Posted on 07/05/2016 7:26:07 AM PDT by Sam's Army
Christians in Russia won’t be allowed to email their friends an invitation to church or to evangelize in their own homes if Russia’s newest set of surveillance and anti-terrorism laws are enacted.
The proposed laws, considered the country’s most restrictive measures in post-Soviet history, place broad limitations on missionary work, including preaching, teaching, and engaging in any activity designed to recruit people into a religious group.
To share their faith, citizens must secure a government permit through a registered religious organization, and they cannot evangelize anywhere besides churches and other religious sites. The restrictions even apply to activity in private residences and online.
This week, Russia’s Protestant minority—estimated around 1 percent of the population—prayed, fasted, and sent petitions to President Vladimir Putin, who will have to approve the measures before they become official.
“Most evangelicals—leaders from all seven denominations—have expressed concerns,” Sergey Rakhuba, president of Mission Eurasia and a former Moscow church-planter, told CT. “They’re calling on the global Christian community to pray that Putin can intervene and God can miraculously work in this process.” Following a wave of Russian nationalist propaganda, the laws passed almost unanimously in the Duma, the upper house, on Friday and in the Federation Council, the lower house, today. “If this legislation is approved, the religious situation in the country will grow considerably more complicated and many believers will find themselves in exile and subjected to reprisals because of our faith,” wrote Oleg Goncharov, spokesman for the Seventh-day Adventists’ Euro-Asia division, in an open letter.
Proposed by United Russia party lawmaker Irina Yarovaya, the law appears to target religious groups outside the Russian Orthodox church.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Here they just take all your assets, and put you out of business.
I suspect one target is Islam. Another is non Orthodox evangelists and reflects Great Russian nationalism, not any Christian sensibility.
Can anyone find me a source that does not come indirectly from ChristianityToday? This bill apparently passed both the Duma and the Senate unanimously. If this is true and *accurate,* it would be deeply troubling... and very much contrary to explicit statements by Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church and others, and I can barely imagine that there was not a single vote against banning evangelization.
What constitutes “evangelization”?
Does the article substitute “and” for “or” when it says you must be a part of a state-recognized religion AND can only proselytize in church?
As described, the law is so broad and absolute as to prohibit much of Putin’s own propaganda and campaigning.
Gee, what a surprise, almost as big as the FBI's letting Hitlery off the hook.
From the article:"Another amendment restricts missionary work to specially designated areas, drawing criticism from Muslim, Jewish and Russian Orthodox organisations."
The article omits to mention evangelicals, who are a small minority in Russia, but Christianity Today has chosen to focus on them even though they are not the target of this law. Russia has bigger fish to fry here. Whether this law will achieve its aim, is another question.
See post #25.
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, rector of the Moscow church of Saint Theodore the Studite and member of the Public Chamber:
I am happy that many Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and protestants have spoken out with rather harsh criticism of this bill. This speaks to the fact that both our religious and our public life are alive. People have not knuckled under to commands coming from governmental bodies and they have spoken out rather vigorously and critically. This is very good. I hope that all controversial questions will either be clarified after the publication of the bill or be removed.
Of course, in principle the country needs to be protected from destructive pseudo-religious phenomena, from dangerous sects, from extremism hiding behind religion, and from external influences that can be destructive, and especially from those influences that are extremist and terroristic. But one should not throw the baby out with the bath water.
It is necessary to do everything so that good-intentioned people, especially those belonging to religious traditions well known in Russia, would be able to speak freely on topics connected with religion, to express their views, and to disseminate them. The same applies to agnostics and atheists.
Me: It’s horrible, violates freedom of conscience and expression. Hopefully get veto and sent back for change
OK, Here is another Orthodox Freeper completely against this bill.
Clearly, in spite of what some have said, this is NOT about Muslim propagation (although it would include that), it is about silencing competition with the Orthodox Church.
Come on Russia, Orthodoxy can hold it’s own in a free exchange of ideas. Stop this totalitarian nonsense.
And those of you who want to limit free speech in this great country, stop advocating the same thing here.
Start studying Islam in depth as I have and be ready to present thoughtful rebuttals to their weak arguments.
Thanks; I did find that eventually, along with several other articles, once I started looking for “anti-terrorism” instead of anything to do with evangelization.
Apparently, prior to the ChristianityToday article, most of the articles discussing the law seemed to suggest that it was most controversial because it required telecomms to store recordings of conversations in case they were later subpoenaed.
Several earlier sources, quite possibly sympathetic to Putin PR, mention, however that it prohibits attacking other people’s religion.
THIS sounds like Putin, and like something that might be inserted into an anti-terrorism bill! This would silence people seeking to radicalize Muslims, but would also alarm Protestants; Russia has in the past restricted Protestants by claiming that they proselytize by denouncing Orthodox Christians as being non-Christians.
But for now, for me, that’s only conjecture.
It bans "missionary activity" outside of schools, houses of worships, cemeteries, and special establishments for accomodating group activities...
...EXCEPT for ANY religious organization which has been licenses as an official religious organization. That means Catholics, Orthodox, Old Believers, and many Protestant, pagan, and Muslim groups ARE ALLOWED UNRESTRICTED missionary activity.
Other religious groups, including foreign, proselytizing Protestant groups and foreign-funded Islamicist groups are prohibited from missionary activity.
And "missionary activity" is defined as any public worship, distribution of literature (bibles, Korans, etc.), ceremonies, preaching, etc.
How does this harm licensed religious groups?
Even Catholic and Orthodox street preachers would be required to have some form of record on them or readily available that demonstrates that they represent licensed religious groups. That might make life difficult for someone like Michael Voris on the right or Nuns on the Bus on the left.
Why did Putin do this?
My guess is that it's too difficult to convince a jury or national public opinion that a specific act of inciting religious hatred constitutes a violation of existing law. This way, a bureaucracy can ban religious hatred by denying official status beforehand. Then, there's no subjective tolerance afforded to juries: the target either had a license or they didn't.
Lawmakers are also eager to place new restrictions on Russia's religious sphere, amending the legal definition of “missionary activity” as defined under the Constitution's article on the freedom of conscience and religion. Yarovaya's legislation defines as “missionary activity” any kind of religious practice that takes place outside special establishments, cemeteries, houses of worship, or religious schools. This applies to acts of worship, ceremonies, the distribution of literature, and preaching. “The dissemination of beliefs and religious convictions” through the mass media and the Internet is also considered to be “missionary activity.”
If the legislation is passed, missionary activity would be off limits to anyone but the representatives of registered organizations and groups, and individuals who have entered into formal agreements with such bodies. When preaching, every missionary must carry documents with specific information proving their connection to a registered religious group. Lawmakers want to ban any kind of missionary activity in residential areas, except prayer services, ceremonies, and sacramental rites. Foreign missionaries will only be able to operate in the regions where their inviting organizations are registered.
The authorities want to ban the dissemination of certain religious concepts, too, such as ideas believed to promote extremism, discourage receiving medical care, encourage surrendering property to religious organizations, and so on. Violating these prohibitions would risk steep administration fines as high as a million rubles (more than $15,000).
The human rights center “Sova” says the amendments to Russian laws about missionary work threaten not only unregistered religious groups, but also the organizations that are already registered (namely, churches belonging to Protestants and newer Christian sects). Even some Russian Orthodox missionaries could encounter problems, Sova warns.
Source: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2016/06/22/irina-yarovaya-s-anti-terrorist-war-on-civil-rights
Wow you used my opinion to support one that makes no sense
It is almost here; NOW!
It doesn’t matter WHO it is ‘aimed’ at; if it is NOT specific in what is written down!
From whom?
Post it; please.
Oh??
I thought the statement was quite Pilate like; just without the washbasin!
It is in our local newspaper and came from the FREEDOM from RELIGION PEOPLE.
http://www.eagleobserver.com/news/2016/jun/29/school-district-told-to-cancel-prayers-/
If the article is close to accurate, it’s both persecution and the act of a dictatorship. The government shouldn’t be granted the power (or seize the power) to control people’s private associations. That is what the old Soviet Union did.
Indeed, as we are to, and the NT Christians did:
But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. (Acts 4:19-20)
Thanks!
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