GroshLink

In case you haven't already, take a few minutes to reflect upon Albert Mohler's "One Word of Truth Will Outweigh the Whole World" -- The Death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn) and Chuck Colson's (w/Anne Morse) Jeremiah at Harvard: Three decades after Solzhenitsyn's speech, where do we find ourselves?).  Their pieces are a good reminder of Solzhenitsyn's prophetic word to democracy which stands true today in America and Russia.

However, in early democracies, as in the American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were -- State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. -- 1978 Harvard University commencement address, "A World Split Apart."

May God grant us the grace to listen ... stand against materialism, consumerism, and rationalistic humanism which undercut true freedom ... and submit to the One who provides proper direction.

Earlier post on Solzhenitsyn:  Solzhenitsyn's Unchained Faith