Communism

This world can be a sinister place. I was recently on a missions team serving abroad, and we heard testimonies from several local believers. One told of his times in prison – a place ordered more by the structure of the dangerous mafia than by any attempt at protecting human rights from the authorities. Another told of his religious family – a home where this eleven-year-old boy was beaten up by his older brother every time he dared to go back to church, and that at the instruction of his parents. Another told of his time in the military, where he discovered just how evil a totalitarian communist ideology can be in reality.

Whether it is by crime, religion, or ideology, the evil of this world is evident all around us. If we scratch the surface of society, we will find all of this lurking today. No country is free of crime, and the level of organization often goes way beyond what we can imagine. Billions live under the threat of their religion, a threat that uses family members to beat any hint of turning, and ideologies that require everyone to think the same replace God with government and treat people as collateral damage in an ideological march towards utopia. Well, they did not die out in 1990 – the same old ideas keep coming back dressed in new garb.

In Psalm 17, we find three cries to God from David’s mouth (see v1, v6, v13). His cry was essentially: I am innocent, they are attacking me, but I am confident in God (see v1-5, v6-12, v13-15). Let’s look at these three sections and see if this Psalm might stir us to cry out similarly. After all, the same God is still the best refuge from wherever the threat comes!

Introduction (v1-5). In the first verses of the Psalm, David’s cry is based on asserting his innocence. We know from many other places that he knew of his guilt. His cry was not for protection because he deserved it. No, his vindication came from God’s presence, not from his own perfection. Nevertheless, there is a place for recognizing that we may be innocent with respect to a specific threat, and it is right to cry out to God in the face of injustice. Whether that be criminal activity, religious persecution, or ideological threats, we can and should cry out to God for his protection.

God protect me from the evil people (v6-12). The description of the malicious threat is very vivid. David doesn’t just say they are violent and threatening (v9); he goes on to give four descriptions. Three descriptions use human body references; the fourth is from the animal kingdom. Their heart lacks compassion, their mouth speaks with pride (v10), and their eyes are set on sinister plans (v11). These verses could describe the mafia bosses running a prison, the religious family members intent on guarding family reputation, or a totalitarian regime marching towards its ideological utopia. Whatever way evil dresses up, underneath lurks the same sinister roar – the lion. David described his chief antagonist as a lion eager to tear. Peter used the same imagery of Satan in 1 Peter 5:8. There is great evil in this world, so we need a great God in whom to find refuge.

In Psalm 17, David described God in the preceding three verses. He also uses three human body descriptions, followed by one from the animal kingdom. Notice the description: your ear, right hand, and eye (v6-8). As we draw near to our great God on the throne, we find him to be a wonderfully good God. His ear inclines to hear even the weakest of whimpers. His loving right hand has all the authority needed to protect us from every evil this world offers. His eye is on us. The phrase “apple of your eye” is an English figure of speech, but the original language refers to “the little person of your eye” – that tiny reflection in the pupil that reveals the whole focus of the eye. What a gloriously intimate description – an inclined ear, the loving and full authority of the right hand, the attentive and affectionate eye. Then the animal image? We are hidden in the shadow of his wings!

Conclusion (v13-15). David finishes the Psalm with one last call for God to act. He desires deliverance. Those who are against him are living for this world. They want to gain power and wealth, to have something to pass on to the next generation.

In contrast, what matters to David? His ultimate goal is not just victory but God’s visage (face). It is not just about getting a response but about enjoying a relationship with God. It is not about protecting his inheritance but about having intimacy with God.

God’s goodness can be celebrated in each of the three situations mentioned at the start of this article. The prisoner may have lost the protection of the mafia leader he was close to. Still, he met a church pastor who came into the prison and told him about Jesus. Today, he follows Jesus and visits two prisons he once occupied to tell others about Jesus too.

The eleven-year-old boy never saw most of his family follow Jesus as he does. Still, he pastors a church that reaches out to the marginalized of society. He also enjoys telling others that the brother who beat him up for attending church is a believer and a missionary in a foreign land.

The soldier serving in a communist military realized after three years just how evil the totalitarian regime was in reality. But God allowed him to be tasked with listening to foreign radio stations to discover any plans to invade his country. Instead, he heard the good news of Jesus broadcast in his language. Today, he pastors a church and delights in telling others about the goodness of God!

Whatever evil is evident in your context or working away behind the scenes, seek refuge next to our good God’s throne. When we see how good he is, we will want nothing else!

As we come to the end of 2022, I want to share a series of three posts with you. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writings have been swirling in my mind, as has a single tweet from a few weeks ago. A massive body of work and a lengthy sentence separated by a few decades yet resonating together.

As you may have noticed, there is always something going on in the news. Of course, not every story is genuinely momentous. Perhaps you can remember the end of 1989? The Tiananmen Square protest and massacre had happened earlier in the year. As the end of the year approached, Hungary proclaimed the end of communist rule, the Berlin Wall came down, and Bulgaria’s long-serving leader resigned. Apartheid rules were changing in South Africa. Student demonstrations in Prague started the velvet revolution. President Bush (senior) and Gorbachev declared the cold war over. Romanian dictator Ceausescu was ousted and then executed on Christmas Day. The news was fascinating, and everyone knew we were watching history unfold.

How will we look back on our current time? There have always been news stories, but some news cycles feel more significant. We live in a season of swirling stories – some are featured and polished for maximum coverage. In contrast, others seem to be painstakingly discounted, twisted or buried. For instance, and in no particular order:

The Ukraine war is stirring the threatening language of Armageddon from global leaders. At the same time, celebrities fly into Kyiv for photoshoots with the president.
Many social media platforms restrict free speech. However, the media dismiss new revelations of illegal government influence on Twitter as irrelevant.
Critical Race Theory is fundamentally shifting every academic discipline, business practice and even whole Christian denominations.
Excess deaths remain way above the pre-covid five-year average, or even the pandemic year, when daily and total death counts were constantly before our eyes. And yet, asking why this is happening seems to be socially unacceptable.
Protests and legal wrangling over possible election fraud rumble away in various countries. Reporting suspicious behaviour results in being labelled an election denier and a threat to democracy.
“Fourth Industrial Revolution” ideas derided as conspiracy theories only two years ago are explicitly promoted by proponents today.
One western government is confiscating thousands of farms because of the climate crisis. And we are all required to pay the bill for Net Zero plans that may or may not make any difference to the projected catastrophe. Again, don’t question it, or you will be labelled a denier!
There is a push for digital id and digital currency, a checkpoint society with a Chinese-style social credit system that will replace fundamental freedoms with earned privileges.
In another western country, Euthanasia is being promoted, celebrated and normalised with increasingly ineffective controls.
Children are being sexualised and offered life-changing surgery and puberty blockers. At the same time, parents are increasingly pushed out of the conversation.
And in the last few days, a woman was arrested and questioned by police about whether she was silently praying in a particular location here in England.

There are many swirling issues, but we must step back and ask about underlying issues. We are living through a fundamental reshaping of the ethical foundations and the nature of the society built on them. In the past, there was rebellion against the generally accepted Judeo-Christian ethic underlying western civilisation (e.g. think of the sexual liberation movement of the 60s/70s). Today we see the replacement of that ethic with an entirely new moral code. We also observe the culture militantly enforcing compliance so that everyone is required to not only tolerate but also proactively participate in and promote the new moral order. A dictator enforces their will by sheer power, but a totalitarian tyranny seeks to control everything, even what subjects think.

Solzhenitsyn is both enlightening and provocative. He warned the students of Harvard in 1978: “There are telltale symptoms by which history gives warning to a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, a decline of the arts or a lack of great statesmen.” I am no art critic, but I suspect many would agree that we are experiencing something of a decline. And when did we last see a political leader in that category? We live in a threatened, perhaps even perishing society.

I mentioned a tweet at the start of this post. On November 18^th, Owen Strachan wrote, “Christian men: it’s not Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk or other conservative (or just not super-left) voices who should be known for speaking the hard truths, fighting what is evil, taking unpopular stands, and promoting what is good. It’s us.” (We might add a few more names in the UK, like Calvin Robinson, Neil Oliver, Douglas Murray, etc.)

I’ve been pondering that tweet. I know one of these men I added is a clergyman, but the point is well made. I also know that merely stating any of these names will cause some to react negatively to this post. That shows society’s shift from yesteryear, when people used to think and discuss provocative ideas, to today’s hair-trigger dismissal and antagonism. I might disagree with soundbites from all of these people because of their content or tone. Still, I must be willing actually to hear the points they are making and engage thoughtfully.

Honestly, I find myself regularly prompted to think, investigate, pray and take action based on monologues by Neil Oliver, interviews by Joe Rogan, books by Douglas Murray, and tweets from Jordan Peterson. But then, when I look at my feed of Christian leaders? Honestly, with some exceptions, it can often feel disengaged, out of touch and sometimes eerily silent on contemporary concerns. It makes me think of that famous quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.” Yes, there is plenty of biblical truth in the social media voices of Christian leaders that I follow. But I fear our silence on some matters might mean we are inadvertently starting to take part in the lie.

In part two I will share some reasons for this perplexing silence.