23rd September, 2006
JEREMY REYNALDS

Assist News Service

Despite tight restrictions on missionary activity in Belarus, Eastern Europe, Christians believers still have one unexpected way of sharing their faith in public - through popular music.

In what seems to be a unique phenomenon in the former Soviet Union, Forum 18 News Service reports that faith-inspired musicians have achieved broad public support in Belarus.

Almost every week since June 2006, for example, Salvation - a group from the western region of Brest - has held first place on Silver Marathon, a state television program in which viewers vote for their favorite current pop song by text message.

In addition to the group’s name, Forum 18 reports that Salvation's song is clearly Christian in sentiment, stating in part, “You built a bridge from heaven to earth...heaven weeps raindrops of love over you and me".

According to Forum 18, state restrictions on the media have proved helpful in promoting religion.

Since January 2005, all FM radio stations in Belarus may devote no more than 20 per cent of their air time to foreign music, and several popular Belarusian rock bands are banned from public performance due to their overt opposition to President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Despite the reduced competition, however, the Belarusian Christian bands now flourishing are - as Forum 18 comments - both more accomplished than many Russian pop musicians and appear to be more accessible to a young secular audience than their counterparts in the West.

Forum 18 reports that New Jerusalem, one of the most popular Belarusian Christian bands, is also successful on Silver Marathon. Its lead singer, Aleksandr Patlis, says it typically plays to local audiences of about 1,000 people, between 50 and 60 per cent of whom are non-believers. Like Salvation, New Jerusalem's music is subtly but not overtly Christian.

The group’s 2002 album, Fragments from Heaven, for example, includes the single That Love. The lyrics read in part: “We searched so long for love, we searched night and day. It came and became like us, but we didn't recognise it. We didn't expect it crucified, not in our wildest dreams. It came and became like us, so we could become like it. That love still believes in us. That love is waiting for us; that love is still holding us.”

According to Patlis, who became a Christian in the early 1990's, “Belarus always differed from the rest of the Soviet Union in having a lot of Christian bands".

Speaking to Forum 18, he reiterates that New Jerusalem's approach is intentionally subtle. “If people turn on the TV and see a black suit and a Bible, they think ‘Oh, Baptist’ and switch channels," he says. "And Christians also feel disappointment, fall in love from time to time - it's not just ‘Jesus Loves You'.”

Also, while the band's members are committed Protestants, Patlis works closely with prominent local Orthodox musicians, and there is extensive use of Catholic imagery in the video for That Love.

“We purposefully don't accentuate the fact that we are Protestant,” he says in an interview with Forum 18. “The important thing is not a particular doctrine, but bringing the truth of Jesus Christ to people. There are four Gospels, some might prefer one or other, but what matters is that Christ is at the center of all of them.”

Acknowledging that, “to a great extent people know we're Protestant but no one has ever stopped us from doing anything,” Patlis attributes this to New Jerusalem's efforts at building up relationships in the music industry over the past nine years. He says: “We just became friends with producers, directors, journalists, so today the people who work in the media are simply our friends, and they help us.”

In December 2005, Forum 18 reports, Patlis even performed a track from Fragments of Heaven to the accompaniment of the presidential orchestra as part of a televised concert. About 18 months ago, New Jerusalem members and their families were invited to discuss the Christian upbringing of children on a state television talk-show.

When Forum 18 ask whether the prevalence of religious themes in Belarusian popular music might be the consequence of the extensive state restrictions on organized church activity, Patlis remarks "if they try to stop God one way, we'll try another".

Due to “our inefficiency,” he says, Christians sometimes wrongly think that they will always be able to work in familiar ways, but “we should be praying for and using opportunities to reach people, or the grace will go some place else.”

This article was first published in Assist News Service (www.assistnews.net).

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