In reading Lyons and Solzhenitsyn this week, my mind took me in several directions, most of which ended up at a place of feeling \u2018I can\u2019t help but think that we\u2019ve been here before.\u2019 Perhaps it was in the Garden of Eden when we chose to listen to a voice other than the Creator. Or when we were so evil, corrupt, and vile that God saw no way out other than to preserve a few people and drown out the rest to start over. Perhaps it was when we were wandering the wilderness, complaining, making idols, returning to a place of disobedience, as if we hadn\u2019t recently and ongoingly experienced tangible and miraculous sights of the Lord reminding us He was present. Or maybe it was when this man name Jesus entered the town, us excited for him to finally save us from the Romans, only for it to not look like how we wanted him to do it so instead, we crucified him. I could continue on with the world wars, the extermination of 6 million Jewish, the Rwandan genocide, apartheid in South Africa, Chinese internment camps, the torture and killing of [fill in the blank] \u2013 we have been here before. So while each of these can point back to evil people spearheading, committing crimes, and having to shut their humanity off, we are apt to remember the spiritual battle at play.<\/p>\n
So, when Lyons looks around and raises the questions of “What is happening? Why is it happening? Where are we headed?” it makes the road ahead a bit more predictable.[1]<\/a> Lyons speaks of three concurrent revolutions taking place: geopolitical, ideological, technological \u2013 all pointing towards the implications of what can be termed a \u2018post-truth era.\u2019[2]<\/a> Philosophically, feelings can be real, but it does not make them truth. Lyons is highlighting the path that the United States is on with special note that we have “no direct experience of authoritarian or totalitarian ideologies to provide any inhibition to their spread.”[3]<\/a> While some may want to simply classify the shifts taking place by which side of the political aisle someone identifies with, I feel that is too simple. So how do we decipher through the noise? How do we identify the truth? Is there any unbiased media outlet?<\/p>\n In my context of international education, one of my main resources is the U.S. Department of State\u2019s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). Having gone through a screening process, I receive an email three times a day that gives me updates as to the ongoing and potential security threats, travel warnings, political uprisings, and more by country. This allows me real-time information which is incredibly helpful while I have students on the field. In identifying how to view news closer to home, I will often go to a publication from another country whether the BBC, World News Digest, and the like as they\u2019ll often report on a given topic with less implicit bias. Ultimately, publications will inherently hold bias and it is the responsibility of the reader to determine who to trust and how to continue to ask questions.<\/p>\n For the Christian leader, while clich\u00e9, it would do us well to filter all of our news through scripture. If we take the Bible at its word, we can look at any uprising, geopolitical or ideological issue and with a different lens. While the world may say something is truth, we know who is the truth. While the world may use fear to manipulate, we know we were not given a spirit of fear. While the world may say that things are destitute, we know we are called towards hope. While the world may want to say things are permanent, we know this world is temporary.<\/p>\n To Solzhenitsyn\u2019s point, many have forgotten God. I found the two readings this week to be somewhat of a call and response. Lyons, most recently questioning the path that we find ourselves on and where it is leading us. And Solzhenitsyn, a voice of the not-so-distant past, that can already speak to those answers and why. As long as men and women continue to forget God, we ought not be surprised at the extent of evil rising up. Nor shall we be surprised as the events in Revelation continue to unfold as we are closer to the end times than ever before.<\/p>\n As Solzhenitsyn\u2019s article repeats, \u201cMen have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.\u201d[4]<\/a> He continues on that, \u201cit has already come to pass that the demon of evil, like a whirlwind, triumphantly circles all five continents of the earth.”[5]<\/a> No geographical location is out of reach. No people group untouched by the impacts of sin \u2013 committed by the self and others. The \u201cdrying up of religious consciousness\u201d as he would state, only makes it \u201cmore and more apparent that even with the most sophisticated of political maneuvers, the noose around the neck of mankind draws tighter and more hopeless with every passing decade, and there seems to be no way out for anyone — neither nuclear, nor political, nor economic, nor ecological.”[6]<\/a> These spiritual problems cannot be solved simply by manmade solutions, however innovative they may be.<\/p>\n My prayer as we journey through this week is from Hebrews 10:23-25:<\/p>\n \u201cLet us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.\u201d<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Lyons, 3.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 2.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 4.<\/p>\n