There is something chilling about watching Angel Studios’ documentary “Live Not By Lies!” 

It is not merely a recounting of history, though it does that with remarkable clarity — testimonies of men and women who survived totalitarian communism in Eastern Europe echo across the decades with a resonance we ignore at our peril. 

What is most unsettling about the adaptation of Rod Dreher’s bestselling work, however, is the gnawing realization that their warnings have already become our reality.

The film introduces us to brave Christians who, under Soviet rule, faced surveillance, intimidation, and prison — simply for refusing to pretend that evil was good. As they share their stories, one can’t help but feel the familiarity of it all: the demand to affirm ideologies we know to be false, the punishment for dissent, the slow corrosion of the conscience. The question is no longer “Could it happen here?” but “How far has it already gone?”

The same dynamic Dreher exposes—state and cultural forces colluding to crush dissent — is alive in the contemporary West.

Consider Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a woman who was arrested not for vandalizing property or committing acts of violence, but for the silent crime of praying in her head near an abortion facility in Birmingham, England. No slogans, no placards — only the private communion of her thoughts with God. She was questioned by police, searched, charged, and brought before a court. She was found innocent – but promptly arrested again weeks later for the very same thoughts in the very same place. Thankfully, after a long and grueling investigation, Isabel won compensation from the police with support from ADF International.

Then there’s Adam Smith-Connor, an army veteran who stood silently and imperceptibly in prayer near another facility in Bournemouth in memory of his lost son. He too was interrogated by police and criminalized for the contents of his conscience – worse, leading to a conviction and a criminal charge. Adam was ordered to pay £9,000 to the court – amounting to perhaps the most expensive three minute prayer in history.

Credit: Alliance Defending Freedom.

These cases are the canaries in the coal mine. They warn us of what happens when the state arrogates to itself the power to police interior conviction. In the novel “1984,” George Orwell called this “thoughtcrime.” Today in Britain, it is called a “buffer zone,” but the principle is identical: certain beliefs must not merely be suppressed — they must be eradicated from the public square.

“Live Not By Lies!” is a clarion call to rediscover moral courage. Dreher draws on the legacy of Vaclav Havel, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and countless ordinary Christians who refused to live by the lie. They were forced to pretend that the Party was infallible, that Marxism was inevitable, that the State was God. Today, our cultural commissars demand our allegiance to a different set of dogmas — that biological sex is a construct, that unborn life is disposable, that faith belongs behind closed doors and never in public life. But the impulse is the same: bow, or be broken.

The documentary is a reminder that resistance begins not with grand gestures, but with the refusal to speak untruth. When the authorities came to interrogate believers in Prague, they demanded not only compliance but confession: “Say that you agree. Say that you believe.” Many would not. For this, they lost jobs, were blacklisted, even imprisoned. Yet their refusal to say what they did not believe was the seed from which freedom eventually grew.

Angel Studios

How many today are willing to pay that price? We like to imagine ourselves as different — more sophisticated, more democratic, more tolerant. But the evidence mounts that our culture is simply addicted to a softer form of totalism: enforced conformity through the threat of professional ruin, reputational assassination, or — if you dare to pray silently — criminal prosecution.

There is no more potent illustration of this drift than the prosecutions of Vaughan-Spruce and Smith-Connor. In each case, the state claimed to be protecting “vulnerable women,” yet no evidence was presented that these individuals harassed or intimidated anyone. The real issue was that their mere presence — and their silent prayers — expressed a conviction the state deems intolerable. The Soviets called it “anti-Soviet agitation.” We call it “interference.” In both cases, the thought itself is the crime.

Some will say these comparisons are overwrought. They are not. For the Christian who believes God is Lord of both conscience and public life, there is no partition between belief and expression. The attempt to criminalize that wholeness — to tell a person they may think but not manifest their convictions — is precisely what totalitarian systems have always done. Dreher’s work, and this film, make clear that it begins with a creeping fear to speak, and ends with a culture that cannot remember how.

If we are to resist, we must start by telling the truth. No law should compel a citizen to lie — whether about the humanity of the unborn, the nature of marriage, or the sanctity of prayer. And no government has authority over the secret dialogue of the soul with its Creator. To surrender this is to surrender everything.

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Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) is a Scottish commentator and Senior Legal Communications Officer for Alliance Defending Freedom UK.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

In just a few decades, smoking all but disappeared from American culture. But now, despite the best efforts of the anti-smoking brigade, cigarettes are back.

Though overall smoking rates in the United States remain low, Gen Z has embraced cigarettes as a symbol of rebellion. On film and television, in music and fashion, smoking is cool again. A 2022 analysis found that more than half of the top 15 streaming shows among viewers aged 15 to 24 — like “Euphoria” and “Peaky Blinders” — contained tobacco imagery.

Another report found 80% of the 2025 Oscar Best Picture nominees included tobacco imagery. Then there’s pop star Sabrina Carpenter, who used a fork as a cigarette holder in the music video for her latest single, “Manchild.”

Other celebrities popular with Gen Z, including Charli XCX, Addison Rae, and Dua Lipa, are frequently photographed or filmed smoking cigarettes in public, onstage, or in fashion campaigns.

On social media, popular accounts like @cigfluencers are standing by to capture these moments, reframing smoking as a high-fashion or edgy lifestyle accessory rather than as a health risk. Cigarettes were spotted at New York Fashion Week and even popped up in editorial spreads as props. This time, there weren’t any warnings or advisories. Instead, cigarettes are being used to capture a mood, whether it’s glamorous or rebellious or some combination of the two.

For many Gen Z observers, the interest in smoking appears to be driven less by addiction than by aesthetics, nostalgia, or even as a form of protest after decades of cigarette demonization.

Young adults today seem to be saying that smoking is a way to channel “main character energy,” a way to stand out from the hordes of wellness-obsessed, yoga-posing, vegan millennials.

Some smokers blamed their habit on the pandemic, when stress, isolation, and a complete reframing of previously normal behavior led to new routines and new interests, The New York Times reported in 2021. It seems new smokers worked cigarettes into their day as a vibe, not a vice.

This renewed interest in cigarettes could be seen as a temporary aesthetic moment, but it’s not stopping public health experts from panicking about future implications. With celebrity influence and the absence of counter-messaging, which tapered off as the number of smokers decreased, they’re afraid smoking could make a real comeback because it is still addictive.

It’s true that cigarette companies still aren’t legally allowed to advertise to youth. However, seeing role models and Instagram influencers smoking is a form of advertisement all its own. When a popular television show includes a smoke break, viewers will be more likely to replicate that behavior in real life. Smoking in shows and movies has a normalizing effect that anti-smoking crusaders have been desperate to eliminate.

Despite its decline, cigarette smoking never completely disappeared. Among older generations, smoking persisted in certain communities and cultures. Among Gen Z, smoking has been quietly evolving into a symbol of defiance and a return to rituals from the past.

Whether this trend results in long-term changes in how the public treats smokers and smoking is still a big unknown. But for now, it’s clear that smoking, once demonized and dismissed, is having its renaissance moment.