"Live Not by Lies" by Rod Dreher

In February of 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published an open letter to the Russian people, one that has come to be known by its core message: “Live not by lies.” That same day, he was arrested; shortly thereafter, because of his international reputation, he was exiled from the Soviet Union, not to return until almost 20 years later with the fall of the communist government. 

Conservative writer and columnist Rod Dreher, in homage to Solzhenitsyn, has used the message for the title of his latest book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. The difference is that Dreher’s book is not aimed at the Soviet Union; instead, it is aimed at what he sees as a growing “soft totalitarianism” in the United States among the political, media, entertainment, academic, and corporate elites. His primary concern is Christians in the United States, the people who cannot accept the madness engulfing American elites but are largely unprepared for the consequences that will inevitably follow.

 

For guidance, he turns to the Christian community of Eastern Europe that survived communist rule and helped to bring it down, but which also paid an often terrible price for following their conscience and their faith. He asks if Western and particularly American Christians are prepared for that sacrifice. And he believes that much can be learned from the dissidents of Eastern Europe and Russia because what is happening in the United States mirrors the Bolshevik / Marxist takeover of Russia; it’s only happening here in slow motion and in a “softer” way. But the end result threatens to be the same – a society that brooks no dissent and one that will eradicate dissent wherever it might emerge. 

 

Rod Dreher

Live Not by Lies is divided into two parts. The first part concerns understanding what soft totalitarianism is all about: a developing totalitarian culture, how progressivism has taken on all the trappings of a religion, and how these ideas and trends have been facilitated by capitalism, and especially the largest corporations. The second part is the manual for Christians: how it is possible to live in truth, how to cultivate cultural memory, the importance of the family (the institution that has been under siege since at least the 1960s), how faith forms the basis for resistance, how Christians can support one another, and how to understand and accept the suffering that is to come.

 

The book is highly readable and accessible; Dreher has a compelling writing style that keeps the reader engaged. Unlike his previous book, The Benedict Option, this one has been largely ignored by all the major new and literary media other than those that are conservative. This, too, one might argue, is a form of soft totalitarianism – ignore what makes you uncomfortable and points out your less-than-democratic leanings. 

 

Dreher, who writes for American Conservative, is the author of Crunchy Cons (2006); The Little Way of Ruthie Leming (2013); How Dante Can Save Your Life (2015), and The Benedict Option (2017). He is a Greek Orthodox, and lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 

Some might say that Dreher can often be borderline hysterical, exaggerating or overstating his case. That might be, but recall Flannery O’Connor, who once explained her stories by saying you write large for the nearly blind and shout for the nearly deaf. The future may not unfold exactly as Dreher is predicting, but the evidence is all around us that it’s unfolding closely enough to what’s presented in Live Not by Lies.

 

Related:

 

My review of How Dante Can Save Your Life.

 

My review of The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher.

 

“The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity” by Michael Kruger

Seminary president, professor, and theologian Michael Kruger doesn’t mince words when it comes to explaining the belief system of what traditional or conservative Christians call progressive Christianity. In the short work The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity, Kruger outlines what he sees as how faith can come to terms with a secular culture, essentially by compromising the very heart of what faith is about.

The fact is, he can’t mince words, because the stakes are so high. Protestantism and Catholicism are in freefall in the United States. Protestant mainline denominations have been embracing what they see as a more humane, loving, and giving understanding of Christianity for more than a century now, and their numbers continue to drop with no end on sight. The same is true for the Church of England and the Anglican Church of Canada. Even more conservative Protestant denominations, like the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptists, have been affected to a lesser degree. Evangelical churches seem to be holding their own.

Kruger identifies 10 characteristics of progressive Christianity – Jesus as role model rather than God to be worshipped; a de-emphasis on people’s brokenness and sin; an emphasis on reconciliation; gracious behavior being more important than right belief; questions being more important than answers; encouraging personal search over group uniformity; needs always being more important than institutions; a desire for peacemaking; caring more about love and less about sex; and the importance of life in this world rather than hope for the afterlife. 

Michael Kruger

He sees a half-truth in each of the ten, but it is that half-truth that tends to become the whole truth as taught and practiced. He stakes a strong claim early in the introduction. Quoting theologian and scholar J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) in his classic Christianity and Liberalism, Kruger says “simply put, liberal Christianity is not Christianity.” He goes on to say that Christians “must be able to distinguish the true faith from those things that masquerade as the true faith.”

As noted above, he doesn’t mince words. And while he’s focused here on progressive Christianity, there’s equal danger coming from the other side – like the proponents of the prosperity gospel.

Kruger is the President and the Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C. and ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America. He has written or co-written numerous works, including The Early Text of the New Testament, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate, A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament: The Gospel Realized, Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity, and Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books. He blogs at Canon Fodder.

The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity is a short but vital work and a good summary of some of the issues tearing the church apart.