Back in the USSR
In late 1960, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson and author/journalist Tom Anderson visited Russia, Finland, Poland and Yugoslavia. Afterward, Anderson wrote for his column Straight Talk:
Imagine getting your greatest spiritual experience in atheist Russia! We had just left Moscow's citadel of atheism, fantastically ugly Red Square where thousands of subservients come daily to worship the incarnation of history's foremost mummies, Vladimir "The Body" Lenin and "Good Ol' Joe" Stalin, their carcasses perfectly preserved in their glass showcase in the red marble mausoleum. They're the only well-dressed people in Moscow - all dressed up and no place to go.
Stalin had pronounced repeatedly: "Lenin is God... The party cannot be neutral toward religion. Anti-religious propaganda is a means by which the complete liquidation of the reactionary clergy must be brought about."
The Russian "God," Lenin, stated: "Religion is a kind of spiritual gin in which the slaves of capital drown their human shape and their claims to any decent human life. Marxism is materialism... We deny all morality taken from superhuman or nonclass conceptions... Atheism is an integral part of Marxism... The materialist gives a more important place to materialism and nature, while relegating God and all the philosophical rabble who believe in Him to the sewer and manure heap... Down with religion. Long live atheism.”
Sunday schools in Russia are not permitted to exist. All "education" belongs to the state - and so do the children. Six days a week for forty years the children have been taught atheism in school. It would be inconsistent to let them be taught about God in a Sunday school!
A person can lose his job or be demoted for church attendance. Starting next year young people have to either be confirmed in church or join "youth confirmation" (Communist) groups. If they choose the church, they won't be able to get a job when they're old enough to work. Most people under sixty have sold out God for jobs, security, convenience. Or maybe they've simply concluded that co-existence, with atheism, is better than no existence.
Our Intourist guide had informed us that intelligent people don't go to church; that religion, which they refer to in the past tense, is a fairy story. With a straight face the beguiling guide had told us that churches were closed because the people no longer wanted them open; they had "learned better," she said. In spite of this unsolicited wisdom, we drove from the ornate, atheistic Kremlin to a little out-of-the-way faded stucco Baptist Church on a narrow cobblestone street. The central Baptist Church, one of the few open-for-business churches left in Moscow, was playing to its usual three-times-a-week standing room only crowd of about 1,000.
Behind the pulpit glowed a stained-glass window inscribed with "Bog est lyubov (God is love)". It glowed quite differently from the diffused orange-colored light which bathes the carcasses of the enshrined killers on display in Red Square.
Every face in the old sanctuary gaped incredulously as our obviously American group was led down the aisle. They grabbed for our hands as we proceeded to our pews which were gladly vacated for our unexpected visit. Their wrinkled old faces looked at us pleadingly. They reached out to touch us almost as one would reach out for the last final caress of one's most-beloved just before the casket is lowered. They were in misery and yet a light shone through the misery. They gripped our hands like frightened children.
A member of our group was unexpectedly called to the pulpit. His voice choked with emotion, he preached a sermon of love and faith, hope and truth.
"I believe very firmly in prayer," he said. "It is possible to reach out and tap that unseen power which gives us strength and such an anchor in time of need.
"Be not afraid. Keep this commandment: love one another. Love all mankind. Truth will endure. Time is on the side of truth." Thus spake Ezra Taft Benson, Mormon Apostle and Secretary of Agriculture.
The Secretary's wife and two beautiful daughters raptly drank in his words, with tears streaming. "God lives, I know that He lives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the World. We are eternal beings."
As each sentence was translated for the audience by the Russian minister the women removed their handkerchiefs from their heads and waved them like a mother bidding permanent goodbye to their only son. Their heads nodded vigorously as they moaned, "Da, da, da! (Yes, yes, yes!)"
As their gnarled hands folded in fervent prayer, it made you think of the ancient Christians about to be thrown to the lions. Most were old women. The old can attend church. They have no jobs to lose. They can "afford" to go to church. There were a handful of teenagers, one of whom stood beside me. I wished mightily that we could break the language barrier and talk. A youth with the courage to oppose history's most godless dictatorship - to worship God!
Cynical newspaper correspondents who'd griped about a "command performance" in church with Benson stood there crying openly.
These people have what has been described by some bubbleheads as "freedom of religion". It is freedom to live out their last few years without being shot in the back of the neck; freedom to go on existing in a living hell under a forced choice between God and their own families.
These old souls live by faith alone, unlike the Communist high priests who're backed by the all-powerful state and the firing squad.
The Communist plan is that when these "last believers" die off, religion will die with them. What the atheists don't know is that God can't be stamped out either by legislated atheism or by firing squad. Then this Methodist back-slider who occasionally grumbles about having to go to church, stood crying unashamedly, throat lumped, and chills running from spine to toes. It was the most heartrending and most inspiring scene I've ever witnessed.
As we filed out, they sang, as I've never heard it sung before, "God Be With You Till We Meet Again". And all knew we never would, not on this earth.
In our group, we also knew that if we have the morality and the courage - I am convinced we have everything else it takes in super abundance - if we have the morality and the courage, the greatest force in the world, love of God and love of freedom will destroy and wipe out communism. We shall not have to co-exist with this diabolical conspiracy of hate.
Imagine getting your greatest spiritual experience in atheist Russia! We had just left Moscow's citadel of atheism, fantastically ugly Red Square where thousands of subservients come daily to worship the incarnation of history's foremost mummies, Vladimir "The Body" Lenin and "Good Ol' Joe" Stalin, their carcasses perfectly preserved in their glass showcase in the red marble mausoleum. They're the only well-dressed people in Moscow - all dressed up and no place to go.
Stalin had pronounced repeatedly: "Lenin is God... The party cannot be neutral toward religion. Anti-religious propaganda is a means by which the complete liquidation of the reactionary clergy must be brought about."
The Russian "God," Lenin, stated: "Religion is a kind of spiritual gin in which the slaves of capital drown their human shape and their claims to any decent human life. Marxism is materialism... We deny all morality taken from superhuman or nonclass conceptions... Atheism is an integral part of Marxism... The materialist gives a more important place to materialism and nature, while relegating God and all the philosophical rabble who believe in Him to the sewer and manure heap... Down with religion. Long live atheism.”
Sunday schools in Russia are not permitted to exist. All "education" belongs to the state - and so do the children. Six days a week for forty years the children have been taught atheism in school. It would be inconsistent to let them be taught about God in a Sunday school!
A person can lose his job or be demoted for church attendance. Starting next year young people have to either be confirmed in church or join "youth confirmation" (Communist) groups. If they choose the church, they won't be able to get a job when they're old enough to work. Most people under sixty have sold out God for jobs, security, convenience. Or maybe they've simply concluded that co-existence, with atheism, is better than no existence.
Our Intourist guide had informed us that intelligent people don't go to church; that religion, which they refer to in the past tense, is a fairy story. With a straight face the beguiling guide had told us that churches were closed because the people no longer wanted them open; they had "learned better," she said. In spite of this unsolicited wisdom, we drove from the ornate, atheistic Kremlin to a little out-of-the-way faded stucco Baptist Church on a narrow cobblestone street. The central Baptist Church, one of the few open-for-business churches left in Moscow, was playing to its usual three-times-a-week standing room only crowd of about 1,000.
Behind the pulpit glowed a stained-glass window inscribed with "Bog est lyubov (God is love)". It glowed quite differently from the diffused orange-colored light which bathes the carcasses of the enshrined killers on display in Red Square.
Every face in the old sanctuary gaped incredulously as our obviously American group was led down the aisle. They grabbed for our hands as we proceeded to our pews which were gladly vacated for our unexpected visit. Their wrinkled old faces looked at us pleadingly. They reached out to touch us almost as one would reach out for the last final caress of one's most-beloved just before the casket is lowered. They were in misery and yet a light shone through the misery. They gripped our hands like frightened children.
A member of our group was unexpectedly called to the pulpit. His voice choked with emotion, he preached a sermon of love and faith, hope and truth.
"I believe very firmly in prayer," he said. "It is possible to reach out and tap that unseen power which gives us strength and such an anchor in time of need.
"Be not afraid. Keep this commandment: love one another. Love all mankind. Truth will endure. Time is on the side of truth." Thus spake Ezra Taft Benson, Mormon Apostle and Secretary of Agriculture.
The Secretary's wife and two beautiful daughters raptly drank in his words, with tears streaming. "God lives, I know that He lives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the World. We are eternal beings."
As each sentence was translated for the audience by the Russian minister the women removed their handkerchiefs from their heads and waved them like a mother bidding permanent goodbye to their only son. Their heads nodded vigorously as they moaned, "Da, da, da! (Yes, yes, yes!)"
As their gnarled hands folded in fervent prayer, it made you think of the ancient Christians about to be thrown to the lions. Most were old women. The old can attend church. They have no jobs to lose. They can "afford" to go to church. There were a handful of teenagers, one of whom stood beside me. I wished mightily that we could break the language barrier and talk. A youth with the courage to oppose history's most godless dictatorship - to worship God!
Cynical newspaper correspondents who'd griped about a "command performance" in church with Benson stood there crying openly.
These people have what has been described by some bubbleheads as "freedom of religion". It is freedom to live out their last few years without being shot in the back of the neck; freedom to go on existing in a living hell under a forced choice between God and their own families.
These old souls live by faith alone, unlike the Communist high priests who're backed by the all-powerful state and the firing squad.
The Communist plan is that when these "last believers" die off, religion will die with them. What the atheists don't know is that God can't be stamped out either by legislated atheism or by firing squad. Then this Methodist back-slider who occasionally grumbles about having to go to church, stood crying unashamedly, throat lumped, and chills running from spine to toes. It was the most heartrending and most inspiring scene I've ever witnessed.
As we filed out, they sang, as I've never heard it sung before, "God Be With You Till We Meet Again". And all knew we never would, not on this earth.
In our group, we also knew that if we have the morality and the courage - I am convinced we have everything else it takes in super abundance - if we have the morality and the courage, the greatest force in the world, love of God and love of freedom will destroy and wipe out communism. We shall not have to co-exist with this diabolical conspiracy of hate.
