Vladimir Putin and the problem of autocratic power

Vladimir Putin was appointed Acting President of Russia on December 31, 1999, following the resignation of President Boris Yeltsin. He was elected president in 2000, then re-elected in 2004, 2012, 2018, and 2024.

However, in each case, we need to define what we mean by the word “elected.”

Yeltsin considered it his right and duty to choose his successor. Accordingly, he developed Operation “Successor” to maintain stability and ensure protection for himself and his inner circle. Putin, a former KGB officer, had cultivated good relations with the “Family,” a group of oligarchs who rallied around Yeltsin. They expected him to defend Yeltsin’s interests and their own as well.

This approach led to the demise of anything approaching a Western democracy in Russia.

Elections over the years of Putin’s regime have been rigged in a variety of ways, from allowing only candidates to run who pose no threat to Putin, to tampering with vote counts and stuffing ballot boxes. Independent media are suppressed; there is no independent electoral commission to monitor the elections. And more than a hundred journalists who have covered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been victims of violence.

But there’s even more to the story, a factor that relates to all churches and Christians today.

How Putin “proved himself to be the true tsar”

Andrei Zorin is a cultural historian and chair of Russian at the University of Oxford. In a recent interview, he discusses the ways in which Putin functions as a Russian tsar, a role Zorin describes as “extremely important in Russian history.”

As I noted in a recent Daily Article, tsar comes from the Latin caesar, meaning “emperor.” According to Zorin, it has been a central feature of Russian culture for more than five hundred years. But unlike European monarchs, the Russian tsars did not inherit their positions. Except for the second half of the nineteenth century, when Russia had three such successions, Russian tsars came to their power through the exercise of power.

Zorin states that Putin, over the first twenty years of his reign, “proved himself to be the true tsar.” In Zorin’s view, he did so by winning the Second Chechen War (August 1999–April 2009) and subjugated the oligarchs to himself in the process.

He believes that Putin launched the war with Ukraine for two related reasons.

One was that tsars have historically been expansionist and imperial, constantly seeking to advance Mother Russia as a global empire. The second is Putin’s belief that Russians and Ukrainians are basically one people and that Russia cannot become an empire again unless it gains sovereignty over its former vassals.

Taken together, these motives would discourage us from believing that Putin will settle for peace with Ukraine short of controlling all of Ukraine, along with the other Eastern European nations that were once part of the Russian Empire.

And the fact that he has publicly stated his willingness to use his nation’s nuclear arms to “defend” his nation should concern not just Europeans but the world.

The fall of Ravi Zacharias

CS Lewis explained his support for democracy this way:

I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government.

The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has led to more than a million Russian casualties, is proof that Lewis was right. But this is an issue that relates not just to Vladimir Putin, but to us all.

The late apologist Ravi Zacharias is now known to have abused massage therapists in the US and abroad for more than a decade. The board charged with overseeing his ministry later admitted that “we allowed our misplaced trust in Ravi to result in him having less oversight and accountability than would have been wise and loving.”

Numerous megachurch pastors have been in the news in recent years over personal moral failures. Many rose to their positions through personal charisma and close relationships with small circles of influencers. Their congregations are far too large for individual members to hold them accountable to personal integrity. If those in leadership positions refuse to do so, such pastors can live private lives of personal sin for years before being found out.

Satan’s strategy for destroying the church

All of this is part of Satan’s strategy for destroying the church. It operates on these levels:

1. Encourage Christians and Christian leaders to separate their private lives (and sins) from their public lives.
2. Tempt them to commit sins they believe will not be discovered. Pornography and consensual affairs typically top the list, though financial impropriety and abusive relationships with subordinates are often on it as well.
3. Wait to expose their failures until their fall is especially devastating to those they lead and to the larger reputation of the Church.
4. Encourage those who follow failed leaders to believe they would never commit such sins themselves and thus to ignore the need for systemic changes that ensure accountability structures.

Here’s why Satan focuses so intently on personal morality: Nearly everything the church does today, the world can copy. They can produce the same programs we produce and meet the same societal needs we strive to meet.

What they cannot do is help sinners find forgiveness and experience transformed lives through God’s grace. This is the unique “brand message” of the church, one that has attracted the lost to Christ for two millennia.

As a result, when Christians and Christian leaders are found to be as sinful and broken as the sinful and broken culture, our message loses its impact, relevance, and credibility.

How to “acquire humility”

Vladimir Putin’s atrocities in Russia, Ukraine, and beyond show the global danger of unchecked power. But the same “will to power” tempts you and me to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), to be the tsar of our personal empire.

Our first response should be to admit this reality. If right now you’re thinking this call to humility and repentance doesn’t apply to you, this means it especially applies to you.

If you have not yet submitted your life to God’s Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking him to control and use you for God’s glory rather than your own, let me urge you to do so now. And to begin every day by doing the same.

To quote CS Lewis again:

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.

Would you “like to acquire humility” today?