01 March 2022

Original YT playout date: 23 September 2010
Duration: 1:20:45

A response to militant atheists who think it’s ok to fight religion by any means

 

The Amazing Atheist, an extreme anti-religious commentator on You Tube at the time this was originally

posted, says that violence is sometimes the answer. Well, the recording in this video I’m appending is of Vladimir Khailo, a leader of the Independent (ie. unregistered with the state) Baptist Church in the Ukrainian SSR during the 1980s. Someone who knows all about what happened when the atheist regime of the Soviet Union decided to try to “heal” belief by the use of neuroleptic drugs and other psychological “treatments” – he was one of the more famous of their guinea pigs among the leaders of the persecuted Baptist Church. What happened to him and thousands more was violence perpetrated by a savagely zealous atheist state disguised and dressed up as medicine and social intervention.

A harrowing account

 

This is his harrowing story, well worth the listening. The guy in the high pitched voice translating for him was me. Thirty four years ago, I was his translator when he got out of the Soviet Union. This he obtained at the personal request to Gorbachev by Sakharov. One of the first things he did when he was freed was to come to Britain and thank the British churches for sticking up for him and remembering him when he was going through that hell. I had the great privilege of spending ten days in the company of this strong Christian leader who had faced the nastiest, cruellest things that communism had threatened believers with. Witness in his own skin to some of the worst systematic abuses perpetrated outside of wartime by a country on faultless citizens.

Everything changes, but anything can happen again

OK, in Russia, this tribulation pretty much stopped 34 years ago and the prayers of the church were answered. These days it is going strong in other parts of the world. And as long as atheists in America and other parts of the free world believe that violence is the answer, we can never be sure that it won’t be us in Vladimir’s position 34 years from now. Once again is it likely to be violence done to us in the guise of a moral State healing and having an ethical explanation for every piece of violence it will do to the believers.

Here we go again?

I am preparing this post on the day when Russia invaded Khailo’s country again, so we simply do not know what sorts of things now lie ahead for Ukrainians, including the believers of that country.  It looks like it is set to be a long conflict. And while this time it is not specifically Christians who are on the receiving end of the persecution, there are going to be the usual horrible effects that always happen when people place their political ideas above the Gospel truths of God.

Church details here: http://www.wembaptistchurch.co.uk/howtofindus.htm”
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