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Christianity Today, August, 2008 |

Jeremiah at Harvard

Three decades after Solzhenitsyn's speech, where do we find ourselves?

Charles Colson with Anne Morse | posted 8/05/2008 08:30AM

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The condition Solzhenitsyn diagnosed was identical to that of the ancient Israelites. God spoke through Jeremiah with biting sarcasm, warning the Israelites of where this kind of "freedom" leads: It would be freedom "to fall by the sword, plague, and famine." Jeremiah's prophecy all too soon came to pass; the Israelites fell into Babylonian captivity.

Three decades after Solzhenitsyn's speech, where do Americans find themselves? In the grip of a similar captivity: violent and pornographic "entertainment," growing censorship of unfashionable ideas, and a spiritually exhausted citizenry.

Solzhenitsyn did not leave Harvard that warm, June day without offering a solution: a "spiritual blaze" was needed to recover our footing. Have we listened? Do we see signs of awakening?

My summer study left me with a haunting question for the church: Is there still time to renew ourselves out of our spiritual exhaustion?

Related Elsewhere:

Solzhenitsyn died on Sunday evening.

Christianity Today reported on his return from exile in 1994.

Previous columns by Charles Colson are available on our website.

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August 2008, Vol. 52, No. 8

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Mary Ann

Posted: August 12, 2008 3:37 PM

Colson once more pulls us back to the Word as he rightly assesses modern society. The Western world has lost an important allie with Solzenitsen's death and too few realize it. Why should we be shocked that people see this article as purely political when that is the way modern political correctness misses the spiritual aspects of all of life. This is not a democrat or republican issue. It is a spiritual condition. Christians indeed need to wake up, fall on our knees seeking forgiveness, and seeking God's face once more. A call to prayer is mandatory. Who will issue the call? Who will heed it? It is up to each of us to have ears to listen and lips that speak the Word. Will you join me and the thousands who are already praying for this nation to regain her Christian conscience? I pray many will.

Fran Davies

Posted: August 10, 2008 7:50 AM

The Bush administration "boldly confronting evil"? Pa-leeze! The Bush administration's hubris stinks to high heaven. They sent our men and women into a holocaust, destabilizing an already less than stable region, killing and maiming tens of thousands of people, leaving our nation to agonize and fight amongst ourselves over how to extricate us from Iraq and FOR WHAT? Osama bin Laden continues to snub his nose and play hide and seek seven years after 9-11 and international terrorism is more rampant than ever. All of the things we have done to protect ourselves from terrorists on the domestic front could have been done without invading Iraq. How about "boldly and bumblingly" confronting evil? Please, Mr. Colson, don't try to make Bush out to be a peer of Solzhenitsyn.

Dave N.

Posted: August 08, 2008 5:30 PM


Colson's comments seem out of place on a Christian website. His neo-conservative Bush boosterism belongs on the op-ed pages of the Washington Times, not here.

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