Can I steal from a government factory?

ODESSA, UKRAINE

"Can I steal some tools from a government factory?" This is a silly question for us in North America--of course, stealing is wrong. But for theology students in the Ukraine, the question is real.

Mennonite professor Harry Huebner has learned that theology and ethics are perceived very differently half-way around the world. Huebner, a professor at Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg (a school operated by the Conference of Mennonites in Canada), taught Christian ethics and peace studies at a Baptist seminary in Odessa, Ukraine for two weeks in February.

"It was a struggle for me," said Huebner. "As a Western Christian theologian, do I introduce these Russian people to the struggles we have here . . . to the Niebuhrs and Hauerwases?"

Every student in the class of 16 was a male between the ages of 25 and 35. All had made a personal commitment to ministry in the church, and all had preached before. "When I told them I have daughter who is a pastor, that was a problem for them," said Huebner. "For some of them, it was the end of the discussion. It was a judgement on my theology."

Every class began and ended with prayer. Each time the students prayed, they stood upright. Huebner taught daily, for four hours at a time, with short breaks. "Students devoured (the material) much more eagerly than they do here," said Huebner.

Translation was provided by one of the students, who had only learned English two years earlier. Some words were impossible to translate, such as "humankind". "When I said that word, they had no idea what I was talking about," Huebner says. "So I said 'mankind', and they said, 'Oh, why didn't you say so!' " "Revolutionary subordination", a term from John H. Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, was also hard to translate. "It is a peculiar mixture of communist-Stalinist images and Christian images. They said, 'You must mean something else.' "

Near the end of the course, the students had to write essays on Christian social issues. "I purposely did not tell them on what to write. I wanted that to come out of their situation," said Huebner. Here is sample of the questions these students were dealing with:

  • The ethics of clothing in the Christian church. Can women come to church wearing pants, or must they wear skirts or dresses? Huebner noted that "there was no clothing problem with the men".
  • Illegal income in a post-communist society. In a paper on this topic, one student argued that in a communist country all property belongs to "the people" and therefore one could ethically take a tool home. But in a Christian setting, it is unethical.
  • The Christian peace position. Even though pacifism is not an official position of their church, half the students were convinced pacifists. Other students were either members or former members of the armed services. They were very interested in how pacifism can be defended from the perspective of Christian ethics.
  • Music in the church. The 32-year-old student who wrote on this grew up with rock music and argued that it should be allowed in church.
  • Great creations and bad artists. One student wrote, "I notice that most creators are bad people."

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