For the last six weeks, I have been blessed to be able to participate in Cindy Rollins’ summer course, Morning Time for Moms. Two of the books that we read together were The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom and Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher. Both are difficult and thought-provoking reads, but they complemented each other wonderfully, and both will be on my 11th-grader’s schedule next year as he studies 20th-century history.
One encouraging theme that I noticed in both books was that persecution can promote a true ecumenism between the various branches of the Church – not an erasure of doctrinal differences, but the realization that Christ and his Word are the most important things. It sifts out those in every denomination who are Christians in name only, and binds together those who truly love God and are seeking to obey him no matter what the cost.
We desperately need to throw off the chains of solitude and find the freedom that awaits us in fellowship. The testimony of anti-communist dissidents is clear: Only in solidarity with others can we find the spiritual and communal strength to resist. The longer we remain isolated in a period of liberty, the harder it will be to find one another in a time of persecution. We must see in our brothers and sisters not a burden of obligation but the blessing of our own freedom from loneliness, suspicion, and defeat.
(And a bit later…) If love was the mortar that bound their fellowship, then shared suffering is what activated the bond and made it real. Suffering was the proof test. Love, as Paul tells us, endures all things. And this is the thing about soft totalitarianism: It seduces those – even Christians – who have lost the capacity to love enduringly, for better or for worse. They think they love, but they merely desire. They think they follow Jesus, but in fact, they merely admire him. (Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies)
Corrie ten Boom gives us a picture of this fellowship in the context of the awful conditions in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, where the gift of fleas kept the guards out of the sleeping quarters and enabled them to worship unmolested:
They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28. A single meeting night might include a recital of the Magnificat in Latin by a group of Roman Catholics, a whispered hymn by some Lutherans, and a sotto-voce chant by Eastern Orthodox women. With each moment the crowd around us would swell, packing the nearby platforms, hanging over the edges, until the high structures groaned and swayed.
At last either Betsie or I would open the Bible. Because only the Hollanders could understand the Dutch text we would translate aloud in German. And then we would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, back into Dutch. They were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the light bulb. I would think of Haarlem, each substantial church set behind its wrought-iron fence and its barrier of doctrine. And I would know again that in darkness God’s truth shines most clear.
As Dreher reminds us, we need to cultivate this fellowship while we have the freedom to do so. We’ve seen over the past year how isolation can affect us negatively – spiritually, mentally, and emotionally – even while it is enforced to keep us safe physically. I hope that it’s helped us to appreciate and prioritize Christian fellowship, worship, and ministry when we can.
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. Hebrews 10: 24-25 ESV
Also read/listened to recently:
Hubby: The Gulag Archiplelago, Vol. I by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (he’s a brave man!)
Me: I’m also listening to Solzhenitsyn, but fiction and a bit easier to take (at least so far): In the First Circle
Miss A: Bone by Jeff Smith – both she and a couple of her little brothers enjoyed this cartoon epic.
Mr. D: he’s finishing up Huckleberry Finn and Les Miserables over summer break.
Mr. E: he’s finishing up The Holy War by John Bunyan.
Mr. L: The Essential Avengers, Vol. 5 (he’s looking forward to getting Vol. 6 for his birthday in a few days 😉 )
Mr. R: He doesn’t remember The Chronicles of Narnia from when we listened to them in the car about four years ago, so I’ve been reading them aloud to him. ♥ We’re currently on The Voyage of Dawn Treader.
