To the degree that we view things on these threads from a political point of view, that is, to the degree that we see religion as it affects politics and, conversely, politics as it attempts to distort religion, the matter is not so clear. How many dead in Eastern Europe from the wall to Moscow over 70 years of Soviet communism? 40, 50 60 million dead?
The ultimate triumph of God over Marx is not a debatable issue for me but it might be cold comfort to tens of millions murdered by Stalin.
“Your point about the survival of faith in the face of tyranny is well taken from a theological point of view.”
NB, its been my experience that making a distinction between the practical, materialistic view of life and one informed by theology is exactly why the West is in the state you commented on. The Faith either defines one’s life and culture and identity or it doesn’t. If it does, if The Faith is as much a part of one as the skin cells on his hand and it is as definitional of who one is as one’s ethnicity or even one’s name, then the millions of Christians killed by godless Communists are recognized and veerated for what they are, martyrs to the Faith, martyrs in a line extending back to the arena of ancient Rome, through centuries of the depredations of Mohammedanism and the Turkish genocide of the 19th and 20th centuries to the destruction of Middle Eastern Christian communities and the slaughter of their inhabitants by our beloved Mohammedan allies. As +John Chrysostomos said in his Pascal sermon, “Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!”
Faith can (and I think must) inform our political activities, but it should never be, as it is so often in the West, completely detached from those political activities; or far worse, that religion should be distorted and used by politics for its own cynical ends. To tell you the truth, I have always been mystified by the mixture of religion and politics here, whether on the right or the left. I suppose that as an Orthodox Christian I have less confidence that politics can effect the world for good than that the metanoia we are told we will experience will transform a bit of the world around us into its original created state.
“The ultimate triumph of God over Marx is not a debatable issue for me but it might be cold comfort to tens of millions murdered by Stalin.”
For those without Faith, you are likely correct. For those who died for the Faith, NB, I doubt its an issue.