INTRODUCTION TO AN INTERVIEW
When we see a country that has been devastated and its people living in dire straits, it’s often the result of war. In March, 1995, I saw the results of a different agency of deterioration. I was stunned to see how a nation’s institutions could be ruined and its people plundered – not by war – by a dictator. I was in Romania for the first time, five years after the dramatic revolution that had overthrown Nicolai Ceausescu, the nation’s dictator President (1965-1989). After twenty-five years of repressive domestic policies by the Ceausescu government, I could still see unmistakable evidence of a society impoverished, an agrarian countryside ravaged, and a people living amid dire straits.

By 1995, Romania had received tremendous amounts of aid from the West, but widespread privation and institutional decay remained. My first sight of this was at the international airport in Bucharest, a grim-looking cinder block structure with poor lighting, ill-equipped toilet facilities, and antiquated x-ray booths that – I had been warned – might ruin my camera’s film.

On the ride into the city, the driver dodged countless deep potholes in the roads as if he were ducking bullets. Dilapidated cars and trucks rattled along, blue smoke pouring from tail pipes. Dirt and grime seemed to coat everything like a layer of paint. We passed neighborhoods in which the wood fences between houses were leaning over, collapsing in wide v-shapes. Gusts of wind stirred up dust along the curbs and sidewalks.

In Bucharest, the capitol, entire city blocks of high-rise Soviet-style apartment buildings stood partially completed. Their construction having been abandoned, their bare steel girders, rising no farther skyward, had been left to rust in the open air, the long booms of their derelict cranes swaying gently eight, ten, twelve stories high. It looked as if someone had fled during an emergency and had not come back. Well, someone had.

It was the absence of beauty. But that was not the fault of the people. The Ceausescu administration’s severe political repression and disastrous economic policies were responsible. Many of Ceausescu’s policies, however, were a continuation of Romania’s first communist president, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1947-1965), who had implemented Stalinist policies of crushing the opposition. I learned how this worked and how it affected the people during the Ceausescu years from my translator Alexandru Nādāban and his wife, Daniela. We spent endless hours together talking in their home in Oradea each evening after my classes were finished for the day at the Bible Institute where I was teaching for a week.

I learned about the decrees, the endless stream of decrees issued by the regime. Electricity was often rationed. No room in a house could have more than one 40-watt light bulb. This decree was enforced. Informers walking the streets at night would report to the Securitate (the brutal secret police) about any rooms that looked too bright. Television broadcasts were limited to two hours a day, much of it being news about the Leader. Occasionally the power would be cut off without warning. You would be reading a book, mending a shirt, sitting in the cinema, or working at the office or factory when the lights would go out. Hospitals were not exempt. Patients died on operating tables and babies in incubators.

In the cities, the hot water – for homes, offices, factories – originated from huge water-producing facilities that conveyed the hot water through a vast network of very large pipes that snaked the streets above ground. I saw these ugly large pipe-snakes everywhere. Some that I saw were as large as 2.5 feet in diameter. During the winters, the government could cut off a city’s hot water supply if it got “out of favor.” Toward the end of Ceausescu’s regime hot water was limited to two hours a day, then two hours a week, then to once a week in most cities.

If the regime wanted houses or lands, they took them. Farmers and their families throughout the country were “relocated” to cities, where they were forced to work for the regime’s interests. Decrees were at times issued by the government even on how much people should eat. It was nearly impossible to organize dissent because the state made it difficult or impossible to disseminate information to friends or allies. Photocopiers were prohibited and typewriters were registered with the police. If you complained, the Securitate questioned you, or worse. Informers abounded. Fear was used to control many people.

I could go on telling you what I saw and learned about how horribly the Romanian people had suffered under the dictator. But instead, I want you to hear Alexandru’s voice. The professional relationship that began between us in 1995 immediately grew into one of those rare deep and lasting friendships. Alexandru was lecturing those years on theology and church history, and it was his students that I taught for the week – students who were as delightful as they were intellectually hungry for biblical wisdom.

Alexandru (Alex) and his wife, Daniela, pulled me through a depressed state of mind that frequently overtook me the more I felt plight of the people. They took me into their heart and home – which they had made in a Soviet-style apartment building. They looked after me. We broke bread together. I learned more about Christ’s love and Christian commitment and perseverance from them. I still do.

And I learned something else, too. It is one thing to watch your country being brought to ruin right before your eyes year after year by a corrupt, ruthless, and authoritarian President and his government. It is quite another thing to decide how you will live day by day amid the insistent darkness. So I invite you to hear Alexandru’s voice in the following interview, which I conducted with him in 1998. It took place in London, where he was conducting research for his Ph.D. It was originally published in Openings #2, January-March, 1999, and was slightly edited, here, for clarity.

INTERVIEW
Charles Strohmer: What was your general attitude toward the Ceausescu regime?

Alexandru Nādāban: It was like that of many others. Most of us had an official attitude and a private one. We had to use the official one in public in order to keep our jobs and stay out of trouble with the government. The private one was against the regime. For instance, privately, people would tell jokes about the regime, and this helped us to deal with the conditions.

Charles: What was your life like under Ceausescu?

Alex: I lived in Arad, in western Romania, near Timisoara, where the “revolution” began – we often now call it “the uprising.” When I was in high school, whenever Ceausescu visited Arad we were called to be out on the streets, along with many other people, to praise the dictator as he went by in his limousine. This happened all the time, everywhere in Romania. Ceausescu would visit the cities and parade by in his convoy and we would be all cheering. It was like Jesus entering Jerusalem. Flowers and carpets and songs and banners and bands. Military guard.

Charles: How did you take to this?

Alex: To me this was nothing. Just something to do. One time I was standing along the street waiting for several hours with everybody else. When Ceausescu’s convoy finally got close to us, two big policeman (they were driving a brand new BMW owned by the police) drove by telling us in a whispering voice, “Clap you hands. Clap you hands.” It was like in a movie, totally orchestrated. Television would show this quite often. I also remember after high school being in the army in 1975, when the economy had its first crisis [and] there was no sugar and work was becoming scarce because the country was running out of raw materials.

Charles: How did you get around the regime’s clamp down on getting information from the West?

Alex: At the beginning of Ceausescu’s regime things were more liberal. But after awhile not too much. I occasionally was able to listen to the Radio Free Europe station for Eastern Europe out of Munich and to Voice of America out of Thessaloniki, Greece. But it was forbidden to listen to them. People could report you to the Securitate for that. And then you would get a visit. I also listened to radio Belgrade for the music. We did not get this much, but occasionally we could pick it up. They played Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Gary Glitter, the Jackson 5, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles . . . I wasn’t crazy about this music like some of my friends were. I was interested in airplanes, cars, and weapons, so I occasionally read science magazines (one from France was especially interesting). The western diversity was a clear sign that in the East we were far behind.

Charles: Could you get anything from the TV about the West?

Alex: We got “Columbo!” And “the Saint.” And westerns. Programs like that, about the good guys and the bad guys but not about politics. During the recession in the 1980s, the state reduced TV to two hours a day. News at the beginning for twenty minutes. News at the end for ten minutes. Both about Ceausescu’s presidential activities. Then many times Ceausescu would also take up the other hour and a half. This was the Communist Party. We had a joke about this: Ceausescu was fighting to unite the two news programs!

Charles: What about public criticism of Ceausescu’s policies?

Alex: No. There was none because the state, one party, owned and controlled everything – the army, the borders, the companies, media, the newspapers, the trade unions, everything. Ceausescu was the president of everything – except the church, because he was a communist. I do not have any knowledge about any Romanian Orthodox Church protests against communism or in defense of the people. And the four Baptist colleagues I knew did not have any message for the situation either. Everyone’s private policy was to keep quite and not disturb the authorities.

Charles: I want to come back to your life under the dictator in a minute, but first, what was your religious background? How did you come to faith in Christ?

Alex: I was raised in the Orthodox Church but our family was very secular. As I think back to those days, I do not think that I was a Christian. I went to church at Easter but not Christmas (it was too cold!). If I went any other time it was only to see my granddad, who attended there. I never understood what was happening during an Orthodox service. So for me the church was meaningless. I became a Christian at age 28, in autumn 1982. I was in a personal crisis and couldn’t do anything about it. It was like I was paralyzed. I couldn’t make decisions. I couldn’t make my will work. I was reading the New Testament and . . .

Charles: Why were you reading the New testament?

Alex: Well first my sister got converted in a Pentecostal church and then my mom was converted in a Baptist church. She gave me a Bible, so I was reading it. But I couldn’t understand a thing. Six months later I was still in this big crisis and also very sick by then. It was summer, and I had a day or two off from my job. I had a terrible pain in my stomach. I decided to pray about this. I don’t know why. I just said, “God, if you exist, this pain is nothing for you, if you exist. So you could stop it. If you stop it, I’m going to be baptized this year.” (I knew that to be baptized was to connect with God in some way, so I had this association.) And the pain stopped.

Charles: That day?

Alex: That very moment! So I realized that God exists. Some days later I got in touch with someone who knew more about this. Oddly, I also made plans to leave the country by hiding in the back of a big truck going to the West. In the autumn I talked to a Baptist guy about God. He explained about the Bible and salvation and baptism, and finally I reached a point where I had to make a clear decision. So I prayed with this guy to give my life to the Lord. Afterward I was so happy that for three or four weeks I thought I could fly, and I was talking to everyone about Jesus. So then I was baptized. When I went to the church, a Baptist one, it was so different from an Orthodox one. A man was preaching and explaining the Bible and it made sense! And I was devouring the Bible on my own, too. I could not stop reading it. Also, my past began to make sense and I saw why my crisis had happened. God helped me to get out of it and become normal again.

Charles: You teach theology and church history. What motivated you in that direction?

Alex: I was involved in numerous Bible study groups, teaching, and people said to me, “You have teaching skills.” So after the revolution, London Bible College started teaching a course in Romania and I enrolled. Then LBC received some funds from Sainsburys to bring three students to London for three years, and I was one of those. So I did a BA course there, with a M.Phil. toward a Ph.D. in historical theology.

Charles: After becoming a Christian, did you think differently about your nation? Did it change how you were treated politically?

Alex: The first thing that happened was that the truck driver never came to pick me up to smuggle me out of the country. In fact, he had completely disappeared. From this I realized: I’m a Romanian, I’ve become a Christian, my place is in Romania, and as a Christian I should be a good citizen. But in terms of politics, I realized that I now had to show the authorities that there is another kind of righteousness. So I did this whenever I could.

For instance, a couple years after I was a Christian, I was “invited” to come before a committee of the Communist Party in the company where I worked (remember it was communist owned and controlled) to be questioned about my “new opinions.” You could not resist this or you would be out of a job and then nobody would employ you for fear of recriminations. I answered all their questions, but it was not what they wanted to hear. Immediately afterward the secretary of the Communist Party in the company said to me that I would be “treated accordingly.” This meant that, among other things, I was refused promotions and looked on with suspicion. Also, I needed to find another apartment and they prevented me from getting one.

Charles: How could they prevent you from moving?

Alex: Because the state owned all the housing (blocks of flats). The exception was if you had a lot of cash to buy a place, or if you inherited. So you were on a list and the state gave you your housing. You could build a house with a state-owned company, or try to buy an apartment, but that took at least five years. Anyway, this was a way of protesting – just by telling them my opinions as a Christian. Another way I protested was to stop going to many of the communist political meetings in the company. You were expected to attend. But not going was a way to protest. Anyway, I did not want to hear all the propaganda anymore.

Another time, the communists began another political arm called, believe it or not, the Democratic Front (something like that). When I was in my early 30s, I was “asked” to join by a communist leader in my company. (The major pressures always came through the company where you worked.) The Democratic Front was a new invention for people who were not in the Communist Party. Even the churches had to belong. But I refused to enroll in it. They pressured me several times, but I finally said, “I’m not going to do it and that’s it.” Some time after that, interestingly, I was walking to my job one day and I saw the guy who had been trying to recruit me. He did not have anything against me personally. We started talking and he said, “Be yourself. Keep to your way. And be smart. Things might change.” So here were the two attitudes. An official one and a private one. I think this guy wished he could take a stand like mine.

Charles: Sounds like being a Christian gave you the wisdom and courage to make public stands politically and socially even though they were personally costly.

Alex: Yes, because by reading the Scripture and having fellowship with God, I now knew the truth. No one forced me to have this new attitude; it was natural, like breathing, like finding my identity finally. I remember I would ride around on the tram or walk among the people in the city and see them downcast and dissatisfied and all the time complaining. And I wasn’t. I didn’t have a good apartment or very many things or much money. And the communists were in power. But so what? Life was nice because I was in fellowship with God.

Charles: Did you get involved in the “revolution?”

Alex: Yes, a little. But I was ready for a lot. No one knew what was going to happen. First I heard a few vague things on Radio Free Europe – “something was happening.” And then some relatives of people in my company got killed in Timisoara. I got sick and could not eat, knowing that people were getting killed. Then little by little some of us who had been in the army organized now as a small group to fight against the communists if they tried to do the same thing in Arad.

By the fifth or sixth day of fighting in Timosara, a bunch of my colleagues and I left work one morning and met with 500 hundred others in the main square in Arad. By late afternoon there were about 20,000 people gathered there. Soldiers were shooting bullets into the air occasionally. But not at the people. I went up to an army officer and looked him straight in the eye and asked, “Do you have war ammunition?” And he said yes. So I asked, “Did you receive an order to shoot?” He said no. Then he lit up a cigarette and we talked for another minute and he said to me privately, “Even I don’t like what is happening here.” And from that minute I knew we were going to win.

Charles: Really? What gave you that idea?

Alex: A month before this, during the Communist Congress, we thought Ceausescu might step down because that was a time when communist leaders everywhere in Europe were resigning. The Berlin Wall had come down, Czechoslovakia had become Democratic, and so on. I was deeply let down, along with everyone else, when Ceausescu did not resign but was reelected by the Communist Party as president. That very night, when Ceausescu was reelected, the most famous classic choir of Romania, called Madrigal, dressed in exquisite seventeenth-century clothing and sang: “Glory, Ceausescu, glory.” And I remember saying to myself, “That’s it. He’s now a god. Until now, everything was tolerated, but this is too much for God.” And I told a friends, “This is the end. Ceausescu will be replaced soon. God can be offended. He’s going to take action now.” I thought, “This is God’s hand,” because it would have been impossible to overturn this dictatorship without God, because they were so well organized. So I was willing to get involved because I realized that it was a judgment from God. I also realized that if I died I knew where, as a Christian, I was going!

Charles: Looking back, it all seems to have happened so quickly, in just a week.

Alex: Everyone was pretty nervous. The day that Ceausescu fled Bucharest, my church in Arad had its usual church meeting and I went. But they didn’t say anything about what was going on. So at the end I raised my hand and said, “I have one request. Would you like for us to sing a song?” I’m sorry, I cannot remember the name of this song, but the lyrics are powerful and they were very relevant. They talk about giving honor to the Resurrected One because he scattered the night of death and awakened the world from its tomb and gave it life and power. The chorus goes like this: “Jesus is alive. Jesus is alive. Praise and honor to him.” [After the army sided with the people] and Ceausescu fled, the present minister of culture, Ion Caramitru, came on TV saying, “Ceausescu fled from the capital. Jesus Christ is born in Romania today.” This was only two days before Christmas eve.

Charles: All kinds of significant aid poured into Romania after the revolution, from both Christian organizations and secular sources and from governments. What do you see as the effect on the people?

Alex: A lot of it was needed. The country was on the verge of starvation. I could not think what would have happened without the revolution. Maybe we would have become the European version of North Korea. It was crazy. There was a rumor that Ceausescu intended to put his son Nicu in his place. We would have become the first communist dynasty! But western materialism conquered Romania without warning. If under Ceausescu’s regime you could find thousands of Romanians who were ready to become missionaries for Jesus’ sake, you cannot find them any more, and they haven’t gone on the mission field! Now Christians are more used to receiving aid and benefitting from this.

A wrong mentality has developed. For example, one of our radio stations recently broadcast a short drama based on Jesus’ comments about the poor widow who put two very small coins in the temple offering. Through the words of one of the characters in the drama, the Christian playwright gave this interpretation: in order to help the poor, he (the character) will convince the rich Christians to give him some money. Then he will give his money to the poor. But this is the exact opposite of why Jesus told that story, but it is what a lot of Christians are doing now in Romania. They do not want to give up their material achievements to help others. Does this look familiar to you?

Charles: So the influx of western materialism has even changed Christian attitudes?

Alex: Yes. During the uprising, everybody was shouting “God exits” and praying and kneeling in public squares and things like this. Nobody did this before. A communist country recognized that God exists because of the miracle of the revolution. But after that – it did not take long – people did not seem to be interested in God but in getting something because many ministries and organizations from the West were coming with a lot of clothes, food, and medicine. So Christians were thinking: “We should be like the West.” Instead of being something, having something. Of course there was a lot of good taking place, in terms of schools, clinics, and orphanages, and so on. But many Christians became too caught up in getting dollars for the buildings and for all the latest technology instead of for the church – the people. Part of the reason is because millions of dollars came pouring in from overseas only to build new big buildings.

Charles: This reminds me of the prophet Amos, whom God called to denounce ancient Israel, in part, because material prosperity had influenced them to lose sight of their covenant responsibilities with one another.

Alex: As I said, there was a lot of good. But the emphasis is now too much on things. Before it was on people and Christians had a message. Now we don’t look any different from the nonChristians. Our message has become watered down. We don’t have the influence we had before.

Charles: During one of my trips to your country, a Christian confessed to me that he did not trust in God like he used to before the revolution.

Alex: This is not uncommon. People are reinterpreting Scripture in order to fit the materialism. Before, there were times when you couldn’t get even the basic things you needed. You had to pray. You had to trust God. People were more involved with people then. Now you just go to the market and you buy it – if you’ve got the money. Now you need God only when things go wrong. Before, everything was wrong, so your faith had to be everyday faith. Also, a lot of Christians “don’t have time” now for helping others.

Charles: It’s now ten years after the uprising. A lot of economic and political reform is still needed. Do you see the government as able to accomplish this?

Alex: Things are moving quite slow. According to the Romanian newspapers, politicians are more interested to get a raise for their salaries than to govern the country. True changes will only be brought in by honest hard working people who are willing to confront the corruption and bribery, as well as the poverty. But what Romanians must understand, and I refer here to the common people on the street, is that corruption and dishonesty does not refer only to politicians, financial sharks, and the selfish rich in high positions. It refers to all Romanians. We have to be honest. Everyone of us.

Charles: Under communism it was not possible to mention the Bible as a source for instruction about economics, politics, business, and so on. Are Romanian Christians thinking about this and trying to apply biblical wisdom is such areas?

Alex: Some Christian leaders are trying to do this. But it is a slow process, and not many Christians have studied the Bible to know what ideas it might have for these areas. For instance, the Bible gave people an alternative for the communist wisdom of the past, and now we even have a Christian Democratic Party. But people in Romania cannot say that this party has the answer or the solution for the country just because it as a Christian Party. On the contrary, because they are Christians (most are Romanian Orthodox), they are blamed for not having very much in common with the Bible!

Another big problem is that after the revolution, almost all the communists politicians became “Christian.” This was how they denied their past. But saying they are Christians is not enough, and it is one of the reasons why Romanian society still does not work. The Bible is a book for all of life. If all the Christians really believed that and began to study the Bible that way, it would make a big difference. Romania is in a transition period. We lack good laws and a decent economy. But God through the Bible can provide us with help in these areas.

Charles: What do you see happening in the future?

Alex: I think the nation will be more and more inheriting the problems of the West. And in the churches we’ll have more and more full time professional Christian workers, and we’ll have the congregations. Leaders will be those who know how to manipulate the congregations to be responsive to their message. It will be more and more difficult to find someone who is dedicated to God and not to capitalism.

I also think that people will get more dissatisfied with the churches, both the Orthodox and the Protestant, and that there will be many liberals and that the society will become more secular. I think that this Constantine style of keeping the country united by religion will fade away because Romania is not menaced by a foreign power. Maybe it will take all of this to happen before the true Christians can show the people what the real church is all about.

(This interview was first published in Openings #2, January – March, 1999. It has been slightly edited for clarity here.)