Abstract
This chapter revisits a Foucauldian concept of “complete and austere institutions,” using the ethnographic study of therapeutic communities, monasteries, prisons, and religious ministries to draw a line between those concepts, specifically addressing a Christian ministry in the Russian Baptist interpretation. My argument is based on an ethnographic account of the Russian Baptist ministry for people suffering from addiction. I unfold the concept of an Evangelical ministry, contrasting it to the Foucauldian austere institutions in order to highlight its nature. I argue that even though a rehabilitation ministry may use methods and techniques of austere institutions, and even resemble them in their implementation, the distinctive feature of a ministry is its focus on the result, rather than the process, interpreted as serving God by serving men.
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Notes
- 1.
The term was initially coined by a French architect Louis-Pierre Baltard (1829, 3).
- 2.
Evangelical Christianity (also called born-again or Bible-believing Christianity) is a conventional definition of a specific kind of Protestantism, emphasizing individual born-again conversion, focus on Christ as the only savior and mediator between God and men, and evangelizing activism (see, for instance, Bebbington 1989).
- 3.
Rehabs are compared to an imagined model of monastery, and obviously, mostly Russian Orthodox monasteries are in mind. Hence I use the term “monastery,” rather than “convent,” which commonly connotes a Catholic institution.
- 4.
All names are replaced with pseudonyms.
- 5.
The other four solae are Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), Sola Scriptura (Bible is the only authority for faith and practice), Sola Gratia (salvation by God’s grace alone), and Soli Deo Gloria (glory to God alone).
- 6.
Neither a patron saint nor Virgin Mary can be a mediator. This is a response to yet one more Orthodox and Catholic doctrine.
- 7.
I do not refer to life sentences here, for it is a very specific type of sentence, especially in Russia, where lifers are separated from the general population and are held in the maximum security units.
- 8.
This is a very old phenomenon even described by O. Henry in his “The Cop and the Anthem” (1906 [1904]).
- 9.
There are inmates who serve as informal guards in cooperation with the prison administration, but they are one of the most hated and despised groups of people by the general population.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Ksenia Medvedeva for clarifying some important details concerning monasteries.
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Mikeshin, I. (2020). “It Was Easier in Prison!” Russian Baptist Rehab as a Therapeutic Community, Monastery, Prison, and Ministry. In: Sremac, S., Jindra, I. (eds) Lived Religion, Conversion and Recovery . Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40682-0_3
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