BOOK REVIEW


What Are You Reading These Days?


by BOB STRETCH


As we seek to provide helpful resources, we will invite pastors from within the FEBC to review some of the books they have been reading. The FEBC does not necessarily agree with the content of the book nor the opinions of the reviewer. However, we are pleased to share various perspectives with you through this feature. — Editor.


Over the years, I have noticed that pastors often ask their colleagues, “What are you reading?” It’s a pastoral quest to find works that might help us clarify our thinking or chal- lenge our assumptions. I have been asked that question many times over the years.


Allow me to tell you about a book I found both helpful


and sobering. The book is titled, “Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents” by Ron Dreher. It was published in 2020 by Sentinel Publishers. The book's title is borrowed from a quote by Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.


The author, like many of us,


assumed that the threat of totalitari- anism had passed. Then in 2015 he re- ceived a phone call from a total strang- er. The caller’s mother was an elderly Czechoslovakian immigrant. She had spent six years as a political prisoner in her former homeland for being part of a Catholic anti-communist resistance movement. She had told her son that events in the United States today re- minded her of when communism was rising to power in Czechoslovakia.


This alarmed Ron Dreher, so he interviewed individu-


als who had lived under communism. They all agreed that America is drifting toward some type of totalitarianism. They also all shared a frustration, even an anger, that most Americans do not seem to notice this drift.


Ron Dreher introduced me to the difference between


authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Authoritarianism is when the state monopolizes total political control. But totalitarianism is where the state goes further; it aspires to define and control reality. This means that truth is what- ever the totalitarianism state says truth is.


Here is a quote from the book: Under soft totalitarianism, the media, academia,


corporate America and other institutions are practicing


‘Newspeak’ and compelling the rest of us to engage in ‘doublethink’ every day. Men have periods. The woman standing in front of you is to be called “he.” Diversity and inclusion means excluding those who object to this ideological uniformity. Equity means treating persons unequally, regardless of their skills and achievements, in order to advance an ideologically correct result. Dre- her then quotes George Orwell — author of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” — saying, “The heresy of heresies was common sense.”


Dreher described how Soviet totalitarianism took


over the Eastern European countries. They politicized “all aspects of life, enforced by secret police, prisons, and labor camps. It meant the harsh persecution of religious believers, the crushing of free speech and expression, and the erasure of historical and cultural memory.” This last action by the communists made me think of mobs tearing down American historical statues during the riots of 2020. By erasing common history and culture, the state is then free to tell you what your history is.


The book contains inspiring accounts


of people who resisted totalitarianism. They did so because of their Christian beliefs, or simply because they knew total- itarianism was wrong and dehumanizing. Many of them were beaten and imprisoned for their resistance. However, a number of them triumphed over totalitarianism.


The second part of the book outlines how a Christian dissident is to resist.


One is to “value nothing more than truth.” Another is to “cultivate cultural memory.” Dreher wrote, “It’s the act of forgetting itself that makes us vulnerable to totalitarian- ism in general.” The author also considers the family “a resistance cell” to soft totalitarianism.


This is not a Christian book in the strictest sense. Yet


the author gives followers of Christ concrete steps to take to prepare for what many of us believe is coming. Perhaps in a way it is already here.


Pastor Bob Stretch is the Lead Pastor of Faith Evangelical Bible Church in Henderson, Nebraska. He and his wife, Julie, have been in full-time ministry, including overseas service, for over 40 years. They have three adult children and 11 grandchildren.


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