When Calvinist And Arminian Beliefs Collide: Facilitating Communication Between North American Professors And Russian Bible Students

Pastoral Counselor Training in Russia

“…Some of the important issues Western teachers encounter in the FSU include the problem of overemphasis of Western values (Richards & Bergin, 1997;Ellens et al, 2000), providing teaching with a perspective that is relevant to the Russian church and to Russian students (Petrov, 2002), issues of language involving oral and written translation (Langdon, 2002), differing views of education (Bohn, 1997;Kim, Park & Park, 2000;Sue, 1997), and the question of a foreigner knowing the cultural norms in another country (Eilers, 1998;Leach, 1997).…”

“…Russian and American Protestants, while holding most doctrines in common, do differ significantly regarding some doctrinal issues, and in their worldviews (Bohn, 1997;Eilers, 1998;Harris, 1999). Most Western Protestants, for example, hold the Calvinist position, while Russian Evangelicals more often hold the Arminian position (Eilers, 1998).…”

“…Most Western Protestants, for example, hold the Calvinist position, while Russian Evangelicals more often hold the Arminian position (Eilers, 1998). Russian Protestants generally hold a conservative position, and carefully listen for messages from Westerners that could be perceived as theologically liberal (Beck, 1997;Harris, 1999;Elliot, 1999).…”

“…This fact points to the need to bridge the gap between the Western "psychological" perspective and the Russian pastoral care perspective. This gap could be characterized as the difference between the Western Christian psychology integration (positivistic, empirical, materialistic;Richards & Bergin, 1997;Shafranske & Malony, 1996) perspective versus the Russian Protestant (communal, traditional, separatist, Armenian) perspective (Harris, 2000;Eilers, 1998;Bohn, 1997). Within pastoral counseling, a continuum could also be identified, from Bible-only counseling (Adams, 1973) at one end (similar to Zinnbauer & Pargament's [2000] exclusivist position), to a psychologically informed Biblical Christian counseling position (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002), to an integrationist position (Carter & Narramore, 1979), to a psychologically oriented pastoral approach (similar to Zinnbauer & Pargament's [2000] pluralistic approach) at another end of the continuum.…”