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Editor,

I read your magazine with some interest this morning. Especially your missions article "Father God and Mother Russia".

I have to admit that one comment in this article did spoil the rest of the article for me. Whilst I realise that you are the editor of this magazine, and therefore have every right to say what you want etc. I wonder how Russians living in America will feel about God and Christianity when they read your line, and I quote, "Ronald Reagan made many references to Russia as the “evil empire” (and justly so)".

Now Ronald Reagan may have had just cause to call Russia as an evil empire, but we also have to realise that he was President of your country at the time of the Cold War.

Why is Russia suddenly so evil? Because they have had faulty leadership? Because they allowed communism to rule them...then can not the same be said about China and other communist nations across the world??

Maybe the government system behind Russia is evil, but the people and the country are not so! And to make a comment like you did, lumps all of Russia and its people into one heap and is sheer generalisation.

I have to ask, have you ever been to Russia? and seen her people?

Have you seen the suffering of the children? Have you heard of how thousands of chidren are recovered after every winter in St. Petersburg frozen under the snow. Having spent a short stint working as a missionary in russia, and having close friends still their, i was greatly insulted by your generalised, sweeping remark about Russia being an evil nation!

If you have grounds for making comments like this then make them clear, otherwise many people will be put off by them. I know I was, and I konw that many of my friends upon reading your article will also not recommend this otherwise good publication.

Yours sincerely,

J. W.

Thank you for writing. I think that you misunderstood me, but also I think that I could have been more clear about Reagan's statement than I was. Please allow me to elaborate on my earlier remarks.

You are correct in in saying that Russia is not an evil country. Communism is evil, as were many of the leaders of Russia in the past. Lenin and Stalin were evil beyond comprehension. The same could be said for China, Cuba, etc. and many of their leaders.

But is Russia itself evil? No, only its leadership and politics and its mode of international relations, or should I say its bid at taking over the free world by attempting to export Marxism to every third-world country on the planet. Evil too were the purges and the deaths of hundreds of millions of Russians that were starved to death at the hands of Lenin and Stalin. These things are without contradiction evil.

You are also correct in saying that the people living in communist countries are not evil. Of course, all men are sinners and wicked in the sight of God, but the Russian people are no more evil than the American people, or the people of Botswana, or Paraguay, or any other nation. It is not the people of Russia that I was referring to, and it was not the people of Russia that Reagan was referring to, either.

As an aside, Ronald Reagan, during the years (if I am not mistaken) that he was a spokesman for GE, was instumental in the commissioning of Radio Free Europe. This radio network broacast news and other programs into Eastern Block countries and also into the Soviet Union, programming that brought truth to precious people that were being fed a steady diet of lies by their communist captors. He did this because he cared about these people, not because he thought they were evil and therefore of less value than Americans.

If the Russian people are evil, then why does God call missionaries such as yourself to Russia to preach the gospel? Again, they are sinners, and in that context they are evil, but God sent His Son to die for sinners, (perhaps) especially Russian sinners, because He loves them. I believe if you will read again my article (which was published in the Missions section of my magazine) you will see the love of God towards Russians in my exhortation to pray for the lost that are living there.

Have I been to Russia? No, I have not. Hopefully I will have a chance to go there one day to tell the wonderful Russian people about my Savior. I can say that I have prayed for the Russian people to be saved. I remember one afternoon several years ago in particular I was browsing an atlas and as I saw the Soviet Union on one of its pages the Spirit of God moved upon my heart, reducing to tears as I felt a burden for these people who, without Christ, will not make it into heaven.

I have also studied about missions activity behind the iron curtain, reading about men such as Brother Andrew and Haralan Popov. I am sure that my studies are what enabled me to be moved by the Holy Spirit to weep for the Russian people, as I just related to you.

Again, I want to say that I was not as clear as I should have been concerning the statement by Reagan. Please understand that an explanation was not given due to lack of space, plus the fact that future articles on communism and other forms of oppression in the 20th century have been planned for publication; these articles will explore more fully the proper Christian response to Satan's enslavement of people by the means of evil dictatorships. I simply was not able to go into detail at the time, preferring rather to stay on the topic at hand.

I do apologize for the fact that you were offended by my lack of clarity in the article. Hopefully neither I nor the other contributors to Preach The Word Magazine will permit this lesson escape us.

Humbly yours,

Joey Kelly
editor, Preach The Word Magazine