Forget Jihad, God is on ... Putin's Side?
I follow disparate news sources, in part to get different “takes” on the news of the day, but also see what different groups of people are thinking. So, I follow the British-based Guardian and German Radio’s “DW,” and I follow RT.COM to see what messaging Russia is spitting out these days, too.
I also follow FeedSpot (feedspot.com), which samples a number of Christian media sites and covers both news of the day from an unapologetically Christian point of view and has other stories primarily of a theocratic interest. A recent analysis on FeedSpot caught my attention as it relates to Putin’s grand strategy for his country and the former, pre-Soviet Russian Empire, as well as what is largely the former Soviet Union itself. The analysis describes in greater detail than I’ve seen in other media to date (though Rolling Stone magazine reportedly has picked it up now) how Putin is using religion to justify has grand strategy:
“Two days before he launched a bloody invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sat alone in front of a camera and delivered a rambling, hour-long address. It outlined the ideological justification for what would ultimately become his “special military action” in Ukraine — an invasion that, as far as Putin was concerned, had more than a little to do with religion.
“Ukraine is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,” he said.
“Two days later, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, spoke to military leaders and published a statement [in Russian] in honor of Defender of the Fatherland Day. The cleric congratulated Putin for his “high and responsible service to the people of Russia,” declared the Russian Orthodox Church has “always striven to make a significant contribution to the patriotic education of compatriots,” and lauded military service as “an active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbors.”
“Within hours, bombs began to rain down on Ukraine.”
Additionally, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow called Putin’s ascendancy over Russia a “miracle of God” and called for the reunification of all former “Rus” territories under the Russian Orthodox church.
The title of the analysis I’ve just excerpted is “How Putin’s invasion became a holy war for Russia,” which actually says it all. God is calling on young Russian soldiers to fight and die in Ukraine! In making that pitch, which also was clear in a long speech Putin made on Friday, March 18, in front of 80,000 in attendance at a Moscow-area football [soccer] stadium, Putin was hardly unique in history. Young men and women (but mostly young men, let’s be honest about that) have seemingly forever been told they have to die not only for country, but for God; they’ve been told this by leaders who may or may not be willing to risk their own lives.
There’s a kind of ethnocentrism in the resurgent Russian pitch that we in the West (Europe, America, the anglophone countries) have not much seen in recent decades, namely that we are defined by our religious affiliation first and foremost, not nationality, not citizenship, not anything else. To be sure, every Islamist in the world makes the same kind of pitch today – you’re either Muslim or you’re something else, but you’re not Muslim – and many in Israel make the same pitch, but those folks have a legacy of being persecuted just because of their religion. In India, too, we see a very dangerous resurgence of Hindu nationalism, not merely Indian nationalism. So, what Russia is doing is not ahistorical or even atypical, but it’s still quite shocking to see for many of us in the West. Europe certainly had horrific religious wars over the centuries, but we have prided ourselves that we’ve finally gotten past that (and for most of us we have gotten past it) but, sadly, the world is still plagued by religious imperiousness.
Odd, isn’t it, that the successor state to the formally atheistic Soviet Union is making such a religious appeal saying, in effect, die in Ukraine for both God and Country. Historically that is a powerful appeal – it’s why countries past and present have made such appeals. Maybe some people even believe it, believing that God really is behind this or that war, that they really are doing God’s bidding by fighting and dying and killing in His name (or Her name, or Their name).
Or for the glory of Vladimir Putin.