“If my people” is not about America.
“If my people” is about The Church.
Harvard didn’t like it. The media didn’t like it. But Alexandre Solzhenitsyn was right.
Find out why in this week’s Truth in Two (full text and link below).
On this Thanksgiving, remember God.
Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaches at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Snappy Goat
FULL TEXT
“Men have forgotten God.” The stark words of Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn did not sit well with people in The West. Solzhenitsyn was sent to the Russian gulag for his crime of speaking out against Communism in The Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn said the beginning of Communism in his country began because men had forgotten God. It is important to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1983 Templeton Award speech after his release from communism. We must ask ourselves a question. “Has America forgotten God?” History is instructive, its principles, repetitive.
But lest we think that the problems we face in our own country begin with atheism and communism, Scripture has a different view. Often Christian folk like to quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 as if it were about America. The famous “If my people who are called by my name” is not about America. It is about God’s people. In the First Testament, the focus was about God’s people Israel. In the Second Testament, continuing into our day, the focus is on God’s people, The Church. The call to humility, turning away from sin, seeking God’s face is not for America. It is for Christians.
Whose responsibility is it, to make sure, men have not forgotten God? It is The Church, everyday Christians’ responsibility. Do we desire what the verse promises at the end, that God would forgive our sin and heal our land? Remembering God in our lives is the first step. Solzhenitsyn was right. The reason why a nation would turn to Communism is because men have forgotten God. During this Thanksgiving season, let the remembering begin with The Church.
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.
LINK to 1983 Templeton Award Speech: https://www.templetonprize.org/laureate-sub/solzhenitsyn-acceptance-speech/
The Church will survive, even if America doesn’t. There’s always a remnant. God’s people have never been extinguished. Never will be.
Your writing here and reflecting on Solzhenitsyn’s words have made me think about Ecclesiastes. I quote the Preacher here, now: “Remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars and the clouds are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut…”
Well, you know the rest, don’t you?
Thanks be to God for all the blessings and even the hardships we have in our lives, Dr. Eckel. I know you will be thinking thankful thoughts and saying thankful prayers to God this Thanksgiving. And I shall be doing the same. Shalom!