Alexander Solzhenitsyn: On Being Bought So Cheaply

In his childhood, youth, and early adulthood, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was a devout Communist. Exceeding his peers in enthusiasm, he even dove into the primary sources of his society’s new religion to understand and embody it more thoroughly. Jesus nonetheless gave him a passion for truth which freed him from this idolatry. The powers that be did not allow this to go unpunished. They sentenced him to eight years in the Gulag, four as a mathematician at a labor camp specializing in scientific research.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “Live Not by Lies”

We might summarize the Good News this way: each day, Jesus Christ invites us to walk with him on the difficult yet glorious path of freedom which is based on truth, expressed through love, and ends in eternal life. At the same time, the world, flesh, and Devil daily bully, bribe, and deceive us into choosing the easy yet shameful path of power which is based on lies, expressed through violence, and ends in despair, destruction, and death (Matthew 7:13-14).

Strangely enough, Alexander Solzhenitsyn first discovered his life was based on lies while fighting on the German Front during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45). Writing to an old classmate, he shared his realization that Joseph Stalin—ruler of the revolutionary Soviet Union—had betrayed the Revolution. For sharing this insight, he was sentenced to eight years at a work camp. Even so, he committed himself to learning the truth and to sharing it especially with his fellow Soviet citizens by writing.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (2): Author, Exile, Anachronism

 Author (1962-2008)

After a year of various struggles, Tvardovsky managed to publish One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It was soon translated, published, and distributed throughout the West. Solzhenitsyn became famous inside and outside the Soviet Union. The following year, Tvardovsky published other stories by Solzhenitsyn.

In 1964, Leonid Brezhnev wrested power over the Soviet government from Nikita Khrushchev and sent him into retirement. He rejected Krushchev’s willingness to see challenging stories published. No other works by Solzhenitsyn were printed in the USSR until it neared collapse.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1): Student, Soldier, Prisoner, Teacher

 Student (1918-1941)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918, in Kislovodsk, a city in the Caucasus region of southern Russia. His father, Isaaki, was an artillery officer who fought on the German Front from 1914 until the Russian army was demobilized in 1918. His mother, Taisia, grew up in a landowning family and was able to learn French and English. His father died in a hunting accident six months before his birth. Shortly after his birth, his mother took him to Rostov-on-Don and raised him there, supporting them both by working as a secretary.

A Sympathetic Shouldering of Cares

In September 1919, less than a year after the German defeat in World War 1, Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) gave an address, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” at a conference on Religion and Social Relations in the central German town of Tambach. Through it, he reminds us today that, as Jesus moves in our lives, his truth constantly frees us from all other authorities to test whether they are strengthening in us his gifts of love and life and to challenge them if they are not.

 

Barth and Schleiemacher: Two Roads Diverge

In September 1922, Swiss-born Karl Barth (1886-1968) gave an address, “The Problem of Ethics Today,” to a group of pastors in the western German city of Wiesbaden. In it, he mentioned Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) who, like Barth, was a Reformed theologian but who, unlike Barth, was a significant contributor to modern liberal theology. Barth summarized Schleiemacher’s contribution in this way:

Barth on Calvin on Hope

In July 1922, Karl Barth gave an address, “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching,” to a group of Reformed pastors. He chose to close his remarks with “a confession of hope”: