What are the chances that I’ll survive this morning? I don’t know; six out of ten? Eight out of ten? Maybe even ten out of ten? It’s not that I’m trying not to think about it, closing my eyes and pretending the danger doesn’t exist. But one day I simply made the decision not to be afraid. I weighed everything up, understood where I stand – and let it go.
Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir
Alexei Navalny died in February of this year.
A Russian opposition leader, he became globally known through his resistance to the regime of Vladimir Putin, his advocacy for reform, and—ultimately—the trials and suffering he endured at the hands of Putin’s government. Jailed multiple times on trumped-up charges, then poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, he incredibly chose to return to Russia to take up his role as an outspoken voice for Russian reform.
In 2022 he was jailed again; in December 2023 he was moved to a penal colony in the Arctic Circle. In early 2024, he died as a result of the harsh imprisonment.
Alexei Navalny was also a Christian.
The fact is lost in most prominent narratives about him. Sheepish about his own faith, Navalny recognized in letters and communications to others that his conversion from atheism likely seemed strange. And yet, as he wrote:
“…now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities because everything becomes much, much easier.” In regards to Matthew 5:6, he notes: “I’ve always thought that this particular commandment is more or less an instruction to activity. And so, while certainly not really enjoying the place where I am, I have no regrets about coming back or about what I’m doing. It’s fine, because I did the right thing.”
I am writing about Alexei Navalny because I could not bring myself to write about anything else and must instead write around the edges of it, as if I’m testing a wounded limb. And I am writing about Alexei Navalny because his life—courageous, truly, and lived with righteous fervor—was also full of suffering. Was cut short. Was brutal and difficult. Was full of injustice. And that is important to consider.
This is not what we like to envision from the Christian life. This is what we want to hurry through to get to victory and triumph and all the good stuff, the eternity and the glory, the multitudes singing, the “everything was all right at the end.”
Yet before the Resurrection, the cross. We cannot ignore it. And we cannot ignore the life of Christ—who is our victorious High Priest but who made Himself less. Who suffered. Who endured torments. Who as a lamb before the shearers was silent. Who being in very nature God, made Himself nothing by taking the nature of a servant.
Service. Suffering. Sacrifice.
I can be honest enough to say this: I don’t recognize much of the church right now. I can be honest enough to say: the church has broken my heart, breaks my heart, and keeps on breaking it. I can be honest enough to say that I am grieving many things, and that this comment by Tish Harrison Warren sums up much of my feeling:
“I don’t know how to solve the big problems of the world. I wish I did, but I don’t. And I don’t know how to repair a church in America that has become politically idolatrous and does not exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. But I know we can go slow and repair things in the ways that we can, in the places where we dwell, in the institutions we inhabit, with the people around us.”
I am equally at a loss. But it is not my job to address those things; it is God’s. And as I read about Alexei Navalny, I am inspired by the simple reminder that God will mightily use even one willing believer—despite governments, despite prisons, despite authorities and powers, despite whatever the institutional church of a country is or is not doing—to accomplish what He desires.
I can be that. I don’t mean I can be Alexei Navalny. God forbid I should ever be called to show such courage. I’m too small. But I can be the me that God made me to be, here, in this area, in my community and online. I can hew closely to God, turn away from the noise, and do the work of mercy and grace and repair. I can ask God to help me be who He needs me to be, here and now.
And in this doing, I remember always the cross. Service. Suffering. Sacrifice. Becoming less.
It is, in many places now, the opposite of what I am told my faith should produce. In many places in this culture I am told my faith can make me strong and grand, a loud voice, powerful, an authority. I am told that I can remake the world the way God wants it to be, surely? That this is my task?
That sounds too much like an ancient refrain of great darkness, to me.
Let me be less. Let me remember suffering. Let me remember compassion, and empathy, and mercy, and grace. Let me bring peace. Let me speak truth. Let God do as He wills with me and with all the rest of it, for I have little enough hope in anything else.
Samaritan's Song 