Two excerpts from the biography Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicling the early religious education of Joseph Stalin:
The Empire’s seminaries were “notorious for the savagery of their customs, medieval pedagoguery, and law of the fist,” comments [Leon] Trotsky. “All the vices banned by the Holy Scriptures flourished in this hotbed of piety.”
The seminary was to pull off the singular achievement of supplying the Russian Revolution with some of its most ruthless radicals. “No secular school,” wrote another seminarist, Stalin’s comrade Philip Makharadze, “produced as many atheistsas the Tiflis Seminary.” The Stone Sack (nickname for the seminary – DB) literally became a boarding-school for revolutionaries.
One of the great arguments of the theology of the cross is that God clearly reveals Himself in creation (Rom. 1) but, contrary to the teaching of a lot of natural theology, the human condition (or our skewed reason) is such that all of that becomes academic. He is as imperceptible to us as He could possibly be. For that reason, we go into Romans 2 and 3.
The interesting thing is that, even though God reveals Himself in suffering in the cross, clear revelation doesn’t register at all. We are still so impressed with power and assertion that we turn the Christian insight, which is clearly the opposite of our idea of power, into power. If we could only convert Congress to Christianity, then everything would be OK. We would have the power brokers on our side. If we could only get people to behave a certain way, everything would be OK. So, we’ll really earnestly engage in behavior modification.
The problem is that when Christianity is the vehicle of what impresses us (or if it becomes the manifestation of we believe to be right… Romans 2 and 3 again), then it ceases to speak to us and begins to scold us. Take the seminary that Joseph Stalin (!) attended. It was stifling. They forbade Hugo, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and a variety of other profound authors and engaged in coercion to try and produce the sort of behavior they wanted. Almost utterly devoid of the sort of love and encouragement that the Christian faith embodies. The place where last-ness meets last-ness. And we got Joseph Stalin and a bunch of revolutionary Bolsheviks.
It’s the same result with the Crusades (we are dealing with the repercussions of that today!), power-wielding prelates, and hard-ass Bible colleges and seminaries that try to mold people into their own image (how many atheist and wounded refugees from that world have I spoken with? It’s heartbreaking.).
Anytime straight-line (Capon) power and Christianity are mixed, disaster happens. What impresses us is just not right. What we stumble on and decry as foolishness is, in fact, what is right and profound. And every Christmas, we see it. Right there in the manger. Pure vulnerability, weakness, love, and compassion. Last-ness reaching out to last-ness. Why do refugees from the Church come back on Christmas? Well, it’s just not too hard to figure.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQeKdvXliIU&w=600]
COMMENTS
11 responses to “Perfect Power Casts Out All Love: Joseph Stalin, Behavior Modification and Christmas”
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great stuff, Browder.
There is a story, it could be a legend, about how Stalin was severely beaten by a priest for spilling communion wine.
Browder, love it!
I'm intrigued by the idea of learning (or more broadly, epistemology) that does not rely on straight-line power or coercion. Can you elaborate a bit on what this might look like?
Even during the many, many years I spent outside the church – I spent almost no time in it, as a matter of fact – I still loved the Nativity story, and Jesus' "coming in great humility." It's an utterly wonderful story.
Lots of people outside the church love it still, I would imagine.
This is all so true. Power and the glorification of it come in many forms, and physical coercion is only one. Money and status are others, and are even more subversive because they can more easily be mistaken as "blessings" from God. Yet they have created many "practical" atheists, and worse yet, many "blessed" believers.
Todd, maybe you could read my Judgment and Love entry about The Blue Movie and the Old Story. I think it's as simple as placing a person who has been profoundly touched by grace in some manner into teaching positions.
I expect it will work itself in ways unique to the situation and persons involved.
bls, I couldn't agree more.
Mike, you are totally right. Fertile fields for future posts!
Jake,
While I haven't run across that particular story yet, there was a monk Stalin nicknamed "The Black Spot" who made it his mission to harass Stalin at every point. He would sneak up on him, lay in wait for him, and burst into his room to try and catch him with some of these banned books.
Stalin never got ordained as far as my reading to date has indicated.
Thanks for this David. Great stuff.
DB, this is an inspired piece!