Dennis Prager and Polish author Richard Legutko argue that the left's assault on Christianity threatens freedom itself. Prager warns that Europe's decline of Christianity preceded fascism and Nazism, a pattern now repeating in America. Legutko says totalitarian systems always target religion first, from communist regimes to today's liberal movements.
And his book is The Cunning of Freedom. Freedom is in jeopardy, as we were talking about here, and his insight about all the sins, it's another example of left-wing religion taking over when Christianity dies in the West. Professor, I have told my listeners for many years, I've been broadcasting 35 years, that when Christian— I'm a Jew and I'm saying this— when Christianity died in Europe, we got fascism, Nazism, and communism. What'll we get in America with Christianity dying? And we're getting a glimpse of it right now with the assault on freedom. So I want to ask you, given we mentioned Pope John Paul II, and of course he was a leader in the battle to free Poland from communism. What do you see a connection? I have no idea if you're religious or not, and it doesn't really matter for the question. Do you see a connection in the West between religion and freedom?
Oh, absolutely. It's a very close connection. There's no doubt about it. And, uh, Religion, well, religion, of course, it's a part of full human existence. I mean, human life is always in search for some ultimate meaning. I'm a Roman Catholic, by the way, but I'm talking philosophically rather now. And so it's very important for the full development of human personality. But what is interesting, that when you have a totalitarian system being imposed on the society, the first enemy they fight is religion. And that was as true in communism, in German National Socialism, as it is true today. I mean, the liberal left of today has taken religion, Christianity primarily, as a major object of attack. Once they, in a way, they are acting rationally from their point of view, as did the communists, because they assume that once you get rid of religion, people will fall prey to your ideology because there will be nothing in the minds with which they could defend themselves against the onslaught of the new ideology. And I'm simply shocked by the violence of the attack on Christianity even in my country, which is widely considered to be the Catholic country, right, in Europe. That the attack of the left is so violent, verbally mostly, but the language they use when attacking people's faith, their symbols, their sensitivity is simply appalling. I mean, I have a feeling, you know, that I'm watching The invasion of barbarians attacking our society.
You are, you are.
Yeah, yeah, they are, they are, they are, they are barbarians.
That, again, I just want to emphasize for my listeners that religion is the one obstacle to the left's complete takeover of a society, so they attack it first. And let me say one other thing that I think is relevant to the conversation and to the whole situation. So you are a Polish Catholic and I am an American Jew, and you and I, both being religious, have far more in common than you have with a Polish leftist, or I do with an American leftist. It's all values. It's not any longer ethnicity or even specific religion. The bonding and the alienating is over values.
You're absolutely right. I mean, of course, the I greatly believe in the solidarity and the common purpose of people of various religions because we are in search of the same thing, actually. And we may disagree on various points. We did disagree.
Right. But that's theology, not values.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so hold on, I— because I want to promote your book, The Cunning of Freedom. We're good at that in America. We sell well. Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols. Richard Legutko. I'm Dennis Prager. We continue.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
