Despite all the attention Ukraine and Russia are getting in the news recently, many people overlook the religious dimensions of Vladimir Putin’s invasion. It is helpful for us to understand how some of the issues are tied to bad theology and to reexamine where we as Lutherans stand.
I watched a video a number of years ago on YouTube with Vladimir Putin talking about how meaningful his baptism was to him. What I didn’t realize at the time is that baptism, for those in the Russian Orthodox church, is seen less as something that makes you part of “the one, holy, Christian and apostolic church” than it is something that makes you part of the Orthodox Russian church or “Holy Russia.” In a New York Times article from 2014, a Russian named Dmitry Markov explains, “We are all one people, we are all part of Holy Rus. Any person, regardless of where he lives, if he is Russian in spirit, he must be defended by his president, by his country, because he is an indivisible part of the nation.” This is the kind of mistaken religious belief that opened the door for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
This idea of being baptized into something other than Christ’s church (in this case, being baptized into “Holy Russia”) is at odds with what St. Paul writes about in Galatians 3:27-28 where he abolishes national identity (“there is neither Jew nor Greek”) along with other identifiers (“neither slave nor free, there is no male and female”). Instead, Paul teaches that baptism creates a unity that transcends the divisions of this world (“for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”)
Another problem comes with the marriage of Christian nationalism with Russian Orthodoxy. When the church gives license to whatever the state does as “holy,” the church abandons her duty to preach law and gospel to sinners and instead endorses sin and injustice. Atrocious acts of war are given spiritual approval because a holy government cannot do wrong.
As Lutherans, we believe in submission to the governing authorities. This flows from the authority of parents, which Luther writes about in the Large Catechism regarding the Fourth Commandment. However, the extent of this obedience has a clear limit. There is a distinct line in scripture (Acts 5:29) and in the Lutheran confessions (Augsburg Confession, Article XVI) that requires us to disobey in the event that the government would forbid faith in the Gospel or if the law were to demand that a Christian sin against any of the 10 Commandments.
When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, He responded, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His Kingdom is IN this world, though. Each Christian lives simultaneously under the authority of two kingdoms, which both exist under the ultimate Lordship of God. “The Kingdom of the Right” has to do with the church, a kingdom ruled by the gospel where God acts through the means of grace. “The Kingdom of the Left” has to do with secular authorities, where God works through his Law. Through governments, God works through earthly means to restrain sin, provide order, and administer justice. However, we should not think of the left-hand kingdom as anything less than the right-hand kingdom. On the contrary, Luther writes in the Large Catechism that “Through them, as through our parents, God gives us food, house and home, protection, and security. They bear such name and title with all honor as their highest dignity that it is our duty to honor them and to value them as greatly as the dearest treasure and the most precious jewel upon earth.”
One last thought: It is interesting to note that the support of the Russian Orthodox Church by the government of Russia does not lead to a more churchgoing people. In Russia, only 7% of citizens attend church regularly. In Ukraine, the most religiously observant country in Europe, that number was, at last count, 37%, which is within a few percentage points of those who regularly attend church in the United States.