Posted on 06/10/2004 4:05:21 PM PDT by doug from upland
Gorbachev and God
In visit to the Crystal Cathedral, former Soviet leader won't say he doesn't believe.
By David Neff | posted 10/20/00
In a broadcast to be aired Sunday, October 22, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev talks with veteran religious broadcaster Robert Schuller for nearly 30 minutes about religious freedom, human dignity, and the presence of Christian belief in his childhood home. He also reminisces about the end of the Cold War and the beginnings of perestroika for the Hour of Power broadcast taped last Sunday before 4,500 people at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.
Speaking through a translator, a smiling, healthy-looking Gorbachev begins by saying that "the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church is one of the most important gains of perestroika." He also explains his reasons for backing Russia's 1990 religious-freedom law and for deciding in 1989 to permit Schuller to broadcast a sermon on Russia's lone television channel. "We have to respect our people, and many of them are believers. … There can be no freedom without spiritual freedom, without human beings being able to choose," the former Soviet president says.
Prompted by Schuller to reminisce about his mother's prayers, Gorbachev says that "practically all" his family "consisted of believers. And that was important," he says. His grandmother, he recalls, prayed and displayed Orthodox icons on an iconostasis in her home, while his grandfather, one of the first Communists in their village, displayed the portraits of Lenin and Stalin on an adjacent table. "That's how it was in real life," he says. "People did not desert faith, and faith did not desert people."
In a recent telephone call, Schuller told Christianity Today he believes that Gorbachev is only a "cultural atheist," that the former Soviet leader really believes in God. On the broadcast, Schuller repeatedly presses Gorbachev to admit that he is not really an atheist. But Gorbachev remains noncommittal. "Don't rush to any conclusions about me," he says at one point. "I have lived a long and complicated life." At another point, he says, "There will be a time when we will really talk about this with you."
Nevertheless, when discussing international relations, Gorbachev says, "We must not categorize nations into first-rate and second-rate because all nations are God's creation. And God knew what it was creating." The audience greets the mention of God with sustained applause.
In the final minutes of the interview, Schuller recalls observing a private meeting of world leaders sponsored by George Bush and moderated by Jim Lehrer. Bush, Gorbachev, François Mitterand, Margaret Thatcher, and Brian Mulrooney spent 24 hours together analyzing the end of the Cold War. Schuller recalls that after Lehrer wrapped up the meeting, Gorbachev added the final word: "And we must remember Jesus Christ!"
Related Elsewhere
Read about Gorbachev's visit to the Crystal Cathedral in The Orange County Register
The Hour of Power Web site has streaming video of the Gorbachev interview.
See Time magazine's profiles of Gorbachev when it named him Man of the Year in 1987 and Man of the Decade in for the 1980s.
Forerunner, a Christian site from Media House International, quotes from a Wall Street Journal about Gorbachev's Christian upbringing. Don't be scared off by the "Who Is The Antichrist" link at the bottom of the page—it's an ad for a preterist video.
Translation error perhaps?
Some excerpts from this link... link
A GLOBAL SPIRITUALITY. Mikhail Gorbachev, who received the keys to his bay-side headquarters from a three-star general in 1993, tells his disciples that an all-inclusive spirituality must lay the foundation for the new global ethic. It doesn’t matter which religion is used to model this universal spirituality as long as it is broad enough to embrace all the world’s religious traditions and flexible enough to be adapted to the global agenda.
"We should… help in the development of a global consciousness… to change the world for the better,"7 announced the former head of the Soviet Union at his 1996 State of the World Forum. With help from the mainstream media which announced the demise of Communist threats years ago, Gorbachev has successfully redefined Communism and disarmed the West.
His new emphasis on spirituality helps. Since the founding of the Gorbachev Foundation USA, he has used idealized forms of Baha’i, Buddhist, Native American, Cabalistic, and Hindu models for this envisioned world religion. Yet, most of his spiritual "wise men" and women have taught a Western adaptation of Buddhism – not unlike the New Age spirituality publicized two decades ago from the boggy planet Dagobah. That’s where Yoda centered his mind, raised his arms, and mystically lifted Luke Skywater’s space ship out of the swamp.
The relevant question for all people is have you heard the Gospel (Good News) from God!
Jesus Christ (as God and Man) died on the cross taking the punishment for those that receive his pardon. He rose again in fullfillment of the prophecies contained in the Old Testament Scripture, and He acended into heaven as the first man so that other men/women have a way to enter eternal life now (spiritually) and in heaven (physically after death).
The Great commission that Christ commanded of His followers was to share the Gospel with all the world. Does Gorby believe that Jesus died for his sins and does he believe Jesus is the only One who can transform his life by His grace?
Hey, over here!
Gee, just like a lot of church-goers in this country!
I sometimes wonder the same thing about Schuller.
Schuller does struggle with preaching the message that we are corrupt sinners in need of a savior, and that the only way we will produce the fruit that God intends is by continuing in His Word.
Apart from Christ we are nothing!
The truest words I've seen all day here on FR.
The Southern Baptist's have been taking some bold stands of late. Carter was in a tissy over the ceasing of female ordination in the Southern Baptist Church. Katie Couric was all bothered when the Southern Baptist Convention suggested mothers stay home and raise their children rather than going to work.
I don't attend a Baptist Church, but I am glad to call them brothers in Christ.
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