July 01, 1982 by

Admittedly, Billy Graham's recent trip to Moscow was not made for the purpose of studying or summarizing the conditions of religious organizations in Russia.

The American press, however, seemed more interested in that subject than in the conference he attended. Their interest was whetted by the fact that it was well known that the White House was not entirely happy about Billy's attendance at the conference in the first place.

What is astonishing, however, is the fact that the press, for some reason, was driven to systematically distort things Billy said in Russia and upon return. Billy said that he visited packed churches and that thousands of churches were open in Russia. He said he did not himself witness the evidence of religious persecution. He said that there was a degree of freedom of religion in Russia. The press deliberately distorted these statements to make him say that 'there is no repression of religion in Russia,' which obviously is something he did not say.

Apparently even some American evangelical leaders have been led astray by these distortions and also by the surprise that they felt regarding what degree of religious freedom there actually is in Russia today.

Please take note that neither Billy Graham nor the writer of these comments has any intention of praising Russia for the grim situation their hatred of Christ has created. Clearly, the Russian government has done everything within its power, beginning with impressionable children all the way through school, to blast any possible general belief in God or in Christianity in particular. It is true that Billy hopes to be invited back to preach in various parts of Russia, and that he tried to avoid making inflammatory statements, butit was certainly not his intention to praise the Russians for the limited amount of freedom there is, because there is obviously very little and there continue to be alarming and tragic evidences of brutal repression.

Perhaps the most surprising thing of all, to the average American, even the average American evangelical believer, is the simple fact that there is so great an amount of true spiritual vitality in Russia. Neither the American press nor the American evangelical is prepared for the scope of what God is doing in Russia against all energies of the government to eliminate the work of the Holy Spirit.

One of the books that Billy Graham read before he went to Russia is a recent book entitled Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II by Walter Sawatsky, published by Herald Press in 1981. This book of over 500 pages is an astonishingly detailed scholarly work by a Mennonite European representative, formerly a research scholar at the famous English Keston College "Center for the Study of Religion and Communism," and a well respected scholar. This book is hard to believe. We are not prepared for it. Yet it is crammed with actual facts, statistics, places and specific details of what has got to be a far larger and more powerful Christian movement in Russia than most people in America have been able to imagine. Rare is the scholarly book studded with such pungent, specific, quotable paragraphs about the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit at work in all kinds of strange places all across Russia.Thus it may well be because of reading this book that Billy had a much higher appreciation for the sheer quantity of spiritual vitality in this country which we normally consider a spiritual blackout area on the face of the earth.

Then of course there is David Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia which indicates that there are 97 million Christians in Russia. This is an enormous number and an enormous percentage, over onethird of the people in that country We are startled by this in view of the fact that for so many years (over 50 years) it has been in every way, shape or form a terrible handicap for individuals in Russia to admit any Christian faith or belief. What a shock to realize that there are more people who go to church in Moscow than in the western cities of Copenhagen, Stockholm. Hamburg, Berlin, or Paris. Obviously the power of God is not limited by Communist Czars. Obviously the ease and affluence of America does not guarantee continuing spiritual vitality.

And, obviously, Billy Graham was better equipped in actual knowledge about the country and the conditions in it than were the representatives of the American press. If you want to find out more about the power of the evangelical movement in Russia, buy the book he read! Circle item on back page. While you are at it, get a copy of Barrett's book for your church library!