America is in a “pre-totalitarian state?” Really?

I despise alarmism, but I’m also a realist

I’m not a big fan of alarmism. I know it’s the favored approach of cultural, political, moral, and religious commentators of all perspectives these days. And I know why it is – alarmism and sensationalism bring controversy, controversy brings greater visibility, greater visibility brings website clicks, website clicks bring revenue. So, I certainly understand why it’s so common and widespread.

I also freely admit that it used to be a strategy I routinely employed. Back when I did a daily radio show and maintained a website for it, the formula for growth was conflict. I even had a few highly successful hosts tell me that if I really wanted to succeed in the business, I needed to find ways to make people unreasonably scared or angry. Fear and anger, I was told, were the two greatest motivators to make people tune in. Even though I undoubtedly exploited that reality more than I should have, I’m thankful for the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life that provided that still small voice saying those aren’t the attributes of a godly man.

As an ambassador for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), I want to lead people away from fear, by using words and actions that point them to the only One who can bring deliverance. And so I try to make a conscious effort to avoid unnecessarily inflammatory headlines for my columns (disclaimer: sometimes the headline is out of a writer’s control) or these Memos that attempt to incite panic, fear, or hatred in people. The world has plenty of that, and I’m surrendered to a Spirit that offers the opposite.

That said, the reality is that we inhabit a world on fire. Pretending that sin doesn’t have consequences, or that the enemy isn’t desperate to enslave us in order to subject us to them, is the furthest thing from Christian responsibility I can fathom. Just as the prophet Ezekiel was called to be a witness to his people, Paul encourages us to “proclaim Christ while admonishing and teaching men in all wisdom.” (Colossians 1:28)

That’s what immediately came to my mind when I saw Christian commentator Rod Dreher’s recent remark on social media:

The book he’s referring to is “Live Not by Lies,” – one that I haven’t read, but want to. Since I haven’t read the book, but was intrigued by the suggestion that our country is in a pre-dictatorial state, I did some research on the claim. Here’s how Christian writer Tim Challies describes Dreher’s thesis:

Dreher believes that America has entered into a pre-totalitarian condition in which it may not take much for a fully-fledged form of totalitarianism to overtake the nation. This is unlikely to be the familiar “hard” totalitarianism of the former Soviet Union that depended upon armed revolution, government control, and distant gulags, but a “soft” form that will take on a guise of gentleness and concern for the marginalized. Compliance to its ideals will not be enforced by the state or a dictatorial strongman but by the small group of elites who forms public opinions and by the large corporations whose technologies have become deeply embedded in our lives. It will not be merely authoritarian, monopolizing political control, but fully totalitarian, demanding the conformity of every aspect of society to its controlling ideology.

I’m not an alarmist, but I am – or at least try to be – a realist, and I agree with Dreher’s claim. I think we are there. I say that partially based on experience. While most are likely to concentrate on federal COVID dictates as evidence of a creeping totalitarianism, I’m seeing the ideological conformity more than anything. I asked my AP Government students a few weeks ago, “How many of you worry about posting something on social media that will be deemed offensive and cause you to be bullied or ‘cancelled?’” Every hand in the class went up. Every hand. That’s not freedom.

I agree with Dreher based on my limited knowledge of how political philosophies develop, function, and shift. What we’re dealing with in America today is not a difficult phenomenon to understand. When a prevailing moral philosophy disappears from the public square, everyone will do what is right in their own eyes. That’s biblical – the precise description Samuel gives us in the book of Judges to describe the evil era in Israel’s history when the nation fell into a pattern of sin that led to repeated bouts with oppression (Judges 21:25).

With everyone embracing their own self-determined morality, expressing their own personal right and wrong, cultural chaos ensues. And what always rises to power in a chaotic, anarchical society? History reveals that the answer 100% of the time is a tyrant, an oppressor, a dictator, or some controlling regime. Think of a playground without an adult monitor. The bully will inevitably rule.

That is what Dreher’s reference to the Weimar Republic in Germany was all about. The Weimar state was the ill-fated government that attempted to preside over the chaotic, economically depressed, morally adrift period between the end of World War I and World War II in Germany. The breeding grounds for Hitler. I’m not an alarmist preparing to tell anyone that America has a Hitler on the horizon. But I am a realist prepared to tell you that our cultural abandonment of truth, our societal decision to live by the lies we tell ourselves, come with consequences. And they are already starting to unfold all around us.

What better time than the uncertain days we live in, ones where we are enticed by nearly every headline we read to worry and fear what awaits on the horizon…what better time than to embrace and cling to the only Truth that is the same yesterday, today, and forever? What better time than now to echo the Apostle Paul who presented himself as,

Titus 1

1 A servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness – 2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.

That’s the ground upon which I choose to stand, and I hope you’ll be there with me.

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ICYMI

If you’re interested, I wrote a couple things last week about what could be a landmark ruling against legal abortion coming this summer:

• If Roe v Wade isn’t overturned after THAT, here’s the one reason why

• Anyone who is “pro-life” will be “pro-birth”

I also preached a message this week on Ephesians 6 and the “armor of God.” Studying this passage really opened my eyes to some things I’d always gotten wrong. Would love your thoughts if you get a chance to watch: