Facing Changing Times: What Can Estonian Baptists Learn from the Early Church?

Abstract

Parallels between issues the church faced in the fourth century after the cessation of persecution and the emergence of toleration and the issues Estonian Baptists faced after the collapse of the Soviet Union highlight important issues involved in the relationship between church and state in changing times. Prior to the fourth century, both an “ethic of resistance” and an “ethic of subordination” to the state characterized church-state relations. Following the Edict of Toleration, Christians assumed both cooperative and non-cooperative postures toward the state. Modern Estonian Christians have likewise moved from Soviet-era persecuted church to post-Soviet preferred status in Estonian society, resulting in unresolved tensions between cooperative and non-cooperative perspectives. The challenge for Estonian Baptists today is to remember that they were only recently a persecuted religious minority and thus should exercise their newly privileged position to work for religious liberty for current religious minorities.