Learning From Our Elders

 

A Review of Live Not By Lies, Rod Dreher, Sentinel Press, 2020

No one would argue that being a Christian in the United States is easier than almost anywhere else. One of our founding pillars was the freedom to practice our religion as we see fit and people have migrated for centuries to enjoy that freedom. Nevertheless, there are changes afoot. Basic moral codes, understand in the West for thousands of years, are not only being questioned but mocked and vilified. Under our current legislation, speaking plainly about what Scripture calls sin can lead to accusation of hate crime. Big businesses, once protectors of the moral status quo (whether for the right reasons or not is another matter), now enforce an actively libertine agenda through their profits and their “training” sessions. Any state who dares to oppose this risks losing the tax dollars that come from those successful businesses.

At the time of this writing Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota and favorite of social conservatives, just vetoed a bill passed by the South Dakota legislature that would protect women’s sports to only women. She admits it was for fear of the NCAA’s potentially negative response to the bill. This even though the NCAA had yet to address the bill in any form. Just the thought that South Dakota might face collegiate consequences was enough to derail a bill Lyndon Johnson would have thought common sense. But Governor Noem is not alone. Many other red-state, supposedly reliable conservative governors have capitulated to the woke crowd. As the late columnist Joe Sobran said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I'm a Republican.”

Yet Christians are still free to practice their beliefs without fear, aren’t they? Yes, but with increasing limitations. States drunk with power during the COVID crisis shut down churches because of the health risk while allowing other institutions and rioting activities to proceed with few precautions. The state of Christian freedom in the U.S. is not what is used to be. That leads me to the excellent book by Rod Dreher, Live Not By Lies.

The title is from a speech written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn the day after he was arrested again in the Soviet Union, his home country. In the book, Dreher interviews many who witnessed communism at its most brutal in Russia and other former Soviet-bloc countries. He documents the striking parallels between former communist countries and the United States in the rise of totalitarianism. He admits it does not look that same here in 2021 as it did in Russia in 1920, but there are enough similarities to make any reader take notice.

He begins by telling the origins of the book, an out of the blue phone call he received from a doctor whose mother was a Czechoslovakian immigrant to the U.S. who had lives under communism. “She had been part of the Catholic anti-communist resistance. Now in her nineties and living with her son and his family, the old woman had recently told her American son that events in the United States reminded her of when communism first came to Czechoslovakia.” Media, both social and mainstream contribute to the totalitarian atmosphere that is growing in the U.S.

The first portion of the book is an analysis of totalitarianism in two forms: its harder form as practiced in the Soviet Union, and its softer form, as practiced in modern North America and Western Europe. He begins with a summary of totalitarianism from Hannah Arendt. Dreher does a good job of outlining Arendt’s description of totalitarianism and demonstrating how it currently manifests itself in the U.S. He gives a good, albeit simple, overview of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. It is impossible to detail the complex elements of the revolution, but he does an able job. The remainder of the first portion explains the how social justice is used and how its tools – consumer capitalism and surveillance technology - are bringing millions of Americans to submission to the gods of our day.

The second half of the book is the best. Here Dreher weaves the stories of everyday people (mostly Christians) in communist countries into resisted the lies of their time. He organizes the chapters into six methods they used to resist: prioritizing the truth, cultivating cultural memory, the necessity of strong families, religion as a bedrock, standing together, and embracing suffering are all elements of successful resistance. Reading the words of faithful men and women who endured great persecution for their faith was clarifying. It’s one thing to hear people living today warn us to beware, much as Dreher did in his last book, The Benedict Option. It’s another to read about people who faced persecution and death in my lifetime because they were faithful to Christ and “loved not their lives unto death.”

The most poignant application was the call to teach and prepare our children for the coming storms. In the past books like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs were helpful, but the addition of this and other books (Richard Wumbrand’s Tortured for Christ comes to mind) gives kids a more well-rounded and updated reminder of the faithfulness of saints in the past who suffered for their loyalty to Christ.

The conclusion of the book offers something that few books in this genre do: hope. “Our cause appears lost…but we are still here! Now our mission is to build the underground resistance to the occupation to keep alive the memory of who we were and who we are, and to stoke the fires of desire for the true God. Where there is memory and desire, there is hope.” He then concludes with an extended quote from Solzhenitsyn’s essay that gives the book its title. “And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will be able to cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not be able to recognize our country!” The other half of the quote is the other side of the warning – if we do not pursue the task of preparing and building, we will be crushed and will have no one to blame but ourselves.

This book is Rod Dreher at his journalistic best: interviewing people, letting them tell their stories, and applying what they say to our present situation. This book is a tool of discipleship for families who know that we don’t live in the same country as our parents. It is for those who know that to preserve our souls we must start by building relationships, making disciples, and cultivating the plot God gives us.