There but for the Grace of God...

Check Remembering the Gulag, in the November 2003 issue of First Things. It's a brief, but chilly account of the surprisingly untold story of the Gulag system in the Soviet Union. We hear about the holocaust, but rarely about life in the Gulag. Besides the horror involved, it got me to thinking about the depravity of man, and the justice of God. Consider, "In yet another example of the Gulag’s slipshod administration, investigators repeatedly complained about the practice of housing adolescent prisoners in camps for adults, contrary to Moscow’s instructions. Ex-prisoner Lev Razgon recalled of these youths that “the horror of what had happened had deprived them of all defenses,” and that the adult criminal prisoners found it easy to recruit and corrupt them. They soon “displayed a frightening and incorrigibly vengeful cruelty, without restraint or responsibility. . . . The guards and camp bosses were scared to enter the separate barracks where the juveniles lived. It was there that the vilest, most cynical, and cruel acts that took place in the camps occurred. . . . The girls boasted that they could satisfy an entire team of tree-fellers. There was nothing human left in these children and it was impossible to imagine that they might return to the normal world and become ordinary human beings again.”" How can I compare my existence as a child with that of an unfortunate individual who happened to find themselves in a Gulag camp? If I had been in their situation, how would I have reacted? How much can I blame them for their choices? Understand that I believe God to be just. Therefore, I believe that His judgments, in the end, will be equitable. Yet, the questions remain...