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y
Warnings to theWest
GoUnheeded
N
o
ONE
likes to be criti–
ciz~d.
lt
goes against the
gratn.
Nations are no different. They
don't like abad press either. And
Soviet dissident Alexander Solz–
hcnitsyn has been very hard on
the West. He has scored sorne
rather direct hits on the Western
way of life.
The Solzhenits yn lndictment
If only Mr. Solzhenitsyn would
confine his comments to the
Communist bloc, responsible
Westerners sigh, then there
would be no problem. The West
would love him. But, no, he has
made the mistake of zeroing in on
sorne of the major defects of the
Atlantic community.
The Western press often has
accused him of being arrogant
and infuriating. He is castigated
for lacking in humor. Sorne peri–
odicals even refuse to reprint the
text of his speeches.
Why such hostililty to a man
the West once welcomed with
open arms?
The answer líes in the inability
of the human psyche to receive
unadulterated truth. More than
1,900 years ago, people could not
find it within themselves to re–
ceive J esus Ch ris t 's message.
Yes, they believed in J esus. They
loved His personality. But they
did
not
believe His message!
But what has Mr. Solzhenitsyn
actually said to so arouse the ire
of the press? Read these few
excerpts from just one of his most
September 1980
by
John
R.
Schroeder
caustic commentaries on our
Western way of life: " T he West–
ern world has
lost its civil cour–
age,
both as a whole and separate–
ly. in each country, each govern–
ment, each political party ... po–
litical and intellectual bureau–
crats show depression, passivity,
pe r p1ex i t y i n t he i r s tate–
ments ... even more so in theo–
retical reAections to show how
rcalistic and reasonable, as well as
intellectually and morally war–
ranted it is,
ro base state policies
on weakness and cowardice"
(emphasis ours throughout).
The present dearth of bold,
statesmanlike leadership in the
West has been analyzed and re–
analyzed by qualified psycholo–
gists. Yarious theories and explana–
tions have been proffered. Disobe–
dience to God is
not
one of them.
l t is the duty of
The Plain
Truth
to make plain this missing
cause of the decline of the West.
Notice the warning of God spok–
en to . H is nation by Isaiah the
prophet.
It
could be- as is- a
warning to any nation that will
heed. " For, behold, the Lord, the
Lord of hosts,
is taking away
from J erusalem and from Ju–
dah .. . the mighty man and the
soldier, the judge and the proph–
et, the diviner and the elder, the
captain of fifty and the man of
rank ... And 1 will make boys
[inexperienced and unseasoned
rulers] their princes [leaders],
and babes [in ability) shaJI rule
over them" ( lsaiah 3:1-4, Revised
Standard Yersion).
What a remarkable parallelism
with the modern wor ld! The early
chapters of lsaiah make it clear
that sin- sin is the transgression
of God's Law ( 1 John 3:4)- is the
real cause of national decline.
The Curse o f Covetou sness
But lack of leadership is not our
only affiiction. Mr. Solzhenitsyn
continued his indictment:
"The
constan/ desire to hove
still more
things and a sti ll better life, and
the struggle to obtain them,
imprints many Western faces
with worry and depression,
though it is customary to conceal
such feelings."
T he one
word-covetous–
ness-seems to sum up the West–
ern afniction. And it certainly
does not make people happy.
T ake a casual walk down your
average city st reet. Do you see joy
a nd contentmen t in people's
faces? Or do you see a people
burdened down with fears and
worries?
T his is the age of anxiety-or
"the age of uncer tainty" as econ–
omist J ohn Kenneth Galbraith
put it. Externa! forces constantly
threaten people's basic well-being
and security. l nAation eats away
at income. Medica! and surgical
bilis threaten life savings. West–
ern man and woman are contin–
ually pursuing happiness-but
never quite catching up to it. All
of which leads to coveting.
But the tenth commandment
says: "Thou shall not covet." T his
(Continued on page 36)
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