Solzhenitsyn & Mormon: Parallel Perspectives

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)
Taken while a prisoner in a Kazakhstan Gulag

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago).   A former Red Army captain, he was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp in 1945 for making derogatory comments about Joseph Stalin in a private letter to a friend. After being interrogated and tortured at Lubyanka prison in Moscow, he was sent to a Gulag in Kazakhstan to work and suffer. 

After the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev assumed power. He ordered the release and exoneration of Solzhenitsyn in 1953, whereupon Solzhenitsyn secretly began documenting the horrors of the Stalinist regime and Gulag system. After the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962, Khrushchev used this popular book to exploit public sympathy in his attempts to purge the stains of Stalinism from the USSR.

Solzhenitsyn became instantly famous. His ordeals had taken him through a broad spectrum of the stations of life: impoverished peasant, university student, Red Army captain, political prisoner, secretive dissident and national celebrity.  Though he lived life both as victimizer and as victim, in the end, he found himself embracing the principles of liberty and Christianity.  It is another great story affirming the ability of men to rise above the wreckage by finding peace through Christ.

In reading Solzhenitsyn's story, I found a fascinating quote that harmonized with my current reading in the Book of Mormon:

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." *

Examples of people forgetting God and suffering the consequences of godlessness and unrestrained evil are so numerous that you can’t begin to list them all. But Solzhenitsyn's comment reminds me of Mormon’s powerful eye-witness account of a great people that met a similar fate.

And my soul was rent with anguish, because of the slain of my people, and I cried:  O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you! Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss. (Mormon 6:16-18)

Mormon's account of the final struggles and destruction of the Nephite people is almost overpowering in its sadness (see Mormon 2:11-15).  In some ways it surpassed the suffering seen in Solzhenitsyn's day, since it resulted in the disappearance of the Nephite civilization. In both cases, what makes the stories so sad is that the destruction was so needless. To turn from God is to trust in men; left to their own devices, men can do great evil.

In an ironic footnote, the need for men to root out their inner evil was emphasized by an unlikely messenger that played a pivotal role in Solzhenitsyn's life: Nikita Khrushchev. In a speech defending One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to the Politburo, Khrushchev (of all people) warned of the potential we all have to harbor great evil within us:

"There's a Stalinist in each of you; there's even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil." **

Unlike Solzhenitsyn,*** Khrushchev never came to know that it is impossible to fully root out our inner evil without the atonement of Jesus Christ. Today it seems that history is doomed to repeat itself as men rush to forget God. As they turn away from the light of his gospel, they turn to darkness. Unfortunately, this darkness is the perfect environment for the Stalinist within us to awaken and flourish.

________

* Edward E. Ericson, Jr., "Solzhenitsyn – Voice from the Gulag," Eternity, October 1985, pp. 23–4

** Peter Benno, "The Political Aspect", in Max Hayward and Edward L. Crowley, eds., Soviet Literature in the 1960s (London, 1965), p. 191
*** When asked if Russia had simply replaced the evils of socialism with the evils of capitalism, Solzhenitsyn said: "In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point. Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive." (Joseph Pearce. "An Interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn." St. Austin Review 2 no. 2 [February, 2003])

Hymenaeus et al and the Shipwreck of Faith

Shipwreck on Tubbataha Reef, Philippines

This weekend, President Boyd K. Packer gave a powerful talk on the storms and tempests that could shipwreck our faith. He reaffirmed the critical role of those in in the safety of the harbor to guide home those in danger's way. Elder Quentin L. Cook also spoke of the reality of shipwrecks of faith that exist in the church today: those that once believed are somehow lost and become spiritual cast aways. These are friends who with us experienced a mighty change of heart and sang with us the song of redeeming love, but now no longer sing (Alma 5:26). So often they separate themselves from the healing balm of the gospel that they so desperately need to be well.

There is no shortage of these sad stories. Yet with surprising frequency, we read of similar stories in the church anciently. Hymenaeus (whose name stems from Hymenaios, the Greek god of marriage) is another one of those obscure characters tragically referenced by Paul. Hymenaeus was an early Christian from Ephesus, and though an adversary of Paul, became useful as a bad example for instructing Timothy.

It seems that Hymenaeus, along with Alexander his associate, saw their faith shipwrecked, and found themselves delivered unto Satan (with the hope that they would learn and return to the fold).

18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenæus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. 1 Timothy 1:18-20

I find the NIV version very instructive:

Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.  1 Timothy 1:19 (NIV)

The sad story of Hymenaeus, though short on details, demonstrates a number of red flags the we can take note of to guard our own faith from shipwreck. In the face of the tempest, abandoning our faith in Christ is like tossing a life-preserver to the deck because it feels restrictive. As we abandon the one, and cling instead to rationalization, we set adrift our conscience, making us a ship with no rudder in a great storm.

16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus;
18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.   2 Timothy 2:16-18

There is some thought that Hymenaeus, and Philetus (a Greek name that means beloved) were early adopters of what became Gnosticism since they believed the resurrection had already transpired and there would be no future resurrection. But before their apostasy, they fell victim to something seemingly more banal: babblings. The NIV translates "profane and vain babblings" as godless chatter. Not surprisingly, those that over-indulge become increasingly ungodly. Depending on the intensity of these babblings, they may lead to the abandonment of faith, conscience and become blasphemy and overt opposition to God. Paul describes such indulgences as gaggraina (gangrene) which will spread uncontrollably in the body of the afflicted, but also spreads in the body of the church. Alexander, the coppersmith (presumably the same fellow mentioned in 1 Timothy 1) is a good example if how the gangrenous babble corrupted others to the point of apostasy and becoming openly adversarial to the teachings of the apostle Paul:

14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
16 At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
18 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.  1 Timothy 4:14-18

The blogosphere and blogernacle both hold great potential as tools to strengthen the church and reach out to those that have not yet found it.  It also holds the potential for nourishing and encouraging godless chatter and a tendency to treat things that are holy in a profane way. The other day, I stumbled upon a blog by a cast away that seems to relish in the misery of his own shipwreck.  His blog is the embodiment of toxic godless chatter. It's spirit of anger and contention feel like the front of a great storm on the horizon: dark, ominous and depressing. I wish I had the energy to engage him. I don't and won't. Like Nehemiah, I have bigger fish to fry. Perhaps being delivered to Satan will teach him and motivate him to come back to the fold. This weekend I was instead impressed that it is far better for me to cherish the safety of the harbor. Rather than focusing on the wind and the waves, I prefer to focus on the lights that line the harbor--they are still burning.