Carl Wells Books

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (b. Dec. 11, 1918-d. Aug. 3, 2008) is a Russian writer, and possibly the most important human being to live in the 20th century.

He was born into the Soviet Union, accepted the reigning communist worldview as a young person, fought against the Germans in World War II, was arrested late in the war for criticizing Stalin in personal letters, spent time in Soviet prison camps as a result, was exiled to the eastern Soviet Union, survived cancer, wrote secretly, uncertain that he would ever be published in his lifetime (if ever).

During the Khrushchev thaw he was permitted to publish One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963), a short novel portraying an ordinary day in the life of a zek (a prisoner in a Soviet camp). That was the start of a career that included not just numerous superb novels, superb historical writing, the Nobel Prize for Literature (1970), but also worldwide fame as an opponent of the Soviet Union. Along the way he jettisoned his youthful Marxism and became eventually a committed Christian.

He was thrown out of the Soviet Union in 1974, and eventually ended up in Cavendish, Vermont, writing diligently both fiction and non-fiction. The Soviet Union ended in 1991, and Solzhenitsyn was able to return to his beloved Russia in 2004. He died in Russia in 2008, at the venerable age of 89.

He was a writer of enormous gifts, in both fiction and non-fiction. And he actually became a Christian–returning to the faith of his mother. (His father had died in a hunting accident before Solzhenitsyn’s birth.) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is one of God’s gifts to the world. We need to thank Him–and those of us with even a modest interest in reading need to pick up one or two of Solzhenitsyn’s books and see if they have anything to say to us.

Yesterday I finished my reading of In the First Circle, Solzhenitsyn’s second book. The history of the novel is somewhat complicated. Solzhenitsyn himself self-censored the book in order to try to get it published in the Soviet Union. That attempt failed, however. So the book was not published in the Soviet Union. That self-censored version was published in the West, under the title of The First Circle. That is the version I first read, many decades ago. I read it a second time eventually.

A current book-length writing project in which I am engaged prompted me to read the book for a third time in late 2019-early 2020. However, I discovered that ten years after the publication of The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn had restored the book to its original text–making some editorial improvements along the way, as any writer trying to put forth his best foot, would do. Finally, in 2008, 40 years after his restoration work, the book was published under a slightly new title: In the First Circle. Forty plus pages were added to what had been The First Circle, and the plot was changed slightly but significantly.

I did not have a strong memory of The First Circle, so In the First Circle was almost a brand new book to me. I am very glad to get the original uncensored version. It was a joy to read.

What is the first circle? The title fits the book perfectly. The prison camps of the Soviet Union–known as the Gulag Archipelago–were very numerous. The sharashka was a very unusual place. There some of the scientifically brilliant Soviet prisoners were put to work on scientific projects of interest to the Soviet leaders. The sharashka was no walk in the park. But the living conditions could have been much worse. The authorities were, after all, trying to coax important scientific work out of intelligent men. They were willing, therefore, to make the daily prison regimen much better than in other camps.

In Dante’s Inferno, the first circle of hell was the least wretched place in hell. That, compared to the rest of hell, was certainly the place you wanted to be if you had to be in hell. As one of the prisoners of In the First Circle says, ‘”The special prison is the highest, the best, the first circle of hell. It’s practically paradise.”‘ (p. 740)

But it is definitely still hell. Solzhenitsyn spent some time in a sharaska. He also spent time in the more common types of prison camps. He had enough experience of both types of camp to be able to make reasoned judgments.

In the First Circle can be obtained for a reasonable price on the Internet. The best prices I could find today were $6.72 (shipping included) at AbeBooks. (Sales tax might add a bit more expense.) Amazon featured pries a couple dollars higher. Be careful, though. Most of the ads at Abe were for The First Circle, the version of the book which is incomplete and self-censored by Solzhenitsyn. I had to scroll down to page 5 of the listings before I found In the First Circle advertised! Don’t settle for The First Circle; insist on In the First Circle, which is the book Solzhenitsyn had in mind from the start.

The 2008 version includes an excellent foreword by Edward E. Ericson, Jr. It is a sturdy paperback edition of 741 pages.

Next week I hope to deal some of the themes of In the First Circle. Solzhenitsyn has a lot to teach us, but today I am running out of time and space, so I will take a second day to deal with this fascinating book.

“No thank you.”

That seems to be the response of Americans in general, to the idea of reading the Bible. A survey evaluating how much Americans read the Bible revealed the completely unsurprising news that as a people we Americans don’t read the Bible much at all. Here is a link by lifewayresearch:

LifeWay Research: Americans Are Fond of the Bible, Don’t Actually Read It

There we learn that 80% of Americans have not read the Bible all the way through. 11% have read the Bible all the way through once. And an additional 9% have read the Bible all the way through more than once. Remember that close to 50% of us Americans self-identify as Christians. Yet only 20% of us have read the Bible all the way through even one time.

Given the stats above, it is realistic to assume that even Christians are not reading the Bible at a very high rate. When I make time I will try to find some stats on Christians reading the Bible, but having moved in Christian circles for about four and a half decades, or slightly longer, I sense that there is not a lot of Bible-reading going on among Christians–even among those of the Bible-believing variety.

Well, the Bible is not an easy book to read! I am a person who reads constantly, but even so I have to discipline myself to read the Bible. Bible reading does not come automatically for me, a reader. How much less likely Bible reading will be for those who are not usually readers. So we should not be shocked to discover that Bible reading is very low in the country.

I would encourage Christians to make it a point to read the Bible on a regular basis. One can be a Christian without having read the Bible through even one time–at least many Christians manage that feat–but with Bible reading comes a deeper knowledge of God, and a deeper knowledge of how reality is put together.

Doing anything that is difficult to do but worth doing, takes persistence. A world champion runner does not become a world champion by one day’s training. He is persistent. At one time in his life he ran few miles per week. Gradually he ran more per week, until he was running enough to get really good.

Bible reading is very similar. There are 929 chapters in the Bible. To read through the Bible in six months would be a formidable task. If a beginning Bible reader sets himself the goal of reading the Bible in six months, he will probably break down, and will give up and thus fail completely.

But if he sets himself the modest goal of reading 10 Bible chapters a week, and disciplines himself to stick to his goal, he will be able to read the Bible all the way through in less than two years (about 46 1/2 weeks). Ten chapters a week, slightly more than one reading of the Bible in two years, is a sort of glacial pace. Still, think about the results. That glacial pace, kept up over 20 years, will result in more than ten full readings of the Bible. Don’t despise the day of small things. (Zechariah 3:10)

And what many people will discover is that if they train themselves to read 10 chapters a week, they may develop the ability and desire to read 15 chapters per week. And so on, even higher. My experience has been that keeping written records is extremely helpful in trying to reach goals.

The benefits of Bible reading are enormous. It is good to understand that we need the Savior Jesus Christ, and to seek Him–even if we don’t read the Bible. But God gave us the Bible because He has a lot of things to teach us. He could have given us a Bible of ten or twelve short books with a total of 250 chapters. That would been plenty for us to get the basics. But instead He chose to give us the Bible with lots of books (66) and lots of chapters (929). He wants us to go beyond getting the basics. He wants us to understand lots and lots and lots of things. The Holy Spirit it willing to lead us into all the truth, not just part of it (John 16:13). But if we are unwilling to dig for ‘”all,”‘ then we are limiting our ability to think the thoughts of God after Him.

Bible reading is a key to a deeper understanding of God. It is not the only key, of course. Probably the greatest key is the willingness to obey God. As Jesus Christ said, ‘”If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.”‘ (John 7:17)

The Bible is a language. We can learn to speak Bible. But reading the Bible is part of how we learn to speak Bible. Reading the Bible a lot is how we can become fluent in Bible.

As we read the Bible, it is helpful to come with sensible presuppositions. When we come with wrongheaded presuppositions, we tend to miss the truth. Often Christians come with wrong presuppositions. Then we miss what the Bible is really saying. Three examples come to mind.

1/Most Christians have wrongheaded presuppositions about eschatological issues (doctrines of the last things). They presume dispensationalism or amillennialism as they read the Bible. Then, surprise surprise, they end up finding that the Bible teaching dispensationalism or amillennialism. But I don’t think it does. If we read the Bible with a mind open to hear what the Bible is saying, we come up with something very different.

2/Most Christians thinking about whether children should partake of the communion meal, begin reading their Bible with wrong presuppositions. Read the Bible with a desire to hear what the Bible is saying, rather than what our wrongheaded presuppositions are saying, will lead to vastly different, and vastly more reasonable conclusions on whether or not children should be taking communion.

3/Read the Bible with wrongheaded presuppositions concerning the afterlife, and you will not be totally shocked to come up with wrongheaded conclusions about what the Bible teaches. Read the Bible in a manner that lets the Bible teach you, and you will probably come to much different, and much more reasonable conclusions.

So yes, reading the Bible is helpful, but even when we read the Bible we can shoot ourselves in the foot by not being ready to be led into all the truth.

Many people engage in devotions. They move slowly through one portion of the Bible, day by day. Fine. Excellent. But don’t neglect the discipline of simply reading the Bible all the way through, over and over. Your devotions may be wonderful for you. But consider supplementing them with reading the Bible all the way through.

Parents who don’t read the Bible can hardly expect their children to read the Bible. But parents who read the Bible have the moral authority to help their children develop the ability to read the Bible. Developing self-discipline is crucial to life in dozens of ways. Developing the self-discipline to read the Bible at an early age is a wonderful way to begin one’s relationship with God. I was I think 29 years old when I completed my first complete reading of the Bible. Not too great! It would have been better if I had been reading the Bible from an early age. There are reasons why that was not likely to happen (including that I was not converted until my mid 20s), but surely most Christian families can give their children a better start than I got. “Can,” but usually don’t, sadly.

Part of how we will defend and extend Christian civilization is to read our Bibles more. Bible knowledge among Christians is very poor right now, but it can get better. Improvement starts with one person.

We all answer, “Three, of course.” And yes, he did deny Christ three times. All four Gospel accounts tell us about the three betrayals. But a comparison of the four accounts raises the possibility that he denied Christ several more times than three.

Read the four accounts, and jot down each incidence of betrayal, and we find that there are discrepancies in the descriptions of the persons to whom Peter spoke his betrayal.

Needless to say, I am not the first person to notice this. Many commentators have noticed. The possible responses are several. The four accounts can be reconciled, perhaps, by careful exegesis. Or some would contend that this shows the Scriptures to be unreliable. Or the possibility exists that Peter did deny Christ three times, but he also denied Him more than just three times. One Internet commentator suggests that Peter denied Christ exactly six times. This seems possible, and clearly the writer is trying to be careful in his count. My own count is that Peter denied his Savior eight times. But I recognize that a couple (at least) of that number might be reconciled readily enough so that the count could indeed be six (or slightly fewer, but still more than three).

Let’s run through the twelve betrayals (four in each Gospel). I am using the New American Standard Bible. I will number the eight betrayals I see, in brackets.

We will start with Matthew and run through the Gospels in the order they run in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

First was a servant-girl (Matt. 26:69) [1]. Then another servant-girl (Matt. 26:71) [2]. Thirdly, bystanders (Matt.26:73) [3].

In Mark, a servant-girl (Mk. 14:67), then the same servant-girl (Mk. 14:69) [4], then again bystanders (Mk. 14:70).

In Luke, a servant-girl (Lk. 22:56), then another (a man) (Lk. 22:58) [5], and finally another man (Lk. 22:59) [6].

In John, a slave-girl (Jn. 18:17), followed by slaves and officers (Jn. 18:18, 25) [7], and finally a slave of the high priest (Jn. 18:26) [8].

So it is possible that Scripture is telling us that Peter denied Jesus Christ as many as eight times, rather than just three times.

I reject the notion that the Scriptures are unreliable. I consider the Bible the supernaturally delivered word of God. If there are minuscule copying errors here and there, they are indeed minuscule, and the reliability of Scripture is not threatened by them. Such is my contention as least; I realize I can not prove this conclusively. Once we give up the Bible as the true word of God delivered to us to believe and obey, we will have no solid ground to stand on, and our solid rock Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:24-27) will instead become sifting sand and those who don’t want to believe the Scriptures will have us ordaining unrepentant homosexuals as pastors, and so on world without end amen.

If Peter denied Jesus Christ eight times (or six, or five), why do the four Gospels keep saying that Jesus Christ told Peter that Peter would deny Him three times? I can only make a guess. First of all, that is what He said. He said three times. But He knew what Peter was going to have to go through in the coming hours. Could it be that Jesus Christ sensed that Peter would deny Him at least three times? He knew, we can guess, that it might possibly be more than three times. Jesus Christ doesn’t say you will deny Me exactly three times. He just says you will deny Me three times.

Later, when Peter becomes conscious of his several betrayals of Jesus Christ, the Scriptures do not tell us that Peter thought or said to himself that he had denied Christ three times only. Perhaps Peter, who was upset and not thinking very clearly on that frightening night, was only conscious that he had indeed denied Christ at least three times. He may not have realized that he denied Christ eight times, but he knew he had denied him at least three times, just as Christ had warned him would happen. The crowing rooster reminded Peter of Christ’s prediction. His prediction had indeed come true, whether it was three betrayals or as many as eight.

If the most careful biblical exegesis determines that Peter likely denied his Savior as many as eight times (or six, or five), this may have lessons for us which the Holy Spirit has been trying to teach us for two thousand years, but which lessons we have been slow to learn.

If Peter denied Christ eight times, that was not the end of Peter. Just before Peter said that he was ready to go to prison and even to death for Christ (Lk. 22:33), Jesus Christ told Peter that Satan was going to sift him (Lk. 22:31-32). Jesus Christ told Peter then: ‘”when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”‘ (Lk. 22:32) Christ foresaw the turning away, and He foresaw the turning again back to Christ, at which time Peter was to strengthen his brothers.

Which is exactly what Peter did.

If you and I are Christians, very likely we have betrayed Jesus Christ not three or eight times, or 300 or 800 times, but much more likely 3,000 or 8,000 times, and perhaps 30,000 or 80,000–or more. Jesus Christ has told us, when we become aware of our betrayal of Him, turn again and strengthen our brothers.

Peter picked himself up and became a productive servant of Jesus Christ, a stalwart leader of the New Testament church. On the night that Jesus Christ was arrested, Peter found out that he (Peter) was worse than he realized. We too are worse than we realize. When we begin to get a glimpse of our worseness–when the rooster crows and we realize we have betrayed Jesus Christ many more times than we expected–we can imitate Peter in grieving, repenting, and soldiering forward in a better manner than in the recent past.

Peter’s eight betrayals of Jesus Christ (or six betrayals, or three) did not define Peter’s life going forward. Neither need our betrayals of Him define our lives.

Quite possibly Peter denied Jesus Christ as many as eight times in one night. Nevertheless Peter was and is a great servant of Jesus Christ. We can join him, and Him.

We often hear that many fewer people are reading a print newspaper. Through the years many print newspapers have ceased to exist. The trend seems ominous to those who have a fondness for print newspapers. Will print newspapers survive in the short or long run?

I can’t be sure, but I think print newspapers are here to stay. Print newspapers have one huge advantage over online news sources: print newspapers are, well, printed on paper. Paper which I can fold and lay out on the table and easily read while eating my abstemious breakfast. Let’s see any online newspaper match that!

That doesn’t mean it is going to be easy for print newspapers. Some of them may sell a lot less copies. That, however, is not necessarily all bad. If “The New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” and other left-wing newspapers lose market share, well, good. Let “The New York Times” disappear, and I will celebrate along with tens of thousands of other people. It should be tens of millions.

Print newspapers may have to improve their customer service. We seem to be living in a time of moral transition. Competence and courtesy seem to be less valued than they used to be. Here is one example with regard to a newspaper. A thoughtful Christian friend was a long-time mail subscriber to a print newspaper published in a largish city. But service got so bad that he finally ceased to subscribe. Several of his friends had exactly the same experience with the same newspaper. They all were long-time subscribers who stopped subscribing. So the number of subscriptions was going down, no doubt by a significant percentage if this kind of service was going on throughout the state–and no doubt it was. The loss in subscriptions was not because print newspapers were becoming unpopular with newspaper readers. It was because the newspaper was incompetent in delivering their product. The newspapers blamed the post office; the post office blamed the newspaper. Bottom line: incompetence somewhere was hurting subscriptions dramatically. (Given my experience with big city newspapers, I will guess that the major incompetence was coming from the newspaper rather than from the post office.)

Recently my friend had a chance to subscribe to the same newspaper (print and online both) for a bargain price. He signed up. The first paper was due to arrive Jan. 4. No prize for guessing what happened on Jan. 4. No print newspaper. And none on Jan. 5, 6, 7, or 8. The people at the newspaper were shocked, shocked, and would get right on the problem. [Note added Jan. 16: page forward another eight days, and my friend had still not received a paper, despite his email communications with the people at the newspaper.] If this problem doesn’t get solved, the print newspaper will no doubt be crying crocodile tears about how they are putting out a newspaper but readership is mysteriously declining, while my friend cashes his refund check for the paper that he wanted to read but couldn’t read because it didn’t arrive.

My own experiences with a different big city newspaper have been similar. Delivery is by their own delivery person, not by the post office. A missing paper? The chances of getting a copy of that missing paper are slim and none, and Slim left town a long time ago. I have learned that the only thing I can do is get financial credit (for my Aged Parent, who is the subscriber) for the missing paper, because the paper ain’t ever going to show up. Fine. I’ve adjusted, psychologically. Sort of.

Newspapers seem to partake of the general national trend toward discourtesy toward other people. I had an issue with a local (not big city) newspaper: some useful information which had appeared in the paper for years on a regular basis, had suddenly stopped appearing in the paper. I am not the only person who has noticed and cared. I wrote the general editor. It was a polite letter. I did not send him an email. I wrote him a print letter, well over a page, and actually paid for a stamp to have it delivered to him. I gave the editor my address and also gave him my email address, so that he could conveniently give me a response. Did I get a response of any sort? Again, you will easily ring the bell and win a cigar or coconut (as Bertie Wooster might say) for correctly guessing that I got no response at all. So then I wrote the publisher, a shorter letter, but again polite. Again with my email address as part of my letter. No response. The issue I addressed, meanwhile, has not been fixed. My mother is the subscriber to that newspaper as well. If I had to pay for the subscription, would I do so? No.

And that no is written very painfully by me. For years I have felt that the big city newspaper from which I get much of my sports news has declined in quality to a shocking extent, at least in regard to coverage of high school sports. The local newspaper was doing much better, and if I had had to choose between the two papers it would have been a very easy choice: I would have gladly subscribed to the local newspaper. But I can’t say that any longer. Now I would subscribe to neither.

And I am a person who loves print newspapers and have spent much of my life in the comfortable condition of being unable to imagine living without a print newspaper delivered to my house daily. But the print newspapers are driving me away, by their treatment of me.

So maybe print newspapers are going to have to pay a bit more attention to their readers if they are going to retain or gain readership. Will they do so?

Probably not.

But I think print newspapers will continue to exist, and possibly even make a comeback. As I said above, we are living in a time of transition For the moment, things that we once valued highly, such as courtesy and competence, are not doing very well. But that can change, and I think it will change eventually. When we begin to live by a more biblical brand of Christianity, lots of things will change. People will read more. People will care more about truth, even perhaps care much more eventually. People will be more courteous in the way they treat other people, and they will strive to be more competent in their work.

People are always going to want to have a newspaper to unfold and read with their breakfast and lunch and supper, with the comics all on one page (or better yet, on two or three pages). Print newspapers will survive, and probably even thrive. It may take a while, and the people running them may have to care more about doing good work than making a large fortune. It will be a calling rather than just a job. I think there are already some of such people, and that we are going to get a lot more of them as our brand of Christianity improves. Some of them are going to publish newspapers which are printed on paper. A lot of us are going to be reading those papers.

So yes, I think print newspapers will survive. If I am wrong you can dig me up and give me a few lashes.

If you are a serious fan of Indiana high school football, boys basketball, and/or girls basketball, you probably will join with me in celebrating the astonishing accomplishment of one John Harrell.

John Harrell is a man, age 73, who was a successful sportswriter, but who is now “retired.” Retired is in quotes, because while he is retired from being an active sportswriter, he is the very reverse of retired in how he spends his time. He devotes countless hours to running a website devoted to Indiana high school football and basketball. And the website is indeed astonishing.

Mr. Harrell has been described as a quiet man. His picture shows a trim, bespectacled guy. Don’t be fooled. Like Clark Kent, he was a newspaperman. And like Clark Kent, when he steps into that phone booth (phone booths admittedly are getting harder to find these days, but Mr. Harrell manages), and whips off those glasses, he becomes a Superman of accomplishment.

The information he provides on all three high school sports is remarkable. He covers 321 football teams, about 400 girls basketball teams, and about 400 boys basketball teams. Here are just a few of the things you can find on his website for all three sports: team schedules updated with each win or loss, team records from several years in the past, directions to the school, coaches’ career records, a capsule report on games in the upcoming week (including vast amounts of information), team ratings by Jeff Sagarin (another benefactor to the Hoosier race), best combined records of boys basketball teams for the last 26 seasons including this one (for 20 seasons girls), and coaching leaders both current and all-time. This only scratches the surface of the information available. There is always more–and seemingly more and more. I keep finding new stuff. If you’ve never been to his website, you are in for a shock. If you love any of the three sports he covers, that shock will be a very pleasant one. Here is a link to that website:

http://indianahsbasketball.homestead.com/

Mr. Harrell’s work has not escaped notice by Hoosier fans. He started his website in 2000. By now, abut 20 years later, his website has 10,000 unique hits on an average night. During basketball season, a good night will lead him to six figures–that’s 100,000 hits on one night. He has 13,000 Twitter followers. He became a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016–surely well-deserved in this basketball-loving state.

Why does he do all this? It is not in order to get rich. He makes a bit of money from advertising on the site, but not a fortune. And clearly he is not in it for the money. If he were willing to accept donations, I suspect we Hoosiers would gladly throw at least a considerable amount of money his way. But he doesn’t ask for or want donations.

He says he loves doing it. In a nicely written article by Chad Lindskog of the “Evansville Courier & Press” (June 2018), Mr. Harrell says ‘”A lot of people have helped me in the past, so I’m giving back to sportswriters and broadcasters.”‘

This, to me, is modeling grace. Mr. Harrell is a member of Faith Lutheran Church on the south side of Bloomington. He says, “I love our pastors and the wonderful members of our congregation.” Why am I not surprised to read that? Modeling grace is one way of showing love. Is he not showing grace to others, as a response to the grace he was shown? Is that not what Christians should do? We were shown grace through Jesus Christ. Now, in response, we should be showing grace to others as well. Mr. Harrell is an example to us all.

If every Christian were just one-quarter–just one-quarter–as diligent and competent at doing something good for other people and the world as Mr. Harrell is diligent and competent in running his website, I suspect that within a very short time we would begin to find the world around us changing vastly for the better. We “would soon change the aspect of the world,” in theologian James Henley Thornwell’s lovely phrase.

Mr. Harrell has had a successful life. He was a respected sportswriter for many years. He has a wife, he has four children, eight grandsons and two step-granddaughters. He plays golf. (No one is perfect; I forgive him.) Now, somehow, in his latter years, he is bringing much blessing to tens of thousands of people. He knows few of us personally. He just does something very good, and we benefit.

I am glad to report that Mr. Harrell has no intention of stepping away from his work on his miraculous website. It takes an incredible amount of his time. During football season onward, the only time he takes off is basically holidays and Sundays. But he loves doing what he does, and wants to keep on. ‘”As long as I’m able to keep going, I will ’til I drop,”‘ as Mr. Lindskog reports him saying.

Here’s hoping Mr. Harrell lives very long. At the very least, I hope I drop before he does. His website is a never-ending joy to me, and I am not eager to face life in a world without that website. May God bless and encourage John Harrell on this earth for many, many years to come.