A World Split Apart

Such was the title of an address delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.   So is the reality of the world today. 

 

At 6:00 a. m. this morning (26 February 2015) my alarm clock went off with the NPR morning news.  I have never heard so much bad news pertaining to acts of terrorism and violence coming out of those twin dysfunctional regions of the world—the middle East and the African continent.  Our angst is that the Islamic violence will increasingly spill out of those regions into the still, comparatively, more peaceful regions of the world.  It is more than just a disquieting feeling; it is inevitable that it will.

But until then, provided that the terrorists do not get weapons of mass destruction (wmd’s) or atomic, biological, chemical weapons (abc’s), as they are called, their atrocities will be relatively limited—a “sting of a mosquito,” as described by one recent commentator, compared to what the West (including Israel) could do to their base’s of operations if the Western nations were provoked enough.  But the sting (more accurately ‘bite’) of a mosquito of the wrong kind (for us) can lead to a fatal disease.

That scenario, as evaluated by other commentators, is exactly what the terrorists want.  The titles of Solzhenitsyn’s address ‘A World Split Apart’ and evangelist Billy Graham’s book title of fifty years ago ‘World Aflame’ portend such a condition:  “The next war . . . may well bury Western Civilization forever” (A. Solzhenitsyn).  “I can’t explain 9/11, except the evil of man” (B. Graham), and, I add, the reality of Satan. “Auschwitz stands as a tragic reminder of the terrible potential man has for violence and inhumanity” (B. Graham).   Bible readers will know, and not be surprised that we are in the “last days” before the final great battle between the forces of good and evil:  “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of war” (Matt. 24:6), and from that most unpopular of Old Testament books, Joel, or of New Testament books, Revelation, the plagues of the last days leading up to Armageddon, which is all-out war—World Aflame. 

    

Though the Homeland Security threat level has been constantly turned up to level yellow or orange, ever since November 11, 2001, it seems that that will be our ‘new normal’; and maybe just as well, for great troubles are coming:  but, “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30).  [Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will want to review the entire 38^th Section; non-members who have any curiosity at all or real concern for their future  would do well to find and investigate this Latter-day scripture as well as the book of Joel and John’s Revelation in their Holy Bible.]