"US panel: Religious freedoms ebbing in Russia."

[Strong Atheist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090501/ap_on_go_co/us_religious_freedom;_ylt=AtunqcrZtv7M7PW7HW1VE2c7Xs8F

[knitter4democracy]

1. It's because of Western Protestant missionaries.

The Russian Orthodox Church has been royally pissed off for years about the flood of Protestant missionaries (most are from the US) and have been doing their best to get the government to crack down on those guys. Many are flat-out con men (I've known a couple), and many are just plain awful people (got into a fight with one back at my college church here in the States--nasty person who had no business being in Russia at all and even refused to learn the language). I, for one, am all for them restraining that flood.

[Critters2]

2. And not all are fundies. Probably the worst offender is the United Methodist Church.

The UMC couldn't get missionaries into Russia fast enough. Now, the Russian Methodist church is a judicatory of the American church. That kind of imperialism is offensive no matter who's doing it. Too many Americans bought the fundie line that there were no Christians in Russia under the Soviets.

[knitter4democracy]

4. That's exactly it.

It smacks of imperialism to most Russians (they already have their own churches/mosques/temples/etc. and don't need Americans telling them what to do and how to do it).

[Occam Bandage]

3. So the Russian Orthodox Church is offended that protestant missionaries are coming over,

so they get the government to shut down all competing religious beliefs, and this is therefore the fault of the protestants? That's silly.

"Well, you made us take away your right to believe what you want. After all, some of you were choosing not to believe what we want you to!"

(I'm sure some missionaries are jerks. I really, really doubt that has anything to do with anything. The Tsar needs the Patriarch, and the Patriarch needs the Tsar.)

[knitter4democracy]

5. Last I knew, though, the law protects the faiths there before 1991.

Islam has a long tradition in many areas of Russia, and it's a protected faith, as is Judaism and several indigenous faiths of several different ethnic groups. I'd bet they're not the ones under attack like the newer churches run by American missionaries that deliberately undermine the work of the Russian church. The missionaries I worked with believed wholeheartedly that the Russian church is leading everyone to hell and needs to be wiped out and replaced by their own version of Christianity. It's that kind of stuff that the Russian church is fighting against.

From what I've read, the law passed when I was there in 1995 is still in effect, and protected faiths aren't under any kind of attack.

[Critters2]

6. Yep. What they're really trying to put a stop to is American imperialism

in the guise of Evangelical Protestantism.

[Occam Bandage]

8. Not at all, unless you buy into the Soviet-era mentality that

liberty is a tool of the American imperialists and must be destroyed. There is absolutely no legitimate reason why any government should revoke the right of the people to say what they want or think what they want. "Because otherwise they might believe things other than the things we tell them" is not a good excuse.

[Critters2]

9. I guess I come at it from a different perspective.

My own denomination doesn't send missionaries into any nation, unless they're invited by indigenous Christians. And when they are, they are considered employees of the indigenous church and must have a skill besides just evangelizing. We didn't buy the notion that there were no Christians in Russia during the Soviet-era, and didn't feel the need to create American-style Protestants there. I think it's just rude at a basic level to assume that a nation needs MY form of Christianity, when they have perfectly functional religions already in place. Especially when those religions are trying to come back from a very difficult period.

I just don't see why Russia needs an American-style Methodist church. But that's me.

[Occam Bandage]

10. It is certainly rude to send missionaries abroad.

It is also rude to clog up streets with protests. It is rude to interrupt hard-working government officials with grievances. It is rude to tell people that their opinions are dead wrong, on anything from gardening to politics to religion to music. These are all things that are entirely rude, but which may be undertaken in a free society, because a free society believes that as messy and rude as intellectual freedom can be, the alternative is tyrannical.

I have no love for missionaries. I detest them. They're egocentric, domineering, ignorant people who are little but a drain on society. Still, I really do not believe that Russia instituting these restrictions to protect the fragile ears of Russians against such rudeness. I believe it's simply just another part of Russia's ongoing campaign to reinstate Tsardom after the liberal aberration of the Yeltsin years. Certainly Russia has seen most of its political rights eradicated, and the Russian Orthodox Church has been enjoying progressively stronger backing from the government.

The Russian Tsars, be they Romanovs or Communists, have long bolstered their power by casting themselves as indispensible defenders of the faith, whether that faith is in Christ or is in the world revolution. It is a cynically effective formula: freedoms are restricted, the restriction is justified as a defense against those who would attack the beliefs held most dear by the Russian people, and that justification then pardons further restrictions of freedoms, as the people become conditioned to accept an unrestrained state as inseparable from Russian values.

I see the exact same happening here, with the same justifications, to the same ends.

[Critters2]

11. I'll concede these points, as it's clear you know more about

Russian culture than I do. I can only look at these things from the perspective of a liberal American Protestant Christian, cuz that's who I am. I have my reasons for being suspicious of American missionaries, Russia may have others. I can't speak for Russia.

Thanks for helping me to consider these matters from another POV.

Have a good night, Occam! :hi:

[Occam Bandage]

12. Have a good night yourself.

There's nothing wrong with your point of view; I'm sure Protestant missionaries are indeed culturally imperialist (as they see themselves as spreading American protestantism to foreigners), and they're certainly a scourge on whatever country is unfortunate enough to receive them.

We're just focusing on, as you say, different points of view on the conflict. Which is reasonable, when neither side is particularly admirable.

[Critters2]

13. True enough.

And it's good to have an amicable discussion of such things.

You're a good soul, Occam (with the coolest username on DU, btw). Me, I'm a tired one.

Have a good day, tomorrow. And thanks for an interesting conversation.

[Occam Bandage]

7. Well, yeah. Those religions are largely in ethnic enclaves and pose no threat

to the religious power structure. The Russian church is fighting against missionaries that threaten to open Russians' minds to the possibility that one can be religious and yet not accept the complete and unquestionable authority of the Church--and by extension, of the Tsar, and no, that paradigm is not purely one of the past.

No nation should restrict intellectual freedoms. That goes double if the reason that intellectual freedom is being restricted is because the subjects of the censorship are threatening the monolithic state religion. This isn't a defense of the Russian people; this is an expansion of the Russian dictatorship.

[knitter4democracy]

14. Um, have you been there or been to a Russian church?

That authority isn't there and hasn't been there, except among the faithful (and not even most of them), since the early 1800s. It was Stalin who brought back the Patriarch, and no one there's forgotten that small fact.

And this isn't about intellectual freedom. I've known missionaries who scammed their faithful out of Soviet-era items and then make their money by going back to the States to gun shows to sell them at huge profits. I went to a church there where the missionary had been there for 8 years and still didn't speak a word of Russian (and his translator had massive power in the church that the missionary didn't seem to worry about). I talked with many who went to that church and other mission churches who really thought that going to that church and knowing that American pastor would help them get an American visa faster--they didn't seem to understand the theology or anything that he was preaching about and just were there, hoping for a chance to emigrate.

His Eminence, Patriarch Alexii (may his memory be eternal), did go after more political power, but that's because the church had been entirely bankrupted by suddenly getting hundreds of properties that needed to be almost entirely rebuilt. He needed money for refurbishing all of those churches--which are a huge cultural treasure and should be maintained. The new Patriarch (I forget his name--he's really new) seems to be more worried about getting the Church on a better footing financially and getting more priests out in the parishes.

Honestly, the crap we were told during the Cold War and taught in our "World" history classes (always from that American POV) is often wrong. Ask the average Russian, and they look at those American missionaries as imperialist spies, not intellectuals trying to help them be free.

[TZ]

15. This from a country that has started carrying out anti-semitic laws again

Russia has a LOOONG history of this . Funny how people only notice this when its someone other than the Jews being targeted....:eyes: