The book Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher is so relevant for Christian families in these times that I want to introduce it to you and hope you will read it. It explains how a soft totalitarianism is taking control of our society and how Christian families can keep living in truth amid all the lies. This book provides a much needed warning for people in the West.

The title, Live Not by Lies, is borrowed from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the famous dissident and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lived to write about the stark reality in the gulags (in Gulag Archipelago) in Siberia, where people who disagreed with the communist regime were made to work under the most terrible circumstances. Solzhenitsyn was not allowed to leave Russia to receive the Nobel prize, but later he was banned and lived in the United States. When here (in the 1970s) he was very disappointed to recognize the roots of the same mentality and wrote about it as a warning. His warnings were not heeded.

In 2015, Rod Dreher was approached by the American son of a Czechoslovak immigrant to the United States. This immigrant, an elderly lady, was concerned because she recognized more and more the signals and elements of the oppressive regime in the country where she grew up. Dreher went to talk to her and many others with a similar background. They all wanted to sound the same warning.

Many Americans are convinced that something like the communist revolution would not happen here, and that is probably true, so what is bothering those dissidents? What makes the emerging situation in the West similar to what they fled? It’s this: “Elites and elite institutions are abandoning old-fashioned liberalism, based in defending the rights of the individual, and replacing it with a progressive creed that regards justice in terms of groups. It encourages people to identify with groups—ethnic, sexual, and otherwise—and to think of Good and Evil as a matter of power dynamics among the groups” (xi). A progressive and profoundly anti-Christian mentality is rapidly overtaking society. It’s a dictatorship of humanistic ideologies, and it is very much a spiritual power of Satan.

When a dictatorship also starts to decide what you can think or say, it has become totalitarian. This new, soft totalitarianism is sneaky in its attack. Because of our wish for comfort and our materialism, we are not equipped to resist it. We even voluntarily succumb to the surveillance state by carrying our devices with us and having them all over our homes.

Added to that should be the fact that America has become a post- Christian society. Large numbers of those born after 1980 have rejected any religious faith. This emptiness is gladly filled with both materialism and vague promises of a manmade heaven on earth. This emptiness makes people much more susceptible to fear, and a fearful person is easily manipulated and controlled.

Our freedoms are gradually taken away from us in the name of equity and other (“woke”) ideas that supposedly protect the rights of victimized groups. With the media blaring the propaganda lies twenty-four hours a day, fearful people are guided into the net and become entrapped in this soft totalitarianism.

Part One: Understanding Soft Totalitarianism

The first four chapters of Live Not by Lies explain how this soft totalitarianism has come into being in the West, and how it is implemented in our culture. If you don’t believe the premise of the book and think the author is too pessimistic in his views, I recommend this part of the book so you can read about the whys and his reasoning.

The communist regime ruled by force and was not soft at all. Communists annexed several countries in eastern Europe and formed the USSR. Their media constantly spread propaganda and spied on their citizens. When disobedience to the regime was suspected, punishments were harsh and cruel, ranging from destroying a person’s life through slander to threatening family members and putting people in jail to be tortured or being put in a concentration camp like the gulags.

This went on till 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. When the wall fell, communist sympathizers did not cease to exist. They took on different forms, expressed in different words and language (socialism, liberalism, progressivism, pacifism, social justice, freedom fighters), and they continued to infiltrate education, libraries, and media, so they could eventually have control over all of those institutions. This happened all over the West, but it was more hidden in the United States, at first. Already in the 1970s, when I wanted to study journalism, all journalism schools in the Netherlands required such a strong socialist worldview that I wouldn’t attend such a school.

This infiltration and taking over is more of a soft revolution that will eventually become soft totalitarianism.

Part Two: How to Live in Truth

This second and greater half of the book is most practical for Christians in our day and age. It examines in greater detail forms, methods, and sources of resistance to the lies of soft totalitarianism. Why is religion and the hope it gives at the core of effective resistance? What does the willingness to suffer have to do with living in truth? Why is the family the most important cell of opposition? How does faithful fellowship provide resilience in the face of persecution? How can we learn to recognize totalitarianism’s false messaging and fight its deceit (xv)?

A Soviet-born immigrant who teaches at a university deep in the US heartland stresses the urgency of Americans taking people like her seriously. She warns: “You have no idea what completely normal thing you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you.” Dreher traveled to several countries of the former USSR to talk to Christians who lived through communism, to ask them how they did it, how they were different, and how they managed to keep the faith and kept their children safe from the communist propaganda and rules. He vividly tells their stories.

The most important elements of their lives were keeping the family unit intact and not being afraid to suffer for Jesus. There was a lot of suffering inflicted by the ruthless and evil regime followers. Reading about it made me cry at times. But at the same time it was awesome to read how Jesus was present in all their ordeals and how they found blessings in the midst of their suffering, even true miracles at times. Above all it is encouraging to read how these martyrs were purified in their faith.

Every chapter of this part ends with a summary entitled “See, Judge, Act.” These three words are the basis for how to live in an oppressive and demoralizing society in a God-honoring way. It is of the utmost importance that we are warned so that we can stand strong when it becomes necessary. The necessity could be here sooner than we think, as God is clearly speeding up the events of this time. We need to be prepared, and this book is a very good tool to help us in our preparations.

Annemarieke Ryskamp was born and raised in the Netherlands. She graduated with a master’s degree in Dutch Language and Literature from Utrecht University and worked for the Dutch L’Abri and as a secondary school teacher at United World College in Singapore. She attends Dutton United Reformed Church (MI), where she leads various Bible study groups and mentor groups. She has two sons who are currently in graduate studies.