“We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble: “But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.”…But we can do—everything!—even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not “they” who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we!”
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – “Live Not by Lies” (1974)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote the comments from the seminal essay I cited above not long before he was arrested by Soviet authorities, charged with treason, and stripped of his Soviet citizenship. The arrest came on the heels of the publication of “The Gulag Archipeligo,” which became Solzhenitsyn’s best known work.
The theme Sozhenitsyn outlined in the book was quite simple. While the world has always had its fair share of evildoers pass though human history. Vladimir Lenin was the architect of an ideology that justified the gulags and the brute force, its supporting bureaucracies, and the terror that were to become the building blocks of the “Soviet Utopia.” Those building blocks paved the way for the evildoers to operate freely within the system Lenin had created. Subsequent Soviet leaders, from Stalin to Krushchev, Brezhnev, etc then recruited even more evildoers like Laverntiy Berea do whatever it would take to ensure that the Communist system succeeded.
Solzhenitsyn learned the lesson about the Soviet Union’s security apparatus the hard way. Berea, chief of the NKVD, meant business when he said “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Solzhenitsyn had become a target of the the NKVD when he wrote letters to friends highly critical of Stalin and when he wrote books like “Cancer Ward” and “The Red Wheel.” The books prompted a few assassination attempts, but his criticism of Stalin in the letters earned him an eight year sentence at a labor camp for counterrevolutionary activity in 1945. That time in the prison camp, in turn, became Solzehnitsyn’s inspiration for the publication of “The Gulag Archipeligo.” in 1974.
Solzhenitsyn lived the life of an exile in Cavendish, Vermont until 1994, when the treason charges that had prompted the “conviction” were overturned by the U.S.S.R’s Prosecutor General. He was eventually allowed to return to Russia. He spent the rest of hs life there and died on August 3, 2008. He was 89 years old.
Solzhenitsyn never went into exile willingly. He was thoroughly Russian and it showed in his extraordinary literary gifts. Had he lived during the times of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, or Chekhov, he would have been a valued member of this prestigious fraternity.
During his exile he wrote three books – “Between Two Millstones,” “Sketches of Exile,” and “Exile in America.” In addition to the writing, he also made many compelling speeches, including his memorable 1976 speech to the graduating class of Harvard University, which he titled “A World Split Apart.”
Like most Americans, I knew little about Solzhenitsyn prior to his Harvard address. I’d read “Cancer Ward” and “The Red Wheel,” and his essay “Live Not By Lies.” I admired him as a writer and began to think of him not only as a writer, but also as a prophet in the mold of Hosea, who was told by the Almighty to set “the trumpet to his mouth.”. That admiration grew exponentially after I read the transcript of his Harvard address. While I wasn’t in attendance at the event, I could visualize it, thanks to having lived in Cambridge,Massachusetts during my formative years. I’d strolled through the Harvard campus many times in those years. The sights and sounds of those days have stayed with me. I remember them fondly.
I left Cambridge in 1961 to join the Air Force so that I could “see the world.” By 1978, the year Solzhenitsyn made that famous address, I had just started attending graduate school in Kansas City.
As I read the transcript I was riveted by what Solzhenitsyn had to say. The more I read, the more I saw that it took a prophet’s courage to utter them. A few samples from the speech follow. I think you’ll understand what I’m trying to say once you read them:
“But the blindness of superiority continues in spite of all and upholds the belief that the vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present day Western systems, which in theory are the best and in practice the most attractive.”
“However, it is a conception which develops out of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, out of the mistake of measuring them all with a Western yardstick.”
“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society.“
The world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems, which must be corrected. Strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still is criminality and there even is considerably more of it than in the pauper and lawless Soviet society.”
“Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”
You may be asking what Solzehnitsyn said at Harvard has to do with twenty-first century America. I’ll say it plainly – everything. The things Solzhenitsyn wrote about and said during his life should stand as a prophetic warning to us. As he said in his 1974 essay, “we are on the brink.” A person would have to be wilfully blind not to see it. And, the problem is, much of America, including its leaders, has become wilfully blind.
The obscene demonstrations on our elite college campuses, including Harvard, speak to this blindness. The rampant crime in America’s cities speaks to this blindness. The insidious “cancel culture” that has developed speaks to this blindness. The insanity of pronouns and gender dysphoria that is destroying far too many of our young people speaks to this blindness.
Even here in Kansas City we’ve been treated to an example of wilful blindness. A week or so ago, Harrison Butker, who is the field goal kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, set off a national firestorm when he made the annual commencement address at Benedictine College, which is not too far from downtown Kansas City. What did he do to set of the firestorm? He spoke about marriage, family, children, career, and faith from a Catholic/Benedictine point of view and thousands of angry Progressives, “woke” individuals, media superstars, and a sprinkling of politicians took umbrage at what he’d said. While he never said that women couldn’t have fulfilling careers, he did extol the virtues of motherhood, womanhood, faith, and careers. As the rhetorical missiles lobbed across the airwaves it became apparent that he’d been villainized by claiming that family, faith, and children should be praised rather than seen as impediments to a rewarding career.
It’s an all too familiar position today that becomes quite evident when one looks at the statistical data concerning abortion in America. According to the Guttmacher Institute, very few abortions in America are being performed to protect a mother’s health or because of a detected fetal abnormality. Women are choosing abortion for reasons like (1) Having a child would be an impediment to a lucrative, professionally rewarding career or (2) The woman considering the abortion wasn’t “ready” to have children. There were other reasons cited,but those two were the ones most often cited. Lest one think that aborting unborn children is rare in America, it must be said that there were 930,000 abortions performed in America in 2020. The total data for 2023 isn’t complete (two months worth of data is still missing), but when all the data is compiled it will almost certainly reveal that over a million abortions will have been performed.
Some claim that abortion is rarely performed in America nowadays. Really. When one compares the number of abortions performed in 2022 (930,000) to the number of tonsillectomies (504,000), or the number of open heart surgeries (about 400,000), it’s clear that the number of abortions performed and the self-serving justifications given are astounding. In speaking about these things at Benedictine College, Harrison Butker hit a really raw nerve.
I’m sure that Butker’s faith and philosophy of life are now considered the minority report and there are now thousands, if not millions, who are clamoring for him to be “cancelled” or for the Chiefs to terminate his contract.
There’s a part of me that wants to just move on from the vitriol. After all, Harrison Butker is an adult and he can handle all the hate being directed at him and folks like me, who admire Harison Butker, can lay low and just “go along to get along.”
But, can we? Can we Christians just ignore what we see going wherever we turn?
I’ve tried doing that, but it’s clear to me now that we’ve reached the breaking point Aleksandr Solzhenitsin wrote about. We must speak out. We have no choice in the matter. If we don’t, we’ll be as guilty as those who are threatening, mocking, and vilifying Harrison Butker and others like him.
This morning I read an essay penned by Rod Dreher, one of my favorite authors. I first read his book “The Benedict Option” a few years ago. In that book he described the life of Benedict of Nursia, the man who founded the Benedictine monastic order. Dreher recounted how Benedict’s father had sent him to Rome to study law. His arrival in Rome coincided with the collapse of the Empire. Benedict saw the decadence overwhelming the once great Empire and decided he did not want to be part of it. He left Rome and settled in Nursia, a small town of about 1,000 inhabitants, and started the now famous monastic order. It is still operating today and focuses on fellowship with Jesus, prayer, and hospitality.
Dreher was fascinated by what Benedict had accomplished and became convinced that the modern Christian church needed a new approach to the life of faith, hence the name “the Benedict Opton.” He described it this way:
Put succinctly, the Benedict Option is a way to interact as a Christian in a world that has become increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. We must share our love, hospitality, and service without compromising them. We cannot let the “world” determine” how we live our lives. We must be faithful to Jesus, not the world.
In this morning’s essay, Dreher expressed something many of us Christians are feeling:
“It’s not like I’m on the hunt for catastrophe porn, but more like I feel compelled to point out, Hey, look what’s happening! They’re really going to sink this ship! Let’s either storm the bridge or prepare the lifeboats!”
It’s the same sentiment Solzhenitsyn expressed in his famous essay – “already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rod Dreher, and Harrison Butker summoned up the courage to speak courageously to their respective cultures. We must honor them by setting the trumpet to our mouths!