Daniel: October 30, 1938. A woman in Indianapolis bursts into a church prayer meeting, screaming, "New York has been destroyed! You might as well go home to die!" Sophia: Whoa, what happened? Was she having some kind of breakdown? Daniel: She wasn't crazy. She was just one of up to a million Americans who genuinely believed the world was ending, all because of a single, incredibly clever, radio broadcast. Sophia: That’s terrifying. And that level of mass panic is the opening shot of the book we're diving into today: Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace by John Mark Comer. Daniel: Exactly. And Comer is such an interesting figure to be writing this. He was the founding pastor of a church in Portland, Oregon, for nearly two decades, right in the heart of a very secular, post-Christian culture. Sophia: Right. So he’s not writing this from some isolated monastery. He’s writing from the front lines, observing how these modern pressures and ideas affect people's peace. Daniel: And it clearly struck a nerve. The book was a New York Times bestseller and is widely acclaimed in many circles, though it also stirred up some real debate, which we’ll definitely get into. But it all starts with this core idea: the most dangerous invasion isn't from Mars—it's the invasion of lies into our own minds.

Sophia: Okay, so you have to tell me the full story of that radio broadcast. How on earth did one program convince people that the world was ending? Daniel: It is one of a kind. The director was a 23-year-old wunderkind named Orson Welles. His radio show, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, had low ratings. So, for the night before Halloween, he decided to adapt H.G. Wells's sci-fi novel, The War of the Worlds. But he did it with a twist. Sophia: What was the twist? Daniel: He formatted it as a series of realistic, breaking news bulletins. The show started with some boring ballroom music, then a voice cut in: "We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin." An "astronomer" from Princeton reported strange explosions on Mars. Then a "reporter" named Carl Phillips was on-site at a farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, where a metallic cylinder had crashed. Sophia: Oh, I see where this is going. He made it sound completely real. Daniel: Frighteningly real. The reporter, Carl Phillips, describes this thing unscrewing. He says, and this is a direct quote from the broadcast, "I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks… Are they eyes? It might be a face… But that face, it… Ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable." Then he describes these creatures emerging with heat rays, incinerating people. The broadcast cuts to simulated emergency announcements, military reports, even a voice mimicking President Roosevelt calling for "the preservation of human supremacy." Sophia: That is chilling. But didn't anyone realize it was just a play? Daniel: Well, there was a disclaimer at the very beginning. But here’s the crucial part: a huge number of listeners were tuned into a more popular comedy show on another channel. When the comedian's act ended around 8:15 PM, they switched the dial and landed right in the middle of what sounded like an active, terrifying alien invasion. Sophia: And they missed the disclaimer. Wow. So what happened? Daniel: Absolute chaos. People fled their homes. They jammed phone lines. They hid in cellars. There were reports of people wrapping their heads in wet towels to protect against poison gas. The panic was real and widespread. The next day, the headline in the New York Daily News was just: "Fake Radio ‘War’ Stirs Terror Through U.S." Sophia: That story is a perfect illustration of Comer's point. We like to think we're so sophisticated now, with all our technology and information. But that story shows how a powerful, well-told lie, especially when dropped into a climate of anxiety, can completely hijack our sense of reality. Daniel: That’s the core of it. Comer argues we suffer from "chronological snobbery"—the belief that we're smarter than people in the past. But the context of 1938 is so similar to our own. They were anxious about the Great Depression and the looming war in Europe. We're anxious about… well, everything. Sophia: Right, the algorithm feeds us a constant diet of outrage and fear. So Comer is saying we're just as susceptible today, but the 'aliens' are different. The invasion is an invasion of deceptive ideas. Daniel: Precisely. The battleground isn't New Jersey. The battleground is our mind. And the war is a war on lies. It’s a fight to believe what is true when everything around you is screaming a convincing, terrifying falsehood.

Sophia: Okay, so if the enemy is lies, Comer gives them names. And honestly, Daniel, they sound like something out of a medieval text: the devil, the flesh, and the world. How do we even talk about that in the 21st century without it sounding… well, a little out there? Daniel: That's the challenge Comer takes on. He argues that our modern skepticism about these terms is actually one of the enemy's greatest tricks. He re-frames them for a secular, sophisticated audience. Let's take them one by one, like an intelligence briefing. Sophia: Alright, lay it on me. Enemy number one? Daniel: The devil. But Comer is quick to say, forget the cartoon with the pitchfork. Jesus called the devil "the father of lies." His primary weapon isn't brute force; it's deception. Comer compares it to the Russian concept of dezinformatsiya—disinformation. It's the strategic use of lies to create chaos, division, and despair. It’s the source of toxic ideologies that whisper things like, "You're not enough," or "Your happiness is the only thing that matters," or "Those people are your enemy." Sophia: That makes so much more sense. It’s not a person; it’s a principle of deception. A force of anti-truth in the world. So that's the lie. What's enemy number two? Daniel: The flesh. And again, this isn't about our physical bodies being evil. In the New Testament, the "flesh" refers to our disordered desires. It's that animalistic, self-gratifying part of us that gets hooked by the devil's lies. It's the part of you that wants what it wants, right now, regardless of the consequences. Sophia: And Comer has a pretty stark example of this, right? The Woody Allen story. Daniel: He does. It’s an uncomfortable but powerful illustration. In the early 90s, Woody Allen, then in his fifties, left his long-term partner Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was in her early twenties. When a journalist pressed him on the morality of it, Allen gave that now-infamous line: "The heart wants what it wants." Sophia: That phrase became a cultural mantra. It’s the ultimate justification for acting on your desires, no matter who it hurts. It’s the perfect slogan for what Comer is calling 'the flesh.' It elevates personal desire above all else. Daniel: It's the modern creed. And that leads directly to the third enemy: the world. For Comer, "the world" is the cultural system around us that takes the lies from the devil, which appeal to our flesh, and normalizes them. It makes them seem not just acceptable, but good. Sophia: Can you give an example of that? Daniel: He uses the story of Metallica versus Napster in the early 2000s. Legally, Napster was facilitating mass copyright infringement—stealing music. But culturally, a huge number of people, especially young people, decided that it was okay. Metallica were the ones who got painted as the greedy villains for trying to protect their work. Sophia: I remember that! The moral lines completely flipped. Stealing became acceptable, but calling out the stealing was seen as greedy and uncool. The 'world' had redefined right and wrong. Daniel: Exactly. So you see the three-part strategy. A lie is introduced—"information should be free." It appeals to our desire, our flesh—"I want all this music without paying for it." And the culture, the world, normalizes it until it becomes the new standard of behavior. Sophia: It’s a powerful framework. But it also brings up one of the main criticisms of the book. Some readers feel that while Comer is great at diagnosing the general mechanics of these enemies, he’s hesitant to fully critique specific political ideologies, whether on the left or the right. Does he name names when it comes to the 'lies of the world' today? Daniel: It's a fair critique. His focus tends to be more on the underlying spiritual dynamics than on calling out specific political movements. He seems to be trying to equip readers with a framework to analyze any ideology for themselves, rather than giving them a list of pre-approved or condemned ones. His goal is to teach people how to spot the pattern—the lie, the appeal to desire, the cultural normalization—wherever it appears. Sophia: So he’s giving us the diagnostic tools, but leaving the diagnosis up to us. I can see the wisdom in that, but also how it could feel a bit evasive to some. Daniel: It’s a fine line to walk, for sure. But it leads to the most important question of all.

Daniel: Faced with these massive, interlocking forces—deceptive ideas, our own disordered desires, and a toxic culture—what can one person possibly do? It feels overwhelming. Sophia: That’s the million-dollar question. Do you just retreat from the world entirely? Daniel: Comer's answer is fascinating. He says the solution isn't to fight harder, but to build smarter. He calls on followers of Jesus to become a "counter-culture," or what he calls a "creative minority." And the primary tool for this is something the ancient church called a "Rule of Life." Sophia: A Rule of Life. That sounds... restrictive. Like a bunch of spiritual chores on a to-do list. Daniel: I thought so too, but his analogy for it completely changed my perspective. He says don't think of "rules," plural. Think of "rule," singular, like a ruler or a straight edge. The Latin word was regula, which is where we get the word trellis. Sophia: A trellis for a vine? Daniel: Exactly. A vine needs a trellis not to restrict it, but to support it, to guide its growth upward toward the sun. Without it, the vine just sprawls on the ground and rots. A Rule of Life is a personal trellis. It's a set of intentional practices and rhythms—like Sabbath, silence, community, scripture—that we choose, to organize our lives around truth and peace. It’s the structure that helps us grow toward the light, resisting the downward pull of the world. Sophia: That is a beautiful and much more appealing way to think about it. It’s not a cage; it's a support structure. So a 'Rule of Life' is basically a personal training plan for your soul? It's about building habits that automatically counter the lies? Daniel: You got it. It's proactive, not just reactive. He tells the story of a 4th-century monk, Evagrius Ponticus, who went into the Egyptian desert to fight his "demons." But his demons weren't external monsters; he called them logismoi—obsessive, malignant thoughts. Things like anger, pride, lust, despair. Sophia: So, he was fighting the same enemies we are, just with different names. Daniel: Precisely. And he developed a strategy of "talking back" to these thoughts with truth. He created a handbook for it. A Rule of Life is our modern handbook. It's how we intentionally create space for truth to take root in our lives, so that when the lies come—and they will—we have a trellis of habits to hold onto.

Sophia: So when you boil it all down, what's the one thing we need to take away from Live No Lies? Daniel: I think it's that peace isn't passive. It's not just the absence of conflict; it's the fruit of an active, intentional life. The world, our flesh, and deceptive ideas are constantly broadcasting a signal of anxiety, chaos, and lies, just like that old Orson Welles radio show. Sophia: And if you're not careful, you'll tune in by default and end up in a panic. Daniel: Exactly. A Rule of Life is how you intentionally tune your soul to a different frequency—the frequency of truth, of love, of peace. It’s about consciously choosing which broadcast you live by. The book's final call is to self-denial, which sounds harsh, but in this context, it means denying the lies of the self to find your true self in God. Sophia: It makes you ask a really powerful question: What lies am I living by without even realizing it? What's the subtle, background-noise broadcast that's shaping my thoughts and feelings every day? Daniel: That's the question, isn't it? It’s a profound and sometimes uncomfortable one to ask. We'd love to hear what you think. Join the conversation online and let us know what resonated, or what lies you're trying to tune out in your own life. Sophia: This is Aibrary, signing off.