Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker, was shot dead by a radical Muslim two months after his film “Submission” was aired. Showing the subjugation of women was too much for some in the Islamic world. Kurt Westergaard created the most famous of the Muhammad cartoons published September 2005 in the Jyllands-Posten displaying the prophet with a bomb in his turban. Mr. Westergaard has been in hiding ever since.[1] Truth is on trial all over the world.
Dictatorial mindsets loathe free expression of the individual. Napoleon’s famed statement “four hostile newspapers are to be feared more than 1000 bayonets” expresses universal despotic views. Lenin, intent on wiping out intellectual classes, birthed the 20th century practice of genocide.[2] Stalin hoodwinked Western cultural elites of the day to downplay the former U. S. S. R’s mass murder of vocal opposition.[3]
Burning the authors of words seeks to eliminate intellectual “heretics.” John Wycliffe, who first brought the Bible into English, died of natural causes; yet his bones were unearthed, burnt, and scattered so as to eliminate his memory. Jon Hus was strangled then burned for his attempt to communicate Scripture in his native Prague. William Tyndale had his life taken from him on the pyre while uttering the immortal words, “Lord, open thou the king of England’s eyes.” Tyndale had translated Hebrew and Christian Scripture into English, against English law. Indeed, not a century later, The King James Version made vision a reality. The problem for those who attempt to wipe out books at their source is a struggle to contain the impact of their martyrdom.
Eliminate the messenger or the message. Winston Churchill reminds us, “A lie is half way around the world before truth gets its pants on.”[4] Silencing jihadist critics via American higher education is endemic in academia today.[5] Thomas Sowell refers to the Western media—known as The Fourth Estate—as something more akin to a Fifth Column.[6] Former English Prime Minister Tony Blair coined the word “viewspaper” to indicate that media no longer do “straight reporting;” rather journalists create cynicism not by analyzing the results of one’s judgments but their motives.[7] Josef Pieper was concerned that when words were divorced from reality, disassociated from truth, they would simply become “instruments of power.”[8]
Kill the words. Kill words’ meaning. Kill the wordsmiths. If it were not for international acclaim, freedom loving writers such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, and Andrei Sakharov would have been butchered. Why are authors, playwrights, cartoonists, and intellectuals the first to be killed in totalitarian takeovers? Because words are power.
Acts 3:21 declares God to have been speaking His Word through His holy prophets “since the world began.” So Jesus condemns the powerful elite of his day in Matthew 23:31-35 because they killed the prophets: from Abel through Zechariah. Since Abel was killed by Cain in Genesis 4, the murdered “cry out to God.”[9] In the end “the earth will disclose her blood, and will no more cover her slain.”[10] But The Rider whose robe is dipped in blood will revenge all the Christ-following messengers, prophets, and wordsmiths returning to earth with Him.[11]
But why do words have power that force dictators to kill? “A fire imprisoned in my bones” is how Jeremiah 20:9 describes the prophet’s experience: he had to speak.[12] So changed by his conversion was Blaise Pascal he wrote the word “fire” on a parchment sewn inside his coat.[13] Pascal’s Pensees (French for “thoughts”) have been strong Christian words for almost 500 years.
The fire of God’s Word is Truth. Truth cannot be denied, contained, overthrown, or destroyed. Dictators hate Truth because The Truth sets people free.[14] One who personally lived the freedom of Truth was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famed author of The Gulag Archipelago. He ended his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature by quoting the Russian proverb tyrannical types hate:
“One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.”[15]
Solzhenitsyn was an early hero for Mark. The speech Alexander gave at Harvard excoriating The Western intelligentsia should be re-read by all Americans. Dr. Eckel teaches The Truth to students at Crossroads Bible College.
[1] The cartoon was a satirical comment on the fact that some Muslims are committing terrorist acts in the name of Islam and the prophet.
[2] Paul Johnson. 1983. Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties. (Harper & Row): 71.
[3] Johnson, 275ff; 452-54.
[4] Any number of quote websites identify the origin, though one ascribes a dictum very close to this one by Mark Twain. The famed Martin Gilbert in Churchill: A Life (Henry Holt, 1991) confirms the essence of Churchill’s concern, “It is difficult to overtake slander . . . but the truth is very powerful too” (959).
[5] Walid Phares. 2005. Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America. (Palgrave MacMillan): 176-78.
[6] A “fifth column” is a group that works within its own country, against its own country. Thomas Sowell. “Fourth Estate or Fifth Column.” 25 January 2005 www.townhall.com. The Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist Peter R. Kann’s article “The Power of the Press” examines the ten current trends of mainstream media 13 December 2006 https://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009377.
[7] A copy of the speech originally given at Reuters headquarters in London 12 June 07 was reprinted 21 June 07 and is available at https://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010235. Jon Stewart and his “Daily Show” have direct links to character assassination through the news.
[8] “The word is perverted and debased, to become a catalyst, a drug.” Josef Pieper. 1974, 1988, 1992. Abuse of Language—Abuse of Power. (2nd edition, reprint, Ignatius): 20-23. All who know the power of words should possess this small booklet. For those attune to visual message, watch Robert Redford’s Sneakers: “it’s about controlling the information.”
[9] Genesis 4:10-11. See Isaiah 26:21; Matthew 23:31-35; Revelation 6:10; Hebrews 12:24.
[10] Isaiah 26:21. See also Hebrews 12:24; 1 John 3:12-15.
[11] Revelation 6:9-11; 19:14.
[12] Jeremiah 20:9 is the only place in Scripture where an author uses the word “fire” for God’s Word. God used it in Jeremiah 5:14 and 23:29. See also Exodus 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:24; 9:3; Isaiah 33:14.
[13] Mind on Fire, (2006) edited by James Houston (Victor): 15.
[14] John 8:32.
[15] Quoted in Edward E. Ericson, Jr. & Alexis Klimoff. 2008. The Soul and Barbed Wire: An Introduction to Solzhenitsyn. (ISI Books):189