“Jehovah’s Witnesses Ban Appeal Rejected by Russia’s Supreme Court, Allowing Government to Seize Worship Halls”

I’m worlds apart both in theology and, I think, in sensibility from the Watchtower Society.  But this is a deeply regrettable development — a catastrophic setback, really — for religious liberty and freedom of conscience, not only in Russia but beyond:

http://www.newsweek.com/jehovahs-witnesses-russia-ban-appeal-637816?utm_campaign=NewsweekFacebookSF&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social

This article from the Salt Lake Tribune may hit a bit closer to home for most of my readers:

“Mormonism’s Russia dilemma: How to grow a fledgling faith with missionaries who can’t do missionary work.”

Vladimir Putin is meticulously creating a Russian nationalist autocracy, with the Russian Orthodox Church as one of its pillars — just as in the days of the tsars.  The leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church have never appreciated competition or a free market of religious ideas.  They formed a close relationship with the tsars, and used that relationship to marginalize and eliminate rivals.  After the unpleasant decades of Lenin and Stalin and their successors, it’s back to business as usual.

Unfortunately for the hierarchs of Russian Orthodoxy, though, enforced religious monopolies virtually always become stagnant, corrupt, unappealing, and weak.

Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii