November 15 1999

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Ten years ago, on November 9, 1989, the Wall came down. Swinging sledgehammers and anything else avail able, the hands of the people reintegrated East Berlin with the free world. Experts stood with mouths agape, and the peoples of the entire Soviet bloc cheered as the hated symbol of oppression crumbled.

Just one month before, the prayers of thousands of believers gathered at Leipzig's Nikolaikirche had turned a potential massacre into a peaceful confrontation that came to be called the Candlelight Revolution (see CT, January 15, 1990). This was die Wende, the turning point. And the church was there at the center of change.

How has the church fared since then? In recent interviews with several Christian leaders in the post-Communist world, CT explored what we had learned from the past ten years that will help us serve better when the still-Communist world begins to dissolve.

Exploded economic dreams
One of the biggest disappointments in the Eastern bloc was the failure of new economic dreams. The tales of corruption, organized crime, and failed attempts at privatization of industries are well known. But, says Croatian theologian Peter Kuzmic, the economic disappointment was due to more than greed and power-grabbing.

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Fortunately, Western Christians were among those who helped write new constitutions that guaranteed economic and personal liberties. Others helped to prepare educational materials that would teach young people the Christian ethics essential to both a free market and a free society. But inculcating a broad societal respect for law, for rights, and for other people takes decades, and the economic and political transitions were measured in weeks and days.

It is not only post-Communist culture that needs ethical ...