Back in the summer I noticed that there was very little material online about the Soviet persecution of the Christians. This saddened me, since it was something that should not be forgotten.
Keston College, which sought to publicize the situation in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, has disbanded but the Keston Institute still exists. I was able to correspond with Michael Bordeaux, who founded Keston, and obtain permission to put a couple of his books online. I created a PDF of one, and enquired if it might be hosted here or there — my site isn’t the best place for such — but in vain. Then pressures of work forced me to lay the matter aside.
Today I have been running “Faith on Trial in Russia”[1] through my scanner. The pages are yellowed, and the paperback spine is stiff, although thankfully the glue warmed and became flexible as I worked. It is, neverthless, a risky business scanning a paperback of that period.
The book deals with the sufferings of the Russian baptists, and is an interesting and involving read. Unlike some such books, it is not a depressing read.
What I think that I will do, is to create a page on my site, and also to OCR the book so that the search engines can find it easily. It’s pure gold, from a historical point of view.
UPDATE: I’ve now scanned the book, and also his 1983 publication, Risen Indeed. They’re both here.
- [1]Michael Bordeaux, Faith on Trial in Russia, Hodder and Stoughton, 1971.↩
Hi Roger.
You are absolutely right to be emphasising this. Time was when Keston College was the primary source of good-quality information on the persecution of Christians within the Soviet Bloc. I worry to a little that, given our propensity for amnesia when it comes to anything of historical significance, in a little while this kind of information will quietly drop out of the public sphere, leaving the space wide open for further secularist reinvention of the past.
Thank you for your efforts. I hope you are keeping well. May I commend to you an excellent recent publication – “Understanding Jesus” by Peter S. Williams (the Philosopher, not to be confused with the Warden of Tyndale House) is a really meaty, thought-provoking treatment of the intellectual framework within which we assess Christian truth-claims.
Regards, Kevin (Moss)
Hi Kevin,
I think this rewriting of history is already happening. This is one reason why I went in search of the Keston books on my shelves, and why I want to get them online.
Already I’ve found descriptions of Soviet policy — written at the time — which look like blueprints for modern attacks on the church.
The Keston archives have been transferred to Baylor University in the US. Unfortunately their digital archive sits behind a password — so wrong, that — and so I don’t know how accessible they are to anyone.
All the best,
Roger Pearse