No Temptation: A Christian Response to the Annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Federation
Part I in a series by Reverend Blake Purcell, SRS Field Director
While I recover from some of the most interesting and fruitful three weeks of ministry in our 25 years in the USSR and Russia, I began to think about Crimea in light of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The third habit is to listen in order to understand, not to answer. In teaching our course on missiology last week I realized that I needed to understand where our Russian speaking pastors are coming from in their view of Russia’s recent actions in the Ukraine. It dawned on me that their situation is a lot like the situation the Southern Presbyterian Church was in in the mid-1800's leading up to our War Between the States.
In the South in the USA in 1861, public opinion was so strong for slavery that the Church was unwilling to honestly study the question in the light of scripture, and therefore blindly followed popular opinion. The South practiced self-censoring on slavery and the Church quickened her nation’s destruction. (More on this in another blog.)
Russia now seems to be all for the annexation of Crimea and the Church, Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic, here has largely been silent. Self-censoring is going on and a huge propaganda war is playing out in the almost-all state controlled newspapers and television of Russia.
Christian response #1: Acknowledge All Strong Nations Are Equally Tempted
In my course last week I was able to not only let the Russian pastors know that my American South has been in a similar situation, but that all large and powerful nations are met with similar temptations.
Paul said in I Corinthians 10:13, No temptation has overtaken you but that which is common to man; God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will always provide a way out, that you may be able to endure it.
Temptations of nations that are stronger militarily than their neighbors will always be similar to those warned against in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Nations that multiply weapons of war, sex objects and money will always lift up their heart against their brothers in neighboring nations.
Christian response #2: Remember that we (America) has sinned in this area of life
This is exactly what American president James K. Polk did in 1846 with our poorer and weaker neighbor nation Mexico. Half of Mexico, called the Northern Territory, at that point in time made up of west Texas, and what was to become the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California and more. Many Americans believed in “manifest destiny”, that is, that God had ordained America to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and any action on our part to take that land was sanctioned by God. President Polk offered to buy this huge Northern Territory of Mexico for 30 million dollars, but when this was rejected by Mexico, he sent troops to the border area with Mexico hoping that some pretense would arise that could be used to justify an invasion of Mexico. One soon occurred and he invaded in 1847.
Never did he dream that the Mexicans would not sell the land, nor allow themselves to be invaded without fighting the Americans until they could fight no more. Polk could not imagine that this land of mass poverty would have the temerity and gall to not sell half of their territory and lay down passively when invaded. America ended up having to send an Army all the way to Mexico City and fight in 4 major battles which caused the invading soldiers 30% mortality from disease and battle.
America, therefore was tempted to invade her weaker neighbor, and she did it, eventually convincing Mexico to sell her territory for only 15 million dollars. (The very next year, 1849, gold was discovered in California, which may have caused the price to go up about 1,000 fold.)
America was tempted and gave into temptation and committed a national crime.
Christian Response #3: Open debate and judgment on any issues of national morality must take place in that nation’s church
In so identifying our actions I am diverging from the pattern we see here in Russia now with the annexation of Crimea. Because in U.S. Congress in 1847 there actually was opposition to this war that was debated in the open and published in the newspapers.
Wikipedia on this war states:
Among the most vocal opposing the war in the House of Representatives was John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts. Adams had first voiced concerns about expanding into Mexican territory in 1836 when he opposed Texas annexation. He continued this argument in 1846 for the same reason. War with Mexico would add new slavery territory to the nation. When the vote to go to war with Mexico came to a vote on May 13, Adams spoke a resounding "NO" in the chamber. Only 13 others followed his lead…Joshua Giddings led a group of dissenters in Washington D.C. He called the war with Mexico “an aggressive, unholy, and unjust war,” and voted against supplying soldiers and weapons. He said:
In the murder of Mexicans upon their own soil, or in robbing them of their country, I can take no part either now or hereafter. The guilt of these crimes must rest on others. I will not participate in them.
Fellow Whig Abraham Lincoln contested the causes for the war and demanded to know exactly where Thornton (the commander of the troops in the incident used as an excuse for invasion) had been attacked and American blood shed. “Show me the spot,” he demanded.
Whig leader Robert Toombs of Georgia declared: This war is nondescript.... We charge the President with usurping the war-making power ... with seizing a country ... which had been for centuries, and was then in the possession of the Mexicans.... Let us put a check upon this lust of dominion. We had territory enough, Heaven knew.
…Acting on his convictions, Henry David Thoreau was jailed for his refusal to pay taxes to support the war, and penned his famous essay Civil Disobedience.
Here is where the analogy to America’s history with Mexico and Russia’s with Crimea breaks down. In our system, though it did not stop our sin, it did clearly identify it and appears to have kept us in check in the future as this was the only war for purely territorial gain in our history. In our open system of debate in Congress, and Congress having to back the president in order to send troops, and in our freedom of the press, national sins are called that, at least by a vocal few.
No such freedom of the press now exists in Russia, and the annexation of Crimea has not been labeled a sin by any group of politicians or churches that I know of. But the Bible requires Christians to judge all things, I Corinthians 2:15, and to expose evil, Ephesians 5:11. Therefore, for this debate to take place Russian Christians are going to have to dig and risk to find out the truth in this whole situation.
Christian Response #4: Embrace that perceptions of wrongdoing matter
And here is where the 7 Habits kick in again. Stephen Covey asserts the obvious. Perceptions matter! Until perceptions are dealt with, they function as realities. In Acts 24:16, Paul says he has to take pains to have a clear conscience toward God and man. Why “pains”? Because we have to prove to men that what we say and do is just and honest. The perception of men counts.
The European nations and USA now perceive that Russia’s annexation of Crimea has all the marks of the USA’s getting half of Mexico by extortion in 1848. Until those perceptions are dealt with nothing will change. And those nations have raised a cry as did John Quincy Adams in 1847 in Congress. “No” they have said to Russia, and they are voting with sanctions. Perceptions matter. It is not just the end result that matters, but how we go about it that matters. Ends do not justify the means to men made in God’s image. Never have, never will.
In my next blog I will consider how the 7 Habits (found in Scripture) could have lead America to a better way in 1847, and Russia today. Before I write it I hope to read what our Russian pastors have written on this issue to try to better understand them. May God bring us Shalom!
