The line has been drawn

There are moments in history when the illusion of neutrality is stripped away, when men and nations are forced to take a stand. In such times, the battle between truth and falsehood, righteousness and sin, is no longer an abstract matter of philosophy but an inescapable reality that demands action. Two men, writing in different eras yet facing the same fundamental crisis, understood this with piercing clarity: G.K. Chesterton and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was a towering figure of English letters, a journalist, novelist, and Christian apologist whose wit and wisdom exposed the contradictions of secular modernity.

He defended the Christian faith against the rising tides of relativism, materialism, and political idolatry. On his deathbed, Chesterton uttered words that remain as urgent now as they were then:

“The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), a Russian novelist and historian, bore witness to the soul-crushing tyranny of the Soviet regime.

A prisoner in Stalin’s gulags, he chronicled the horrors of totalitarianism in The Gulag Archipelago, revealing that the greatest atrocities were not merely the result of oppressive systems but of individual moral choices. He famously wrote:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.”

Both men understood what many today refuse to acknowledge: that the defining struggle of humanity is not between political factions or economic theories but between truth and falsehood, good and evil, light and darkness.

The prophet Isaiah foresaw the devastation that follows when a society rejects this fundamental distinction. His warning is as chilling today as when it was first spoken:

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

Isaiah does not address this warning to a pagan empire but to God’s own people—those who knew the truth yet chose to pervert it. This is not merely a matter of mistaken judgment but a willful inversion of the moral order. To call good evil and evil good is to declare war on reality itself. It is the sin of Eden, where man sought to define right and wrong apart from God. It is the rebellion of Babel, where man believed he could reshape the world by his own will. And it is the defining feature of our age.

Modern society prides itself on being “enlightened,” yet it celebrates the murder of the unborn as a human right. It preaches tolerance while silencing dissent. It exalts self-indulgence as freedom and condemns self-discipline as oppression. The very foundations of morality, once rooted in divine law, are now subject to the shifting sands of human preference. Like Israel in Isaiah’s time, the world has not merely stumbled into sin—it has institutionalized it, glorified it, and demanded that all bow before it.

This is why Chesterton’s words ring with prophetic urgency:

“The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.”

There is no more room for comfortable compromise. The Christian cannot sit at the table of demons and partake in the banquet of the Lamb (1 Corinthians 10:21). We must choose.

Yet Solzhenitsyn reminds us that this choice is not only external. The battle is not merely against corrupt governments or false ideologies; it is within us.

“The line separating good and evil passes… right through every human heart.”

Before we stand against the darkness in the world, we must root it out of our own souls. It is not enough to denounce the sins of the culture while coddling the same sins in our private lives. The war begins in the secret places of the heart, where each man must decide whether he will serve God or himself.

The time for lukewarm Christianity is over. Christ Himself has declared:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30)

There is no neutral ground. Silence in the face of evil is complicity. To shrink back is to surrender. The world is hurtling toward moral chaos, and the Church must decide whether it will stand as a beacon of light or be swallowed by the darkness.

The line has been drawn. Choose wisely.