Tolstoy’s Perversion of Christianity
It is wonderful how fads take with many, especially if the fad contains a semblance of some striking truth. This is well illustrated in the case of Count Tolstoy, recently excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church. He has some germs of truth in his ideas of self-denial, helping the poor, etc., but he is as far off from the Gospel of Christ as is the Russian Orthodox Church. He believes marriage to be a sin, and frankly avows it. He tells us that those who are “married should regard themselves as sinners.” The “chief trouble is,” he thinks, “that marriage has been regarded as a ‘blessing.’” We quote from the Literary Digest of October 12. The simple fact is that Tolstoy has a religion of his own, which is an utter perversion of Christianity. The strange thing is that Christians can ever seem to indorse him.