Heimann, Mary  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3541-5201
2025.
Christian outlaws: Bible smuggling across Cold War Europe.
Studies in Church History
61
, pp. 609-637.
10.1017/stc.2024.54
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Abstract
Bible smuggling, the illicit transportation of religious contraband into the Communist countries of the Eastern bloc, was a marked Cold War phenomenon. At first a peripheral, amateurish pursuit, over the course of the 1970s and 1980s Bible smuggling developed into a transnational network of training camps and safe houses, which used recruitment practices and specially doctored objects and vehicles resembling those of state intelligence agencies. Bible smuggling also became a mode of perception. Professional Bible smugglers, reliant on student volunteers, preached a distinctive worldview. They developed their own literature, theology, moral codes, trade routes and criminal methods. Bestselling books, comics, advertisements and personal testimonies gradually came to shape how millions of conservative Christians, mainly evangelicals, viewed Communist Europe. Bible smuggling became a multi-million-dollar business and a televangelist staple which influenced US foreign policy. This article uncovers, for the first time, the scale, methods and significance of Cold War Bible-smuggling and argues for its enduring influence on conservative Christian thinking.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| ISSN: | 0424-2084 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 30 September 2024 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 6 September 2024 |
| Last Modified: | 21 May 2025 09:30 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/172168 |
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