Q57: Myth of Biblical Christianity

From: Teresa Gardiner, Vancouver, British Columbia

Several years ago, I had a vision to help the Doukhobor youth not just to understand the spiritual underpinnings of their culture, but to know how to live from the heart. I've been working on how to present this, ever since. I think The Doukhobor Book of Life (Zhivotnaya Kniga Dukhobortsev) is a good place to start, since it is one of the seminal documents of our people.

I was going to email you this morning to ask you about a couple of the Myths you've written about.

The first is myth #5. I grew up hearing the explanation you give about Jesus just being a man who did good deeds. However, in examining the psalms in the Book of Life, I'm not so sure that this is true. Many of the psalms are very biblical in nature and Jesus is referred to as God, certainly as part of the trinity. Where did your explanation come from?

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Answer

From: Popular Myths and Fallacies About the Doukhobors, in Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living (2002), pages 379-384.

Myth #5 appears often in Doukhobor conversation. It needs to be evaluated and corrected so as to arrive at a new understanding that describes the Movement more accurately.

Myth No. 5: Doukhobors are Christians and believe in the Bible (as the supernatural, "holy" creation representing God) and Jesus Christ (who is said to have died for our sins and was born from a virgin). For most Doukhobors, these notions are parables of an earlier form of Biblical Christianity. Three hundred years ago many Russian peasants rejected the Church as being exploitative of innocent peoples throughout the mechanism of fear. Instead, they chose the "voice of God within" as being accessible to all and central to their way of thinking. They consider the Bible as a good book. But as with any good book, they say, it must be approached with discretion, judgment, and common sense, not just swallowed whole in an act of blind faith. In fact, most Doukhobors read the Bible as a form of literature, not a sacred script. Jesus Christ is considered to be a good man, a human being who performed good acts. Sin and "salvation through the blood of Christ" are notions foreign to them. Doing good, according to the Doukhobors, is the way of being good, rather than speaking about it. There is an old saying, Bog da Bog, da Bog, no ti ne budi plokh [You may speak of God all you like, but behave yourself.]. Good behaviour is of central importance to the meaning of being Doukhobor.

For a more complete look at the wider meaning of the Doukhobor Movement, see pages 375 - 377 on the explanation of The Spirit Within. Herein, I show how Doukhobor beliefs can be distilled into seven propositions. These seven gems are the result of over 55 years of research and observation. Below I cite the first sentence of each proposition (go to the original source to see the full text).

1. Because we all have the abode of God within us, it is wrong to kill another human being....
2. The Bible's many sacred narratives are simple moral allegories....
3. There are no corporate creeds to adopt except the principle of hard work, kindness towards others and hospitality....
4. Doukhobors do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ....
5. Heaven for Doukhobors is synonymous with virtue, while hell is a metaphor for bad deeds....
6. They do not believe in the existence of a personal self-sustaining supernatural God in heaven....
7. When applied to individual behaviour, a case can be made that Doukhobor is a humanistic religion....

These seven propositions of the Doukhobor Movement may shock some observers, especially orthodox theologians. However, these views are the collective invention of a group of Russian peasants several centuries back who in their wisdom or by accident rejected the whole structure of churchism. In so doing, they were ahead of their time, so to speak, in laying the groundwork for a real reform within the institution of the church (a reform that is long overdue). In this journey, they are very much in the spirit of Lev N. Tolstoy, the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Unitarians.

More: Questions and Answers, Comments

New Doukhobor Song Book, with CDs

Traditional Selections compiled by The Calgary Doukhobor Cultural Society (CDCS), with 36 songs on 2 CDs. 2013. 84 pp. (letter-size pages) $25 + $10 postage. E-mail: tradselect@gmail.com, or phone Don Cheveldayoff at 403-288-0058. 160 published, 30 available as of today. Wire bound.

Though an admirable effort, the first edition reviewed is an amateur work-in-progress, with many flaws. The project appears to have been rushed for this year's Union of Youth Festival held in B.C. in May.

I know well from the projects that I rushed, that flaws are bound to appear. Future buyers should wait for an updated edition.

In 2011, a small group of active Doukhobors in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, decided to publish a songbook with traditional hymns, psalms, peace songs and folk songs. They explain their reason on page 2 in Introductions and Acknowledgments.

The CDCS felt that a songbook needed to be developed that would function primarily as a teaching tool to accommodate the diversity of our group in terms of language — Russian/English and other cultural considerations. We concluded that a songbook with Russian, English, transliterations and accompanying CDs would serve such a need as well as be a legacy to future generations — our children, grand-children and great-grand-children.

Hopefully, our effort to present accurate and clear lyrics, translations and comments has been fulfilled. We apologize if any errors or omission are identified.

The CDCS team selected 36 previously recorded songs and hymns on themes of peace, love and goodwill which were copied onto 2 CDs. The book is well planned and organized to explain each song to those who do not read Russian, and may not know the significance of these selections. Each song is presented on two facing pages in 4 columns — (1) Comments, (2) English translation, (3) Russian lyrics, and (4) an inconsistent transliteration or a somewhat phonetic pronunciation guide.

The book cover shows a rough sketch of downtown Calgary overlaid with the Canadian Doukhobor symbols for peace (dove), and the staff of life (khleb-sol : bread, salt, water). The cover shows an archaic spelling of 'Doukhobour', not the standard Canadian 'Doukhobor' universally used today, and as spelled correctly inside the book. Several photographs of choirs and a map provide some useful context to the reader.

Sample pages 35 and 36

The Comments column explains the song context. For example, several of the songs were performed by Doukhobors and Friends of Peace at the World Peace Forum held in Vancouver, British Columbia in June 2006. With a little more research, the compilers could have added an important historical fact — the Forum continued to Victoria, BC and led to the creation of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative (CDPI) in which Canadian Doukhobors are active today.

The selection of psalms and songs were good. I especially appreciated these 4 of the 36:

• Pages 43-44 — Bставайте, Силы Новые (Arise Ye Youth, the Time Has Come), performed by the Blaine Lake Doukhobor Choir in the 1960s, is a nice Prygun hymn calling on the youth for a spiritual awakening.
• Pages 73-74 — Однозучно Звенит Колокольчик (Monotonously Rings the Bell) is Peter Voykin's exceptional solo, with accompaniment, on the traditional Russian folksong about a lonely coachman.
• Pages 63-64 — В Честь Победы (In Honour of Peace and Freedom) is an excellent performance of the traditional Doukhobor hymn by the Friends for Peace Choir at the World Peace Forum in 2006.
• Pages 71-72 — 'Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream' is a classic Canadian folk-song, written after World War II, about universal peace, sung by Tom Hawken in 1999 in Vancouver. This is one of a several non-Doukhobor numbers included.

Two glaring assumptions of the meaning of the Doukhobor Movement appear, as if they are fact, without question, comment or discussion.

• Pages 31-32 — Do Doukhobors believe in Jesus Christ as portrayed in Biblical stories? Such as 'how Christ lifts us and leads us in our times of darkness and need', 'of Christ suffering on the cross', and the story of heaven above. (See: Myth No. 5, in my Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living (pp. 380-381)
• Page 59 — Are Doukhobors Christians, as assumed in many of the hymns? Or are they universalists, of the Tolstoyan and Unitarian type? Ron Kalmakoff, singer, elegantly answers this on page 59 — 'The Kingdom of heaven is within'. That is, 'heaven' in not out there in space; it is here within us, reflected in our conscience and in our good behaviours.

The English translation is essential for the majority for whom this project was intended — descendants of Calgary Doukhobors who grew up hearing some of these songs, but no longer have much contact with their heritage community. Translation aids wider understanding.

The Russian lyrics are what my generation sung and memorized, but my main problem is with the inconsistent transliteration of the Russian. Using the sample pages 36-37 (shown above), compare a popular standard transliteration of Russian to that published.

US Library of Congress standard	As Published in Doukhoborese
Spite orly boevye,      Spite s pokoinoi dushoi;      Vy zasluzhili rodnye,      Pamiat' i vechnyi pokoi.	Speete arli boeviye,      Speete s pokoynoy dooshoy;      Ve zasloozheelee rodniye,      Pamyat ee vechniy pokoy.

Just in this one song there are 3 Doukhoborese (Doukhobor Russian) sounds shown for 'o' and 2 sounds for each of 4 other Russian letters. Russians can vary the sound of the vowel 'o' depending on its location in a word, and the regional dialect of Russian they speak. These varying phonetic sounds depend on the 'ear' of the person writing them.

The published book transliteration only uses a Southern Russian dialect 'h' sound for the Russian letter г (g).

It is noteworthy to look at the foremost Doukhobor linguist Dr. Alex P. Harshenin (1930-1977) and his work on 'English loanwords in the Doukhobor dialect'. In a letter to the editor of Iskra (January 4, 1974: 17-19), the UBC professor wrote: '.... In fact, Doukhoborism cannot be bound to any particular language, although everyone is aware that there is one language in which it finds its richest expression even to the present day, and that is in the broadcast sense "Russian." And it is the learning of Russian that will preserve the better aspects of the dialect, and consequently, of the entire culture as well.'

See my blogs:

• Q43: Is 'Doukhobor Dialect' Defended?, 21 May 2011.
• Doukhobor Russian Language Research, 3 November 2011

Recommendations:

• The authors should have consulted and copied existing Russian-English songbooks online, like Rubin, R.N., M. Stillman, and J. Silverman. A Russian Song Book, 1989, 99 pages. For each of 44 Russian folk songs, some sung by Doukhobors, lyrics are in 3 columns — English, Russian, and Romanized Russian, and the musical notation has the same lyrics in 3 lines. Excellent!
• In my opinion, the most glaring is the varied phonetic transliteration of Doukhobor Russian (Doukhoborese). I found dozens of errors and stopped counting. The correct (US-LOC) transliteration of Russian г is g (not h). Мир is Mir (not Meer). Though many Doukhobors may consider such transliteration as a display of their colloquial dialect, in my opinion it shows poor scholarship and undermines the seriousness of this volume. The compilers failed to consult a standard professional transliteration system as used by scholars throughout the world.
• Shaw, J. Thomas. The Transliteration of Modern Russian for English-Language Publications (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967): 8-9.
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 8th edition, 1990: 1454.
• ALA-LC romanization for Russian, Wikipedia.com
• Redo the Bibliography (p. 84) with correct precision and accuracy, e.g. No. 6: 'Plakun Trava.' 1982. Koozma Tarasoff. p.26. Redo it as: Tarasoff, Koozma J. Plakun Trava: The Doukhobors. 1982. p. 26. e.g. No. 10. 'Spirit Wrestlers'. 2002. Koozma Tarasoff. p. 109. Redo it as: Tarasoff, Koozma J. Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living. 2002. p. 109. Use one style for all the references.
• I would recall all of the books sold (but let them keep the CDs), and send the customer a new corrected version.

In summary, the package of 36 selections for the CDs and accompanying volume is admirable. The format could be used for many more songs. However, this text is highly flawed and should be replaced as soon as possible with corrections and notations. Our children and the public deserve better.

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From the Doukhobor Music website

Traditional Selections compiled by The Calgary Doukhobor Cultural Society (CDCS), with 36 songs on 2 CDs. 2013. 84 pp. (letter-size pages) $25 + $10 postage. E-mail: tradselect at gmail.com, or phone Don Cheveldayoff at 403-288-0058.

While some have chosen to offer a less-than-stellar review of this ensemble, we at DoukhoborMusic.ca whole-heartedly applaud the efforts in preserving the Doukhobor singing culture. Kudos to the Calgary Doukhobor Cultural Society!

'Mutual Help Society' Proposed

Hank Hulsbergen

The following letter was submitted by Hank Hulsbergen of The Netherlands. Hank, now 60, recalls his 17-years living in Canada and especially his fond memories of Helen and John Stevenson (Argenta Quakers, British Columbia). As an innovative thinker, he suggests the creation of a Mutual Help Society — a structure inspired by Peter Kropotkin as well as the Mennonite Central Committee. In his most recent letter, Hank Hulsbergen writes: 'At the end of most Unitarian services, people hold hands and sing three times "Carry the flame of Peace and Love until we meet again." Of course reading that Doukhobors aspire to Peace and Love as well fits well with that!'

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Dear Koozma:

How are you? I lived in Canada for 17 years of which 10 in British Columbia. Good friends from Argenta, Helen and John Stevenson, advised me in the early 1980's to read Plakun Trava: The Doukhobors and I even received a letter from you telling about the publishing of PT. Maybe due to studies at Simon Fraser University, I decided I'll do that later. Now I'm back in the Netherlands and have recently read a lot about the Doukhobors on the Internet. The title of your book has always stayed with me.

In 1979, when the old hotel was still operating in Grand Forks, BC, I enjoyed some borshch for the first time in my life. Later, in 1998, when living in Vancouver, I helped an elderly lady move to Grand Forks and visited her a few times when on holidays from Europe. Even got to see the Doukhobor Museum [in Castlegar, BC] when it hadn't been that long open yet. From the very first time I came to Grand Forks and the Kootenays, I sensed that that area was the nicest of BC. Since I'm sensitive to "atmosphere", I have undoubtedly picked up the peaceful vibes of the people.

Back at the University of Washington in 1974 I had a Jonah Goldstein as prof for a first year course in Human Relations and Counselling Studies (HRCS) which dealt with alternative communities etc.

This HRCS program was very much inspired by the work of Carl R Rogers. His book On Becoming a Person is still wonderful to read. I find the essence of his ideas back with the lifestyle of the Doukhobors. During my University of Washington years I somehow came across Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Help [Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution] when writing an essay. Then I find out he was very much supportive of the Doukhobors.

In the last month and a half all these experiences seem to have come together and I somehow found your email address on the nice Internet site. I would still like to find a way to read Plakun Trava and perhaps other material later. Can I purchase the CD-Rom while paying with credit card? Am not totally clear on the process.

While my religious background has been with the Dutch Reformed Church, while my parents always allowed me to draw my own conclusions and have my own thoughts, in Canada I was active in various Unitarian fellowships.

In a wild moment, I thought it would be neat if Doukhobors, Unitarians, Mennonites, Hutterites and maybe others would work together to have a common "Mutual Help" society, not so different from the Mennonite Central Committee, which encourages and supports young people to do a year of voluntary service for communities and people nationally and internationally.

Having focused my study in Communication on Psychotherapy, Doukhobor communities may be best suited to help "lost" children and teenagers find their bearings again. Much like the Friendship school in Argenta saw students live with local families.

In short, reading about the Doukhobors and their lifestyle etc inspires me a great deal. If and when I come to Canada next summer I hope to spend a bit of time in the Kootenays again too.

I'm currently 60 years young and am kind of open to a change and some new things. My reason for emigration to Canada was to make myself free from the military draft at the time. This too I found to have in common with the Doukhobors. I'm working on the vegetarian bit! :)

     Hope this finds you well and happy.
     Kindest regards
     Hank Hulsbergen