After
the collapse of the Soviet regime, a great number of
missionaries have arrived at Russian soil to assist the
great task of re-evangelizing the nation. Yet, mission
in partnership is at stake as some have raised the
question: "Why are missionaries coming to preach to
Christians in Russia?" In fact, every amounting tension
between Russian host churches and Evangelical mission
churches goes back to this one unresolved question.
The argument is that
the seventy-five years of "the Babylon exile" under the
Communist iron had not blot out the rich Christian
heritage deeply embedded in Russian culture from a
thousand year of Christian history. Yet, what we observe
in Russia is the co-existence of Christian and Communist
philosophies. We find the unique of Russian context in
the three mosaics: A mosaic of European and Asian
cultures, a mosaic of rich heritage of Russian
Spirituality and the practices of unreached people
groups, and a mosaic of devoted Christians and those who
have become nominal.
In this regard, let
me describe the two mission frontiers where both Russian
Protestant and Russian Orthodox Christians must stand
together and cooperate. First, we have a mission
frontier for re-evangelizing nominal Christians who are
exposed to every influence of Western secularism. Here,
there is no neutron zone. If we do not win their souls
to Christ, the world will take them. The Russian
Orthodoxy can stop missionaries coming. But, they cannot
stop the sweeping influence of Western materialism. Now
the question is: Is this the result they expect to
achieve by endorsing the New Religious Law?
I believe that
Russian Orthodox and Russian Evangelical Christians can
find a common ground in our mission theology. Admitting
that Western missionaries have been sometime culturally
insensitive, yet we can focus on what we can do together
for greater harvest. For this, we will need a
missiological dialogue.
Second, we also face
a mission frontier to Muslim. Describing it from a
Korean perspective, our missionary service in Russia is
more than just coming to a former communist country. We
are coming to a land where Moslem is growing fast. In
this sense, we can say that our missionary task in
Russia include evangelism to people groups with Moslem
backgrounds. And this is the area where Russian
Protestants, Russian Orthodox and incoming missionaries
can find a common ground to cooperate. Historically
speaking, the Communist years in Russia was not only the
years of persecution of Christianity, but also a time of
weakening Muslim religion within the former Soviet
territories.
In Russian history,
Muslim is not a traditional faith. Christian faith and
Muslim religion could never coexist together. If one did
not conquer the other, it meant being conquered by the
other. They have shared the same citizenship whether the
Muslim ruled or Russians ruled. They conquered each
other by the military power, but one thing they could
not do. They could not share the same faith, they could
not proselytize each other. Sharing the same
citizenship, they were quite different people group,
people of different cultures, and people of different
heart languages. Advancing to Muslim's territory, the
Russian Orthodoxy found themselves still far away from
the hearts of Muslim people groups. Mission to these
people groups remained unfinished missionary task when
they celebrated a thousand year of Christian faith.
Ironically, it was
the Communist atheist regime that had provided a highway
for gospel communication to these Muslims by weakening
them. In addition, Stalin's deportation policy played a
role too. In 1937, he deported a hundred thousand of
dispersed Koreans from the Far East to the Central Asia,
the very territory of the Soviet Muslims. In God’s
providence, the Turks in Central Asia including the
Uzbeks and the Kazakhs share the same cultural and
linguistic origin with Koreans. The missiological
importance of the dispersed Koreans in the Former Soviet
Union, namely "Koryo-in" or "the Soviet Koreans" is that
they can play the role of cultural bridge for Korean
missionaries. In this regard, Korean missionaries stand
as the ally of the Russian Orthodox Christians in their
mission frontier to the Muslims.
Speaking of mission
to Russia, I do not encourage using the word, "mission."
Russia is not Africa of the eighteenth century.
Appearing to be a nominal society, yet Russia has her
own rich spiritual heritage. Therefore, it must be clear
that our calling to Russia is the work of empowerment,
that is, the work of assisting the indigenous Christian
movements in Russia. In the New Testament, we find that
the Antioch church was not the replica of the Jerusalem
church. Thus, the goal of our mission is not to
transplant or insist our cultural form and our church
model, but to empower their Antioch church movements.
I believe our
mission theology of the Kingdom can help us to be united
across denominations. Here, missionaries have their
share of the role as bridge builders. We go not to stand
against the Russian Orthodox Church, but to stand by
them for our shared goal of building God’s Kingdom in
Russia. Therefore, it should be our priority work that
we build bridges between the denominational gaps.
Indeed, we have an urgent need to develop a mission
theology of unity for our partnership in mission in
Russia.
Finally, I must appeal the need of
partnership in mission among Evangelicals, namely,
Evangelical unity because our Evangelical mission has a
multi-denominational structure. Missionaries should work
in supporting relationship. When Paul was suffering from
his unduly reputation in Jerusalem, Barnabas protected
him. By protecting him as a potential missionary leader,
Barnabas was protecting the potential of the Christian
mission movements in Antioch. Now, is not this the kind
of partnership in mission for which we need to build a
bridge across Evangelical denominational gaps in Russia?