Christianity After Communism


Book Description

Specialists from Europe and the US investigate the current and changing role of religion in post-communist Russia. Drawing upon Eastern Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic points of view, they examine the Russian religious attitudes, activities and institutions, and explore the ways in which religion will significantly impact emerging social and political questions there. The volume should be of use to scholars of Russian politics, society, and religion and for anyone interested in the emerging culture of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.




Islam after Communism


Book Description

How do Muslims relate to Islam in societies that experienced seventy years of Soviet rule? How did the utopian Bolshevik project of remaking the world by extirpating religion from it affect Central Asia? Adeeb Khalid combines insights from the study of both Islam and Soviet history to answer these questions. Arguing that the sustained Soviet assault on Islam destroyed patterns of Islamic learning and thoroughly de-Islamized public life, Khalid demonstrates that Islam became synonymous with tradition and was subordinated to powerful ethnonational identities that crystallized during the Soviet period. He shows how this legacy endures today and how, for the vast majority of the population, a return to Islam means the recovery of traditions destroyed under Communism. Islam after Communism reasons that the fear of a rampant radical Islam that dominates both Western thought and many of Central Asia’s governments should be tempered with an understanding of the politics of antiterrorism, which allows governments to justify their own authoritarian policies by casting all opposition as extremist. Placing the Central Asian experience in the broad comparative perspective of the history of modern Islam, Khalid argues against essentialist views of Islam and Muslims and provides a nuanced and well-informed discussion of the forces at work in this crucial region.




Believing in Russia - Religious Policy after Communism


Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive overview of religious policy in Russia since the end of the communist regime, exposing many of the ambiguities and uncertainties about the position of religion in Russian life. It reveals how religious freedom in Russia has, contrary to the widely held view, a long tradition, and how the leading religious institutions in Russia today, including especially the Russian Orthodox Church but also Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist establishments, owe a great deal of their special positions to the relationship they had with the former Soviet regime. It examines the resurgence of religious freedom in the years immediately after the end of the Soviet Union, showing how this was subsequently curtailed, but only partially, by the important law of 1997. It discusses the pursuit of privilege for the Russian Orthodox Church and other ‘traditional’ beliefs under presidents Putin and Medvedev, and assesses how far Russian Orthodox Christianity is related to Russian national culture, demonstrating the unresolved nature of the key question, ‘Is Russia to be an Orthodox country with religious minorities or a multi-confessional state?’ It concludes that Russian society’s continuing failure to reach a consensus on the role of religion in public life is destabilising the nation.




Christianity After Communism


Book Description




The Turned Card


Book Description

Thoroughly topical and meticulously researched, "The Turned Card" presents a full account of the impact of Christianity on the communist world during the years leading to its collapse. The book explores the important role played by Christians in the period of moral and political confusion that followed.




Marxism and Christianity


Book Description

Contending that Marxism achieved its unique position in part by adopting the content and functions of Christianity, MacIntyre details the religious attitudes and modes of belief that appear in Marxist doctrine as it developed historically from the philosophies of Hegel and Feuerbach, and as it has been carried on by latter-day interpreters from Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky to Kautsky and Lukacs. The result is a lucid exposition of Marxism and an incisive account of its persistence and continuing importance.




Russian Society and the Orthodox Church


Book Description

Russian Society and the Orthodox Church examines the Russian Orthodox Church's social and political role and its relationship to civil society in post-Communist Russia. It shows how Orthodox prelates, clergy and laity have shaped Russians' attitudes towards religious and ideological pluralism, which in turn have influenced the ways in which Russians understand civil society, including those of its features - pluralism and freedom of conscience - that are essential for a functioning democracy. It shows how the official church, including the Moscow Patriarchate, has impeded the development of civil society, while on the other hand the non-official church, including nonconformist clergy and lay activists, has promoted concepts central to civil society.




God's Double Agent


Book Description

Tens of millions of Christians live in China today, many of them leading double lives or in hiding from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. Bob Fu, whom the Wall Street Journal called "The pastor of China's underground railroad," is fighting to protect his fellow believers from persecution, imprisonment, and even death. God's Double Agent is his fascinating and riveting story. Bob Fu is indeed God's double agent. By day Fu worked as a full-time lecturer in a communist school; by night he pastored a house church and led an underground Bible school. This can't-put-it-down book chronicles Fu's conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his brethren. God's Double Agent will inspire readers even as it challenges them to boldly proclaim and live out their faith in a world that is at times indifferent, and at other times murderously hostile, to those who spread the gospel.




Communism in the Bible


Book Description

Miranda will not be pigeonholed by the academy. It is to be strongly hoped that he is taken seriously, for there is in his writing the kind of discernment which may reform and renew Scripture study. Walter Brueggemann, Professor of Old Testament, Eden Theological Seminary This book, like the liberation theologies generally (Latin American, Black, feminist), challenges traditional 'intentional misunderstandings' of the Scripture by established powers. It allows familiar biblical passages, such as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, to speak out with their original force and clarity--and the message sounds astonishingly new! An excellent translation by Robert Barr. Madeleine Boucher, Associate Professor of New Testament, Fordham University Jose Miranda's book is an extremely valuable statement, which advances the discussion of biblical economics to a new stage. Miranda minces no words in exposing the exegetical sleight-of-hand attempted by 'conscience-tranquillizing theologians.' His passionate and informed defense of 'Christian communism' will have to be reckoned with by all who have professed a willingness to be obedient to the Gospel. Richard J. Mouw, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College A scholarly study in biblical teaching--brief, direct, powerful--which puts the burden of proof on those who would deny that original and authentic Christianity is communistic (not, to say, Marxist). This is vintage Miranda--erudite, passionate, persuasive, and above all, disturbing. Robert T. Osborn, Chairman, Department of Religion, Duke University




Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition


Book Description

In Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition, Roland Boer presents key moments in the 2,000 year tradition of Christian communism, moving from its roots in New Testament texts to unique developments in North Korea.