Rod Dreher on His Latest Book: Tell Not Lies
Breakpoint
Colson Center
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2020
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the BreakPoint Podcast, author Rod Dreher joins John Stonestreet to discuss his latest book. In Live Not By Lies Dreher paints a grim picture of hard totalitarianism in Russia, warning Americans that we're stepping into a period of soft totalitarianism.
John and Rod provide helpful perspectives in raising a generation with strong faith convictions. One specific story highlighted Tomislov Kolacovic, a Russian pastor who provided teaching for Christians during Russian persecution. Kolacovic coined the response see, judge, and act when facing challenges to the faith. John highlights the concept as a strong practice for parents to teach children today, giving a platform to stand strong in faith amid culture conflicts.
The pair also provide context to why youth turn to socialism. Dreher notes through personal stories how much of the dark history of totalitarianism is not passed down to the younger generation. Live Not By Lies provides a historical treatise outlining the dangers of soft totalitarianism that is prevalent in our culture today.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, welcome to the Breakpoint podcast. Always fun to have my friend, uh, Roger, to talk about |
| 0:07.8 | whatever latest thing that he has written. And right, I don't want to take too much credit, |
| 0:12.8 | but I'm pretty sure I have done more than anybody else to promote a 2013 article. You wrote |
| 0:18.6 | called Sex After Christianity. I always tell people to Google it, but Google |
| 0:22.7 | it carefully. And of course, we spent a lot of time at the Colson Center engaging the Benedict |
| 0:28.0 | option on various levels. Just really appreciated that. Your latest book has got a wonderful |
| 0:33.6 | title. And I've got to say, I have been going back to Alexander Sultonetson's Harvard speech |
| 0:39.7 | almost multiple times a day since 2016. And so the title of this book coming from Sultonetson |
| 0:46.2 | obviously grabbed my attention. The book, again, Live Not By Lies, Emmanuel for Christian Dissidents. |
| 0:52.3 | Rod's good to see you. Thank you. Yes, here it is. We both have it. |
| 0:55.7 | Great to see you. And thanks for joining us again on the Bright Point podcast. It's great to be here. |
| 1:00.8 | And I'm always glad to be in the trenches with you, John. Well, we are. And I just want to say that |
| 1:06.9 | I'm honored that you would come on here after going on Tucker Carlson. So that says a lot. |
| 1:11.2 | So I'm grateful for that. Look, we're joking and having fun because you are one of those guys. |
| 1:16.7 | I feel like always brings interest in life to a room. The book, however, just like the Benedict |
| 1:22.2 | option, is a quite serious book. And what I was struck by and live not by lies is, you know, I've always appreciated |
| 1:30.2 | your ability to write and to communicate, but the real strength of this is not your ideas. The real |
| 1:36.0 | strength of this is the dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of stories from people who |
| 1:41.6 | survived very hard times under communist regimes in another time and |
| 1:46.5 | another place. Talk a little bit, first of all, about that process. I mean, just spending so much |
| 1:53.1 | time with these individuals. I want to get into the why and how it relates to today, but that was a |
| 1:58.2 | remarkable part of this book, was just story after story after |
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