What follows is a record of the consequences Christians encountered because of an idea nearly half a century ago in a far-off place. They are also consequences we are encountering now in our own country and in our own communities.

I want to tell you a story. It is a glimpse into a totalitarian world. It is also part of my own story, a sliver of my life as a young Christian traveling in foreign countries, visiting believers living under brutal, authoritarian rule.

I share my story with you because of an insight often quoted but frequently ignored: Ideas have consequences.

What follows is a record of the consequences Christians encountered because of an idea nearly half a century ago in a far-off place. They are also consequences we are encountering now in our own country and in our own communities.

In the summer of 1976, just after my 26th birthday, when I was not quite three years old in Christ, I journeyed to Europe with three others—Lance, fresh out of seminary, and Jeff and Donna, a young married couple contemplating long-term missions work on the Continent.

Our goal: make contact with Christians in the Soviet bloc countries of Hungry, Romania, the Ukraine, and Poland who were suffering persecution behind what was then called the Iron Curtain. Bible smuggling was not our project, but we did pack Russian Scriptures in with our belongings.

We’d purchased a small station wagon[1] in Switzerland, bought sleeping bags and camping gear so we could sleep on the cheap, then entered “the East” south of Vienna, meeting contacts in Hungary and Romania without detection by the state. Veterans of such trips told us the Soviet Union would be different, though. They were right.

Leushen, Moldova, USSR—Friday, July 23

Leaving the Romanian checkpoint behind us, we traversed east, crossing an arching causeway over the Prut River and “no man’s land”—a barbed wire barricade stretching for miles with machine gun towers watching the frontier—to the Soviet side two kilometers away.

Once in the USSR, the Soviet guards glanced at our passports, fumbled superficially through our belongings, checked quickly under our car from a pit made for that purpose, then directed us inside for paperwork and customs declarations. Things were going smoothly, and I expected we’d be out shortly.

When I asked if I could change money before we left, the customs officer said there would be time “after operations.” I soon found out what he meant.

Three men sat at a long table next to the building. One mentioned something about literature and told us to empty the entire contents of our car onto the table. A quick chill went up my spine. They’re looking for Bibles, I thought. I silently prayed, Not my will, but Thine be done. Whatever happened next was in God’s hands.

We dumped most of our luggage, still wet and soggy from the prior night’s rain, onto the table and allowed the guards to go through the rest of the car as they pleased. When one of them discovered a Bible, he held it up triumphantly as if to say, “Aha! I knew it.”

The team then went into overdrive checking everywhere for Christian contraband. They took the seats out, the battery out, and also the back panels on the inside of the car. They looked down the window slots with flashlights, removed the spare tire, and positioned our car over the pit two more times. They went through all our clothing down to every sock and handkerchief four full times. They unrolled our wet tents and our sleeping bags, checked the linings of our suitcases, and asked us repeatedly about secret compartments in the car. They body-searched us thoroughly, even making Jeff undress.

When they’d made a total shambles of our stuff, they told us to put it all back and come into the station.

Once inside, the questions began. Where did we get the Bibles? Why were we bringing them across the border? Who were they for? Did we know such a trafficking was illegal? It went on for hours.

When Jeff explained that the Scriptures were for believers in the Soviet Union, for different churches and their pastors, they asked for the names of the Christians. Jeff told them we planned to look up churches in the phone directory and locate Christians that way.

“But we don’t have churches listed in our phone directory,” the young translator said.

Well, we didn’t know that. We pointed out that in the United States, where there was freedom of religion, all churches were listed in the phone directory. Wasn’t there freedom of religion in the Soviet Union?

“Yes, of course we have freedom of religion,” she said, “but we have separation of church and state.”

That was to be her blanket justification for virtually every intrusion we experienced that afternoon. We never understood exactly how that applied to us since our conduct wasn’t interfering with their “separation.” Lance’s definition was probably the most accurate. “They’re trying to separate the church right out of the state,” he quipped quietly.

“It is forbidden to bring Bibles and other religious material into the Soviet Union,” she continued. “In the schools we teach the children from when they are young that there is no God. Only old people believe in him. Our people are taught Marxist Leninism, that man will solve his own problems and build a wonderful society here on earth. Our Department of Atheism spends large amounts of money each year teaching them these things. We don’t allow any other propaganda.”

“But you do print Bibles here in the USSR?” I asked.

“Yes, we do,” she answered. “Our believers get all the Bibles they need, but they’re given out only through the church and we must have all the names.”

“But you do have religious freedom?”

“Yes, we have religious freedom.”

“Yet we can’t bring Bibles into the USSR?” I asked.

“No, we don’t allow that propaganda in our country.”

“The Bible is propaganda?”

“Yes.”

“But you print Bibles in your own country.”

“Yes.”

“Now I’m confused,” I remarked. “You say you have religious freedom, but we’re not allowed to bring Bibles into your country because they are propaganda. Yet you say you print Bibles right here in the Soviet Union.”

She nodded in agreement to each statement. I was surprised she didn’t see what was coming. “Then that means you’re printing anti-communist propaganda right in your own country,” I concluded.

Her reply was the cryptic, “But we have separation of church and state.” Then she added, “We teach our children there is no God. We don’t want them to believe in God.”

“But these Bibles are for believers, not nonbelievers.”

“Our believers have all the Bibles they need,” she repeated. “Even if I took your word that you’d only give Bibles to believers, what if one little booklet got into the hands of our young people and they read it and became believers? What then?” She was clearly worried about that possibility.

“Do you mean to tell me,” I answered, “that you can spend all that money every year on atheism, that you can teach your people in school from when they are very young that there is no God, and one little book could change all that? You’re awfully frightened of such a small thing, aren’t you? It must be a very powerful little book, then.”

“Big things start small,” she replied. As master propagandists, communists understood such things. She was determined not to be intimidated.

Jeff took the lead then and fought to get anything across the border we could. First, he petitioned for our Russian Bibles on the basis of the alleged religious freedom in the Soviet Union. When they gave no ground, he asked for one Russian Bible for each of us, reasoning that we were all Bible students and were learning a bit of Russian. One Russian Bible was supposed to be allowed. They wouldn’t budge. Finally, he asked for one Bible for himself because he was a seminary graduate and could speak and read Russian. They wouldn’t allow that, either.

They cleaned us out, allowing only one English Bible apiece. They even took the English song books I’d brought from my church, a Baptist newspaper in Romanian given to us in Bucharest, and a propaganda booklet about Romanian history printed in English by the Romanian government for tourists.

That was a chuckle. The border guards had been so shaken by the Bibles, they grabbed anything that looked suspicious, even communist literature printed by their neighbors.

Feigning surprise, I asked if their government was still on good terms with the Romanians. They assured us they were. They were visibly embarrassed by their mistake, though, and returned the booklet to us.

Read More