By Tim Challies

I grew up in the era of the Cold War. From my youngest days I was taught that the West was the bastion of democratic freedom and the Soviet Union the stronghold of oppressive totalitarianism. We knew who the enemy was, and we knew he was across the ocean, behind the Wall. On our fridge was a poster filled with names and faces of Russian Christians who had fallen afoul of that regime and been imprisoned. Each day we would pray for one of these strangers, one of these brothers. The fact that they needed our prayers reaffirmed the blessing of living in a country where we enjoyed old-fashioned liberal ideals like freedom of speech and the rights of the individual. It reaffirmed that not all men in all nations were so blessed.

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