Book Review - Live Not by Lies, by Rod Dreher

Live Not by Lies, by Rod Dreher, is one of the most impactful and convicting books I have read in a very long time. In short, it is a call for believers to live according to the Truth. The book’s subtitle is A Manual for Christian Dissidents. I unabashedly swiped the concept when I named this website (give credit where credit is due!). Rating: Buy it, read it, and tell your friends about it!

The book draws parallels between the growing cultural totalitarianism in the US and similar historical periods in Eastern Europe, as the Soviet Union controlled those nations in the late 1960s, the rise of socialist fascism in 1930s Germany and the Soviet Union itself, and the impact those events had on the Church. In each case, as totalitarianism rose, persecution of Christians rose with it, and institutional churches either became complicit with the authorities, or closed their doors. The Church within those countries continued only because of the efforts of a few believers that were able to maintain secret networks of like-minded believers to carry on the mission of the Body of Christ. Dreher’s main point in writing this book is to call Christians in the West to build those networks now, while we still have the opportunity.

Some reviewers have stated that Dreher’s view is overly pessimistic, but it is important to note that LNBL was written in the spring of 2020 and published in September of 2020. At that time, churches being shuttered for a year by government mandate, legitimate articles regarding presidential candidates being suppressed by a coordinated effort of social media platforms, scientific books about transgenderism being permanently removed from Amazon’s website, and the complete de-platforming of a growing free speech supporting social media alternative were not considered in the realm of possibility. As of today, a mere eight months later, these events have all occurred. If anything, LNBL has proved to be prescient.

Our cultural elites in government, entertainment, academia, and corporations are promoting a totalitarian worldview that is antithetical to the Church, and they are enforcing obedience to the demands of the worldview to any and all that do not submit to their ever-expanding rules. People that don’t submit to those rules have been censored, removed from social media platforms, marginalized, fired, and had their careers permanently damaged. An excerpt from LNBL describes it succinctly:

“To grasp the threat of totalitarianism, it’s important to understand the difference between it and simple authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is what you have when the state monopolizes political control. That is mere dictatorship—bad, certainly, but totalitarianism is much worse. According to Hannah Arendt, the foremost scholar of totalitarianism, a totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is. As Arendt has written, wherever totalitarianism has ruled, “[I]t has begun to destroy the essence of man.”

To those who aren’t history buffs, you may find portions of the book a bit detailed and tedious. It is important, however, to understand the context of the societies under which some of those interviewed for the book were living to get a sense of the persecution that they were subjected to. Don’t allow the historical details obscure the message.

The title of the book, Live Not by Lies, was copied from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s final message to the people of the Soviet Union as he was exiled in 1974, at the height of the USSR’s global power. It was a mere 15-years later that the Soviet Union would collapse. I pray that we have similar success in toppling our own version of totalitarianism.

To those interested, here is a link to the original Live Not by Lies, translated to English.