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Communism and Christianity Part 2: Reflections on Growing up in Romania during the time of Communism · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Centrally speaking, it's the Central Tricular Churches podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is our continuation of our discussion Communism and Christianity, reflections on growing up in Romania during the time of communism.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Once again, we're fortunate to have Reverend Dr.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Octavian Boban, who is from the Baptist Institute at Bucharest State University, where he serves as conferenciar of New Testament.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: He is also a pastor of Bible study and missions at Sitica Baptista Sfunta Traina, which is a Holy Trinity Baptist Church, and he has served there for 23 years.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he grew up during times of communism in Romanium.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: This political ideology was very hard on the church, uh, mistreating many for many years.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um do you remember some of the stories from your grandfather or your great uncle about or some of the stories uh from the church we now serve, where the communists were oppressing people in church uh services or about uh Christian activities?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: When communism came, they came, uh communists came, they came with many promises for democracy and freedom.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: What we uh got instead was uh persecution.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But they they didn't act only physically in a brutal way, they acted brutally in a psychological way.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to get rid of all the intelligentsia, and they did that by sending people in uh labor camps.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so they did with the priests and with the pastors in the first years, in the decade, in the 50s, the things started to fade in the 60s.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Chaosk was praised, because he put an end to the labor camps.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But then he started another type of persecution.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to get control of all the churches and they organized the churches in a hierarchical way.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The churches that didn't have a good hierarchy, so they were difficult to control, was of course the neo-Protestant churches, Baptist, brethren, Pentecostals.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Communist Party tried very hard, working at it very hard.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in the time of several years, they would build a sort of hierarchical structure.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: All the Baptist unions and the Brethren churches unions and the Pentecostal church unions should start to work as a hierarchical structure, not as a union of autonomous churches.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So and then they penetrated the church with many informants.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: They asked from the pastors to tell who is visiting, who is preaching, what they themselves are preaching.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: What was the program on Sunday?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of Chaoscu's rule, there was some freedom.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: After that, we lost all the freedom.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't meet to the church on Sunday morning.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was no children program, no youth program, no Sunday evening or Sunday night program, no program during the week.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the Christians in the United States is called Church of Tsong.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Together with others, they started a movement.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: They prayed, fasted, and went to the Chaoshask and said, We need to be free.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they got the right to gather on uh on Sunday night to have one services during the week and to have children program and youth program.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But this happened only with great danger.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Sikhet police was very strong.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was said that something like half of Romania's uh mature people were involved with the Sikh police, and one third was informers.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Being an informer could give you privilege in terms of travel, in terms of a better position, and so on.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And being a communist party would give you privilege.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So many Romanians became communists, but not because they were very ideological.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Romanians are not very good at philosophy in general.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Generally speaking, they are very pragmatic.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think here they are very much like uh Americans, they are very pragmatic.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they said, How do I live better?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I become a communist, everybody became a communist.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not everybody.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Christians who really wanted to keep a good testimony didn't.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then, if you were Christians, you could not be a leader in your field, you could not be a director, you could not have any leadership position at all.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you will be not promoted, your wage will not increase in time, you'll be kept at the minimum.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: That happened with my parents.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, uh, you asked me about my uh my grandparents, they were pastors.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I said my grandparents was a pastor in a village church near Constanza, in two village churches actually, and he was very fond of music.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: He started a musical movement in the county of Constanza because he discovered he liked to play instruments and to teach other.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he organized orchestras, church bands.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that was his pleasure, and that's what my dad uh has done as well.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and the other was a very good one of the first graduates from the Baptist Institute in Bucharest in 21.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: He started the church in Constanza.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because he did that, he was very active, a very active person.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: He was deported in uh 1948.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was deported into a labor camp somewhere in the northern part of the country.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: He worked there for about two years, and Christians would come to see him to the fences and throw food to him and his family because he was there with his wife.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then they uh petitioned and asked uh the authorities to let him be their pastor because they had churches without a pastor, and the authorities let him be a pastor.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know about his story only after he died, and only in 81 and 82 when I went with uh some young people, and we had a program somewhere in the church after we had a camp in the mountains.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there were about 20 young people who were Sunday school teachers in the Sunday school groups with children, and we presented each other before the program.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: We had some songs, and when I said my name, it's uh Baban.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Really?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yes.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you from Constanza?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there was one here who was called Baban Domito, he started our church.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: They said, I never know about this.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back home and I asked my father, and I said, Look, uh, I was uh 19 years older, something 18 years old.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Look, what's what's what's going on?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then he told me the story.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very nice story.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, God has used him to start about five churches in the north, the part of the country.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Other people lost their lives.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Other people were arrested for one or two nights, kept in dark, without any light, scared to death.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the security said to them, if you want to go back alive to your family and continue your ministry, you should sign here.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: That you will inform the Communist Party and the secret police about anything that's going on in your church.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And under the threat of death, they signed.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it is very difficult for me.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's not one type of informants and all.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are different types of informants.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them were threatened to death, some of them were willing and were looking for the privileges.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So very difficult, very, very difficult to say how could one reach the stage of being an informer in his own church?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it was difficult, was an utter lack of freedom.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I remember as a young man, I was 21, I was in a different town.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was a student.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I went during the summer to visit some relatives in the town of Timishara, where the revolution started in 89.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And after the church in the morning, we went to the park, one of the parks in Timishara, and we were about 40, 40 young people, and we formed a circle, and we started to give our testimony about our faith in Christ.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: People who walked that Sunday afternoon in the park started to come and to listen to us.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then we sang one song from the church, then another song.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Another guy came from us and gave his testimony about uh why he believes in Christ.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: We've done this for about 20 minutes, and at a certain point, what you would never or be a little difficult to imagine, but four Jeep type of cars came in the park and broke our ranks forcefully, went in the center and arrested anyone they could grab.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So something like four, five people in each Jeep.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not all of us were arrested.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know, I wasn't abandoned.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then we all were praying for them and giving telephone calls and saying what's going on, because very late, some, I don't know, one or two, even the second day, the others were freed again about one o'clock in the night.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was said that it's freedom, but it was not freedom.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And people could be imprisoned, could people could be killed.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was so easily for those who disagreed with the policy of the state to be killed by a car accident.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you will never catch the other car.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: The car that produced the accident uh won't have uh plain numbers or numbers inside or couldn't be identified.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was everything on the table, from a little bit of freedom, from being imprisoned, from being threatened to become an informal, from being even killed if you really were very perseverant in your uh uh non-communistic view of life.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you had in the United States Richard Vurbrand, who was uh a Lutheran priest, when there was a meeting in the United States, he was uh sent out of the country because uh the Norwegian church, Lutheran Church, paid a large sum of money for him.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was a prison for Christ for about 14 years, if I'm not wrong.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he went uh to a certain public meeting where some people were speaking in the United States in a big park about uh freedom in the East, and he went on the stage and said, took his uh shirt off.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: People were very surprised, but uh they could see on his back the tracks of the lashes and all the torture signs, and he said, That's the freedom.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of those who suffered for Christ.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So not everybody experienced what Richard Fulband experienced, but such experiences were there for some.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was in your church in um in Bucharest, and you uh showed me a spot where the church uh would hide uh Bibles um during communist times.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh could you say something about that?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, from time to time there were certain links with the Western churches.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some were in relation with Brother Andrew network, otherwise was in relations with the Operation Mobilization Network.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Depends for young people or for adult people, and they would come with vans with double walls or try methods to smuggle in Bibles.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they will come in the double walls of some uh ships that would go on the Danube, coming from Vienne.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it came with cars, sometimes uh in uh just with prayer.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they prayed.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we are caught, we are caught.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the communists would get the Bibles and burn them and find the people who brought them, and if they were foreigners, if they were Romanians, you you could get some days of arrest as well, apart from the fine.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But some of the Bibles, something like maybe 20%, it was a calculated risk or loss.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you say I lose 80%, but 20% would get in, something like that happened.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, once you got the Bibles, you had to stash them somewhere.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had almost all the time in our house in Constanza stashed in the attic somewhere, hidden.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't find them, a number of Bibles, 50 or something, you could give when you told about the gospel to somebody.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in the church in uh Bucharest, yes, they built a special place for hundreds of Bibles in the wall, under the organ of the church, where you thought it's a place, the stage for the organ, but underneath it was where you thought it's a wood-placated wall.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you could take the wood off and even some of the tones of the bricks, and you find an entrance to an acceptable large place for some hundreds of Bibles.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was good because when somebody became Christian, you would recommend him to read the Bible, but there was no available Bible.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: But you'd have one hidden in the church, which you could then give to him.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: You could say you come tomorrow.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, come tomorrow, and I'll give you a chance.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something like that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be able to to find the Bible.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We look around.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: So all this uh oppression from communism was on uh Romania until December of 1989, when there was a a revolution that started in Timishwara and then made its way throughout the country uh to Bucharest.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Can you uh remember uh those times?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: What were you doing uh when all of a sudden things seemed to change?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was the physicist uh in the town of Constanza in a largest refinery of our country, and Daniela was about to have our, we were about to have our second child, our son, who was born at that Christmas time.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ciaocescu died on the 25th, 25th of December.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Vlad was born on 27th of uh December, and the revolution started on the 21st of December.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very interesting experience.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was at home uh waiting for my evening shift because we're working in shifts.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching TV where they uh brocasted a large meeting in Bucharest where Ceausescu was supposed to speak.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: He started to speak, but I won't enter details.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, the I won't say why, but there were some agitators there.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: The multitude started to cry, to shout.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ceaușescu didn't know what happened.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the broadcast stopped, and the TV presenters didn't know what to say.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And after one hour or something, the helicopters came and took Ceausescu from the top of the building because he couldn't get down.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: The multitudes were shouting against him.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it was a revolution, which I believed at that time, or a coup d'etat, which apparently is the real truth, it was a mixed thing.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: A revolt of the people plus a coup d'etat, uh, with uh foreign influence from Russia, Hungary, and some western countries.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: I could look to the windows of my flat in Constanza.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: When all the trouble started, my broke was just facing a nice large boulevard, started to be patrolled by teams of two and two and two tall soldiers.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not the the average height.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: We are talking uh six feet, seven feet.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: The big guys.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: The big guys, it's like the big guys with guns on their shoulders, and everything looked very intimidating, really.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: After Chaoscu has fled with the helicopters, they disappeared.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know where they came from, how there were so many of them, they disappeared, but they were not the usual type of guys.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not they were tall guys.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then the whole story, we didn't know what was the response of the Communist Party.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was a conflict between the secret police forces, they were the heavily armed, and the regular army forces.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was a conflict there, uh a fight for power.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the leader of the army, apparently, vice leader, the second leader, was in favor of the Americans.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was an American spy, I don't know.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: The secret police also were pro-Western, but there were other factions.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: The political leaders were pro-Russian.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so we didn't know what would happen in the end.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh which forces would prevail.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Really, we didn't.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody was there, were two or three uh nights where everybody listened to the uh free Europe uh radio, voice of America radio.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't rely on the news that were broadcasted in Romania.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Simply you couldn't, you who is broadcasting, what faction is broadcasting?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: The political, the army, the secret police, all were heavily armed and uh active.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um it was difficult.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: We felt like it was a day of brotherhood, of freedom.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I never saw people uh embracing themselves.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it was like uh after the world, the second world war has ended, and everybody was kissing everybody and happy that something like that.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And for one or two years it was so easy to tell the gospel.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, you would well, we were not free to pray in public, we were not free to tell about Jesus Christ.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if we told now, everybody would be ready to listen.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I never experienced this.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you would say in a in a market, now it's a good time to pray, everybody would say, Yes, why not?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So very often people would end their meetings, public meetings of any kind, would say the Lord's Prayer.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was very, very, very interesting.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was an enthusiasm about doing things, listen to the gospel, things that we were not allowed to do before.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the same now.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: When uh people say, that's your opinion, you believe in the Bible.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why should you pray the Lord's Prayer?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: You could pray your the Lord's Prayer in your house, and I will pray to whomever I want in my house, and so on.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the freedom didn't do us a very great favor in this respect.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: People um became more laid back, more relaxed, and uh there is no the same feeling of brotherhood.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: But the oppression, of course, from uh from uh the communist regime was gone then, was gone, not all the structures took control of the economical structures.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you could see that uh leader, uh communist leaders in the second and third rank became great the capitalists and the economical factors.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: They had the ideology, they shared the privileges of the communist party, but now they were leading and they were presenting themselves as good, fresh thinkers, and the reform was not there actually.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So for a good number of years, we've been led by the second and third rank of the communists.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, the best non-communist leaders were either dead or in prison and very old.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: The non-communist people were not trained, not politically, not everything, not in social sciences.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: All the believers were forced to take technological studies.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: As a believer, you could not go for philosophy at the university, you could not study social sciences, you could not study economics, you could not study pedagogy, anything that could enable you to become a good leader.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you wanted to be a good engineer, that's good.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't study history because you interpret history.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: You were not allowed, you have a file, and they will look at you.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, you are Christian.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, you you are you cannot be accepted to give an uh to participate in the entrance exam here.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: You you are not uh up to the standards, your family is not uh politically clean, let's say, or bright.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So uh in a way they had that they were the only ones who had well-trained leaders in terms of policy, social life, economical uh management.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: In a way, you say yes, they were the leaders, but in a way and who would be in their place?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: There were no there was a lack of alternative actually.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um only in time we form a sec a new class of leaders, people trained maybe in the West or somewhere else, with uh another uh conception about life, but meanwhile, even uh capitalism doesn't work very well, and meanwhile, um people lost their Christian uh enthusiasm, and uh what we don't know exactly what we have now.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have good experts?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh are they Christians?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Are they um Marxist?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are they still depends on what they've been uh studying in the Western university?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you've been uh alluding to this along the way.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there are a number who seem to be uh more fascinated with uh a socialist or possibly even a communist uh form of government.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Might you have a word to uh those who are fascinated in this aspect today?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I actually I've been uh both attracted and worried by this last of your questions because you sent me a list with a question, and I said, that's interesting.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to say something that socialism and communism come with a what it seems to be a better regulated life and better equality.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: In real terms, what happens is that actually you have a sort of non democratical way of life.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: When policy belongs, the power belongs to those who think they can make all the people in a nation to do their will and have an ideological agenda.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an open participation, it's not a Free community, then you have a sort of new inequality and hypocrisy getting in place and becoming stronger and stronger.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: We had have many jokes about communism and socialism.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: They say if communists or socialists would come to rule Sahara, in 50 years there would be no sand there.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Despite if you've got everything plenty, if communism comes, they have a way of getting to a shortage of some sort, even if that thing is natural to be uh plenty in that area.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but also communism makes things made things a bit simpler to us.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: There is a Romanian who lives in uh, he's very old, something like 90-something, almost 100 years old.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he was uh expelled from Romania.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: His father was a director of the Baptist seminary in Bucharest in the 50s and the 60s.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: After that, he was expelled.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Valentin Popovich.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: He lives in the United States, I think in Chicago.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not very sure, but I think it's Chicago.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he said the wind that blowed against us helped us to form and grow our character and helped us to identify our enemy.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We knew where the enemy is.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: The enemy was in the communist ideology, in the communist party.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we got strong, we uh got a good uh Christian testimony, we were prepared to face persecution and to count everything less compared with being accepted by Christ and the love of Christ.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: We accepted the loss of uh leadership positions, the loss of uh good wages, of social prominence.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: But now he says, the problem is that the wind is blowing from various parts, and you don't know where the enemy is.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there is no strong wind as it used to be.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't know, it's coming from the liberals, it's coming from the new Marxism, it's coming from the new political correctness.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where is the new threat against Christianity?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because let's be sure, in a world that is not ready to acknowledge Christ, there will be a reaction against Christ.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: In a way it was difficult, but in a way the church grew strong.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's easier, but we are more laid back, more relaxed, and we don't know exactly where the danger is coming from.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's a good thought to uh ask this final question uh to you.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Richard Wernbrand, who you've referred to already in this uh podcast in his book, uh Torture for Christ, says, I have found truly jubilant Christians only in the Bible, in the underground church, and in prison.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's an amazing comment.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just wondering if you've seen uh the church suffering under communism, whether you would say that's that's the case, is that there was a certain uh joy for the church during that time?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: And might there be uh ways to reclaim that in a world where there is more freedom, at least in most cases.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say that Richard Bruin uh Gurbrand was not right.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love him very much.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: He was a pastor in the town where my mom is coming, my mom knew him personally.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I saw true Christians and true Christian joy in the youth meetings, in the youth camps, in the evangelistic uh meetings during the communist times.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Unofficially, there were small house groups that would gather together for singing or not so much for teaching, but when there were some either foreigners or Romanians who were good in teaching, there would be small gatherings, not at the church, but in houses.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw two and happy Christians there, which influenced me for my life.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: In many respects, I am following Christ because I saw what bigger disciple was in their lives.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw people who, maybe not being a great theologian, who love Christ and be ready for persecution.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I also saw great theologians like Joseph Zorn.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in my house was Carl Henry.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: When Raluca was born, he preached in a few towns in Romania and Constanza, and the pastor, I don't know what.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was afraid to receive him in his house, and he sent him to my house.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in a two-room flat, and I had only the kitchen furniture, and in the one-bedroom furniture, there was nothing but a chair and a table in the in the living room, and I think that Carl Henry was a bit surprised.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, we I think we got we ate salmale, something that Daniela has very quickly read.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he gave me one dollar to open an account, but we never had an account at that time, so it was 80, what, 87.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we cherish his presence.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the Bible, and we were happy to commune.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: For me, one of the greatest images experiences of Christianity was in the persecution, and I experienced their community with Romanians and with foreign Christians, be they uh from the United States, from England, from um Germany or France or uh Switzerland, uh, from Finland or from Norway or from Sweden, because all from all these countries they came to us, even from France.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying even because there were not so many Christians uh in France, but and it was a feeling of fellowship.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: One of the best things I ever liked to listen to was a small cassette that was played in a cassette player, and uh it was a series of testimonies recorded by a small church in United Kingdom somewhere, and one by one they would say, We are here a group from that town, and we like to pray for you.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And listening to that, that was the best chorus I ever heard.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a chorus of testimonies.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: There were people praying for us, so I wouldn't say exactly like Wurbrand that you could meet real Christians only in the underground church and in uh in the prison, although I would admit that there you will meet them.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there were many walks of life you could meet the real Christians.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was strength and the pleasure of being a Christian, and I'm still standing on their shoulders with my testimony today because I'm looking at the all the opportunities and the dangers of the life in modern Romania, contemporary Romania, but I'm drawing from the strength and straightforward decision to follow Christ, which I started at that point.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So even the oppression from the communists still gives the enthusiasm sometimes I fought for freedom and I for a free voice or free opinion.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Look, guys, I have not backed down when it was a real danger, when the secret police was at the door or something.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you think that I would won't voice my concern or tell my opinion openly now?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the living at the communist was not all-time evil, was a time where could you experience God's presence as well.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a place where you could feel God's protection as well.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Seemingly fits in line with the church father Tertullian, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Where the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would actually I would put as an answer exactly this quotation at this last question.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I said that he said, We spring up in greater numbers the more you are mourned down to uh by you.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: The blood of the Christian is the seed of a new life.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: We multiply when you reap us.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this has been great to have uh you share your experiences uh with us.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any final words uh to stay before we bring this podcast to a close?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I thank you for inviting me.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was a pleasure to discuss with you and to have in mind all the uh listeners of this podcast.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I would like to encourage everybody to be strong in the Lord, to live holy lives, and to understand that the final thing that will prevail is the kingdom of Christ.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the difficulties, the uh political turmoils and the stages uh of history, we know that this is the plan of God and this will be brought to completion.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the story ends in a good way for us, and we are looking forward to Christ's coming.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you very much for that encouraging word at the end.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: We're very pleased to have had you with us uh today, Octavian.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Dr.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Octavian Boban from the Baptist Institute at Bucharest State University, as well as um pastor of Bible study and missions at Basilica Baptista's Funta Triamma in Bucharest.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Tommy.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Dave.