Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents

By Rod Dreher / Sentinel

Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn once noted that people often assume that their democratic government would never submit to totalitarianism---but Dreher says it's happening. Sounding the alarm about the insidious effects of identity politics, surveillance technology, psychological manipulation, and more, he equips contemporary Christian dissidents to see, judge, and act as they fight to resist the erosion of our freedoms. 304 pages, hardcover from Sentinel.

Design: Steve Webb | Photo: Benjamin Rascoe on Unsplash

Thoughts

Introduction to Deuteronomy

The children of Israel are on the threshold of entering into the Promised Land. God has led them in the wilderness for 40 years, not because it took that long to walk from Egypt to this place, but because of their rebellion. God told them that generation would never enter the Promised Land.

But now there is a new generation. All of the old generation was dead, and God was about to fulfill His promise to give the Promised Land to this generation.

But because of Moses' disobedience at Meribah, God told him he would not enter the Promised Land, either. 

So Moses spoke to all Israel when they were about to cross over into Canaan, the Promised Land.

The word "Deuteronomy" means "second law". And this book is a sermon, or series of messages from God through Moses to Israel. We must remember that none of this generation was old enough to remember when God gave the tablets of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, also called Mount Horeb. So Deuteronomy is a second giving of the Law, because God wanted this new generation to follow His commands. He did not want them to fail as their parents had. 

And God knew that Moses would not be there to lead them, so He directed Moses to remind them of how God had delivered them from their captivity in Egypt, and what happened in the 40 years since that miraculous event. And He wanted to remind them, or perhaps for some of them, teach them for the first time, of God's Laws.

We humans have short memories. We need to be reminded again and again. When we look back at history, that fact seems evident. I'll go into no detail here, but what we are living through right now is proof of it. Just about 75 years ago, World War II was fought, and facism was beat back by forces for freedom. And now, facism is making a comeback, using another name...socialism, democratic socialism, woke-ism, etc. 

How could this be happening? After the war, the cry was, "Never again!". But here we are. This is happening because my generation, shamefully, neglected to remind the next generation of the lessons learned.

God, through Moses, reminded the generation about to enter Canaan, the lessons learned. And more than that, Deuteronomy was and is a book for all generations. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy three times when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. 

“Deuteronomy is one of the greatest books of the Old Testament. Its influence on the domestic and personal religion of all ages has not been surpassed by any other book in the Bible. It is quoted over eighty times in the New Testament and thus it belongs to a sma...