"Repenters"

We're quickly discovering that you can't talk about "eastern Europe" as a single entity. While most of the countries share a legacy of communist domination, they are very, very different from one another.

We learned that the Czech Republic is one of the most "atheist" countries in the world. While about 85% of Canadians claim to have some belief in God, it's the reverse in Czech. Two out of three say there is no God, which presents unique challenges for proclaiming the Gospel. Even deep rooted traditions like the Hussite and Roman Catholic Churches are relatively weak.

Romanians, by contrast, are deeply religious. 85% of the population is Orthodox and the Baptist and Pentecostal churches are quite strong, at least by eastern European standards. That may sound like a more hospitable climate, but in fact it has its own barriers and challenges. Religion is very deeply rooted in cultural traditions that are hard to break. The Orthodox are quite suspicious of the evangelicals. And the more traditional evangelical churches have some tenacious and legalistic social customs. The position of women, for example, is very low. Many Pentecostal churches require women to wear head coverings at all times, and there is almost no female leadership of any kind.

The every day expression for evangelicals in Romania is pocaits, which means "repenters." For some, it's an epithet, like "holy rollers" or "methodists" used to be. But it's also just a used as a descriptive as well.

The groups that we have had contact with, though, are trying all trying to reclaim this word in a positive sense. They are working to overcome the deeply entrenched social customs that prevent people from hearing and being freed by the Gospel. We have met with pastors and church leaders in a variety of settings, and they all say they want people to experience the transforming power of the Gospel, not be tied down by a lot of legalisms.