Prayers or Bombs?

Evangelicals differ on the way to bring peace to the former Yugoslavia.

The controversy surrounding Peter Kuzmic, ex-Yugoslavia’s most prominent Protestant theologian, symbolizes well the political tension between evangelical groups in Croatia and Serbia. At the beginning of the year, Kuzmic proposed military strikes by the West against Serbian positions. A month earlier Gunnar Staalsett, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, had proposed a similar course of action.

Though the Pentecostal theologian’s comments enjoyed virtually unanimous support in Croatia—he resides in Osijek, Croatia—he reaped a storm of protest in Serbia. He was attacked by the secular Serbian press, but one of the sharpest retorts came from Lazar Stojsic, a minister in Belgrade’s flourishing Pentecostal congregation Hram Svete Trojice (Temple of the Holy Trinity). Stojsic said, “Kuzmic reminds me of a person with bombs in one hand and prayers in the other.”

Baptist Prof. Alexander Birvis, a former colleague of Kuzmic’s at the Pentecostal seminary in Osijek and now a pastor in Belgrade, adds, “I wonder whether Kuzmic would be demanding the same if his daughter were living in Belgrade.”

During an interview, Kuzmic explained his position, saying, “I have never asked for military action against Serbia or Belgrade. These [military] groups only understand the language of power. I would love to be a pacifist. This demonic power can only be stopped by resolute action of the Western community.”

Who’s attacking whom?

Croatian believers support the tightening of international sanctions against Serbia as well as recommendations that the Serbian Orthodox Church be banished from the World Council of Churches. On both of these points, Serbian evangelicals take the opposing view. Croatians are convinced that war guilt is primarily Serbian. The Protestants of Serbia, though, are equally certain that both sides share equal blame for the recent warfare.

Superintendent Martin Hovan, the highest-ranking Methodist in all of the former Yugoslavia, advocates views more radical than most. Hovan, who resides in Serbia, insists, “The Germanic race is attacking us. It wants to divide us up, so we can be defeated. Today the Vatican is attacking Orthodoxy, but tomorrow it could be us, the Protestants.”

Relations with the state

Distance from government policies is greater among Serbian Christians, yet, in both cases, the churches have taken positions that do not endanger their relations with the state. Serbian Pentecostals and Seventh-day Adventists hold overtly pacifist positions, but they do not take public issue with political policies of the Serbian state.

Pressure to conform is extremely harsh in both states. According to Peter MacKenzie, a Zagreb-based missionary from Scotland, Baptists in Serbianheld territories who differ with their state defend themselves with “other-worldliness.”

“I think they’re right,” adds MacKenzie, “not because Christians who get involved in politics are carnal in principle, but because in such a difficult situation it is the best means available to glorify God and to promote the advancement of the gospel. Croats think Serbs should stand up and condemn their own leaders, and Serbs think Croats should do the same. But at this point, neither is prepared to do that.”

In Serbia, multi-ethnic congregations with Serbian majorities enjoy the greatest political leeway. The Baptist church in Novi Sad, for example, sports seven different nationalities. Ethnically monolithic churches such as the Slovak Lutheran or the Hungarian Reformed are under much greater pressure. Bishop Andrej Beredi of the Slovak Lutheran church explains, “It would be highly problematic if all Lutherans or Slovaks would refuse to carry weapons. The government would immediately interpret that as an anti-Serbian step.”

Though the evangelicals of ex-Yugoslavia are not equipped to play a role as political mediators, they do possess other means for promoting peace. In places such as the destroyed city of Pakrac, Croatia, multi-ethnic congregations are being formed, including both Croatian and Serbian converts. “The fact that Serbs are joining our churches means they regard us to be peacemakers,” concludes MacKenzie. “In fact, we are on occasion accused of being Chetnik [a derisive term for Serbs] churches.”

Humanitarian aid is an additional means for promoting the concern for peace. The 1,500 Baptists of Croatia administer two of ex-Yugoslavia’s largest church relief agencies. In Serbia, the most widely respected church relief agency, ADRA, is run by the 9,000-member Adventist church. Because it has small congregations spread throughout the entire country, it was able to develop a distribution network unrivaled by any other church. “Our network is in place everywhere,” says Adventist president Jovan Lorencin proudly. Even the national Serbian Orthodox relief agency, Dobrotvor, needed to resort to Adventist channels to ship aid into all sectors of Sarajevo.

Especially in Serbia, economic hardships abound. Though Serb-held territories contain nearly as many refugees as Croatia, they are receiving no more than a fourth of all church aid directed toward Yugoslavia. Inflation is running as high as several percentage points daily: An average monthly salary in December was valued at $44; in January, it was down to $25.

Dragoslav Strajnic, a Pentecostal pastor who returned to Serbia from France in 1989, states in desperation, “We’re here, and we’re ready to work; but we’re not being given the financial means to do our job. We believers are not making the war, and we should not be punished with sanctions. There is no justification for ignoring us, because we are not responsible for this war.”

For the first time since World War II, the churches in all of Yugoslavia are free to do social and youth work without government intervention. Yet present economic restrictions have kept most projects from being realized.

Despite feelings of desertion among Serbian evangelicals, mission work appears to be flourishing in Belgrade. The city is host to nearly 15 North American missionaries, including Southern Baptists and Campus Crusade. Greater Europe Mission is planning to move its seminary there from Vienna.

By Bill Yoder in Croatia.

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