I’m reading this very good book called Christ on the Jewish Road. It’s a book about an atheist man of Jewish heritage living in Romania during and after World War II, 
who discovers salvation in Christ. The author, Richard Wurmbrand, then relates numerous stories of the struggles that he and other Romanian Christians experienced after the War– during the anti-Semitic pogroms from the Nazis, the Orthodox churches, and other groups; then he relates the Fascist and Communist upheavals of Eastern Europe (they were all right in the middle of everything). Oh my gosh, what these people went through! It’s scathing, just scathing. Half of the stuff these people go through is so totally and mind-bogglingly (wow, that word passes through spell-check!) foreign. And the other half is all about comminity and love and how these people banded together despite vicious persecution. This mindset of community coupled with the atrocities that Christians and Jews went through (and did to each other) is foreign to an American mind.
The news media here in America rant On and ON about how AWFUL we Americans are: racist, violent, undiversified! (that word did not pass spell-check) But we can’t hold a candle to the nasty, nasty people over there in Europe, especially during the 1930s to 1990s. Good God, for the sake of humanity!! HOW can people be SO wicked to each other?? There was one story where a young, fresh, open-hearted young man by the name of Friedmann (a Jew) became a Christian. He was such a happy young man- a whole fresh life ahead of him– but he was born during an unfortunate time, when Jews and faithful Christians were being crammed into cattle cars to be shipped off for slave labor and eventual murder. Friedmann was with a crowd that had been rounded up, and the soldiers stuffed men into a cattle truck. Young Friedmann peeped out through a little window, and it was told later that his face shone like the face of an angel. But a German soldier spotted him and fired at him, killing the lad.
And it wasn’t just the impersonal soldier stuff, either– Wurmbrand was arrested twice: once for holding church meetings without a license (the governments changed so many times– some gave permits, some didn’t), and another time for refusing to submit his church congregation to the Communist (atheist) regime. He and his wife were imprisoned… for FOURTEEN YEARS. And prisons in Communist Romania in the 1950s aren’t like the slick, Club Med cable-TV-McDonald’s-burgers-3x-a-day prisons of Palm Beach. They were HOLES in the ground. So while the fatcats of Communist Russia secretly enjoyed their Disney vacations and penthouse apartments while preaching “equality” to the peasants, they were devouring and arresting the very people (like Wurmbrand) who brought the message of REAL equality and love: Jesus Christ the Saviour.
The stories go on and on…. it would be too painful to rehash some of them…
This stuff just breaks the crustiest heart, I tell you. WHY must people be so so evil to each other?! Idiots blame God for all the suffering in the world, but you know what? It’s not God’s fault! It’s MAN’S fault! Isn’t just like a man to pass the buck and blame somebody else?? If anything, the mere fact that there is still LOVE in the world amongst all this evil is proof that God exists. The book is filled with many instances of when Christians reached out with love to their oppressors. You can’t tell me that this kind of love just bubbles up out of nowhere.
I bash my head against the wall. WHY oh WHY are people so wicked! It’s one thing to complain, to argue, to disagree, to hash things out while seeking for truth– but to TORTURE and MURDER people because they are different? Or because they won’t do things YOUR evil way? Good God.
By the way, how’s that health care bill coming along, hmm?
