In those ten qualities of good companies, you will not find love. Sacrificial love. I'm talking

about suffering love. Sacrificial love. Yes, you have to sacrifice, but for the sake of,,

not in the sense of bringing for. For bringing humans to a Übermensch.

To the Superman. They said, our goal is one day for people to have such a

conscience that they will go to work and will not be paid, but they will go to the shops, will

take things as much as they need, not more than that, and everything will be perfect.

Well, Saimir, welcome to the podcast. We're going to be talking a little bit about the Communist ideology

ideology.. But before we do that, I want to get some of your background so people know how this ties

into your story, which we have a separate episode where you tell your story that will already be

released. We'll link that and so forth. Uh, but you grew up in essentially the strictest

country in Europe, the strictest communist country in Europe. Uh, give us a little bit of context

there, a little bit of groundwork before we plow into the main topic. Let me tell you, uh, a

story. Uh, when our dictator, Enver Hoxha,

communist dictator, died. Uh, everybody was supposed to cry. And anyone in

Albania, you know, the line was, you know, 1 or 2km

to go and weep to his around his casket and all

this in Albania. But, um, we were in a I remember that

day we were in a, uh, in our class that the news came. It was a

we were ten years old. It was a fourth grade elementary.

And, uh, everyone I mean, most of the children started to cry.

Me too, you know. Oh, our not dictator, but our leader. Not our leader, but our God

has died. So, um, one child in the back of the

room, he was not crying. Some of them observed that, but, you

know, continued. There was one guy, he stood up. He

pointed him in that day. Terrible day. He pointed him as a why are you not crying?

The other friend was saying, I don't know, why are you not crying?

And then he said he started to cry because this other

child pointed the finger to him. And, uh, I thought I told this story

because even in that day, you could see the terror that had brought

this type of I mean, it was not an ideology. It was a system of a

state police state that was as entered even in the

blood of the in the veins of the children. So, you know,

children, they act, they imitate adults. So we were at that

moment, we were imitating, you know, our parents, the generation of our parents, what was happening with

the adults even in that day. So the terror, the fear. Uh

uh, spying was everywhere. Every day a danger, a risk. So can you

imagine, uh, living and in in that kind of life.

So, of course, you, um, you have to adapt by acting

all the time. So this friend was acting like he was a

communist follower. Mhm. Even he was ten years old and the other was acting

like he was not doing anything. And he, he was, uh, he wanted to cry, but

he couldn't. And, and in the end he cried. So it was, uh,

a painful reality. Everywhere I said, even in The previous

interview. Interview that it amazed me how human beings have the ability

to adapt and to find a way to live even in those

circumstances. Yeah. And it reminds me that when you give them, you know, when when you

give them the opportunity to have life like Jesus gave to everyone, they

just refuse that. That's I don't know. I mean, I did

this myself for 27 years, but even now, I don't know, how can I,

how can I, how can we be combined in a, in a, in a person this this thing. So yeah.

So let's let's drill into that a little. So you're describing Albania right. Which is where you live.

Where you still live. Very strict communist regime. I guess you could say or dictatorship, [indistinct]

etc.. Can you first of all tell me a little bit about like what is the communist ideal like, what

were they even trying to do? And then what have you said you believed in that. Did you believe the

communist ideology? Were you? Yes. This is the right thing or did you not really think about it? Yeah.

Tell me about those two things. Communist ideology. I mean, uh, yes. Even ideology. And even in

how it is applied because it is applied differently in different countries. Um,

had a high value, highly the moral standard

of the character of the communist, of the people who are

or the people who are under the system. So justice, truth, they are

preached. They were preached, you know, strongly in the in the schools and everywhere. Mhm. Um

in, in the, in the, in the working place, you know they would, they would read

newspapers talking about these characteristics before starting to work you know.

Yeah. Okay. It was almost like how we would have a morning devotions or something. They would have a

reading of like communist ideals or something. It's amazing how close whoa. They are. You know,

ideologically the ideology, the characteristics of the of

and for, uh, the qualities of a communist, uh, our dictator, he,

uh, wrote down ten commandments of a good communist. Really? Yes.

That's also quite ironic because, like, we talked about this a little bit in the other interview,

but how Albania was one of, as far as I know, maybe there's been other examples, but one of the or the

only country where they officially as state policy, we will have no religion. We will be

atheist. It's in our Constitution. This is who we're going to be. That seems kind of ironic. Yeah.

What you're describing here. He he said, um, you have the the first quality is I

mean, you have to be you have to worship. I'm talking now

in Christian terms. You have to be obedient and venerate only the

party exclusively. You have to worship only one god. You have to,,

uh, continue. And, um, only you have to be obedient only to the,

uh, to the ideology and the teachings of the party, which is like the obedient to the Word of

God. You have to, um, to be a good communist. You have

to, uh, share. You have to be. You have to have a good fellowship with the

others. You have to be a, uh, the ones who promote fellowship with the others. You have

to, uh, um, be, um, a doer of the world of the word. Not

just only someone who speaks that, but you have to act out to live out that word.

You have to, uh, um, fight the enemies by trying to

convince them. Whoa. Okay. Was this were these commandments for just your country, or would

it this been fairly standard in the other communist like? Do you know? I don't know, but I'm

not sure even my our. This guy has ever done anything

originally, you know, authentically. Well, somewhere he has to. You know. That's so interesting. This is

it's it's almost like a copy paste for religion. Yes, but they don't copy and paste the concept of

God. Yeah. Which is kind of weird when you. See replaced God, you know. The dictator kind of. Yeah

he was God. You know. The Communist party replaces God. Yes. When? When he was talking about party, he

was party, you know. No one can could say anything against the one. The one thing that he was coming

to his mind, that was party. So it's you're describing what sounds to me like

an atheistic religion, which is an oxymoron. I mean, that doesn't even seem possible, but yet it. Yes,

yes, but it is then. Yeah. Kind of. Did you did you believe all this back, back then or did you

not? Was it the kind of thing where it wasn't even considered? Whether you believe or disbelieve, it's

just what was. I liked the moral part. I liked the quality of

a high, you know, uh, value of the Morality for good things and bad things and

and to be true. But there were these qualities.

But especially like the ones. The philosophers. The philosophers. The

philosophers that had the new idea of communism. It was a little thing there

when he was saying, we will try to win our enemies by convince them.

And then he continued. And that's made the whole difference of that. So

if they will not be convinced, then we have to crush them. Oh,

yes. Eliminate them. So, so there's like this utopian ideal that

they have. And so as long as you fit within the ideal, you're fine. But if you don't, we eliminate

you. Yeah. Which hardly seems to describe Utopia, but I guess they they had this idea that it was

important enough. Let me see if I can get this right. That the concept and the

party as a whole were so important that the the loss of an individual who's not convinced is a

signal is not significant enough to matter. It's totally a humanistic ideology. It comes from

humanistic, uh, philosophy. So, um, remember when the philosopher Friedrich

Nietzsche, he said, God is dead? Yep. Now God is dead and we have killed him. We have killed him. Yeah..

He's sad. Now, what should we do? That was his idea. What should we do? What is. How is that quote? We of

all men are most to be pitied, I think he says. Or something like that. Like this is. Whoa! Oh, no. You

know, God's gone. But now we should be a rise at the level of gods. We should be gods now.

In other words, he was saying, yeah, we should find a way Now that the Christian morals and

values in Europe, which that is another another story and I think is the, the cause of the

problem, I don't think it's the cause of a problem. Uh, philosophers like Karl

Marx or Nietzsche or dictators. I probably will elaborate later

that, but in my conviction. But I think that's what he said. He said, now we have to find a way. We have

to find some. That was his idea. Some Übermensch. What he said. Oh, this. Superman. This.

Yes. Oh, it is over, man. Which is not is not a superman. It is a human being, which is

a rise beyond the humanity that we see. Like risen to another, another level. So that was

Nietzsche who came up with. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Okay. Because I've heard the term, I don't I guess

that's German. I didn't, I wasn't quite confident on what it meant, but I've read about that and it

always struck me as odd, but I guess it's a natural outworking of, well, God's dead. So we had

to figure out how to raise humans to another level, essentially. And his idea was also to, um, to

to the level of not having at all morality, get rid of morality. And I find our own path.

That's what was he saying? He didn't know it was. But we need some people like this. And then with

this ideology, because of this ideology, I strongly believe some Übermensch were revealed in

the Europe, you know, Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Joseph Stalin, they were, you know, they

came out from this kind of ideology, this kind of philosophy, you know, and they build in an

ideology like fascism or communism. They were progressive in their in their mind, you

know, that's moved the humanity to another level. So that's so interesting. You mentioned that

because. Because it's an underlying philosophy, it seems to me beyond just communism. You see it in a

lot of our workings, right? I actually I was in, um, Denmark and I found this old book

from pre-World War two since 1930s Germany. And it was a series that they had been publishing. And

this is again before Hitler and all of that, where it's outlining the great men of history that we

should be like is like we need to be striving for this ideal. And so and it listed them out, and it

was people like Alexander the Great and Mussolini and, you know, Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler was

one of them in this book. And I remember reading that. And the guy who was he like, knew a lot of

local history and stuff like this was an important part for them in thinking, oh, we're

gonna lift ourselves up to another level, fix all these problems because we strive to be like this.

And and yet you look at the list of those people and you're like, I don't think I want to be like

those people. Like, Alexander the Great was really, really nasty. I mean, he killed a lot of people. You

know, really evil person. But they were saying, this is who you should be like. Yes, yes. And the idea is

to, you know, to have this new man, you know, to now has come as rising new man. We have

to to build this new man. I mean, the motto in for communists was, at

least in Albania, one for all, all for one. So these ideals were really. Yeah, sure. They

took took it from somewhere, but they were guess well, you know, Bible, but they, um,

they had to erase God and and they had a reason for that, I think. Oh, really? Why? Okay. Why

do you say that? Because the church at shown that God is dead. Mhm.

The in history the church has

shown sometimes the God is alive and that sometimes have proclaimed that God is dead..

So the first century, for example, and second century of the third century, they

shown they displayed the glory of God and the presence of God to the world.

People could see. You know why? Well, what is this power in these human

beings that they can pray for their persecuted tormentors while they are torn apart

from the beasts where they are crucified? What is this? And the people were drawn, and the people

were very curious, you know, and that's why they joined them to,

uh, to start to have to start this relationship, because it was this power was displayed

and they started, um, they wanted that this religion. They wanted this power. The one is this

kind of life. And then they fell in love with the source of this kind of power, which is God. And

then they continued, like the others, for 2 or 3 centuries, until the

church, uh, married with the power of human power in the mid of fourth

century. And then so interesting, you know, the description of

historian Flavius Eusebius when the bishops of different uh,

regions enter in the emperors palace. Constantine. And he says they are. Oh,

ah, it was wonderful, you know, they were walking. He invited them, I wonder, I wonder what what would

happen if they would say, oh, Constantine, you are now Christian. You converted. Yeah. Leave the

throne. Come to the catacombs. Come to the underground church. What would happen? Yeah, but I

don't know what would happen, but what we know is that it. The church was invited by

Constantine and they in during the Council of Nicaea. It was his festivals

of his 20th year of being an emperor. And then he invited them, and

he says he was very he was a fan of Constantine, the historian. They said, oh,

bishops were entering in the palace, and there were guards, bodyguards around with the swords

out, you know, and honoring them. And they stayed with them with the in the table, with

Constantine and on the couches around the table. It was a picture of Christ

and the disciples and the church. So guess who was Christ there?

And then from there the the, the display of God's glory

to the earth. And most importantly, according to Ephesians chapter three verse ten. Most

importantly for me is the reason why we exist is to display God's glory to the heavenly

powers. That's what he's saying there the wisdom, the manifold wisdom of God. So, uh,

this this display started to diminish. And that's why I was amazed in the 16th century about the

Anabaptist, because that showed that power, that kind of character of

God, of Jesus. They show that. But then after that, the

Anabaptist left the Europe. They went to the New World. And the marriage

between church and state continue with the reformers. And then after a while,

you know, we have this philosophers of 17th century, like René Descartes, who

said, oh, I can, we can even. We're so good in reasoning with human beings that without

revelation, without a need of revelation, we can understand. We can conclude logically that God

exists for the first time in history. Yeah. And the church. What did they do? You know, they just

debated. And Descartes was famous for that, for his work on. See, we can we can show God as real just

using our brains and nothing else. And then future generations of philosophers were like, you're not

right, that you got it wrong. You got it wrong. You can't. Therefore, maybe God isn't real and you

start going down this whole thing and they kind of miss the whole point. Yeah. But you know. Yes, but

where was the church? Right. Because every time the church rise up at the level of the

name it carries, you know, it's, um, only there's only

one weapon left to the devil. Persecution. But if there is

not that, the is not the horizon at this level. Oh, there are other things. Like, for example,

in the 18th century French Revolution. Oh, these guys said, oh,

we will put out religion not only from universities, not only from, you know, we can think

alone now, but even from the state. It was not the church who disconnected from the state. It was

the, you know, the Europeans that disconnected the church from the

state. They said, you don't have to do anything. We said. And later the in a century

later, during the 19th century, they said the church must

not put its nose even in everyday life. So with the industrial revolution,

with scientific revolution. They said, oh no, no, you don't have a say on this in medical science. Oh

no, the church had to disclaim or had to shame. Shamefully,

to accept that it was wrong and wrong and wrong all the time. All the time, all the time, you know.

And then it creates this idea that, oh, God is dead. The church is not anymore. It's a

ancient thing. But wasn't that a lot of the the push of communism is saying we're the wave

of the future and religions, this dusty thing from the past. It's totally irrelevant to the future.

Well, since we're the ones bringing in the future, you've got to leave religion behind. Yes, because.

Religion wanted to dance with the world, went to dance with state and then and

it it it led the dance for a thousand years during the medieval ages.

But then the leader of the dance started to be. You know the humanism.

From the 17th century and on for five centuries, you know, we have. We

see this. You know, the church going after the world and trying to convince people today. You

know, it's you see. Yeah. It's like it's always struck me as the grasping for the wrong kind of

power, because you look at your earlier church and there was power there, but it was a very different

kind of power. It was being thrown to the lion's kind of power, you know, um, that kind of it was

suffering, love, you know, patience, um, persistence in faithfulness, you know. Oh, Lord. The same

thing. Yeah. And then you see so many cases where it's like, well, okay, now the church is trying to

grasp power by by actual, like, worldly power. You know, or. The. Sword. Or things like. That. And maybe

there is a lot of witness that was totally lost there over the years. Yeah. And in fact, what's left.

In effect of instead of shining the light. Of the. Glory of God, it diminishes it, you know, it

fades it out. You see the stadiums? Uh, they there are, you know, football teams playing

there. People go there, they fans cry and beat drums and they the the

the match, uh, ends and then they go out and then come the, the Christians there and

look, turn on the light, put a concert, shout, beat the drums the same thing.

And trying to convert for Christ and trying to display God's law and call it God's glory. No,,

it's it... You're trying to use that power. Yeah. I

see what you're getting at here because. Because when we were talking on the phone. And maybe we'll

dig into this a bit later. But one of the points we kept coming back to is this probably comes out

of the enlightenment and, you know, the age of reason and science. You know that we saw hit

Europe a couple hundred years ago and so forth. Um, where we humans can fix everything. That kind of

idea. You know, you mentioned a French Revolution that was kind of that concept and etc.. You read

that all through Karl Marx, right? He's like, we support every revolution ever, because that means

the people are going to, you know, take care of all these problems and they'll rise up and fix it.

Yeah. It's like it strikes me as really naive, actually. Um, okay. So to back up a

little bit. One of the critiques that worldviews like communism say, will make against religion is

saying, oh, this is irrational, illogical, easily disproven Christianity. It just

doesn't know there's no way. Whereas we, the communists or whatever, we have reason on our

side. This is the logical way we can easily prove we're right. Um, does that make sense? I'd

love to hear your response and critique to that. And like, and you were raised in that system, so

did it come across as like, oh yeah, this is the reasonable, rational thing. Of course they're right.

Of course Christianity is wrong. Talk to me about that. Does that make sense? I think if you don't

see. Um. The logic. Uh.

In the end of the road of something and you say, oh, um,

this doesn't make logic now, but we'll make later. You know, uh, and we are, um,

we're having this philosophy because the others aren't working. That's why we are experimenting

this. Of course, it doesn't make sense. I mean, they never had ultimately

ultimate answers for their ideologies. No

Evolution in in the core of this, you know, or of this, uh, of this ideology,

it doesn't have answer, you know, and it is also proven itself, you know, Communist has proven

itself that we have also communists. Now they're still saying, you know, uh oh, no, it was a

it was a Stalinist or type of communism. It was the wrong thing. But he didn't they didn't follow

the right ideology. But it is proven. And if you don't, that you don't have that and you say,

oh, we'll see on the road. But for now you have to be quiet because we will,

uh, crush you. Uh, that, of course, doesn't make sense. Of course,

doesn't make sense. But let me say this, this, uh, it it will make

or people will fake and people will act like it meant it. Uh, it it means something, or

it makes sense if they don't have another option. I, I remember

there was this, um, I read about this, uh, missionary, English missionary. Uh, he

was spreading Bibles during the, um, the early

90s, uh, not 90s, maybe first of the 20th century.

And he was going to Turkey, and he passed through Albania, and he said, his name is Alexander

Thompson. And he said, I was in the street in the in the middle of the city in Albania. And there

here comes the and trying to sell Bibles, and here comes the priest, the priest of the, of the of the

city. And he was barefoot and he was, uh, you know, uh, he

didn't even know what he was talking about in the church because he was speaking in Greek, but he

didn't even know Greek language. He was. Just. You know, repeating what he knew

that that how was Albania at that time? You know, the clerics, the, the, the people of, you know, the

leaders of faith. They didn't know what they were saying. And then comes this ideology, of course. Mm.

People what what can they do? And now they follow that because they are oppressed and they don't

have enough strength to resist that. So again, I don't I come again there, you know, to the same

place. So if it was the first century church present, they would

have, you know, a choice and they would, uh, I would have an example

and see, oh no, no, no, no, this doesn't make sense. This makes sense. Not intellectually,

but, uh, also, As a meaning of life. So is it kind of come

back to the fruits of the system, so to speak? Right. If Christianity is showing that

transformative power that we see in the early church or, you know, different points throughout

church history, it's like, oh, whoa, you know, that makes sense. Like you just said. And if that's not

there, maybe it's pretty easy to lose it. You know, I mean. All the history of humanity is

focused on church. Hmm. So everything is it's happening because of the church.

Everything. So if the church, uh, fades its light,

these ideas will come up, okay? And people will follow this. Many people will follow

this, and they will, you know, they will be a nightmare every time. For example, even now,

American Americans think they, um, they have, uh, escaped communism.

But you know what? Antonio Gramsci, this communist philosopher, um,

said in the when he was imprisoned by the fascists in 1930. Some

he said, oh, um, we've, we've seen we've watched the nightmare in Union, Soviet

Union. So we made some mistakes, uh, in this, um, ideology.

So we have to rearrange something. This, uh, these classes, these were of classes that

Marx talks about. Yeah. This class were of classes. Um,

now we understand that the upper class is the ones that are the oppressors. They, um, they use

these institutes, social institutions like education and media, and they build a system

that people don't know, but they are part of that, which in some it's true.

But he said, look what we have to do. We don't have to do now. We don't have to, um, take the power and

then crush the enemy. The crush the. It was wrong. The proletariat crushing the the the the

the the bourgeoisie class. It was wrong. He said no, we we understand now they are

doing their job through this social institution. So we have to have the power in these social

institutions, education and media and look what what is happening today

in the West. Everyone is fighting for education, our children and

media. Mm. Yes. So the question is, is still is communism that.

Yeah, that kind of communism is dead, but it's still alive, and,

uh. And it will come up. Humanity will, I think, with other different ideas.

If the church will. Not. Shine its light. It's like there's a vacuum or a void there. And so some

idea is going to come in and fill it. Something will write. You know that that okay. So. So when we

look at something like communism, which we're kind of using it as an example, right. Or you know,

humanism, fascism, whatever. But you could look at it at its core. Would you say it shares a lot of

the same foundations as a religious belief system? Well, I think the,

the, the, the, the enemy, the devil never created anything, just

copied everything, you know, just copy it. So he always

copied. And The aim was just to do the same thing,

but without God. Just put away. God. Yeah. And God and the the

very core of the nature of God. Love. You know, God is a person and love is an

action. Everything else. Yeah. Let's stay there. Let's do it like a religion. So

yes, I think, uh, they share all the time, uh,

things that people need. People love to see. Uh, but without

God and without love. Mm. These two components, you will not find it in every

ideology. These two, uh, human ideology, God. Biblical, you

know, uh, description of God and and love. Mm. Biblical love. Ooh, that's such a good

point, though, because I'm just thinking of when we did the other episode, you know, on your story and

hearing what life was like, you know, in Albania. Yeah. Love isn't really the the thing that. Came

then. Came to mind. Which is so ironic, though, because you were saying how the Communist Party

was saying things like, you know, we value truth and, you know, laying out all these things that are

really important. And yet at the same time, you mentioned how families would report each other to

the police, and the secret police are watching everything. And it's like, wait, if we value truth

that way, that seems really weird and really like upside down. It's like what you call truth isn't

even truth. It's very Orwellian. You know, it's like where you flip the what the words even mean. You

just flip them around almost or something. It's it's terribly ironic, and it would be funny if it

wasn't real. Like it would be a joke. It's so laughable, you know? But it's. But it's funny. It's

not a joke. You know, it happened. And you, in those ten qualities of good communists, you will not find

love there. Sacrificial love. I'm talking about suffering love. Sacrificial love. Yes, you have to

sacrifice. But for the sake of humanity, it's not in the sense of bringing for.

For bringing humans to a Übermensch. To the superman. Everyone. So they said

they. They said our goal is one day. For people to have such a conscience that they

will go to work and will not be paid, but they will go to the shops, will take things

as much as they need, not more than that. And everything will be perfect, but without

sacrificial love. Which means you give all in this life for

another person, not for an ideology in order to bring that person.

That's the condition in good relationship with God That's I think

the definition of. Wow. Of love. So. Uh

yeah. That's what. That's what happened. And it's still there. Still people are still searching you

know. Yeah. I was going to say like where you're describing that underlying philosophy is very

much there. It manifests in many different ways. Yeah. But the communism being one of them, perhaps

you know which. Okay. So which which is something I want to drill into a little because okay, so we

see communism like a system like communism. And there's this deep sense that if we can get it

just right, we can fix all of humanity's problems essentially. Yeah, we'll become the. The. Superman or

the we'll fix all of society's ills. Because if we because we're humans and we can do this. It's

interesting, though, because I hear a similar ideology sometimes in America, too. America has

this sense of like, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you can become anything you want,

you can fix anything. We can do this because we're amazing or whatever, and it's like a very

different system than communism, obviously. But there seems like there's an underlying script

that's still there. Yeah, that's the same. There's some kind of foundational, some kind of

foundational philosophy that thinks humanity can fix everything. Yes. So talk to. Me about that. Yeah.

Well, well. The experiment of trying to,

um, resolve the problem, the problem of humanity without God are

continually happening. Going back a little bit to communism, they were they were saying,

uh, we will we will have a conscience like this, that so high, the

moral will be so high that we will, um, we will understand, we will arrive at this point, that we

will understand that, um, we will take as much as we need. I mean, and it.

It didn't happen. It never happened. You know, the next day that the people were

allowed, you know, to to be individuals. They just started to, you

know, when there was no lo started to to kill each other in Albania or in other places. And all the

bad things came in Albania. But even in states, when the law somehow it happens sometimes, you

know, when, uh, it was a disorder, a little bit disorder, and the law was slow, you know, started

people immediately started to, to, to fight with each other. So, so they tried to imitate

the ideology. At least they tried to imitate Acts four,

when it says for the first church that they sold everything and they put in the

feet of the apostles to fulfill every need. And then we see the story

there, how it continues. They did it willfully because they believed

in resurrection of their Lord, in the power of the resurrection of the Lord.

If that is not there, any other experiment will end up. The same

will fail. So, uh, communism said, um, hey, we'll

do it by force. Like when I read the book of, uh, uh, Leonardo Verduin.

Ah, I was amazed. There was a chapter there. Communism. He was talking about the Münster

rebellion when they decided to to share everything with each

other. I mean, they were crazy Anabaptist, so they decided to share anything

with each other by imposing a rule, a law to do that. Totally.

Misled and totally opposed to what is the, what is saying. What did the

first church. But, um, the communists did the same and that experiment failed.

Now say, oh, let's do another, you know, experiment. So we are free. We

will resolve the problem of the people by being free. From what?

From God or from, uh, oppressors like

communists. But you are still in chains. That's my point, that we're you are still in chain. That and

you don't have power to do that. What? It will never have a power to do what the First church

did in Acts four, because, uh, individualism will never bring you

into there, into the level of conscious which is full of love for

other people. And it's it's for me. It's still this, the same, uh,

attempt from a different direction. Like I. We were talking before and I said to you, you

know, you, you want to go up to the mountain and you can go from different to the same point.

You can go to the different from the different directions. I mean, the good illustration would not

be a mountain, but, uh, a ditch, a big ditch, but yeah, yeah, you go from,

from other directions. So the same I see that. Yeah. The same attempt. Because at the, at the end of the

day, at its core, it's still trying to say we humans can do this on our own and we don't need

God. That's what you're getting us. Yeah. Yes. That's that's. Yeah. It just makes me think

of Paul writing in Corinthians, you know, that the love chapter, you have all these things, but you

don't have love. It's nothing. It's just nothing. And it makes me think, like, let's just pretend.

Which never would have happened, but let's pretend, you know, communism would have created its perfect

ideal. It's utopia. But if it would have done it without love, you know, Christianity would look at

that and say, it's nothing. It doesn't matter. You did this all wrong. You. Know, and which I think

we'd all say, you know, it wouldn't have been possible for them to do that because their

foundation was wrong. Yes. You know, they started at the they were going to the wrong spot, so to speak.

Well, let me let me say let me quote something from a Richard Wurmbrand. He was a

pastor. He was persecuted, tortured in Romania, in Communist Romania. And then

Western brothers gave money and brought him to the West. And when he went to the West, He wrote

this. He said, in the homes of many Western Christians hours are sometimes

spent listening to worldly music. In our homes loud music can also be heard,,

but it's only to cover the talk about the gospel and the underground work so that the neighbors

may not overhear it and inform the secret police. We're talking about, not about Albania. We're

talking about Romania. In Albania, I don't think there was an underground church, but in Romania it

was. And it displayed the the glory of God. How underground Christians

rejoice. And on those rare occasions when they meet a serious Christian

from the West. Persecution has always produced a better Christian

witnessing Christian, a soul winning Christian. Communist persecution has backfired and produced

serious, dedicated Christians such as, are rarely seen in free lands.

These people cannot understand how anyone can be a Christian and not want to win every soul

they meet. Mm. So probably, um. And yeah. And I

think there's also one element that it's missing every time that

these ideologies, you know. Start to. To, to be, you know, present more and

more persecution. We. You know, it's lacking in the church. So,

uh, to the church. So, yeah. So in humanity's push to create the perfect ideal, at least in your case

in Albania, they're they're trying to build a utopia. And historians look back at that and have

made the case that they created probably one of the worst dystopias in history. And Albania has

been called the North Korea of Europe at the time. It was awful. Truly awful. It shows the

limitations of what happens to us when we don't live out of love, and in the power of the

resurrection. Like you were saying earlier about the church in Acts, so you no longer live in that

system, you know? Communism fell in Albania. As you reflect back on these things and other ideologies

that don't have the proper foundation. What are the things? What is something you're most grateful

for? Now that that's in the past. For me now, um,

the only thing that I'm grateful is that there was a possibility for the gospel to come to

Albania after communism fell. Um. I'm

not grateful at all about, you know, things that have changed. I mean, not having any more, you know,

secret police or that kind, that type of, uh, oppression.

Oppression? I don't think it has changed much in the

context of what we're talking just minutes before. It's still another way

for. Us. To, in our attempt to diminish the

display of God's glory on earth. But I am grateful that, um, God

gave me. Uh, life and. In the in communism time,

like, for example, this example in Romania, but in even in every experimental

that humans do um, God he, the Holy Spirit works,

uh, in the hearts of the people in. In, in every

creative way that humans want to put God out of the of the

picture, every way he finds, you know, uh, a channel to, uh,

communicate the truth. And, uh, I am grateful that he,

uh, came into my life. It could be during communist time. It could be, uh, during,

uh, I mean, democratic, so-called democratic, uh, type of system. But,

uh, I'm grateful that he came and he rescued me. That's the one thing that I'm grateful.

And I would be grateful for that. Yeah. So we've. We've. Covered a lot of different things in this

episode. Is there anything in particular you'd like to leave people with a lesson they can pull

from what we see in history, what you lived through as they go forward after they've heard

this. Is there anything you'd like to leave as a lesson? Yeah. I would like to say, uh, and to

encourage everyone that is a Christian and is a follower of

Christ, that things happen in history. Uh,

bad things happen in history unto humanity when

we don't light properly by imitating our Lord in

our life and following him as king. And, uh, the world will not be

better.We. We can see that better and better. It will not improve. But, um,,

when we shine our light, um, people, more and more people will not be deceived

by these type of experiments. Mhm. However, they will, you know,

be creative in during the different times, different ages in the human history.

Mhm. Yeah. Bring it back to the core of what makes what what sets Christianity apart

from the rest of these systems, the rest of the religion. And that's, you know, obviously Christ. But

then that it living out in love in the power of the resurrection. Those are something these

ideologies don't have. They don't have that at their core. Yeah. And we owe to our Lord and to

the people if we were all wanting to humanity. Is this just to

live as our Lord in our lifetime, that he, you know, decided for us to live.?

That's how that's what this experiment with humanity teaches us. I want to

I don't know how much I want to or how much how, How can I

emphasize more? You know this. It's a powerful point to leave us with. Thank you for sharing

today. Same here. Thank you, Reagan, for giving the opportunity.

Thanks for listening to this episode with Samir. If you found this interesting, we did a whole episode with him on his story of growing up

Albania and how he found Christ after the fall of communism. And you can find that linked down

below. He also talked about different points in church history that were relevant to the topic we

were discussing in today's episode, and we're doing a whole documentary series on the first 100

years of the Anabaptist story. We have a separate YouTube channel for that. You can find it linked

in the description here on the screen. Make sure to subscribe to that so you don't miss those

documentaries when they come out. And of course, you can subscribe to this podcast on your

favorite podcast app. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.