ANTI-CHRISTIAN propaganda on Moscow Radio is common form. Even denials that Christ ever
existed or attacks on clergy who bid the workers to be
slavishly submissive to their masters because they will get their reward in the next world are no more than tattered rags taken out of ancient Marxist drawers and displayed every Christmas.
But there is something sadder about recent Moscow propaganda which asks questions like the following: "How can war invalids, widows and mothers who lost their husbands and children during the fatherland war love German Fascists and pray for them?"
"How can the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who survived the atomic bombardment but are cruelly suffering from radiation sickness pray for those who dropped the atomic bombs?"
For the deepest Christian mystery and deepest Christian hope lies in the will (however far "feeling" may be from " will") to love one's worst enemy for Christ's sake.
It is at that point that the Christian mystery offers its deepest contribution to the world, for it is certain that if today men cannot forgive, they cannot make peace. And if they cannot make peace, the world holds no future worth working for.
All the gestures of Mr. Khrushchev will be in vain if he cannot find it in his heart to share with Christ in forgiving his neighbour. And. of course. the same applies to us.
M.B.