{"id":44464,"date":"2025-05-20T13:14:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=44464"},"modified":"2025-05-20T13:14:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:14:19","slug":"rod-dreher-warns-against-signs-of-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/05\/rod-dreher-warns-against-signs-of-the-times.html","title":{"rendered":"Rod Dreher Warns Against Signs of the Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Left: Elekes Andor \/ wikimedia.org | Right: Angel Studios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2020, Rod Dreher released his book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents<\/em>, which warned Christians of the growing \u201csoft authoritarianism\u201d of the United States. At the time of the book\u2019s release, the United States was still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, with churches only slowly being allowed to reopen in certain states for in-person worship. Now, five years later, the book is being turned into a documentary.<\/p>\n

The documentary, released by Angel Studios, focuses on interviews with people who lived through totalitarian regimes and compares their experiences to the growing secular culture of the United States. Dreher recently spoke about the project to The Christian Post<\/em><\/a>, noting that while his contribution to the project had been \u201cfairly minimal,\u201d he was impressed by director Isaiah Smallman\u2019s \u201csomewhat different\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

Some of the differences Dreher noted were that while his book is more \u201cmethodical,\u201d Smallman leans more into the emotional side of the issue. \u201cThat’s not to say that he doesn’t fill it with facts,\u201d noted Dreher. \u201cIt’s really more of a style matter.\u201d Dreher then addressed the issue of book banning and whether or not allowing certain materials in public libraries is similar to communist book banning of the past. There has been fierce debate on what types of materials should be allowed in schools, with books like Gender Queer<\/em> causing outrage for their explicit content while being allowed in public schools. Supporters of the book have accused those who pull such books from libraries of censorship.<\/p>\n

Dreher, however, said he did not believe the two things are the same. \u201cAnd so, I think people who believe that everything should always be freely available, I think that that’s completely unrealistic,\u201d he said. \u201cThat said, under communism, the bans were across the board. They were about politics, anything political, anything that violated the governing ideology was banned. That’s not what we’re dealing with in the U.S. They’re not really bans. You can still buy these books. You just can’t necessarily teach them in elementary schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real concern for Dreher is the inclination for comfort, which leads to \u201csoft totalitarianism.\u201d He cited George Orwell\u2019s 1984 <\/em>where the masses are forced to submit to full devotion to the omnipresent \u201cBig Brother\u201d as a form of \u201chard totalitarianism.\u201d \u201cAldous Huxley’s [soft totalitarianism] in Brave New World<\/em>, that’s much more like what we’re dealing with. And this is a system in which you can manufacture consent of the governed by making them very comfortable and then threatening to take away their comfort if they don’t go along with whatever the ideology demands,\u201d he said. He noted that most people are made to believe they ought to avoid suffering but that suffering \u201cmakes us human.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also warned that while American culture has been dominated by left-wing soft totalitarianism, right-wing totalitarianism is on the rise as well. \u201cJust because left-wing soft totalitarianism has been dominant does not mean that we on the right are not susceptible to it. So, we need to be very careful in policing ourselves and our own communities to avoid that,\u201d he warned. He also stated that conservative churches have \u201cfailed in trying to understand the signs of the times.\u201d \u201cWe have to be careful about this, but in the end, you have to confront this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2020, Rod Dreher released his book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, which warned Christians of the growing \u201csoft authoritarianism\u201d of the United States. At the time of the book\u2019s release, the United States was still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, with churches only slowly being allowed to reopen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":44467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"\nRod Dreher Warns Against Signs of the Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/05\/rod-dreher-warns-against-signs-of-the-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rod Dreher Warns Against Signs of the Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 2020, Rod Dreher released his book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, which warned Christians of the growing \u201csoft authoritarianism\u201d of the United States. At the time of the book\u2019s release, the United States was still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, with churches only slowly being allowed to reopen…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/05\/rod-dreher-warns-against-signs-of-the-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-20T17:14:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/Rod-Dreher_credit-Left-Elekes-Andor-wikimedia-Right-Angel-Studios.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rod Dreher Warns Against Signs of the Times","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/05\/rod-dreher-warns-against-signs-of-the-times.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rod Dreher Warns Against Signs of the Times","og_description":"In 2020, Rod Dreher released his book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, which warned Christians of the growing \u201csoft authoritarianism\u201d of the United States. 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