The Role of the Russians

The role of the Russians in this phase of history is a bit obscured by our Western viewpoint. Those of us who understand the importance of 1776 to the history of Christianity tend to look at the United States as the culimation of God’s long war for a people that would reach the nations with this Gospel. There is no doubt this is true. At the same time, it’s easy to see Russia as “yesterday’s Christianity” which like France and Germany became a raging empire after it’s culture imploded. This is true too.

Now that the beast of Soviet Communism is dead, however, what role is Russia playing in the world? Well I think it might suprise us. We’ve been told repeatedly that Russia is undemocratic and basically a very problematic regime, with the implication that our best position is one of hostility toward them. Let’s take the Russian view for a moment. Russia was once viewed as the “Third Rome” and capital of Orthodox Christianity. This today, in spite of 75 years of atheism is an important part of Russian conciousness. Russians are proud and nationalistic, and do not particularly think that democracy is the answer to the world’s problems. This kind of thinking dates back to the Tsars who were in a chess match with a Europe dominated by greedy bankers, and saw themselves, like the Holy Roman Emperors of old implicitly as defenders of the true Christian civilization.

To the Russians, then the West is not the good thing we think of it as. To them we are an expansionistic power bloc with ambitions of world domination. What we as see the advance of democracy they see as a threat to their sovereignty, and perhaps by extension, civilization.  Let’s keep in mind that while Americans think of themselves as the saviors of civilization because of WWII especially, but also the first war and the cold war, Russians see themselves as the ones who won the second world war, and also defeated Napoleon.

Once you realize that there are very powerful globalist forces pushing Europe and the United States to erase national borders and have a one world state, the idea of a strong, non-Communist Russian bloc doesn’t seem so bad because it provides a counter balance. I actually do think that the oligarchy experience where Russia became a giant money laundry for the globalists has market Putin’s views on this subject. When he says he wants “regional trade”, many in the West hear “we want to control our own part of the world” but this could easily be read the other way “we do not want to submit to your expansionistic globalist system.”

In the short term, democracies provide the open door for the Gospel to move forward, but in the long term, the democracies are being increasingly manipulated for transnational statist power. The tables may turn where Russia and the Russians play the role of the good guys.