Ideas

To Russia with Fury

Columnist; Contributor

Sometimes charity means anger.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin walks up to a boy in Red Square and—as if impromptu—lifts the kid’s shirt and smooches his belly, as the postcommunist tsar did this summer, remember this: His government hired the American PR firm Ketchum to make Russia look good.

A winsome reputation is not easy to come by in a place where not only are oil profits skyrocketing, but so are less flattering things—numbers of skinheads, homeless orphans, violent crimes against minorities, aids infections, and incidents of religious discrimination. Then there’s the leprosy of the Russian soul—the corruption permeating all levels of society. What PR campaign could pretty it up?

I got a glimpse of this turpitude at the airport in the famous south Russian resort town of Mineralnye Vody, on the northern edge of the Caucasus, Europe’s tallest, austerely beautiful mountains. A band of airport security and police officers there shake down foreigners for bribes.

When they’re handed a foreign passport, the uniformed mafiosos look for a piece of paper issued to all visitors entering Russia. Hotel desk employees are supposed to stamp it for the purpose of tracking. For some reason, they often fail to do that. (Would it be paranoid to wonder if the area hotel desk workers could be in cahoots with the airport gang?)

Upon finding gaps in the stamps, security officers call the airport police. The police take the foreigners to an office with heavy steel doors. They insist that the foreigners broke the law, even though they didn’t. When this happened to me and a friend last May, our Russian guide, Sergey Rakhuba, stepped inside the interrogation room to intervene. (He knew what he was dealing with: Not long ago, at the same airport, his brother, a Ukrainian pastor, was humiliated and stripped of all his cash.) A sheep among the wolves, Sergey tried respect, diplomacy, his knowledge of the law, and logic. They were of no use.

“It’s going to take at least a couple of days before we’re done looking into this serious problem,” the crooks deliberated, shaking their heads. “We’re going to have to call Immigration, and they’re always busy.” Then they began to close the sale: “The whole process is going to cost you all at least, say, 3,000 rubles.”

Sergey is a gentle, jovial man, but when he came out of the room, his face was flushed with fury. It struck me as the kind of anger evocatively described in The Enigma of Anger: Essays on the Sometimes Deadly Sin by Garret Keizer, a book that leaves in the dust any psychobabble pulp on this complex emotion. The kind of anger God stirs up so that we would defy evil.

“The Lord my God is a jealous God and an angry God, as well as a loving God and a merciful God,” Keizer writes. “I am unable to imagine one without the other. I am unable to commit to any Messiah who doesn’t knock over tables.” And this: “Anger is grace both when Christ is cleansing the temple and when he is cleansing the lepers.”

What Sergey does for a living is more like cleansing Russia’s lepers. But that day, some tables needed knocking over. Rightly or wrongly—I still don’t know—my friend and I decided to pay the bribe, because we needed to make a meeting that was largely the reason we were in Russia. (We also reckoned with the possibility that the officers might otherwise “discover” narcotics in our luggage.)

Once the moneyed handshake was over, we were instantly free to go. I muttered obscenities; Sergey didn’t. He stayed behind. He looked the extortionists in the eyes. All he said—and all he needed to say—was this: “You bring shame on our country.”

The officers shrugged, cold to the lover’s quarrel.

Would it have made a difference if they’d known that we had just come from Beslan, the site of the 2004 school siege in which 344 people, mostly school children, died in a way that made many wonder if God was all fury and no love?

Did they not hear about the other cops who had turned security checkpoints into private toll booths—those who, for a price, waved through the Beslan-bound terrorists all the way from Chechnya?

Would it have helped if we had told the officers that Sergey is vice president of Russian Ministries, which put crisis counselors in Beslan for a year?

Should we have have told them that a local mullah and a government head had profusely thanked Sergey for the ministry’s loyal care in the region?

I don’t know. Conscience-dulling maladies are hard to cure.

Putin’s PR people joined the Beslan parents in a collective sigh of relief last July, when Russian forces killed Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who planned the siege.

But neither ingenious PR firms nor swift military coups can awaken Russia’s soul. Only a lover can do it. Only a Lover can. Someone angry enough to look a conniver in the eyes and tell him the truth, or to throw over a few tables.

Someone furious with love.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

More on Russia is available in our full coverage area.

Agnieszka Tennant’s previous columns include:

What (Not All) Women Want | The finicky femininity of Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. (Aug. 10, 2006)

A Velveteen Apologetic | How two creatures dig a rabbit hole in my disbelief. (April 10, 2006)

What Would Jesus Buy? | Saving the world one cashmere sweater at a time. (Jan. 31, 2006)

Agnieszka Tennant’s previous articles include:

A Hard Pill to Swallow | How the tiny tablet upset my soul. (Nov. 8, 2005)

Ragamuffin | The patched-up life and unshabby message of Brennan Manning. (June 4, 2004)

‘Jesusy’ Anne Lamott | Chatting with a born-again paradox. (Jan. 8, 2003)

The Ultimate Language Lesson | Teaching English may well be the 21st century’s most promising way to take the Good News to the world. (Dec. 6, 2002)

Possessed or Obsessed? | Many Christians say they are in need of deliverance but some may be giving demons more than their due. (August 24, 2001)

Also in this issue

The CT archives are a rich treasure of biblical wisdom and insight from our past. Some things we would say differently today, and some stances we've changed. But overall, we're amazed at how relevant so much of this content is. We trust that you'll find it a helpful resource.

Cover Story

Where We Are and How We Got Here

What Married Women Want

The Church's Great Malfunctions

Flea Market Believers

A Bioethicist on Genesis

Hope for Shalom

CT Classics

From Eternity to Here

A Greater Vision

Grappling with God

A One-China (Church) Policy

Editorial

Save the E-Word

Editorial

Media in Motion

Genocide and Grace

LBJ and JFK

News

Q&A: Richard Stearns

What's Next: Relief and Development

Review

IDing ID's Designer

What's Next: International Justice

What's Next: Higher Education

Legacy of a Global Leader

Evangelism Plus

Train Wreck Coming

What's Next: Evangelism

What's Next: Culture

Let Us Reason Together About Life

What's Next: Theology

What's Next: Publishing & Broadcasting

The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals

What's Next: Politics

What's Next: Missions

News

Go Figure

What's Next: Youth

News

Quotation Marks

What's Next: Local Church

News

One 'Major Step'

'Truth from the Evangelical Viewpoint'

News

'Christianity Today' News Briefs

Calvary Reunion: Skip Heitzig Returns to N.M.

News

'They Know We Are Christians'

News

A Hint of Peace

News

Passages

News

Soaking in Blood—Again

Asylum vs. Assistance

Cool on Climate Change

Braves Lose Focus

The Earmark Epidemic

News

Axis Denied

News

Indonesia's Death Quota

News

Disputed Dismissal

News

The Price of Protest

View issue

Our Latest

Wire Story

Study: Evangelical Churches Aren’t Particularly Political

Even if members are politically active and many leaders are often outspoken about issues and candidates they support, most congregations make great efforts to keep politics out of the church when they gather.

News

Investigation to Look at 82 Years of Missionary School Abuse

Adult alumni “commanded a seat at the table” to negotiate for full inquiry.

Have Yourself an Enchanted Little Advent

Angels are everywhere in the Bible. The Christmas season reminds us to take them seriously.

News

Western North Carolina’s Weary Hearts Rejoice for Christmas

The holiday isn’t the same with flooded tree farms and damaged churches from Helene, but locals find cheer in recovery.

News

In Italy, Evangelicals Wage a Quiet War on Christmas

Born-again Christians say the holiday is too Catholic and the celebration of Jesus’ birth isn’t based on the Bible.

The Bulletin

Exalting Every Valley with Charles King

The Bulletin welcomes historian Charles King for a conversation with Clarissa Moll about the modern relevance of Handel’s Messiah

News

After Assad: Jihad or Liberty?

A coalition of rebel fighters promises to respect Syria’s religious minorities.

Egypt’s Redemption—and Ours

The flight of the holy family is more than a historical curiosity. It points us toward the breadth and beauty of God’s redemption.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube