This article inadvertently reveals some of the misperceptions of life under communism. You certainly could attend church but if you did, there was a price.
Along with the bulk of the public, as a church attender you would not be a member of the Communist Party. In addition you would find many jobs and places to live closed to you. You could live and make a living, but as a Christian you were part of an underclass.
Obviously under Stalin in the USSR there were periods of horrific, sustained, and largely arbitrary episodes of persecution. But even in the Soviet Union, this situation changed by the mid-1950's and it was never really the case in most of the Warsaw Pact nations.
Unlike today's American Evangelicals, these believers did not resort to lawsuits and it is apparent to this author (and other former Eastern Bloc residents I have spoken with over the years) that one has to toe a certain line here as well - though many don't think about it and thus fail to realize it. Many Christians conform in order to get the 'good jobs' which opens up income streams leading to the right kind of housing and broadly speaking the 'good life' they seek. No one puts a gun to their head, but they willingly submit and play the game, guarding their speech, and expressing the values of the Capitalist mainstream.
We must admit that in all respects there is greater freedom in the West than under the regimes in Cold War Poland, Hungary, and Romania. The entrepreneur can strike out and choose his own path in life. Some do very well for themselves. Others who are motivated by New Testament ethics do not. In a wicked mammon-driven society the faithful will not flourish.
Interestingly those who are 'successful' become deeply entrenched in the values and interests of the regime and are often willing to embrace and repeat its propaganda and to support its policies and wars despite the abundant evidence revealing its basic immorality and mendacity. This they willingly shut their eyes to, preferring not to see.
Nevertheless we do possess a freedom in the Capitalist West. Should we not be thankful for it? Yes, but not to the Capitalist state which seeks to control me, reduce me to a commodity, and enslave me in debt.
Rather we can be thankful that for now under this evil system it's not in the state's interest to micromanage everything to the impossible degree witnessed under states in the Warsaw Pact.
Unfortunately, Christian activists are working to destroy this from both ends for their own power interests and motivations and their actions generate a response to their policies, and that opposition will in the end remove our freedoms as well. Aside from the embrace of Enlightenment epistemology and individualist ideology, the great mistake of the American Church is to confuse wealth, status, and respect with Christian virtue - a fruit of obedience. On the contrary, the Scriptures are clear - if faithful we will suffer. You cannot serve God and mammon and friendship with the world is enmity with God. The state of affairs under Communism is really more the norm - more along the lines of what we should expect - a suffering that we should count as joy, an antithesis that is stark wherein is no danger of the Church being seduced or confused and thus losing its identity. We cannot say the same in the Capitalist West.
This message is of course foolishness to the world. There is no way to make it attractive or to dress it up in philosophical eloquence. Christ died on the cross to save sinners who in believing and trusting in Him are united by the Holy Spirit and even now in this present evil age partake of the Heavenly Kingdom. We testify against this world and proclaim Christ's coming every time we meet and proclaim the Word and the Divine Presence, which includes the celebration of the sacraments. It shouldn't surprise us if the world hates us. When it doesn't, it usually indicates some kind of fatal compromise has been made.
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