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Christianity Today, August (Web-Only), 2008 |

THEOLOGY IN THE NEWS

Freedom Is Not Our Goal

Solzhenitsyn's death reminds us about freedom's cost and biblical purpose.

Collin Hansen | posted 8/11/2008 08:58AM

Had Alexandr Solzhenitsyn died too young, like so many other forced laborers, the Soviet Union might still be with us. Yet many of the 89-year-old author's eulogists write as if he lived too long.

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Jim	Posted: August 14, 2008 10:16 PM


Thanks very much for this article Colllin. I think you grasp the issues very well.

John	Posted: August 13, 2008 2:46 PM


Bless you Solzhenitzen!

Tom Smith

Posted: August 12, 2008 10:49 AM

I fear the author strips the Christian moral appeal of any concrete relevance to those who are not Christians. Such moral idealism severs the bond, not only between liberty and truth, but between reason and faith, thus denying to non-Christians a share in God's image and a conscience capable of being morally persuaded. While democracy as a purely procedural arrangement does not guarantee freedom's survival as morally ordered liberty, Solzhenitsyn rightly warns western democracy that if it expects to be able to withstand the bent of history and humanity towards tyranny it must recover a spiritial and moral vision of freedom that understands what our freedom "from" tyranny is "for." Christians proclaim freedom's moral goal is ulitmately Jesus Christ, but Christians dare not say this in such a way that strips non-Christians of God's image and common grace. There are penulitmate and universal applications of truth. Solzhenitsyn as a Christian prophet argues them very well.

Eugene

Posted: August 12, 2008 8:29 AM

I agree with what was said by Solzheintsyn about American views. Those who became angry with what he said were angry because he was right on about America. The sense of the holy God in this nation has died and we have become a country insensitive to God and what God has done for this country over the years. People today want to be autonomous from everything and that is not the way life is in reality. This nation is slowly dying from the inside out, like all great countries who are no longer considered world powers. We had best be very clear on this matter- becasue the time is coming quickly upon us - just look at our choices for President of the US this year. Where are the great men and women we used to have in our government - they are gone - like all the flowers they are no longer here - most of them lie in their graves - thank God Solzhenitsyn had one last shot at an anti-God, me first culture. Let us listen to his words!

Philip

Posted: August 12, 2008 5:26 AM


It looks like modern Russia is now defending Christianity and the West is too much in love with materialism.

James Reid Ross

Posted: August 12, 2008 1:57 AM

These brief comments of Solzhenitsyn need more study i think to understand, I have not read any of his books only what I have heard in the news do I know of him, but from the article it seems he was not in awe of our materialistic society as many are. Freedom is good but its also a license to sin. We must remember that the church was birthed in a totalitarian regime with salves and taxes and I think Paul's freedom is freedeom from the Law and sin and death not political freedom. I often feel trapped by "technology" and think that maybe Solzhenitsyn had it right. God bless In HIm James Reid Ross

Lydia

Posted: August 11, 2008 11:43 PM

"Freedom is only a word until you lose it." I regret that I have squandered so much of this lavish freedom that we have (in U.S.) on the less-important aspects of life, that I have at times lost my focus and purpose from the One who gave everything to salvage me. Solzhenitsyn had a lot of insight. I am blessed by this article and by the comments. I see how Solzhenisyn used his prison time to think, pray, reflect, agonize --things we rarely make time for here and now. We truly are "poor, blind, and naked..." (Rev.3)

Gerald Rodriguez

Posted: August 11, 2008 8:51 PM

All Westerners, the U.S. in particular, need only look at what was lost when ancient Israel lost focus of their religious roots as they became wealthy and prestigious in the eyes of others while looking elsewhere for self-actualization only to lose their identity in apostasy and self-indulgence. The same can be said of Western and Christian-based cultures and civilizations--e.g., late 18th century France, early 20th century Russia, and mid 20th century Germany and Italy. The point is Solzhenitsyn's warning that total liberation of the soul from its religious and spiritual underpinnings merely brings on the greatest hypocrisy when Westerners try to live under democratic principles without a moral compass. It all leads to sheer dependence and addiction to one's based nature--the need and want for mere pleasure and materialistic gain at any cost without ever having to apply the brakes of conscience and morality. Hence, the credo of freedom of choice trumps the responsibility.

David L

Posted: August 11, 2008 7:17 PM

I suggest taking the time to learn of Father Arseny. I am an Orthodox Christian, a convert. I am troubled by the mixture of Nationalism and Orthodoxy in Russia, that said I am also concerned with the continued mixture of evangelicalism and nationalism in America, it is not healthy for either. We have to always remember that our battle is against powers and principalities. The church, clergy and laypeople alike, have a duty to be guarded against diluting the faith once and for all delivered with secular nationalism. It is a dangerous as godless atheism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Arseny

Herb Pinney

Posted: August 11, 2008 5:51 PM

Solzhenitsyn was true to his belief in Christ and Christ's moral values in prison, in Vermont, before Harvard, in Russia. I believe he understood that Christians are not called to fight Satan's world culture, but the come in under the radar, with love draw away the enemy caught in the immoral culture, and disciple them, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,then change them by totally teaching them all that Christ taught us. This is not the popular plan of those that want to win the cultural war and remake culture in their own image.

Paul	Posted: August 11, 2008 4:16 PM

Freedom of religion and thought are incredible gifts. I have traveled many places where they are not (and worked in a few places here in the USA where they are not valued - by either conservatives or liberals). I wish Jesus told us to fight for freedom and liberty - from a human point of view they certainly seem worth fighting and killing and dieing for. But He did not - killing for freedom is not Christian , even freedom of religion - dieing for it is.

Doug	Posted: August 11, 2008 2:36 PM


The kingdom of God is not a democracy.

Dale Fincher

Posted: August 11, 2008 2:24 PM


Solzhenitsyn show us that freedom can be found in a prison. And that we can make prisons out of our so-called American liberations.

Randy Blacketer

Posted: August 11, 2008 1:21 PM


Solzhenitsyn was a modern-day Alexis de Tocqueville, warnining about the dangers of a democratic society without a solid moral and spiritual foundation. Flag-waving fundamentalists should take these criticisms to heart.

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