The old Soviet Union often was vilified in the West as godless and soul-killing. And its successor, Russia, frequently has been described the same way.
But with declines in American culture illustrated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s establishment of a right to same-sex marriage, some Russians are asking, “America, where is your Christianity?”
Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman and priest for the Russian Orthodox church, is warning that the United States will try to spread its beliefs to Russia.
“Understand that actually they want to take away your right to live according to faith, take away your soul, take away the chance to build the life of our community and state according to eternal and unchanging God-given moral laws,” he said.
Russian politicians also are highly critical of efforts by Facebook to celebrate the “gay marriage” Supreme Court’s ruling by giving users the option of overlaying their profile picture with the LGBT rainbow flag.
Because Facebook allows children as young as 13 years old to have accounts, lawmaker Vitaly Milonov called for the company to be banned from Russian territory because he said it was violating a law prohibiting homosexual propaganda directed at minors.
Other lawmakers and judges throughout the country also called for restricting or even banning the display of the LGBT flag.
Even President Vladimir Putin is courting a far different constituency by appealing to Orthodox Christians and traditionalism to support his regime.
As a result, homosexuality and social conservatism have become flashpoints in rising tensions between Russia and the West, as a more conservative Russia confronts a more progressive United States.
Paul Kengor, a professor and historian who analyzed Ronald Reagan’s strategy to defeat the Soviet Union in “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism,” believes that modern Russia is reacting to the same kind of “far left” and “radically secular” attacks on the family now spreading in America.
“I can understand that many conservatives are arguing that formerly communist Russia is, in some ways, more Christian than formerly Christian America – and believe me, we’re no longer Christian America,” Kengor said.
“Certainly, many of contemporary Russia’s policies on marriage, abortion, adoption and family are more faith-friendly and more consistent with a Christian worldview than the direction that America is now headed,” he said.
“We in this country just firmly rejected, at the ‘constitutional’ level, the ancient Judeo-Christian standard of male-female marriage. Current Russia is seeking to reverse the century-old Bolshevik assault on Judeo-Christian standards of marriage and family.”
Kengor, whose latest book is “Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage,” says it is unfair to say Russia is somehow more “Christian” than the contemporary United States.
“I would caution conservatives to guard against sweeping statements that modern Russia, i.e., Vladimir Putin’s Russia, is thus overall somehow more ‘Christian’ than modern America,” he said. “Putin might be trying to stem divorce, abortion, family breakup, the redefinition of marriage and other things that faithful Christians should indeed applaud, but in many other areas he is a repressive autocrat who is far from a paragon of Christian ethics and morality.”
Putin’s government, nevertheless, is taking a harder line against abortion and cultural displays perceived as disrespectful toward religion.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, called for a total ban on abortion during the first-ever address by the head of the church to the Russian State Duma in early 2015.
According to National Right to Life News, the Russian Ministry of Health and the Russian Orthodox Church have signed an agreement to try to prevent abortions.
Russia’s abortion rate, historically high by Western standards, has declined since the 1990s, and Putin’s government has also tried to increase Russia’s birthrate in an attempt to forestall Russia’s demographic decline.
The Russian Orthodox Church has also been given a de facto role as a government censor, leading protests against plays and cultural displays seen as disrespectful to religion.
Christian symbolism is also being linked to patriotism, especially during last month’s Victory Day celebrations honoring the Soviet victory in World War II.
For example, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the sign of the cross while passing underneath a giant icon of Jesus Christ, even though Shoigu is a Buddhist.
Lawmakers from Putin’s ruling party have even taken steps to encourage the return of the Romanov family to Russia, prompting speculation Putin is planning to restore the tsars or at least use the Romanovs as a symbol of Russian unity.
The strategy of slowly uniting church and state appears to be working, as Putin’s approval rating recently hit a record high of 89 percent even as the West tries to increase economic pressure on his government.
Roger Cohen of the New York Times recently termed Russia the world’s “preeminent counterrevolutionary power.”
In a piece critical of Putin published at Newsweek, conservative intellectual Victor Davis Hanson admitted some Americans “are sympathetic to his grand talk about contemporary Christianity, traditional Russian values, a decadent West rife with abortion, homosexuality, multiculturalism and opposition to radical Islam.”
Some conservative publications in the United States have even suggested the Cold War equation of a “godless” Russia confronting a Christian America has been reversed.
Carl Gallups, a pastor, talk-show host and author of “Final Warning: Understanding the Trumpet Days of Revelation,” argues “especially as we reach the soon return of Jesus Christ, I don’t think any nation can lay claim to being a particularly ‘godly’ nation, nor can one nation say they are more so than another.”
He highlights the tremendous death toll caused by the Soviet Union, especially under Joseph Stalin, whom Putin has partially rehabilitated.
However, Gallups believes America is being deliberately de-Christianized even though “our nation was founded upon a distinctly biblical foundation, and a Christian concept of that biblical foundation cannot be historically denied with any sincere veracity.”
Indeed, Gallups claims, it is only because of “our distinctly Christian foundational underpinnings that people of all faiths (or no faith at all) are welcome to live, work, and worship here.”
Gallups says homosexual marriage was not supported by the American people but was imposed through what he calls “judicial activism.”
“They were losing the battle among We The People – the majority of which claim to be Christians when asked to make a faith group choice,” he said.
In the new world that exists after “gay marriage,” Gallups argues, “Now that Putin is increasingly talking about God and country, family values, biblical marriage, church attendance, and Bible reading – he is sounding more like a United States Founding Father than a communist regime president.
“The Putin government is giving millions of taxpayer dollars to the Christian Orthodox church of Russia for the rebuilding of temples and historical Christian sites. Additionally, Putin has recently approved mandatory teaching of religion in Russia’s public schools, desiring Russia’s children to be taught the ‘basics of religious culture and secular ethics.'”
But he warns Christians to be cautious.
“There certainly seems to be a posturing of Russia presenting itself as ‘morally superior’ to the rest of the planet, especially the United States – but they have nefariously postured before. I think the jury is still out on this one – in the long run. The recent SCOTUS ruling, however, certainly gives Putin and the ‘new’ Russia some room to gloat.”
He predicts Christians in American will find themselves like believers in the old Soviet Union.
He warned: “I, along with many other Christian leaders of our nation, believe that real persecution is now on its way to America’s Christian community. The vehicle for this persecution has now been laid down by way of the recent SCOTUS decision. Make no mistake about it; this is a radical movement with a radical and godless agenda. This agenda will not stop with the simple declaration of the legalization of ‘homosexual marriage.’
“Federal law will soon ‘mandate’ the teaching of our youngest children the ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ and ‘sanctified’ status of homosexual ‘marriage.’ And it only begins there. The radicalization of our culture will flow into the military, police forces, universities, prisons, sororities, fraternities, medical industry and the legal industry. This nation probably has no idea of the chaos that soon will befall it.”
