Alexander Solzhenitsyn is not one to play it safe. The eminent Russian author has shown an uncommon heroism in his battle against Soviet oppression. He has stood his ground fully aware that at any moment his voice could be stilled. The threat of another long imprisonment such as he experienced under Stalin does not intimidate him.
Solzhenitsyn was named to receive the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature, but the award has never been officially bestowed. He has refused to go to Stockholm to pick it up because he doubts that Soviet authorities would let him return. The author of The First Circle, The Cancer Ward, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich thus shuns a comfortable platform for his prophetic utterings. He knows he can speak more meaningfully from within the Soviet Union even though his literary masterpieces cannot be published there. And he also is saying that to forsake his own land for the security and liberty of the free world, which offers greater opportunity for personal fulfillment, would cost him the loss of immediate identification with the plight of his countrymen.
Solzhenitsyn was to have received his prize last month in a private ceremony in Moscow. But the event was called off, or at least delayed, when the Soviet government refused a visa to the secretary of the Swedish Royal Academy, who was to present the award.
The Kremlin’s action seems to be a direct reprisal for Solzhenitsyn’s “Lenten Letter,” which, circulated secretly in Moscow, reached the hands of Western newsmen and made headlines around the world. In the letter the author reproaches the Russian Orthodox Church for its subservience to the state. “A church dictatorially directed by atheists is a spectacle that has not been seen for 2,000 years,” he says. Solzhenitsyn chides Orthodox officialdom for complicity with the state in closing churches, repressing dissident priests, and banning religious education. He is the first Soviet citizen of international stature to demand religious freedom.
It must be jarring to Communist theoreticians that this man of unquestionable intelligence and integrity, brought up under revolutionary teaching, should still opt for the worship of God. Solzhenitsyn is said to hope that a church can be built in the Soviet Union with his $79,000 Nobel prize money!
Solzhenitsyn’s criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church presents an illuminating contrast with that of an ecumenical apologist which, interestingly enough, appeared about the same time. Solzhenitsyn criticizes both the Orthodoxy of czarist days and the Orthodoxy of today. But J. Irwin Miller, a noted lay churchman who is highly influential in both the World and National Council of Churches, could not bring himself to this point. In an article in the April Reader’s Digest he confines his allegations of the Russian church’s silence in the fact of corruption and cruelty to the nineteenth century.
Comparing these two approaches not only increases our admiration of Solzhenitsyn but also contributes to the longstanding debate over Christian church involvement in temporal affairs. Miller’s argument is a clear indication that the World Council of Churches does not, in fact, try to be, as he asserts, “responsible, balanced [and] objective.” Despite all the WCC says about the necessity of being involved, and being controversial, and taking a stand for justice, it consistently refuses to speak out against injustice when to do so would entail a major ecumenical risk. WCC leaders know full well that a candid pronouncement condemning the lack of religious freedom (the supreme injustice) in the Soviet Union would alienate all member churches in the Communist bloc. So they keep silent on this and a host of other world issues.
The truth of the matter is that the WCC calls for “social action” only where it will not jeopardize inclusivist goals. The council follows an extremely selective strategy, and one that seems determined much more by expedience than by the acuteness of the problems.
Miller manages to avoid all the major issues brought to light in two earlier articles critical of the WCC. The arguments he answers are not the main ones on which sincere Christians call the WCC to account. The basic anxiety is that the Church not become a mere propaganda agency for this or that particular political view-point. One is tempted to conclude that Miller’s superficial appeal is a screen to hide the ecumenical movement’s theological bankruptcy.
We agree with Miller that prophets are needed today to expose evil. We wish, however, that he had put in at least one good word for the kerygma. Surely Christians as individuals are called to exert an influence for good upon pagan society. But the Church as the corporate redeemed community, though it should be a champion of high ideals, has a calling that transcends this. Its supreme commission is to persuade men to respond to the Saviour’s love, to appropriate his death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. In this the Church is unique; without this dimension the Church ceases to be the extension of the New Testament community, however humanitarian its concern and outlook. The Church’s genius is that it can offer something when all human efforts fail. As Solzhenitsyn has written,
When my spirit is overwhelmed within me,
When even the keenest see no further than the night,
And know not what to do tomorrow,
You bestow on me the certitude
That You exist and are mindful of me,
That all the paths of righteousness are not barred.
Paying For Education
How to finance elementary and secondary education and the corollary matter of support for non-government school systems are increasingly controversial topics. The President’s Commission on School Finance has recently issued its report with the basic recommendation, which we endorse, that the fifty states, rather than the 17,500 school districts, assume the basic responsibility for financing public schools. This should eventually lead to public schools of roughly equal quality throughout each state.
But in addition President Nixon has repeatedly proclaimed his intention to improve public schools while finding constitutional ways to help keep open the non-public schools. Hardly anyone opposes the right of these non-public schools (over four-fifths of them Roman Catholic) to exist, even though only about 10 per cent of the student population uses them. The chief question is: Should tax money make this existence possible?
We think that tax support of non-public education is detrimental as well as unconstitutional. Obviously, any money used for non-public education subtracts from that available for public schools. Furthermore, non-public schools betray their basis for separate existence when they take tax money, for what the government supports, it sooner or later controls, as it should. Private educators should be free of such control.
The strength of American religious institutions, as opposed to their European counterparts, is that they have been privately supported and controlled. It is not unfair for a parent who supports private schools to pay taxes for public schools also, just as it is not unfair to collect school taxes from those who have no children at all.
Religion is not something that should be imposed; it loses its chief values when it is. Some of the religiously controlled schools are calling for tax support to help them keep going, but going as what? They cannot expect the government to fund them without at the same time altering them. And if they are altered, they lose their reason for being.
Viet Nam: A Presidential Dilemma
Months ago President Nixon announced his plan for ending the war in Viet Nam. He called it Vietnamization, and it has two aims: leave a stable and viable South Viet Nam and withdraw American ground combat forces. So far he has kept his word at every point in the withdrawal of our forces. The President also warned the North Vietnamese that military escalation would bring reprisals. When he went to the negotiating table in Paris, it quickly became evident that there would be no political settlement, not because of disagreement over details, but bcause of the enemy’s rejection of point one of Vietnamization, a viable South Viet Nam state.
It is not surprising that the Communist Vietnamese should have launched an all-out attack south of the demilitarized zone to defeat Vietnamization. Mr. Nixon’s hand was forced. Had he not responded to the all-out aggression, his Vietnamization program might have failed; it still may. The President chose to resume bombing rather than accept defeat.
In six months the electorate will have the chance to judge the President’s stewardship of office. If the people want what the Democratic presidential aspirants are advocating, they can turn Richard Nixon out of office. But until this happens, we’d better let the President make the decisions that go along with his position, adding our prayers that a just Vietnamization will succeed and that all our troops will be home soon.
Who’S For Evangelism?
Key 73 seems to be dividing some groups and conquering others (see News, pages 34 and 35).
At the annual meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals last month, delegates tabled a resolution encouraging NAE member groups and churches to participate in the broad evangelism effort. In Atlanta the National Conference of Catholic Bishops implied endorsement of Key 73—apparently the reason for NAE hesitance. Some dioceses are already at work.
A developing evangelical spirit on the part of some within the Roman Catholic Church is encouraging to those who have been praying for its revival. Wherever the Gospel is biblically preached, men can come to a saving knowledge of Christ through faith alone. We are glad that some Catholic parishes with evangelical leanings are already involved in Key 73, and we hope this number will grow. With tacit episcopal approval this seems more possible than it did a few months ago.
We were disappointed that the NAE declined to endorse Key 73 this year. But last year’s mild approval still stands; most NAE leaders are committed to participation. Some fear the shelving of the resolution might imply that the NAE is against evangelism while the Roman church is for it. That would be an unfortunate mistake. But with so many of its member churches involved in Key 73, the group’s failure to act may hurt the NAE more than it hinders Key 73.
C2H5Oh
America’s major drug problem is not with marijuana, amphetamines, or heroin: it is with alcohol. There are at least nine million alcoholics in the United States—an estimate thought by many to be very conservative. One in every ten alcoholics commits suicide. Sixty per cent of all traffic accidents involve drivers who have been drinking. Five per cent of the average family’s spending is for alcoholic products.
At a time when the national consciousness is deeply troubled by the war in Viet Nam, few of those who rail against killing in war have a word to say about murder on the highways. Senator Edward Kennedy, for example, who vehemently opposes the killing in Viet Nam, says nothing about the much greater carnage caused by mixing alcohol and gasoline—despite his own experience at Chappaquiddick.
From 1962 through 1971 more than 500,000 Americans died on the highways, and even the most conservative estimates indicate that at least half of all highway deaths involved drunken driving. Dr. William C. Wood, a surgical resident of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, estimates that ninety per cent of the auto accidents requiring emergency treatment in that hospital are related to the intake of alcohol.
Alcohol is a narcotic, a depressant that has no real curative value in the treatment of disease. The man who drinks four ounces of whiskey on an empty stomach will not be free of alcohol for twelve hours.
It is futile to suppose that total abstinence is a possibility. But it is possible to keep those who drink from driving on the highways. We suggest ten days in jail for the first offense; thirty days and six months’ suspension of a driving license for the second offense; and one year in jail and permanent revocation of a driver’s license for the third offense. If those who drink don’t drive, 30,000 Americans will not die next year.
Fasting As Therapy
The current movement toward “getting into harmony with nature” is bringing back some old customs. Among the ancient theories recently dusted off is the idea that going without food for a time can be beneficial to health. A fasting fad has been working its way across North America and Europe, gaining a remarkable number of followers. Even in the supposedly scientifically oriented Soviet Union, fasting is being touted as an effective treatment for a wide assortment of ills.
One ought not to write off the notion too quickly. Zoo officials withhold food from animals occasionally as a health measure, the thought being that out in the bush there are undoubtedly days when no food can be found.
For the Christian, fasting may bring about spiritual benefits as well. But it is not a practice to be taken lightly. Fasting can have bad effects, too, spiritual as well as physical: One may fast out of pride, for example. And some people become very irritable when they go without food, so that fasting may bring on unchristian behavior.
The Methodists Make Theology
Evangelicals hold their breath when modern theologians get together—experience has shown that almost anything can happen. It is therefore with some relief that we note the new doctrinal platform the United Methodist Church has erected. The statement, part of a new theological package (see page 40), could have been a lot worse. It affirms a number of emphases that biblically oriented Christians will welcome.
Unfortunately, however, the statement sags at a crucial point: the atonement. It refers to Christ’s death and resurrection, but fails to say what they mean, noting only that “those who even now find in [Jesus] their clue to God’s redeeming love also find their hearts and wills transformed.” If the atoning work of Christ is worth mentioning at all, it is worth the amplification that when he died to save us, he bore our sins in his own body and rose again for our justification. We find in him much more than a “clue.”
Making Music Verbal
From Shakespeare to Wallace Stevens, writers have explored the meaning of music. Some have called it the universal language, others have called it the food of love; one poet even called it “brandy for the damned.” But no one, writer or composer, had ever approached music linguistically or claimed that it was a medium for metaphysical discussion until Olivier Messiaen.
The sixty-four-year-old French composer writes theological music; “I am above all a Catholic musician,” he insists. The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which recently premiered in the United States, is a good example of what Messiaen tries to say with music. The composer takes the words for his choral work from the Bible, the Missal, and Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. He wraps these words in sharp sounds and abrasive rhythms to try to convey the meaning of God, the Trinity, and the Transfiguration. When God or heaven appears in the lyrics, the music rises in pitch and volume; the opposite happens when hell and damnation are mentioned. Unfortunately, the audience often hears sounds that suggest electrocardiograms rather than the glorified Christ.
The composer does not mean to imply that God is rigid or mechanical, for he regards light—but light without warmth or glow—as the central image of the Transfiguration. God, Messiaen seems to say, is pure intellect, above and apart from man even in the Incarnation. At times Messiaen forsakes verbal musical expression for impressionism. For example, he brilliantly depicts the cloud of God (Matt. 17:5) by shimmering orchestral and piano effects.
In Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, his latest organ work, Messiaen assigns a different letter of the alphabet to each note, combining them into verbal sounds. Such an austere linguistic approach is more Latin grammatical cases for various combinations of sounds. Such an austere linguistic approach is more necessary in the non-lyric Meditations than in the choral piece.
No other composer today is trying to write such theological music. Unfortunately the average concert-goer misses most of the theological and musical implications of Messiaen’s compositions. What we need is someone, either a theologian or a musicologist—or both—to study the music of Messiaen and explain to the rest of us what this man is trying to say.
Don’T Throw Bouquets At Mom
We would now like to praise important women: mothers. But we suspect advocates of Women’s Lib would take us to task for singling out one day in 365 to strew baby’s breath (for bearing children), daisies (for keeping bathrooms clean), and buttercups (for preparing our daily food) at the feet of the maternal image. And perhaps they’re right. Such programmed adulation probably redounds more to the glory of florists and Hallmark than to the glory of mothers.
So this year we’ll throw no bouquets, at least not to give thanks for services rendered. It is an ageless, unisex principle that everyone needs some place to be accepted not because of what he—or she—does but simply because she—or he—is. God, of course, does just that for the Christian, and although it may be a hard task for a husband similarly to love and accept his wife, that’s what the Apostle ordered. A mother accepted and loved by God despite her depravity and by her family regardless of her contributions to their comfort will be able to accept and love herself despite her allegedly low-status work as unpaid maid and governess.
It comes as no surprise, of course, that mothers are (in their spare time, anyway) human beings who need to love themselves; Jesus suggested that self-love is on a par with love of neighbors—including family. This year, Mom, you get no thanks at all—only love.
Finders, Weepers; Losers, Keepers
Throughout most of human history, the life of human beings, frequently and unpredictably cut short by violence, pestilence, or famine, has been anything but secure. Even as recently as 1945 the population of much of Europe and Asia lived in terrible anxiety and fear of sudden death as the tides of battle swept around them and vast armadas of warplanes poured indiscriminate destruction from the sky. Germany’s V-2, an early ballistic rocket, was relatively ineffective militarily but still gave many Britons the uneasy awareness that death could also strike soundlessly out of a clear sky, without giving warning or opportunity to prepare. In the United States of the 1940s infantile paralysis could still reach epidemic proportions, while in many other countries epidemics of typhoid, smallpox, and cholera raged with their ancient severity.
Since World War II there would seem to have been a tremendous gain in individual security. Wars do still occur, but so far they have been kept small. Polio has been virtually banished, and many other hoary foes have been brought under control. In the social realm, the United States—a “backward” nation with respect to welfare legislation—now devotes a far greater portion of a vastly increased gross national product to aiding its citizens in old age, sickness, and unemployment than it did in the forties. Admittedly much remains to be done, but in almost every area, persons living in the 1970s are vastly more secure financially than were their predecessors of thirty years ago.
And yet as one threat vanishes, another always seems waiting to take its place. Diseases unknown or unrecognized in the past today assume alarming proportions. Ancient killers such as heart disease and cancer continue to consume victims of all ages. Formerly vanquished foes such as syphilis return. The indicators for violent crimes of all types rise alarmingly, and the streets of our greatest cities are often empty because people fear to walk them. Highway accidents destroy the cautious as well as the reckless, and there is no end in sight. Our expenditures for defense rise, and yet we know that our possible foes have increased their offensive capacities even more and are now superior to us in many categories of destructive weapons. Our nominal social security benefits rise and rise—in this election year one candidate proposes an across-the-board rise of 20 per cent. But their real value may actually decline, as the dollars in which they are paid fall in value at home and abroad. Vis-à-vis solid foreign currencies, the dollar lost 15 per cent between May and December last year alone. Social security and pension plans promise a comfortable retirement, but family affluence does not guarantee stability. Children run away from prosperous homes at fourteen. And over the whole tangle of trivialities and tragedies hangs a growing cloud of pollution, threatening to make the whole planet barren.
Man’s life on this earth has never been secure, and all our frantic efforts to make it such are being frustrated, one after another. We can make our lives blasé and our deaths banal, but we can neither secure the one nor avoid the other, for all our trying. Can it be that in the quest for a security that always evades our grasp, we hear again the warning and promise of Jesus Christ, “He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 10:39)?
