CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST

November 16, 2008

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LIFT UP IN PRAYER:

God’s will for our congregation Various relatives, friends, and co-workers

Our nation, leaders and military The persecuted church

OBSERVATIONS ON A CULTURE

“Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” (Luke 12:56).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died in August of this year. Who was this man? During World War II, Solzhenitsyn served as an artillery officer in the Russian Army with distinction. However, he wrote a letter to a friend complaining about the Russian dictator, Stalin. He was arrested and sent to the Gulag in Siberia. It was here that he began observing and writing. When he was released, his first book was published in the West called One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. That was followed by his most famous work, The Gulag Archipelago. His writings and fame drove the Communists crazy and after he won a Noble prize, there just wasn’t much they could do with this dissident. He exposed the condition of the Soviet Union which eventually lead to its downfall. The Communists exiled him around 1974.

He made his way to the United States and lived in Vermont until the early nineties when he was able to return to Russia. Many were excited about having this Russian in America and Harvard University invited him to give the graduation speech in 1978. The title was “A World Split Apart” (1). However, the officials at Harvard got something they did not want to hear and his speech was widely criticized by many of the elites. What did he say that got so many upset?

He addressed cultural, political, and religious issues in this short speech (2). He said, “Should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively.” This is in 1978; but what he saw has developed in full in our society today. A prophet? Maybe. Certainly he was one who understood the times.

He saw that the West lacked the courage to face a totalitarian enemy. We have heard of the “evil empire” and the “axis of evil,” both criticized as warmongering. Have we come to a point where we cannot call something “evil?” Given how we have this relativistic culture that sees that one cannot make such a judgment, it should not surprise us that there is a fear in calling evil what it is. Another prophet however, saw it a little differently. “Woe unto them who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Christians who speak against sin in honorable ways are still considered evil hate mongers.

Solzhenitsyn saw the West as becoming soft because of materialism. He stated that Russians were strong because of the Gulags, because of the hard oppression of the Communist, and because of the harshness of Russia itself. After the fall of the Communists and his return to Russia, he was fearful that his people had too much of a desire to become like the West materially. “So why should one risk one’s precious life in defense of common values…” he stated. We have become creatures of comfort. Who would we be more like; Zacchaeus who was willing to give up half his possessions (Luke 19:1-10) or the Rich Young Ruler who went away sad after being told to sale all he has, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus (18:18-30)? I fear that too many of us would be with the Ruler, me included.

Another area Solzhenitsyn saw as a problem was what happened to the rule of law. We hear many speak about our being a nation under the rule of law. But, “People in the West has acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting and manipulating law.” Needless we can see this in far too many situations today. I visited the University of Illinois law library in 1984. I was amazed by it. It was in a building especially built for law books, was three stories, and contained thousands and thousands of books on all types of laws. More have been past since, especially since many politicians are lawyers. Jesus faced a similar situation in the First Century as the Jewish leaders developed oral and written traditions into laws that had to be followed without question. Hosea wrote about this as well: “They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field” (10:4). Solzhenitsyn saw an unwillingness of restraint and sacrifice in this area and concluded: “A society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed, but a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.”

The church, and for that matter any of us, can fall into this legalist trap. We have our traditions that eventually we equate with scripture and turn into laws. We forget that they are traditions and we have difficulty recognizing them as such. We have all seen that interpretations of scripture where there are more than one view, have been made law as well. It is a problem we must be alert to because it can cause unnecessary divisions.

Solzhenitsyn also saw a problem concerning the rights of criminals. Now we certain expect basic rights but when there are advocates for underserved leniency without the idea of justice for the victims, then something is wrong. He was certainly experienced in the abuse of power in Soviet Russia, considering that the Gulags held not just criminals but those who opposed communism, and many religious leaders, as well as those falsely accused. One day, those who caused and participated in such injustice will be held accountable as God puts all things to the right. I’m all for grace and mercy if a person willing and from the heart repents of his actions. Clyde Thompson was just such a man. Found guilty of murdering eight people, he spent a number of years on death row in Huntsville, Texas. He was baptized into Christ and his life was so changed that he was pardoned, and began to work in various prison ministries.

Freedom was another area of Solzhenitsyn was concerned with in the speech. How much freedom is too much? Some judges have difficulty recognizing pornography for the destructive nature that it is and so have given it First Amendment protections. When protesters of abortion or homosexuality have legally protested these areas, they have been told they do not have the right within certain areas to offer such protests. “Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually but it was evidently born out of a humanistic concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature.” The only evil or intolerance are those who are declared intolerant.

Connected with freedom is the freedom of the press. Solzhenitsyn was not kind to them. He saw them as unelected and irresponsible people, free to report anything, or not. He complained that they had hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments, confusing readers and without any verification. One reporter saw one politicians quoting of scripture as down home quaint sayings. Another reporter considered Christians poor, uneducated, and easily lead, though he did later retract that. A case in point was a program by the late Peter Jennings in the late nineties in which he was searching for the real Jesus. I watched the program in which Jennings interviewed ten scholars, eight who were liberal and denied various aspects of the gospels, and two who were conservative, one being N.T. Wright (3). This is often how the media operates on many issues and stereotypes of Christians have arisen that, while there is some truth in them, misrepresent who we are as people.

The final area Solzhenitsyn looked at was the atrophy of spiritual life. “Mere freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and it even adds some new ones…We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possessions: our spiritual life.” It was in the Gulags in particular that God became important to people, Many were surprised when the Communists fell, that churches reopened and people flocked to them. Today a number of our brothers and sisters have gone to former communist nations to teach the scriptures, often at the request of leading officials.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn understood both eastern and western culture. He saw problems that many refuse to face. In the thirty years since that speech, we have moved further than even Solzhenitsyn could foresee. But there is good news. While we see a rise of secularism, and some think that it is becoming dominant, there is also a rise in spiritual seeking (4). People are seeking more than the materialism so often emphasized in the commercialism we see. Modernism has failed and Postmodernism is reacting to that. There are things more important than money and cars, fame and power. If we understand what Solzhenitsyn was saying, we will be better able to address our cultural situation. The good news transcends all cultures. We can see the glass half full or half empty. We read the words of the speech and realize that we have an alternative to offer to our culture. By our words and example we can influence many to return to Jesus as Lord.

George B. Mearns

(1) Solzhenitsyn’s speech can be found at www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html