Word: religion
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...evolving situation in Eastern Europe is influenced not only by the Pope's commanding personality and the religious fervor of his Polish people, but by the nature of the current struggle between Marxism and religion. Marx originally objected to religion in the belief that it encouraged men to ignore human suffering in the present in hopes of future spiritual salvation. He predicted that the forces of economic history would grind religion into oblivion. Then, somewhat perversely, his own theory became a secular faith. Before long it was actively contributing to human suffering, while encouraging men to endure the pain...
Twentieth century Marxist governments have done all they can to help history do in the Christian religion. As Poland proves, they have largely failed. In fact, faith in inevitable secular progress has been in decline everywhere. Partly for that reason, rigid cold war orthodoxies on both sides have softened a trifle. On paper, at least, the socialist states have recognized the importance of the human rights issue. The Soviet Union and its dutiful allies pledged, under the 1975 Helsinki accords, to "respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief for all." A Pope...
After John Paul's trip, French Religion Analyst Henri Fesquet sneered: "The Pope is nothing by himself. He has empty hands." Perhaps so, but that smacks of the hoary remark once made by Stalin about divisions. The view may be too harsh, too gloomy. The new Tory majority leader of Britain's House
...Religion and the Polish past: When national and state structures were lacking, society, for the most part Catholic, found support in the hierarchical order of the church. And this helped society to overcome the times of the partition of the country and the times of the occupation. It helped society to maintain, and even to deepen its understanding of, the awareness of its own identity. Perhaps certain people from other countries may consider this situation "untypical," but for the Poles it has an unmistakable eloquence. It is simply a part of the truth of the history of our own motherland...
...explain but to "bear witness, to record." Ellease Southerland's fine first novel bears witness to the world of her fathers and mothers, a world centered on the family, the community, the Lord. Southerland's account is lyrical and as unabashedly emotional as old-time religion. There is, for example, the author's description of a "testimonial" by the Reverend Brother Daniel A. Torch, given one hot August Sunday at Brooklyn's First Baptist Church: "The South's heat soft in the body of his song . . . His voice wide as the sun, filled with pain...