Anyone who has followed my work here at MarketFaith Ministries, or previously at the North American Mission Board’s Interfaith Evangelism team, knows that I am no fan of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I regard them as a pseudo-Christian cult. Their theology is heretical, especially as regards the full deity of Jesus Christ. For more than forty years I have exposed the false teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
That being said, I noticed recently an article on The Christian Post online website reporting that a 66 year-old Jehovah’s Witness in Siberia, Russia, was sentenced to a six year term for “organizing an extremist group.” (see the article at Russian Jehovah’s Witness Sentenced) According to the article, Yuriy Savelyev, was sentenced on Dec. 16 by the Leninskiy District Court of Novosibirsk. He has already spent three years in jail just waiting for trial.
Salvelyev’s and other Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses’ persecution, is a terrible injustice. There is no evidence that he, or they, have done anything criminal or politically subversive. Apparently their only offense is that they do not take part in patriotic activities, salute national flags, or vote in elections. In today’s highly nationalistic Russia that must make them suspect. Also, the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses are headquartered in the United States makes them questionable to paranoid Russian officials.
As evangelical Christians, who believe in freedom of religion for everyone, we must protest this unjust sentence placed on this man. We may not agree or like what he says, but we defend his right to say it. It is well known that the authoritarian Russian government, led by President Vladimir Putin, strongly favors the Russian Orthodox Church over all others. So, once they squash the Jehovah’s Witnesses, how long will it be before they come after Baptists, Pentecostals, and evangelical Christians in that country? Twenty-two years ago I visited Russia and saw first hand the vibrancy of the newly freed (from communist oppression) Christians there. We should now all be concerned that the freedom of religion, Christian or otherwise, is again in danger of suppression.