Tolstoy Christians - where have they gone?

Late in June, I was hustling down an aisle in the library searching out a call number when a rather large tome "jumped" out at me. I don't know if this ever happens to you but I hope that someday it does because it is usually a pleasant educational experience. On this particular occasion the book was David Halberstam's - The Children. In it Halberstam chronicles the history of the American civil rights movement from the perspective of the Nashville sit-ins and the influence of Jim Lawson on the non-violent training and discipline these students demonstrated - Diane Nash and John Lewis are two examples. Halberstam was a young reporter in Nashville when it all started and this gave him some remarkable insights into the real struggle.

I learned that Lawson was greatly influenced by Gandhi and that Gandhi credited Tolstoy's - The Kingdom of God Is Within You - with changing his life. Whoa - now that is a recommendation! So I was off to the library again and as a person who has not read any Tolstoy - I confess that I had no idea what to expect and I actually was somewhat apprehensive since I consider myself to be a recovering Catholic.

The book was originally published in 1893 and promptly banned in the Czar's Russia but it was rapidly translated into English and published in 1894 when Gandhi was sent a copy.

It's actually a sequel in a sense. Tolstoy explains in the preface that in 1884 he wrote a book titled "What I Believe" which was "suppressed" by the Russian censorship, but in spite of this it was circulated through an underground network. In it he laid out his belief in Christ's teaching but he "could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity."

"Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference."

Tolstoy received criticism - both hostile and sympathetic - so ten years later he undertook what is in my opinion a scholarly tour de force with - The Kingdom of God Is Within You. The book consists of twelve chapters and Martin Green who wrote the forward to the University of Nebraska Press edition of the book admonishes those that are looking for the literary Tolstoy to turn to the last chapter - "Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand." After some reading which I found both fascinating and courageous I did turn to the last chapter but I found every chapter worthwhile.

Tolstoy challenges everyone of us as individuals - he questions the church and the state and all that we are told to believe by either one or both. Some of the chapter titles will give you a sense - "Christianity Misunderstood by Believers"; "Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science"; "Contradiction Between Our Life and Our Christian Conscience"; "Evil Cannot Be Suppressed By the Physical Force of the Government".

It's not possible for me in a short space to do justice to Tolstoy's writing and scholarly work. It's worth the read and you'll ask the same question that I asked in the beginning - where are these real Christians now?