ABSTRACT
It is vital for Christians in the affluent West to hear and appreciate the testimony of those who, like Ţuţea, lived and continued to confess Christ throughout the periods of Nazi and Communist rule, which together lasted almost fifty years. The West has not had to endure the experience of totalitarianism. Yet technologically advanced nations are threatened by an ideology of consumerism that denies the spiritual and is all the more disastrous for being at once half-heartedly tempered (by, for instance, ecological concern) and aggressively re-asserted. Western theologians and thinkers have crucial lessons to learn from those in other parts of the world who, even when brutally silenced, have affirmed spiritual freedom and the dignity of creation. Confronted with suffering and evil on a scale that seems incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful, loving God, religious faith is tried and purified. Out of his experience of testing, Ţuţea offers a theological vision rooted not in logical justification, but in prayer and a life lived in fellowship with the communion of saints.
