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Ten years ago, on November 9, 1989, the Wall came down. Swinging sledgehammers and anything else avail able, the hands of the people reintegrated East Berlin with the free world. Experts stood with mouths agape, and the peoples of the entire Soviet bloc cheered as the hated symbol of oppression crumbled.

Just one month before, the prayers of thousands of believers gathered at Leipzig's Nikolaikirche had turned a potential massacre into a peaceful confrontation that came to be called the Candlelight Revolution (see CT, January 15, 1990). This was die Wende, the turning point. And the church was there at the center of change.

How has the church fared since then? In recent interviews with several Christian leaders in the post-Communist world, CT explored what we had learned from the past ten years that will help us serve better when the still-Communist world begins to dissolve.

Exploded economic dreams
One of the biggest disappointments in the Eastern bloc was the failure of new economic dreams. The tales of corruption, organized crime, and failed attempts at privatization of industries are well known. But, says Croatian theologian Peter Kuzmic, the economic disappointment was due to more than greed and power-grabbing.

First, Kuzmic says, the dreams were unrealistic: "There is a saying in Kosovo: 'You cannot jump out of the sandals and into a Mercedes.' " Second, "Communism stifled, in some places eliminated, creativity and initiative. You need a change of mindset for a free-market economy." Third, "you need the kind of legal framework that will prevent corruption and dubious privatization." Because those elements were missing when the state-controlled economies were dismantled, what followed was not a free market but a vacuum.

Fortunately, Western Christians were among those who helped write new constitutions that guaranteed economic and personal liberties. Others helped to prepare educational materials that would teach young people the Christian ethics essential to both a free market and a free society. But inculcating a broad societal respect for law, for rights, and for other people takes decades, and the economic and political transitions were measured in weeks and days.

It is not only post-Communist culture that needs ethical transformation, says Romanian Baptist theologian Danut Manastireanu. It is the church and its membership. "In my country," he says, "evangelical Christians are not very distinguishable from the rest of the population in promoting high ethical values."

Mark Elliott, director of Beeson Divinity School's Global Center, makes the same observation about Russian Christians. "Many of them cut corners without giving it a second thought." Indeed, says Elliott, even in the 100-plus new Protestant seminaries in Russia, "cheating is a serious problem because of the system they come out of."

Life under Communism was simple. "Now we certainly are not prepared for these choices," says Manastireanu. "The risk is the desire for a Big Brother who would decide for us and provide. And the same thing is true with respect to the church." Under Communism, Romania's Baptist Union was led by an autocrat. Now "we have many little dictators in the church," he says. "Our only hope is for our generation to go away. And the best we can do is to be stepping stones for those who are coming behind us."

This bleak account needs to be balanced by accounts of believers who suffered for truth and whose prayers helped bring down oppressive regimes. Yet, writes Polish editor Adam Szostkiewicz in a recent issue of Commonweal, "The model of courageous and faithful individuals who witnessed to their faith under Communist persecution does not easily translate into a larger pattern of religion acting as a friend of freedom and liberty for everyone."

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November 15 1999, Vol. 43, No. 13