Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEBrett Benson, Senior Publicist
bbenson@penguinrandomhouse.com
507-581-1561
Bestselling Author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry Portland OR Pastor John Mark Comer Wants to Equip People to Recognize the Lies and Resist the Forces That Seek to Steal Their Happiness, Wholeness, and Holiness“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” — Winston Churchill
“We live in a postmodern world where a battle is raging between truth and lies, and truth is losing. Unfortunately, disinformation—or in the language of Scripture, deception—is at the root of almost every single problem facing society and our souls,” states author and pastor John Mark Comer. In his new book,
Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace (WaterBrook, 9/28/21), Comer unmasks and names those enemies: the devil, the flesh, and the world, and offers a way to fight back. Regardless of one’s political party or church background, Comer provides a powerful and urgent message for all who are experiencing the weight of tension and controversy in our modern, post-Christian age and provides a poignant call for reawakening our souls to the battle for our minds.
“Why does every day feel like it’s a battle? Because it is,” writes Comer. “I’m a pastor, not a pundit; I have zero political agenda here. But I deeply believe this: I have a soul. You have one too. And your soul, like mine, is locked in a war with lies.”
The ancient apprentices of Jesus developed a paradigm for this war; they spoke of these three enemies of the soul and how to win the battle over them. Comer taps into this ancient wisdom by borrowing from saints of the Way and translating the three enemies for the modern era, with all its secularism and sophistication. As a generation, people chuckle at the
devil as a premodern myth, and they are confused by Scripture’s teaching on the
flesh in an age where sensual indulgence is a virtue, not a vice. Furthermore, they have little to no category for the New Testament concept of the
world.
In this provocative and practical book, Comer combines cultural analysis with spiritual formation to help digest these truths, especially for the Millennial and Gen Z reader. He identifies the role lies play in one’s spiritual deformation and lays out a strategic plan to overcome them. The answer—practicing the Way of Jesus—starts with the church. The word church in Greek means “called out.” It’s not a community of comfort but of calling and is the army one needs to help fight the war to resist the gravitational pull of all three enemies of the soul.
The three key strategies:
• Discern Jesus’s truth from the devil’s lie
• Help one another override the flesh by the Spirit
• Form a robust community of deep relationships that function as a counterculture to the world
In a down-to-earth pastoral voice, Comer presents a compelling message: “Do you feel the tug-of-war in your own heart, the inner conflict between truth and lies? The spirit and the flesh? The Way of Jesus and the world? It’s time to start winning.” As C. S. Lewis proposed in his groundbreaking book
The Screwtape Letters, the devil is as cunning now as he was in Eden, and Comer reveals how his lies have adapted to fit our current individualistic mindset of “believe in yourself,” “you do you,” and “speak your truth.”
“There is a tremendous opportunity in our cultural moment for the church, the followers of Jesus, to come back to her roots as a counter-anti-culture—not just against the world but for the world—and to live no lies.”
John Mark Comer is the founding pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, the director and teacher of Practicing the Way, and the bestselling author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and four previous books. Much of his writing is focused on the work of spiritual formation in post-Christian culture. The gnawing questions that get him out of bed in the morning are, How do we experience life with God in the digital age? And how do we change to become more like Jesus in a culture where emotional health and spiritual maturity are rare? To that end, he is regularly found reading the desert fathers and mothers, ancient saints and obscure contemplatives, modern psychologists and social scientists, philosophers like Dallas Willard, and the weekly op-ed page. When he’s not reading, he can be found attempting to learn how to cook for his wife and children, drinking Heart coffee, and walking in family dog in the forest. John Mark graduated from Western Seminary and has a master’s degree in biblical and theological studies.
For more information, visit www.waterbrookmultnomah.com or https://johnmarkcomer.com/.
Contact Publicist
Brett Benson, bbenson@penguinrandomhouse.com