Believers Must Uncompromisingly 'Live Not by Lies' in a Post-Christian America

by Emily Wood Hawley

Each generation grows up in a world slightly different than the one their parents did, but the early-2000s America I was raised in is drastically different than the America my future children will inhabit as basic definitions have been flipped on their head.  

Truth has a target on its back in a culture that profits from lies and confusion. 

As “Pride” month is upon us, it’s even more evident that the dividing lines are starker than ever as part of society rejects truth as fundamental as male and female.  

We are operating by different sets of definitions on concepts as foundational as marriage and sex to the point where even the question “What is a woman?” is considered controversial. 

Realities once accepted as fact by society at large are now under fire by a culture that seeks to undermine the truth. Such delusions have gone so far that federal law will soon instruct K-12 schools to affirm biological males who claim they’re women, allowing them to use girls-only spaces with the change the Biden administration made to Title IX. 

In a post-Christian era that has “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” as in Romans 1, we can still rest assured that we were each born at the exact moment in human history that God intended and are called to uphold truth in a fallen world.  

And as Christians in but not of a world that is in opposition to truth, we must be countercultural and live not by lies. 

The Lies of Totalitarianism 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident who exposed the horrors of the Soviet gulag system, wrote an essay entitled “Live Not By Lies” in 1974 before he was exiled to the West for his opposition to the totalitarian regime.  

While Solzhenitsyn penned these words to urge Soviet citizens not to cede to the control under which they were living, his call to “live not by lies” also applies to us as Christians in a culture that has co-opted truth for falsehood. He penned these powerful words as a call to rise above the regime and not give in to lies, words that ring true today:  

“Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! … overcoming our timidity, let each man choose: Will he remain a witting servant of the lies (needless to say, not due to natural predisposition, but in order to provide a living for the family, to rear the children in the spirit of lies!), or has the time come for him to stand straight as an honest man, worthy of the respect of his children and contemporaries?” 

The Lies of Post-Christian America 

Just a few years ago, many of the lies accepted as truth today would have been mocked. It has not even been a decade since the Obergefell opinion was handed down in 2015, and we are seeing how slippery the slope actually is from rejecting God's design for marriage to now dismissing realities as fundamental as the gender binary and how quickly society declines when truth is spurned in the name of progressivism. 

Of course, truth itself is resolute and unchanging, but this does not mean it can’t be twisted or snuffed out in dangerous ways. As we already see, accepting falsehood as truth comes with an array of consequences, and we are paying the price. Society cannot thrive when truth is dethroned, and a culture not anchored in foundational truth will descend into disorder. 

It’s a dangerous world where wrong is considered right, lies are considered truth, evil is considered good, wicked is considered moral, and relativism is considered absolute.  

To see the tragic consequences of living by lies, look around at the confusion and chaos of a culture that calls the murder of innocent children “health care” and encourages the medical mutilation of minors under the guise of “gender identity.”  

This is why as believers, we must never play by the rules of deception or cede ground to lies regardless of how “offensive” the truth may seem. As Solzhenitsyn said, “Never knowingly support lies.”  

For example, it is not nice, polite, or loving to affirm falsehood for fear of being regarded as insensitive; it’s harmful. Calling someone by their “preferred pronouns” opposite of their biology is doing them a disservice by perpetuating a destructive delusion. Supporting lies is cruel, not kind.  

Truth Without Compromise  

Satan is the father of lies who has deceived mankind since the Fall in the Garden of Eden when he asked Eve, “Did God really say …?” Should we be surprised that he is still lying to confuse and ensnare humanity?  

The definition of Truth is Jesus Christ Himself (John 14:6) who told the Jews who believed in Him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).  

Only in Christ is there absolute truth and freedom. As believers in a post-Christian America, we must uncompromisingly live not by lies but by the Truth that sets us free. Clinging to Him, we must reject falsehood and be loyal to the truth over fear of man and love of the world. 

As Solzhenitsyn emphasized in his essay, this is not the “easy” path, but it’s the worthwhile one for the soul and can effect significant change: “So you will not be the first to take this path, but will join those who have already taken it. This path will be easier and shorter for all of us if we take it by mutual efforts and in close rank. If there are tens of thousands of us then we would not even recognize our country.” 

Now is the time to live with unwavering conviction and clarity instead of cowardice and compromise, living not by lies.  

Originally published in Higher Ground Times.