Since my work with Defenders of Faith and Religious Freedom in Ukraine began back in March of this year, I’ve traveled to Ukraine twice, once for the Ukrainian National Prayer Breakfast in June, and again for the Yalta European Strategy Conference in September. I’ve visited churches across the United States with Ukrainian Evangelical pastors, and I’ve met with countless elected officials, policy experts, and non-profit groups to discuss the importance of supporting Ukraine in their fight against the Russian invaders. I also attended Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, which cemented for me that Hamas’ attack against Israel and Russia’s attack against Ukraine are two versions of the same story – with Iran playing an integral role in an axis of evil, providing the same drones to both Russia and Hamas.
In all the conversations and experiences that I’ve had through this work, despite the clarity of what’s really going on between Russia and Ukraine, I have discovered an astonishing amount of confusion and misinformation floating around about this war. It should come as no surprise, ultimately. The Kremlin has ramped up its propaganda efforts as Vladimir Putin desperately tries to position Russia as a defender of traditional, western, conservative, Christian values on the world stage. If you look at the basic facts of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, however, they tell a different story than the one Putin is trying to sell to the West.
Putin wants Americans to believe that Russia holds to a different set of values today than the set of values espoused by the Soviet Union. The fact is, Russia remains the same, ideologically, and this war is bringing out Russia’s true, Soviet colors. Once you put the political mess aside, the following truths remain; in the war between Russia and Ukraine, one side is destroying churches, schools, and hospitals. One side is using rape as a weapon of war. One side is kidnapping thousands of children. Russia is doing all that and more, and the efforts to mask or rebrand Russia’s actions are exactly like the progressive Left’s efforts to portray Hamas as freedom fighters.
More than 640 Ukrainian Evangelical churches have been destroyed by the Russians in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The Russians are torturing, imprisoning, and killing evangelical pastors because freedom in Christ does not compute with Soviet ideology, where The State is God and violence is the sacrament. To make matters worse, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped from their schools, churches, and orphanages by the Russian Armed Forces. Most people in America are aware of what Hamas terrorists did to innocent Jewish women and children on October 7, 2023, but most Americans aren’t aware that the Russians are kidnapping Ukrainian children by the thousands.
Every day in the occupied territories, Ukrainian parents go to pick up their kids from school or camp and, to their horror, a Russian soldier informs them that their child is gone, deported to Crimea, Moscow, or even Siberia, for re-education. In these reeducation camps, the Russians systematically erase the Ukrainian identity of the children, forcing them to denounce their innate values and unique religious heritage. After crushing the spirits of these children, the Russians fill the void with a counterfeit gospel – Soviet ideology. Is this the behavior that Americans are supposed to believe comes from a country defending western, Christian, family values? Bring Kids Back Ukraine has done extensive research on this grossly underreported issue, which Russia is trying to hide.
Russia’s conduct in Ukraine is laying bare the dark heart of Soviet ideology, and while the Kremlin is trying to hide Russia’s moral rot from the West, the facts don’t lie. Christians must stand up against evil and refuse to let politics get in the way when moral imperatives arise. Don’t let Putin’s lies deceive you. He must be stopped, Iran must be stopped, and Hamas must be stopped. It’s not just the victims of these evildoers whose lives and countries hang in the balance, its Western Civilization itself.
Gary Marx is the president of Defenders of Faith and Religious Freedom in Ukraine and the former executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Comment by Tim Ware on October 23, 2024 at 11:00 am
The neocons have never seen a conflict they didn’t want to get their remote-controlled bombs involved in. The neocons have never seen a conflict they didn’t frame as “us vs. them” with “them” always being labeled as evil. After all, that’s the “just war theory”–our side is always and only just, and their side is always and only evil.
It is not Western Civilization that is at stake. It is Western hegemony, the ability of the West to dictate to the rest of the world and subjugate and profiteer off of the rest of the world. But of course, the neocons understand this. They understand that what is at stake is their own world hegemony. So we can brace for more propaganda, shrill shrieks urging us to support using remote-controlled missiles (while we remain safely tucked away thousands of miles away) to kill, maime, and destroy those we have labeled as evil. And then, when we have slaughtered all those who won’t submit to us, the world will be a much better place.
So I guess the definition of evil is “those who oppose Western global hegemony.” It must be, because we get descriptions of how evil Russia is treating children in Ukraine, but we get no mention of how Israel is slaughtering children in Gaza. One-sided propaganda is so transparent!
I’m sure Jesus would be proud. After all, He plainly said, “Hate your enemies. Do bad to all those you don’t like. And be sure and realize that I hate them, too. After all, the sun only shines on those who are like you, and the rain only falls on people you like. And remember how I said not to follow an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Instead, I told you to take 1000 of their eyes for one of yours and 1,000,000 of their teeth for one of yours. Go get ‘um! Let’s all hate together!!!”
Comment by David on October 23, 2024 at 11:31 am
Ukraine made some mistakes, which encouraged Russia to attack. In 2017, a new Law on Education was passed, restricting the use of Russian as a language of instruction. This was not popular with the eastern population and reduced their loyalty to the government.
Comment by John on October 23, 2024 at 11:39 am
Tim,
Where does Ukraine fit into your narrative of the Big, Bad West? It doesn’t want to be part of Russia, it never has, and it has never fared well being dominated by Russia. Just ask the 5 million Ukrainians who died as a result of Stalin’s agricultural programs in the 1930s. I know from your previous posts that you feel the need to constantly grind the ax when it comes to Israel, but this is about Ukraine. This is about self-determination. Maybe you think that too is a fallen “western” value, but don’t see way a rational person can justify what Russia’s doing in Ukraine unless they’ve fully bought into Russian imperalist narrative that pushing it back home. Have you?
Comment by Wilson R. on October 23, 2024 at 12:13 pm
Whatever may or may not be true about neocons, it’s hard to argue with the statement that Russia and Iran today function primarily as forces of evil in the world.
The people of Iran deserve better than their current rulers, who are deeply unpopular. Without them, Iran would have a much more normal relationship with the rest of the world.
The same may be true in Russia, but it’s less clear. A majority still appear to support Putin and the war in Ukraine that they’re not allowed to call a war. Russians have an inclination toward strongmen that is so deep, it goes back to pre-czarist times and the Mongol occupation. Tied in with that, they have a messianic/martyr complex that stems from their ties to Constantinople and the Orthodox tradition; they see themselves as the “Third Rome,” the last defender of the true faith after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. And they still have an appetite for empire that connects to their visions of past greatness. All of these attitudes are going to be hard to overcome in order for Russia to have a healthy relationship with the Western world.
Comment by Tim Ware on October 23, 2024 at 12:30 pm
We certainly do have a way of ignoring the clear, explicit, direct statements of Jesus when it suits our purposes.
Comment by Wilson R. on October 23, 2024 at 1:20 pm
I agree with you that Christians have a way of rationalizing war, in spite of Jesus’ statements.
I also recognize that Jesus’ statements can be problematic for Christians who perceive war against intractable tyrants as the only way sometimes to prevent even greater loss of life. Should Hitler have been allowed to kill unchecked? Should Christians have refused to serve in a military action against Hitler’s genocidal regime? These are not easy questions.
Either way, I don’t think it’s against Jesus’ teaching to call out the Russian and Iranian regimes for what they are.
Comment by Tim on October 23, 2024 at 1:24 pm
I think as Christians, our role is to work so that peaceful people have the ability to live in peace. The author does a good job making the case for the Ukrainian cause and testifying to the crimes committed against them.
I don’t think the characterization of the left as being pro Hamas is fair. The left is aghast at an increasingly unfair discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied territories and at the sheer death toll during this war. I don’t think there’s a contradiction in supporting Ukraine and conditioning support for Israel on its commitment to a two state solution. At the end, the goal should be for the average person to be able to go about their life in peace.
Comment by Wilson R. on October 23, 2024 at 1:54 pm
It’s definitely unfair to characterize “the left” as monolithically pro-Hamas because there is a great division of opinion among that broad group. It’s not just unfair; it’s intellectually lazy. It’s true to say that some are pro-Hamas. It’s true that some are equally offended by the behavior of Hamas and the behavior of the Israeli government. It’s true that some are both anti-Zionist (that is, opposed not just to the actions of the government but to the existence of Israel as a state) and anti-Hamas. It’s true that some on the left support Israel but not its government, while some fully support both.
Whether or not in hindsight it was a good idea to establish a Jewish state in 1948, the people now living within the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel—religious Jews, cultural Jews who are atheists, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims–should be able to live without fear of being massacred by Hamas terrorists.
And yet, supporting the right of these people to live in peace doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize the brutality of the Israeli military in Gaza and the creation in the West Bank of what can only be called an apartheid state, where Palestinians are second-class persons who must live in fear that armed Jewish settlers will take their land or their lives, with no protection from the Israel Defense Forces.
Comment by Tim Ware on October 23, 2024 at 8:16 pm
My primary concern about Christians selectively deciding which clear and explicit things straight from Jesus Himself to ignore or explain/interpret away and which of these things to take literally is that it negatively affects the Christian witness to the world. When we take literally those passages we agree with (and weaponize them as tools of condemnation) yet interpret or explain away those passages we find inconvenient, how can we expect others to take us seriously?
It should be our desire to see every person in the world come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Whether Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, or whatever…our goal should be for all to come to Jesus. Yet when we are known throughout the world for our double standards and indiscriminate killing, when we label Muslims and anyone else we don’t like as evil, when we support, finance, and enable the slaughter of Muslim children in Gaza, when we have slaughtered untold numbers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, etc., when we label well over half of the world’s population as evil and see them as enemies to hate, why in the world would anyone in the world want to convert to Christianity? Our selective interpretation and application of biblical passages, plus our actions in the world, have basically assured that what should be our main goal–winning people throughout the world for Jesus–is impossible.
Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” What do the non-Christians in the world know about Christianity from our fruits???
Comment by Different Steve on October 24, 2024 at 8:38 am
First the Sandinista article, now this one. I suppose it was thought this it wouldn’t be fair not not run this article after the first one. The comments have offensive ethnic stereotypes. One of the major complaints ex-church goers have is why all the politics. I’d suggest removing both articles and no more like them. There’s no end to these sort of articles once you open the floodgates, everybody has a propaganda department claiming the other guy is Satan.
Comment by Tim on October 24, 2024 at 11:06 am
Different Steve
This article is primarily about the suffering of the Ukrainian people in a war that was forced on them because of the politics of a different country. I think there’s pretty broad ecumenical agreement that victims of unnecessary wars are among the least of these that Christ told us to care about.
Comment by Tim Ware on October 24, 2024 at 12:22 pm
Tim,
Ukraine and Russia had come to an agreement to avoid hostilities before the hostilities began. Britain and the United States told Ukraine to back out of the agreement. Britain and the United States saw the war as an opportunity to replace Putin and weaken Russia. So you’re right, the war was forced on the people of Ukraine because of the politics of a different country–actually two different countries, Britain and the United States. But it didn’t go the way those two countries expected, and now they have no way to end it. Yet another example of meddling in world affairs that leads to suffering and senseless loss of life.
Comment by Different Steve on October 24, 2024 at 1:37 pm
It’s funny how a Tim seems to think we’re responsible for the Sandinista disaster but not for the Ukraine dsiaster. Presumably has something do do with the former being Reagan and the latter being Biden. Like I was saying, politics. I’m old enough to remember when leftists weren’t warmongers. I mentioned once, hard to get somebody to understand something when it runs contrary to their pecuniary interest. Military industrial complex, anybody? Not the only industrial complex we got either. Tim doesn’t seem to have run into one yet that he didn’t like and wasn’t willing to claim Jesus wants.
Comment by Different Steve on October 24, 2024 at 1:49 pm
Also, the article’s title states it’s about Russia’s moral rot, so how can it be said with a straight face that’s it just an innocent little article about Ukrainian suffering? It’s clearly meant to demonize. I will say, it appears this foreign policy disaster will be coming to an end soon (not soon enough), despite hit piece articles and comments. Don’t make me post links.
Comment by Tim on October 24, 2024 at 2:21 pm
You guys are funny.
What need was there to start the Ukraine war? Russia didn’t like a sovereign country’s internal politics, and that was its justification.
Has the US committed that moral failing? Absolutely. Most damningly in Iraq and Vietnam, but let’s not forget Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua…
The fact that LBJ and Bush caused enormous unnecessary suffering does not legitimate Putin causing enormous unnecessary suffering. The Christian position is clear: stop killing civilians in unnecessary wars.
Comment by Different Steve on October 24, 2024 at 2:57 pm
Ukrainian Troops Increasingly Refusing Orders, Desertion Rates Explode
The Times of London reported data from the Ukrainian government showing that “51,000 criminal cases were initiated for desertion and abandonment of a military unit between January and September of this year.”
Despite no evidence of victory on the horizon, the Republican senator is urging Ukrainian lawmakers to pass a mobilization bill that would force more Ukrainian citizens to be drafted into the military. Currently, men under 27 are exempted from the draft. Graham has a problem with that.
…Graham told reporters, “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27. You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.”
“We need more people in the line,” he said.
It’s not just critics who say that US policy in Ukraine is to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Here’s @LindseyGrahamSC saying that as long as the US arms Ukraine, “they will fight to the last person.” And four months in, he says, “I like the structural path we’re on here.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukrainian-troops-increasingly-refusing-orders-desertion-rates-explode