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Last year, the government passed a number of laws making it harder to share one\u2019s faith. The legislation required missionaries to have permits, made house churches illegal, and limited religious activity to registered church buildings, effectively restricting Christians from evangelizing outside of their churches. (The jury\u2019s still out on whether the legislation will hold up in court.) Earlier this year, the Russian government took another step in its decade-long crackdown against Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses. From CT\u2019s report: The Justice Ministry submitted a Supreme Court case to label the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses headquarters an extremist group. This would allow Russia to enact a countrywide ban on its activity, dissolving its organization and criminalizing its worship. The ban would impact about 175,000 followers in 2,000 congregations nationwide. \u201cWithout any exaggeration, it would put us back to the dark days of persecution for faith.\u201d Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses make up a tiny percentage of the country\u2019s population--but their unpopularity has made it awkward for Russian Protestants who \u201cdon\u2019t consider themselves as extreme\u2014or as annoying\u2014as the Witnesses, and they aren\u2019t too eager to speak out against the recent case against them.\u201d One key group contributing to this complicated environment is the Russian Orthodox Church which staunchly believes that faith should have a \u201crobust communal dimension,\u201d \u2014 not confined to a private relationship between a person and God, says Andrey Shirin, who moved to the US from Russia more than 25 years ago and currently works as an assistant professor of divinity at John Leland Center for Theological Studies. \u201cThe notion that people should be free to exercise their faith or not to exercise any is really uncontroversial,\u201d said Shirin. \u201cIt all depends on how this is interpreted.\u201d Shirin joined Morgan and Mark this week on Quick to Listen discuss Putin\u2019s popularity among American evangelicals, whether the country\u2019s evangelicals should be concerned about their future, and how the Orthodox Church kept its credibility after the Communist era.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices