The Lesson of Russian Persecution by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 6, 1911

The Lesson of Russian Persecution

By C. M. S.

A STRIKING and impressive illustration of the working out of the “Christian nation” idea, “Christian patriotism,” “national Christianity,” etc., was recently set before the world in the printed experiences of the Russian Baptists while attending a convention of their brethren in America; and the people of America generally protest against the object-lesson. Our ideas have very much to do with our conduct toward our fellow men. Zealous superstition has often reddened its hands in the life-blood of its neighbors, has racked and burned them, and invented ingenious tortures to propagate its ideals. This suffering world has had long and terrible lessons in the working out of such ideals, and still there are multitudes ready at a moment to repeat the illustration. A few years ago we had another striking illustration of the working out of the same intolerant idea—at Kishinef, Russia; but right here in America great religious organizations are propagating the same ideal that, in its outworking, wrought such terrible havoc among the Jews of Kishinef, and has hung the chains of oppression on the Baptists in Russia. That ideal is national Christianity, religion-and-state union.

The feeling of the mass of the Russian people toward the Jews was crystallized into expression in these words by the periodical which did most to bring about the massacre:—

Become Christians and our brothers, and enjoy all the privileges of Russian citizenship. If not, you have one year to go where you please. After that term has expired, there must not remain a single Jew in Russia unless he is Christianized, and thereafter entrance to Russia will be forbidden to the Jews forever.

That this Russian declaration of purpose respecting the Jews is a “Christian

nation” purpose is evident. Notice the similarity between that “National Reform” utterance of the Orthodox Russian and the declarations of purpose uttered by American National Reform advocates, as follows:—

Our remedy for all these malefic influences is to have the government simply set up the moral law and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it.—Rev. M. A. Gault, district secretary of the National Reform Association.

We might add, in all justice: If the opponents of the Bible do not like our government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land, and in the name of the devil and for the sake of the devil, subdue it, and set up a government of their own on infidel and atheistic ideas; and then if they can stand it, stay there till they die.—Rev. E. B. Graham, vice-president National Reform Association.

We want state and religion, and we are going to have it. . . . Now we are warned that to engraft this doctrine upon the Constitution will be oppressive; that it will infringe the rights of conscience; and we are told that there are atheists, deists, Jews, and Seventh-day Baptists who would be sufferers under it. These all are, for the occasion, and so far as our amendment is concerned, one class.—Jonathan Edwards, D. D.

Mr. Edwards, after classing all who oppose the church-and-state idea of the National Reformers as atheists, declares:—

Tolerate atheism, sir? There is nothing out of hell that I would not tolerate as soon! The atheist may live, as I have said; but, God helping us, the taint of his destructive creed shall not defile any of the civil institutions of this fair land! Let us repeat, Atheism [in which he includes Jews and Christian denominations that believe in religious liberty] and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are incompatible systems. They can not dwell together on the same continent!

Now compare these utterances with the Russians’ declaration of purpose toward the Jews, and note the similarity of the sentiment, of the spirit which they breathe. It is the same spirit. It is simply “national Christianity,” the “Christian nation” idea, worked out—or, rather, working out; for when it is worked out, we see the blood-spattered dwellings, the ravished women and girls, the nameless cruelties, and the dead-strewn streets of Kishinef, and we see the scars of the shackles on the wrists and ankles of those who can not conscientiously make their religion conform to the religion of the state.

And wherefore do they thus slay and oppress?—Russia is a church-and-state government. If the Jews would embrace the doctrines of the Russian Orthodox Church,—become Greek Catholics instead of Jews,—then all the privileges of Russian citizenship would be granted them; the oppressive laws enacted against them would not apply; the fury of the people would be stayed; there would be no more Kishinefs. That is the meaning of the language in the expressed sentiments above quoted from the Russian spokesman. The animosity against the Jews is not because the Jews are money-lenders and merchants. The quotation shows that; for they would doubtless continue their occupations after “conversion” to the Greek Catholic Church. It is because the Jews are not yet “Christianized” that the so-called “Christian nation” of Russia has turned its hand against them.

If the Baptists would adopt the religion which the nation has adopted, and cease to preach and to teach anything save what the national church gave them permission to preach and to teach, they would not be exiled nor imprisoned nor whipped nor shackled. But what would be spiritual slavery, and the Baptists are not accepting it. What means it that a Russian Christian minister is now in this country attending a Christian convention under bonds of $2,500 to return to Russia and stand trial?—It means that the “Christian nation” idea is in full fruitage in that land; that “national Christianity” is in the ascendant there.

But the “Christian nation” idea might not work out so in America. It has worked out so already, only not to “the same excess of riot.” That idea wrought into the laws of our States has put the most conscientious, God-fearing, Christian men in this country into the chain-gangs and the prisons, side by side and cell-mates with ordinary criminals. What had they done?—Obeyed God, and worshiped him “according to the dictates of their own consciences,” which is supposed to be the sacred privileges of every American. But in doing that they had disregarded an ordinance of man which has set up for itself the claim of divine right over the consciences of men—the divine right to dictate religious ceremonies to Divinity, and enforce them under pains and penalties upon humanity. That human ordinance claiming a right which Divinity has never asserted over the consciences of men, is the Sunday law in the States and Territories. Hundreds of Christian men have suffered under it, and many are even now resting under its condemnation. If they would keep Sunday, they would not be molested; if the Jews of Russia would keep Sunday and join the Russian state church, they would not be persecuted. Verily, Satan is exceeding wroth against the Sabbath of Jehovah, whether kept by the Jew or the Christian.

It would be well for Americans to learn the lesson of Kishinef, and cast the beam out of their own eye before they seek to cast the mote out of the eye of Russia. It is all right to protest against the cruelties; but they are the result of the system, and the system is just as wrong in America as in Russia, and the cruelties and the system here are much less excusable. C. M. S.