The Church Withdraws from Daily Life

Healing the body, the soul and the spirit promotes a Christian view of God's call to the church and each Christian. That is why the Communists told the churches in the USSR to stop every program having to do with Pastoral Care, Counseling, Healing, Medicine, Child Care, etc. 

This attack by the Bolsheviks was a terrible thing. Under the most benevolent circumstances those orders would have been hard to implement. However, according to Solzhenitsyn, the most devastating result,was agreement by church leaders.  When the Atheists said, "You say you focus on the other world then you must stop your focus on this world", the Clergy agreed with them!

As a result, the focus of the church became “other worldly”. The church’s entire practical ministry to humans was lost.  The spiritual life of prayer and the after-life was the emphasis. Pastoral care, childcare, counseling, marriage, family life, medicine and economic issues were totally neglected. This was tragic!

The church answered the Communist Party by saying:

You are right to prohibit these things. We only multiply our sins by occupying ourselves with good works. We have not yet learned to pray-how could we get involved in kindergartens. The church is for prayer and not for worldly cares.

This reduced the church from teaching about new life and the care of body and soul of the faithful to an emphasis of caring for only one’s own soul. This led to a lack of interest in social relations, family life, work, health care and Christian growth. This was a return to the Gnostic heresy! It leads us step by step into a split between body and soul; between the mind and the heart; between work and worship; between money and ministry. Gnosticism  sees the body as dirty and evil and only the spiritual nature can be holy and pure.

Read my book, The Healing Release of the Holy Spirit to get insight into such a heresy.