(Excerpt from Strong & Courageous, coming out this fall)
Our nation and the whole Western world are now living in a post-Christian era, with large numbers of those born after 1970 rejecting the Christian faith. This means that they will often oppose Christian principles of freedom and science, even to the point of violence in order to promote social justice and political issues they deem supreme and total.
There is a progressive and developing anti-Christian militancy overtaking our culture and society. Once described by Pope Benedict XVI as a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies” that push dissenters to the margins of society. Benedict called this a manifestation of “the spiritual power of the Antichrist.” Because they fear truth and desire to re-educate our thinking, the elite political structure in America is pushing for censorship of free speech and promoting of what we might call soft totalitarianism.
Rod Dreher writes, “We cannot hope to resist the coming soft totalitarianism if we do not have our spiritual lives in order.” Such was the prophetic voice of the Russian dissident, Nobel laureate, anti-communist activist, and Orthodox Christian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn published the Gulag Archipelago, exposing the deceit and lies of the Russian Communist System. On the eve of his forced exile from his beloved nation, his final message to the Russian people, was an essay entitled, “Live Not by Lies!”
Solzhenitsyn was not the only dissident to not live by lies under a communist government. Czech playwright and future post-communist president Václav Havel coined the phrase “live by truth.” He realized that under the communist system, most people had learned to live by lies. His challenge was for the people to rise up through living by truth–no compromise. As the revolution began to grow under Havel, many lost their lives and businesses, but truth guided the movement.
In the same spirit, we also in the West must determine to line up our lives according to the truth of the Kingdom of God and live by truth. To be truth seekers in all areas of our society is the habit one must develop to stay strong and courageous. Courage comes when you know the truth. Strength comes when you live the truth
Pastor Steve
