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"Don't Be A Corpse Among the Living"

By V. I. Kuzin¹

Aida,

I have received your letter and tracts entitled "Before It Is Too Late" and "Crime Against the Law of Religious Freedom" which you sent me in answer to my article "The Christian Fishers' Empty Nets."

   Your letter demands of me, an atheist journalist, to repent and stop blaspheming God. You have exhorted me to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." In the name of your God, you offer me "salvation" if I will repent. I am really touched by your concern, but I have to disappoint you. My "sinful soul" is very healthy and without danger. The word "soul" to an atheist indicates nothing more than the brain, "a possibility to think and feel," according to Pavlov, and nothing else. Believe me, I would have never given publicity to our letters or talks if the contents had been only of a personal nature. Our disagreement, however, is a controversy between two beliefs and two moral codes which are poles apart. Our dispute is about a goal and a purpose in life and if to believe in God is dangerous or good for a man or woman. It is a dispute about your personal destiny, Aida. That is the reason why I can-

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1. The text of this article appears to be incomplete, since some passages referred to by Aida in her reply are not included.

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not be quiet.

   I answer you and all those cowards who are hiding behind your back — those Baptist fanatics you call your "friends" (I call them your enemies — Lvov, Lukinov, Filipov, Akaki, Mikhailov, Semenova, Khorev, Grineva, and Serbakova). These young people, your so-called "brothers and sisters in Christ," have recently been seized by an insatiable desire for prayer meetings organized in private flats and have been guilty of spreading evangelical literature.

   What does all this mean? Nobody forbids you to believe in God. You have your own prayer house in Moscow and your own religious paper printed there. Why then this hostility? In your letters to me you state that the reason for your zealous witness to your "Redeemer" is that He is coming soon and that the great Judgment Day is ahead, so that one has to hurry up and "get saved" and get ready to meet God. (Your concern for me is touching!!)

   Let us be sincere, Aida. You and all the others know very well that the issue does not concern the Biblical doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ, but has arisen because there is a crisis among the Baptists of the Soviet Union. In my article in Smena I stated that the ranks of the Baptists are getting smaller every year and that your "nets are empty." You have therefore to seek new forms and methods for getting new members. The fact that large groups of fanatics have arisen in your Baptist Church is a sign that here is a big Baptist crisis. And you, Aida, have taken active part in the hostile acts of these fanatic groups against the Soviet Union, although there is for you complete religious freedom.

   I feel very sad for you, because in spite of all this religious nonsense you are not too far gone yet that you cannot recover yourself. You are a creature of circumstances because you have been brought up in a Baptist

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environment. You are lost in a labyrinth. I am sorry for you because the human being in you is dying. A "human being" is the wonder of the earth, and all other wonders belong to him. A "human being" is a wonderful thing. Life is given only once, and you ought to live so as not to have regret about the wasted years.

   According to the program of the Communist Party, the human being should be educated to be an individual who has fully and harmoniously developed. Lenin spoke of such a human being in the Party's Third Congress:

"Only by enriching one's experience through a complete knowledge of the riches that have formed humanity can one become a Communist."

   Karl Marx has described the human being's moral features in his remarkable answer to the questions his daughter had written. The founder of Communism has clearly pointed out the human being's high ideal and moral principle in his book, Our Life Codex. Is this simple, deep humanism, which is the only true wisdom, also your life's codex? If not, then the human being in you is dying. I can hear you answer, "To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, does not ruin a human being. This belief makes a human being clean, as he is born again. God is love."

   Let us briefly see things clearly. Our moral appearance is judged by the purpose of our life. What purpose do you Baptists have? You, Aida, preach that according to the holy Gospel the goal of life is "to be redeemed by Christ and live for Him while here on earth and then to be saved from eternal damnation."

   Briefly, what you most fear in this world is death and what you most want is "eternal life" and personal salvation by grace. This is the only reason, Aida, why you believe in Christ . . .

   "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the

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wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).

   You Baptists believe in this statement in the Gospel of John, even though the truth of it is very doubtful. Fear and ignorance dictate the goal of your life. No wonder our Communist young people call you "living corpses" and "songsters about life after death"! These are hard words for you to hear, but it is true. You sing about being pilgrims and strangers because heaven is your goal. Baptists see the meaning of life in getting themselves well prepared for the afterlife. Is not this the philosophy of those who are living, but in reality are dead? Your Baptist corpses are cruel and selfish because you yourselves are saved while others are lost. "All others are lost (hurrah!). We are secure."

   We atheists are not against eternal life, but it must exist here, on earth, not in a world beyond. Immortality consists for us not, as religion promises, in sitting idly in some sort of Elysian field, munching sticky buns and unconcernedly watching the larger part of humanity suffer agony in fiery Gehenna. We believe man achieves immortality through his work. He is eternal through what he performs for the happiness of all humanity.

   Will Pushkin's or Tolstoy's or Tchaikovsky's or Beethoven's works ever die? Or the deeds of Gagarin and Titov? Are not the needs of great physicians immortal? All these are living today through their works. The goal of our generation is to build Communism and live under it. There exists no goal more noble or more wonderful than this. Aida, do you find this to be the goal which inspires your "brothers and sisters in Christ"? Are you ready to strike for this goal in order to be immortal, or are you training yourself to be an idler in God's Heaven?

   We look upon our goal also to be the educating of our children, so that the next generation will follow after our ideals. Young people will be proud and disciplined and will lift high the Communist banner. With this wonderful

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goal in view, we do not spare our strength and energy and if necessary we give our lives. We do not fear death. We do not need to invent gods, because our work is eternal. We are living in it and will do so forever.

   Every sensible person in our twentieth century understands that your mysterious life after death, compared to our Communist earthly experience, is a worthless one. You inherited these beliefs from your forefathers, who were ignorant people. They may be forgiven, but you who live in this intelligent age ought to be ashamed of your ignorance. You young Baptist girls and young women ought not to be proud of your beliefs and your "Savior," but instead you should be ashamed of believing such non-sensical Biblical teachings. You Baptist young people ought to be ashamed of your egotism and moral behaviour. Your Christian life is an easy one, as you do not need to work to gain your "eternal life." It is "by grace" and not by striving or good works. You are lazy. You do not need our Communist philosophy. It is unusual that any of you studies. You are not striving to reach the heights of culture. You Baptists look upon the cinema and the reading of worldly books as sin. In fact, to you it is not necessary to be a person of morals. The only thing necessary is to "have faith in Christ." One of your favorite authors writes:

   "When you stand before the great white throne of Judgment, the one big question that will be asked you will be: 'What did you do with My beloved Son here on earth? Did you receive Him or reject Him?' Your moral living will be of no avail."

   So you see that it is not forbidden to a Christian to kill, steal, live an immoral life, or even betray his Fatherland. Your Baptist Gospel declared, "Immediately upon receiving Christ, a person's sin disappears and he becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus" (II Corinthians 5:17).

   Why, Aida, has not the Christian religion during its

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2,000 years' existence raised moral standards and destroyed all evil? Why has not your Gospel been able to banish from the earth the inhuman exploitation of individual against individual? We Communists, who are atheists, have done this very thing by revolution. Only under Communism, for instance, have women achieved their human rights. And I could ask you many other questions, but you will only reply, "It so pleased God." Of course you know, Aida, you have no answers to my logic. The reason is simple: religion has never and never can teach people things that are good, because religion is inhuman and without morals. In your Bible we read that God sent fire to burn the whole population of Sodom and Gomorrah, allowing only Lot and his two daughters to escape. The Bible is full of such descriptions of God's immoral deeds.

   Christ, who supposedly came into this world to create order, preached cruelty. When he sent his disciples to different places, he gave them instructions on how to behave in case they were not received: "But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city" (Luke 10:12). Christ presents Himself as being "meek and lowly in heart," but threatens all His enemies with severe punishment on the great Judgment Day. Where do you find the patience and love that He preaches?

   We atheists do not mock God or Christ because one can only mock that which exists; it is impossible to mock that which does not exist. We Communists have always been against religion because its teaching harms people, and it has destroyed you, Aida.

   The most important reason why the Baptist way is an enemy to the country is because it is a false way and has a false principle of life. The Bible is false and a compendium of legends. You, Aida, have lost the elementary ideas of the law of human life. You try to oppose that which is holy to every Soviet citizen — freedom of con-

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science. Lenin's decree is freedom of conscience for every individual. The Church and the State must be separated from each other. The freedom of conscience that they claim to have in the United States of America is more in favor with you Baptists. Atheists and unbelievers who do not believe in Jesus Christ there are cast into prison. Even here in Russia, you Baptists are against our having freedom to propagate our anti-God message. You will never succeed. Our people will never give away that which they have obtained. Our Communist workers in the factory of Nogina, in Narvskaya, have already warned you Baptists that they are going to sentence Semenova, Serbakova, and yourself to heavy imprisonment.

   The Soviet laws apply to both believers and unbelievers alike; everyone has to keep them. It is a pity that neither you nor your "brothers and sisters in Christ" have done so. You continue with your enmity against the community. You continue with your role as "fishers for Christ," but your nets are empty, as they always have been. You continue your propaganda against us in order that you may occupy a high position in your Baptist Church.

   Religion has already made you a young invalid, Aida. It has already taken away from you many wonderful human qualities. Your Gospel has turned you into a hypocrite. It has deprived you of the joy of youth. Your Baptist way has forced you to think only of death and heaven and has deprived you of culture and science, which is the joy of the Communist youth. As a Christian, you remain ignorant and uncultured.

   In closing, may I ask you with all earnestness, do you want to become a real human being? There are only two choices before you: either become a human being through accepting Communism or continue to be a slave of God. You must choose for yourself. Before you is a wonderful world in which to build, create, love, dream, and venture. The true life is not that of being God's slave, but to be a

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real sovereign person, belonging to one's self. Ahead of you is the glory of fighting for immortality, gained with your own hand, through your own works and talents, and not through prayers and psalm singing to the glory of the mystical Jesus.

   But you are on the other way, where your personality will perish. Before it is too late, consider the serious situation. Stop telling yourself and others lies. Your atheist friends are always ready to stretch out a helping hand toward you.

Chapter Five  ||  Table of Contents