How Moral Authority Is Lost
by Brian C. Stiller
It’s obvious to observers of modern media that as faith is written about with varying levels of interest, religion is given little weight in matters of public life. In short, “moral authority” and “religious leadership” are not usually linked together.
A recent book, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, shows in part why the Christian community is not taken seriously in world affairs. The authors, Christopher Andrew (professor of modern and contemporary history, chairman of the faculty of history at Cambridge University, and chairman of the British Intelligence Study Group) and Vasili Mitrokhin (he worked for 30 years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB in Moscow), point out the failure of the World Council of Churches to deal with the brazen violation of human and religious rights by the old Soviet Union. They also describe how the Soviets used the WCC on the world stage to mute any outrage against what was commonly understood as widespread Soviet anti-Christian repression.
For example, the KGB got one of their agents, Aleksei Buyevsky, on the drafting committee preparing for the 1975 Fifth Assembly of the WCC in Nairobi. Buyevsky effectively ensured that nothing would be said to discredit the Soviet bloc for their violation of human rights. Yet it was during that very same 1975 assembly that as the WCC slammed the West for its failures of “racism, sexism, classism and imperialism” they refused to consider the non-white racist issue of Uganda, which had ejected Asians from their country in 1972. Then in the general secretary’s August 1976 report on the progress of religious liberties, the authors allege that general secretary Dr. Philip Porter said nothing about the religious persecution in the Soviet community, even though violations were well known and widely reported especially with many warnings given by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Scharanshy and Irian Ratushinskava.
At the 1983 WCC Assembly in Vancouver, a letter was received from a Russian Orthodox deacon named Vladimir who appealed to delegates to “stop treating the propagandistic claims of Soviet delegates as the only source of information” on matters of religion in the Soviet Union. At the same assembly, the authors report, another letter was received concerning 35 imprisoned Soviet Christians and 20,000 persecuted Pentecostals. Again, “neither letter . . . was discussed at the assembly.” This despite the history of a Communist regime that had slaughtered more than the demonic brain-trust of Nazism ever imagined possible.
The moral impotence of the WCC in the face of violence and persecution of Christians and minorities of all sort has robbed the church of weight in matters of moral concern. While WCC members poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into their regional office in South Africa to bring the white supremacist government to its knees, this world body of historic churches and denominations fell to the prevaricating and intimidating tactics of the KGB and by so doing eroded her moral authority and therefore her power. This tragic story of the failure of the Christian community, led by the power brokers of worldwide denominations, is one that the emerging world evangelical community needs to understand in light of what its new role may become. It will be decades before the Christian community can face survivors of the gulags and prison camps of the former Soviet bloc with any sort of credibility. We ask the WCC, how is it that you saw only the sins of South Africa and led us to believe that the KGB was more credible than groups such as Keston College in England?
In sharp contrast to this moral leadership vacuum was the election of the Polish Karol Wojtyla – Archbishop of Krakow – as Pope John Paul II in October 16, 1978. When the world body of the WCC seemed impotent to offer even a public word of support, a priest from Poland shook the very foundation of the Soviet empire. The authors comment: “The undermining of the empire built by Stalin after Yalta was begun not by the military might of the West but by the moral authority of the first Polish Pope, which rapidly eclipsed that of the Polish Communist Party.”
Poland’s First Secretary Jaruzelski, an unbeliever, said that when he met Pope John Paul II, “My legs were trembling and my knees were knocking together . . . The Pope, this figure in white, it all affected me emotionally. Beyond all reason . . .” Moral authority has a way of unnerving the guilty.
This is not about bashing the WCC. We evangelicals have enough stories of moral failure. The matter before today’s church, in the midst of tribal conflicts, consumer-driven societies and enormous questions of ethical matters is, what is required for the world to listen? In short, it’s moral authority. For Pope John Paul II, it was not so much the backing of the church in Rome that gave him influence, but it was the influence he built over years by faithful and consistent ministry. In the end, people chose to believe him more than the political spin doctors.
In these early weeks of the 21st century as we peer into the future, hoping that the gospel of our Lord will transform and renew the land, let it be understood that bigger churches and splashy campaigns are not the stuff of moral weight. Integrity is built up by faithful adherence to biblical truth and by living out the teachings of Christ. There is no other way.
A recent book, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, shows in part why the Christian community is not taken seriously in world affairs. The authors, Christopher Andrew (professor of modern and contemporary history, chairman of the faculty of history at Cambridge University, and chairman of the British Intelligence Study Group) and Vasili Mitrokhin (he worked for 30 years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB in Moscow), point out the failure of the World Council of Churches to deal with the brazen violation of human and religious rights by the old Soviet Union. They also describe how the Soviets used the WCC on the world stage to mute any outrage against what was commonly understood as widespread Soviet anti-Christian repression.
For example, the KGB got one of their agents, Aleksei Buyevsky, on the drafting committee preparing for the 1975 Fifth Assembly of the WCC in Nairobi. Buyevsky effectively ensured that nothing would be said to discredit the Soviet bloc for their violation of human rights. Yet it was during that very same 1975 assembly that as the WCC slammed the West for its failures of “racism, sexism, classism and imperialism” they refused to consider the non-white racist issue of Uganda, which had ejected Asians from their country in 1972. Then in the general secretary’s August 1976 report on the progress of religious liberties, the authors allege that general secretary Dr. Philip Porter said nothing about the religious persecution in the Soviet community, even though violations were well known and widely reported especially with many warnings given by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Scharanshy and Irian Ratushinskava.
At the 1983 WCC Assembly in Vancouver, a letter was received from a Russian Orthodox deacon named Vladimir who appealed to delegates to “stop treating the propagandistic claims of Soviet delegates as the only source of information” on matters of religion in the Soviet Union. At the same assembly, the authors report, another letter was received concerning 35 imprisoned Soviet Christians and 20,000 persecuted Pentecostals. Again, “neither letter . . . was discussed at the assembly.” This despite the history of a Communist regime that had slaughtered more than the demonic brain-trust of Nazism ever imagined possible.
The moral impotence of the WCC in the face of violence and persecution of Christians and minorities of all sort has robbed the church of weight in matters of moral concern. While WCC members poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into their regional office in South Africa to bring the white supremacist government to its knees, this world body of historic churches and denominations fell to the prevaricating and intimidating tactics of the KGB and by so doing eroded her moral authority and therefore her power. This tragic story of the failure of the Christian community, led by the power brokers of worldwide denominations, is one that the emerging world evangelical community needs to understand in light of what its new role may become. It will be decades before the Christian community can face survivors of the gulags and prison camps of the former Soviet bloc with any sort of credibility. We ask the WCC, how is it that you saw only the sins of South Africa and led us to believe that the KGB was more credible than groups such as Keston College in England?
In sharp contrast to this moral leadership vacuum was the election of the Polish Karol Wojtyla – Archbishop of Krakow – as Pope John Paul II in October 16, 1978. When the world body of the WCC seemed impotent to offer even a public word of support, a priest from Poland shook the very foundation of the Soviet empire. The authors comment: “The undermining of the empire built by Stalin after Yalta was begun not by the military might of the West but by the moral authority of the first Polish Pope, which rapidly eclipsed that of the Polish Communist Party.”
Poland’s First Secretary Jaruzelski, an unbeliever, said that when he met Pope John Paul II, “My legs were trembling and my knees were knocking together . . . The Pope, this figure in white, it all affected me emotionally. Beyond all reason . . .” Moral authority has a way of unnerving the guilty.
This is not about bashing the WCC. We evangelicals have enough stories of moral failure. The matter before today’s church, in the midst of tribal conflicts, consumer-driven societies and enormous questions of ethical matters is, what is required for the world to listen? In short, it’s moral authority. For Pope John Paul II, it was not so much the backing of the church in Rome that gave him influence, but it was the influence he built over years by faithful and consistent ministry. In the end, people chose to believe him more than the political spin doctors.
In these early weeks of the 21st century as we peer into the future, hoping that the gospel of our Lord will transform and renew the land, let it be understood that bigger churches and splashy campaigns are not the stuff of moral weight. Integrity is built up by faithful adherence to biblical truth and by living out the teachings of Christ. There is no other way.