are, in fact, willing to change and are actively looking for ways forward.

The schools may consider several options. They may attempt to tap a new market, targeting the desire of younger Christians for a good general higher education, similar to the education provided by Christian liberal arts colleges in the United States. Some elements of this vision were being considered by two of the colleges studied. However, this approach might also create significant tensions with the expectations of all major stakeholders, including local churches, denominational leaders, Western financial sponsors, and even the staff of the colleges.

Another option might be to move in the direction of more generic professional training, for example, to offer degrees in leadership development that could be used both in ministry and in the business world. Alongside courses in biblical knowledge and ministry skills, courses could be offered in counseling, social psychology, leadership, management, organizational development, strategic planning, time management, financial planning, starting a business, and possibly even some vocational programs such as heating systems and welding.

A third option might be for the colleges to shift their emphasis entirely from leadership development to educating lay people by providing short-term training courses in churches. This seems to be the direction at least two colleges in my study are heading. In this case, they will remain within the “schooling” model, primarily providing the transfer of biblical knowledge, which is in itself valuable in the context of Central Asia. Finally, theological training colleges could retain their major emphasis on ministerial training, but dramatically revise the curricula stressing practical applications of training, problem-based learning, and learner-centered instruction (to be described below).

From a Schooling to a Missional Model

I suspect that today’s preoccupation with contextualizing Western theological education for the non-Western world might be obscuring a much more significant systemic issue in theological education. While efforts directed towards encouraging national churches to develop their own indigenous theologies are commendable, in themselves they are not likely to initiate the much-needed systemic paradigm shift in national seminaries from a schooling model to a greater praxis orientation. Instead, these efforts may result in the development of national theological faculties with their own indigenous contextual theology, but who fundamentally retain the same academic approach to training. Instead of reading Calvin, they might start reading non-Western theologians. But without constant, carefully supervised and reflective involvement with ministerial praxis, these institutions are as likely as ever to produce the phenomenon that Elliott refers to as a “trained incapacity to deal with the real problems of actual living persons in their daily lives.”5

The findings of this study support R. Banks and A.G. Harkness in their insistence on a paradigm shift in theological education from a schooling model, still prevalent today, to a missional model.6 Along with Harkness, I question the traditional framework of ministerial training with its fourfold divisions of biblical studies, systemic theology, church history, and practical theology. Instead, what is needed today is a more holistic model, centered on the actual ministry of the church.

 Notes:

1Donald O. Aleshire, “The Character and Assessment of Learning for Religious Vocation: M. Div. Education and Numbering the Levites,” Theological Education 39 (2003), 11.

2Mark R. Elliott, “Recent Research on Evangelical Education in Post-Soviet Societies,” Religion in Eastern Europe 19 (February 1999), 51.

3R. Banks, Reenvisioning Theological Education (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999); A. G. Harkness, “De-schooling the Theological Seminary: An Appropriate Paradigm for Effective Ministerial Formation,” Teaching Theology and Religion 4 (2001), 141-54; L. M. Cannell, “Theological Education in the 21st Century, [manuscript draft] (Deerfield, IL: 2003).

4T. Maynard and J. Furlong, “Learning to Teach and Models of Mentoring” in D. McIntyre, H. Hagger, and M. Wilkin, eds., Mentoring: Perspectives on School-Based Teacher Education (London: Kogan Page, 1993); V. Brooks and P. Sikes, The Good Mentor Guide. Initial Teacher Education in Secondary Schools (Buckingham, England: Open University Press, 1997).

5Mark R. Elliott, “Theological Education After Communism: The Mixed Blessing of Western Assistance,” Asbury Theological Journal 50 (Spring 1995), 70.

6R. Banks, Reenvisioning Theological Education (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999); A. G. Harkness, “De-schooling the Theological Seminary: An Appropriate Paradigm for Effective Ministerial Formation,” Teaching Theology and Religion 4 (2001), 141-54.

Editor’s note: The concluding portion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 18 (Spring 2010).

Insur Shamgunov currently works as a management consultant for a human relations firm in London, England.

Edited excerpts published with permission from Insur Shamgunov, “Listening to the Voice of the Graduate: An Analysis of Professional Practice and Training for Ministry in Central Asia,” Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 2009.

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Volume 18, No.1

The Defense of Velimirović: More Troubling Than Velimirović

Still, the main problem with contemporary Christian-Jewish relations in Serbia lies not in what Velimirović was really like, but in his remembrance and his uncritical adulation. It is to be found in the attempts to justify and excuse his stance toward Jews and present it as normal, acceptable, and even necessary. The reluctance by church authorities to address the controversy surrounding his writings obscures the boundaries between the extreme and the mainstream in Serbian Orthodox culture and in so doing facilitates the promulgation of anti-Jewish prejudice and feeds political extremism. F

Notes:

1 H.P. Freidenreich, The Jews of Yugoslavia: A Quest for Community (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979); Z. Lebl, Do “konačnog rešenja”: Jevreji u Beogradu, 1521-1942 [Until the “Final Solution”; Jews in Belgrade 1521-1942] (Belgrade: Čigora, 2001); L. Sekelj, Vreme beščašća [The Age of Dishonor] (Belgrade: Akademija Nova, 1995).

2 Lj. Ranković, “Zvona zvone Vladici [Bells Toll for the Bishop],” Večernje Novosti, 21 June 2003; http://www.novosti.co.yu/code/navigate.php?Id=16&status=jedna&datum=2003-06-21&feljton=3655.

3 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2 June 2003.

4 J. Hellig, The Holocaust and Antisemitism: A Short History (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002); R. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Antisemitism (New York: Seabury, 1974).

5 J. Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002; D. Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfilled Duty of Repair (New York: Knopf, 2002); R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (London: Holmes & Meier, 1985).

6 G. Baum, “Introduction” in R. Ruether, ed., Faith and Fratricide, 1-22.

7 Velimirović, Poruka, 194.

8 M. Billig, Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 250.

9 Goldhagen, Moral Reckoning, 85.

Edited excerpts reprinted with permission from Jovan Byford, Denial and Repression of Anti-Semitism; Post-Communist Remembrance of the Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2008).

Jovan Byford is a lecturer in psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.

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Volume 18, No.1

For the Love of God: Faith-Based Nonprofits in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Shawn Teresa Flanigan

Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of several states that emerged from the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It is situated in southeastern Europe, bordered by Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia. In recent years the name Bosnia and Herzegovina brings to mind images of Serb campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced millions more in the early 1990s.1 In the face of the humanitarian disaster of the Yugoslav Civil War, a large number of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) began to operate in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The end of Communism in the former Yugoslavia created a new civic space for voluntary associations and nonprofit organizations, and in response to the great needs created by the war, many local social service NGOs, both faith-based and secular, also began to emerge in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ethno-Religious Identity

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s population of 4.5 million is composed of Bosniaks (48 percent), Serbs (37.1 percent), Croats (14.3 percent), and others (0.6 percent). Bosniaks are predominantly Sunni Muslim; Serbs, Eastern Orthodox; and Croats, Roman Catholic.2 Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ethnic and religious communities match quite closely: Muslims, 40 percent; Orthodox, 31 percent; and Roman Catholics, 15 percent.3 Other religions (14 percent) include a very small Jewish community and a growing number of Protestant Christians.

Before the civil war Yugoslavia was a federation of eight federal units, including the six republics of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro, and two autonomous provinces inside Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina. While only Slovenia was ethnically homogenous, five of the six republics were inhabited primarily by the ethnic group for which they were named. The exception was Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was ethnically diverse with no single majority group.

Civil War Violence

The Yugoslav Civil War was the worst eruption of violence in Europe since World War II. “The human costs of fighting included about a quarter of a million dead, millions of refugees, mass rapes and other atrocities, and devastation of entire cities and regions.”4 Serbia’s ethnic cleansing policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina were applied through mass murder, torture, and large-scale deportation of civilians with internment in detention or concentration camps.5 Also infamous was the Serbian practice of systematically raping and impregnating women and girls.6

M. Sells characterizes nationalism in the former Yugoslavia as religious, in which fundamentalist versions of Christianity and nationalism “reinforce each other and merge.”7 However, while acknowledging that religious identity is crucially important to understanding the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, most scholars characterize it as an ethnic conflict. Nevertheless, ethnicity and religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina are so intertwined that a religious dimension clearly emerged during the conflict. Much of the violence targeted mosques and churches which were systematically destroyed while outside actors supported those with whom they shared religious ties

Religion, Violence, and NGOs

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, each of the three primary religious communities has a single dominant faith-based social service organization (FBO), while in some instances a few other small, local FBOs have emerged in the same faith community. However, the scope and scale of these local organizations are quite small. Instead, international FBOs, which arrived in the region to provide aid during and following the war, are predominant.9

In many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, an era of Soviet-style Communism destroyed previous traditions of civic engagement and political representation.10 With the notable exception of the International Red Cross, NGOs that provided social services, particularly religious NGOs, did not exist. In its short history, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s NGO sector has become quite large, with estimates of the number of its NGOs ranging from several hundred to several thousand. Of such groups registered with the government, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) estimates that approximately 30 percent have developmental and humanitarian aims.11

The Role of Faith in Social Service NGOs

The following social service NGO table shows the religious identity of the NGOs included in the sample for the present research and the number of interview participants from each faith community. In addition, the percentage of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina belonging to each religious group and the percentage of FBO interview participants from each religious group are included. The sample for the study was somewhat over-representative of Christian organizations (61.1 percent of the sample versus 46 percent of the population).12 Nevertheless, I believe the chart reasonably reflects Bosnia and Herzegovina’s NGO sector, though admittedly less.

The Added Value of Faith

In the United States, proponents of increasing faith-based service delivery argue that FBOs add a desirable moral or spiritual component to services provided, and that they are more effective because their staff and volunteers are more caring and supportive.13 Numerous interview participants from FBOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina likewise believed that religious identity gave added benefits to their NGOs. Thirteen of the 18 interview participants from FBOs enumerated additional benefits they believed their organizations provided, including:

more individualized and compassionate service;•

more highly committed and motivated workers;•

more effective service due to church networks;•

more secure funding and more flexible use of • funding; and

the ability to promote reconciliation.•

One Christian FBO interview participant described the role of faith as follows:

In terms of how we interact with people, I cannot say the other NGOs are bad, and we are the best. No. Everyone is giving very much. But somehow when you feel this in your heart, that this work is given to you by God, maybe you behave a bit different. Maybe your arms are a bit more open, and your heart is a bit more open.

An interview participant from a Muslim FBO also indicated that she believed religion of any sort gave FBO employees more empathy for their clients: 

I believe that religious NGOs have more benefits to give. Any organization that is a religious organization, in any religion, if someone who works there is really a person who believes in God in any way and is true to himself and what he believes, he must be more empathetic because this is originally from religion.

More Effective Social Service Due to Church Networks

Three interview participants from Catholic FBOs believed church networks allowed them to be more effective in their work. As one interview participant explained:

It’s wonderful because [the local Catholic NGO] has some grassroots networks, and we couldn’t reach those people without those grassroots networks. So that is a real benefit to being a Catholic organization and having a Catholic partner, because they have those parish structures. This gives us an advantage over some other foreign organizations who maybe come in and don’t have any natural partner to work with as soon as they arrive.

More Secure and Flexible Funding

Another interesting benefit mentioned by three of the interview participants from Catholic FBOs and one interview participant from another Christian FBO was that, because their financial support came from religious sources, they believed their funds were more secure and they could use them more flexibly. One interview participant explained,

We are fortunate that we are able to raise money from people in [our home country], many of whom are Catholic, so we don’t have to go out and fund-raise for my salary. I can allocate my time in a much more flexible manner. There are some organizations that ran their projects here on grant only, and so when their grant ran out, they had to close their doors.

Ability to Promote Reconciliation

A final benefit FBO interview participants mentioned was that they thought their religious identity allowed them to promote understanding and reconciliation among Bosnia and Herzegovina’s different ethno-religious groups. As one interview participant from a Catholic FBO noted:

We as a faith-based organization are showing that we are not only working for Catholics but also for other groups, and I think this is something very special to show people that you don’t only look at your own group, but that you are trying to support people in need. Honestly, I think that is one of the most important things we do here.

While participants from Muslim FBOs also spoke of the ways that inclusiveness in outreach could help promote greater understanding, they also spoke of the important role their FBO needed to play in improving impressions of Muslims in light of terror attacks in recent years. As one participant explained:

You know, in the world generally people think bad about Islam because of all these terrorist attacks. But we just try to explain the rules of Islam, because of course every Muslim is not a good Muslim. We have to make a difference between bad people who happen to be Muslims and what they do, and what Islam really is.

It is interesting to note that interview participants from Orthodox FBOs were the only participants who did not see any added value from the religious orientation of their organization. This was the case even when interview participants were asked directly about any benefits they felt faith brought to their organization Editor’s note: The conclusion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report.

Notes:

1 S. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).

2 Ibid.

3 CIA, Factbook Bosnia-Herezgovina (Washington, D.C.: CIA, 2006).

4 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 165.

5 H. Rae, State Identities and the Homogenisation of Peoples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

6 B. Allen, Rape Warfare; The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); A. Stiglmayer, Mass Rape: The War against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1994).

7 M. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 89.

8 Rae, State Identities; S.M. Saideman, The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy, and International Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).

9 International Council of Voluntary Agencies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, The ICVA Directory of Humanitarian and Development Agencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo: International Council of Voluntary Agencies, 2005.

10 A. Fagan, “Taking Stock of Civil-Society Development in Post-Communist Europe: Evidence from the Czech Republic,” Democratization 12 (No. 4, 2005), 528-47.

11 ICVA, ICVA Directory.

12 The figure for the percent of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina that is Christian is based on CIA World Factbook (2006) estimates of Catholic and Orthodox populations in the country. However, an additional 14 percent of the population is categorized as “other.” Due to a small preexisting Protestant Christian population and the influx of Christian missionaries following the war, this figure is likely to be partially, if not predominantly, composed of other Christian denominations. Therefore, the total population of Christians in Bosnia and Herzegovina is likely to be higher than 46 percent.

13 M. Chaves and W. Tsitsos, “Congregations and Social Services: What They Do, How They Do It, and with Whom,” Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30 (No. 4, 2001), 660-83; H. Ebaugh, J. Saltzman Chafetz, and P. Pipes, “Faith-Based Social Service Organizations and Government Funding: Data from a National Survey,” Social Science Quarterly 86 (No. 2, 2005), 273-92; P. Frumkin, On Being Nonprofit: A Conceptual and Policy Primer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); S.V. Monsma, When Sacred and Secular Mix: Religious Nonprofit Organizations and Public Money (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996): A.L. Sherman, “Cross Purposes: Will Conservative Welfare Reform Corrupt Religious Charities?,” Policy Review (1995), 58-63; J. Singletary and C. Collins, “The Rest of the Story: The Perspective of Faith-Based Program Participants,” paper presented at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Los Angeles, CA, 2004.

Edited excerpts published with permission from Shawn Teresa Flanigan, “For the Love of God: Ethno-Religious Identity and Faith-Based Nonprofit Service Provision in Contexts of Violence,” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Albany, 2007.

Shawn Teresa Flanigan is an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs at San Diego State University, San Diego, California.

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Volume 18, No.1

Russian Orthodox Attitudes on Church-State Issues

Christopher Marsh

Editor’s Note: The first portion of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 17 (Fall 2009): 10-13.

Orientation toward Society

While the church might not be seen as having the answers to society’s problems, Orthodox Christians in Russia are not distanced from community life and the plight of those around them. (See Table 3.) Nearly 80 percent of devout Orthodox responded that they were concerned with the sick and disabled, with more than 50 percent responding that they were prepared to help in any way they could. Cultural Orthodox were not far behind, with nearly 70 percent and just below 50 percent feeling the same way. Finally, non-religious Russians were only a step behind the Orthodox, with nearly 60 percent expressing concern and 45 percent willing to help the sick.

When it comes to one’s neighbors, however, all groups are less concerned and prepared to help than they are for the sick and disabled. For example, only 31.4 percent of devout Orthodox were prepared to help their neighbors, while 26.8 percent of cultural Orthodox and 22.6 percent of non-religious Russians responded the same way. Quite interesting, however, is the fact that all three groups were more concerned with their fellow countrymen than with their neighbors. While 28.8 percent of devout Orthodox were concerned for their fellow countrymen, only

 21.8 percent were concerned for the living conditions of their neighbors, with similar disparities for the cultural Orthodox and non-religious respondents. One possible explanation may be the ethnic dimension of Russian life, since respondents may have had in mind their ethnic kin when being asked about fellow countrymen. In this regard, all Russians have a marked tendency, no matter what their religious behavior, to identify more with their “imagined” national community than their actual neighborhood community.1 To the extent that this is so, it raises serious and somewhat disturbing questions about the prospect of genuine democratization, given the world-historical experience of the vibrancy of national level democracy being contingent upon the vibrancy of local level civic engagement.2

Church-State Relations and Religion in the Public Square

Having examined a range of religious, civic, and political orientations, we can now turn to the issue of church-state relations in Russia, a topic that has rarely been examined with the use of survey data. As noted above, a significant disparity exists among devout Orthodox, cultural Orthodox, and non-religious Russians in terms of their belief that the church can provide answers to social problems, with more than 40 percent of devout Orthodox feeling so while less than 10 percent of non-religious respondents agreeing. These data suggest that the overwhelming majority of Russians simply do not view the Orthodox Church as a significant source of social improvement. They also imply that Russian public opinion is almost certain to be significantly divided regarding such issues as separation of church and state and the role of religion in the public square.

To begin with an objective question, devout Orthodox are significantly more likely to believe that the church influences national politics, irrespective of whether or not they feel that this is positive, with 43.8 percent of devout Orthodox and 39.6 percent of cultural Orthodox holding this opinion, as compared to only 31.4 percent of non-religious respondents. (See Table 4.) And whereas 67.5 percent of non-religious objected to religious leaders influencing government decisions, only 48.6 percent of devout thought similarly. Finally, all respondents were less open to religious leaders influencing the way people vote, again with non-religious Russians more opposed to this practice (79.2 percent) than the devout (63.6 percent).

When we look more directly at issues relating to the impact of religious belief, the disparities in opinion among the three groups become even clearer. While less than 10 percent of non-religious respondents felt that politicians who do not believe in God are unfit for public office, this number more than doubles for cultural Orthodox (26.1 percent) and reaches almost 50 percent for the devout. Similarly, only a quarter of non-religious Russians felt that society would be better if more people with religious beliefs held office, but 80 percent of the devout thought so, with 55.5 percent of cultural Orthodox agreeing.

What does all of this tell us about popular conceptions of church-state relations in Russia today? For one, only a thin wall of separation between church and state seems to exist. On the one hand, it is true that a majority of all Russians polled believed that religious leaders should not influence government decisions or how people vote (although the devout Orthodox as a group was less resolute on the topic of influencing government decisions than their fellow countrymen). In a country with no real history of separation of church and state, where politicians regularly try to enact policies favorable to the Orthodox Church, and the patriarch presides over the president’s inauguration ceremony, the existence of even this thin wall of separation may be surprising to some. On the other hand, as students of Russian history are acutely aware, the Russian (and Soviet) government’s overtures to the church have almost always resulted in the subordination of the latter, resulting in the curtailment of religious freedoms more than the enactment of religiously based policies.3

Although Russians appear to value a limited separation of church and state, we can probably also conclude that not many wish to see religion divorced from public life. Thus, their version of a modern “secular state,” to use the French term, may be more akin to the American or German models in which church and state are distinct but somewhat interactive, rather than the French or Mexican models, in which the secular state is demonstrably suspicious of institutionalized religion. For example, devout Orthodox clearly support the involvement of religious individuals in political affairs, with well over three-quarters thinking that believers could make a difference in society. Although devout Orthodox may be more focused on other-worldly issues, they feel that in this world religious believers can make a difference, an opinion with which even a quarter of non-religious Russians agree.

Religiosity, Civic Engagement, and Church-State Relations in Russia

The data analyzed above allow us to reach several tentative conclusions regarding religious, social, and civic life in Russia today. For one, Russian Orthodox Christians are considerably more religious than some have argued. While their regular church attendance might remain low by American standards, they are quite prayerful and religious people. Moreover, Russian Orthodox Christians tend to be more civic-minded and socially concerned than their non-Orthodox fellow citizens. The degree to which their interest in society and politics has thus far evolved into direct political participation, however, is still open to debate. While their membership in political organizations remains low, they are active in charitable activities and social programs. Quite interestingly, Stephen White and Ian McAllister have also shown that Russians who attend Orthodox churches frequently are more likely to participate in elections, a critical development in a country undergoing a democratic transition.4

With a thousand-year history of Orthodox Christianity, it is only natural for religious and cultural values to become fused—even to the point that some identify themselves as “Orthodox atheists,” such as Aleksandr Lukashenko, president of Belarus. More devout Orthodox tend to hold views distinct from their fellow countrymen. However, given their small numbers (perhaps somewhere in the area of 10 to15 percent of the population), their impact is likely to remain limited. When considering the much-touted divide between Western Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, therefore, the values of this group cannot be considered representative of anywhere near even a plurality of Russians, let alone a majority. Likewise, the use of a simple dichotomy between Orthodox and non-Orthodox is clearly no longer an adequate means of classifying religious believers in Russia today. When discussing political and social orientations of Russian Orthodox Christians, we must also bring into the equation varying degrees of religiosity.

The religious, civic, and political orientations of Russian Orthodox Christians have serious implications for Russia’s new political and social order. And while Orthodox believers appear to have a unique conception of the role of religion in political life, the data above make it abundantly clear that it is not one of the church taking over society. As Lawrence Uzzell phrased it in his investigation of this topic, the chances that Orthodox Christianity might replace “Marxism-Leninism as the compulsory state ideology” in Russia are not very high. As he concludes, state discrimination in favor of the Russian Orthodox Church may be common, but it is not based on any real theological concerns. Rather than paying such great attention to some of the rhetoric coming out of the Moscow Patriarchate, therefore, we should pay more attention to the opinions of Russians themselves, because official church pronouncements do not necessarily reflect actual popular opinion to any great degree. Indeed, declarations from the Moscow Patriarchate do not accurately reflect public opinion, but rather, are intended to shape it. Thus, it is critically important to avoid confusing and conflating official ex cathedra statements, including the Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, with actual beliefs among the population.

Based on the evidence presented here, if given the opportunity to make democratic choices, the Russian people are likely to support a cultural role for the Russian Orthodox Church. In addition, they would possibly support a system that gives preferential treatment to the majority confession. From the perspective of Western liberal democracy and the prospect of it taking root in Russia, the good news is that Russians themselves would prefer for such a preferential status to exist only within certain prescribed limits. F

Notes:

1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).

2 In the Russian case, this issue has been explored most robustly by James Warhola, “Is the Russian Federation Becoming More Democratic: Moscow-Regional Relations and the Development of the Post-Soviet Russian State,” Democratization 6 (1999): 42-69.

3 Dmitriy Pospielovsky, The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998); Nikolas Gvosdev, An Examination of Church-State Relations in the Byzantine and Russian Empires with an Emphasis on Ideology and Models of Interaction (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 2001).

4 “Orthodoxy and Political Behavior in Post-Communist Russia,” Review of Religious Research 41 (2000): 359-72.

Christopher Marsh is director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

Edited excerpts reprinted with permission from Christopher Marsh, “Russian Orthodox Christians and Their Orientation toward Church and State” in Perspectives on Church-State Relations in Russia, ed. by Wallace L. Daniel, Peter L. Berger, and Christopher Marsh (Waco, TX: J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, 2008).