"Crunched in the Head"
Thanks go to J-Carp for pointing this one out. Steve Kellmeyer has a succinct style which comes to the point quickly:
Many Catholics today are getting upset about Rod Dreher's insistence that he can't return to the Catholic Church because it is too touchy-feely. He'll stick with the Orthodox church because it "teaches the hard lessons."
Yes, it is hard to read the sentence above without snorting.
Now I hate the sugary sweet sermons and spinelessness of American Catholics as much as the next guy, but let's get serious.
The Orthodox Church accepts divorce and contraception.
If Rod Dreher was REALLY looking for doctrinal rigor, he wouldn't be Eastern Orthodox.
Now, I'm quite certain he is being honest when he says he can't bring himself to return to the Catholic Church. But I'm also sure that the problem isn't the treacle that American Catholic priests commonly mistake for preaching. God bless his little heart, as they say in Texas, but Rod didn't get where he is today by disagreeing with the mainstream media. His incoherent essay just proves that point again.
Yes, we know this by Dreher's own words.
What if a priest gives a lecture to young engaged couples on the constant teaching of the popes on the topic of contraception and the indissolubility of marriage? He starts with Castii Connubii by Pius XI and goes right up through Humanae Vitae by Paul VI and into John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Oh wait, I heard a priest do this once at a Couple to Couple league gathering. They are not a secret society; I'm sure Dreher would have been allowed to attend the lecture.
Would this be too touchy-feely a talk? Would this lecture lack "doctrinal rigor"? Would this be simply too sugary-sweet, and betray a lack of spine? Hardly. And yet Rod Dreher has gone on record stating that he "never really understood the church's teaching on contraception", but that he doesn't have to accept it because he stopped believing in papal infallibility. Again: Dreher's own words:
Because if any doctrine taught authoritatively by the Roman church is untrue, then it's all up to be questioned. I never really understood the teaching on contraception, but I lived by it because I did believe in the authority of the Roman church to teach these things. If you tell yourself, "Well, the Magisterium got that one wrong," the whole thing logically unravels.
This is not the voice of a man bemoaning wimpiness and lack of character in an institution. This is the voice of someone refusing to accept Christ's hard sayings, a sad reality which existed from the time of Christ Himself.
After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. (Jn 6:67ff)
Pauli, since you've generously indulged me in some long-winded comments, let me practice a little succinctness of my own (or what paasses for it) in support of Kellmeyer.
ReplyDelete- It's not enough as Pik recommends below that the fewer eyes that take his stuff seriously, the better. Dreher has a big bully pulpit, and there need to be more Paulis and Kellmeyers to expose and refute him.
- In one word, what Dreher produces can be called "muse-ack": mood-altering fake thought and exposition. This Time piece and the ease with which it can be dismembered yanks the curtain back on the wizard and his typical counterfeiting.
- My conclusion, and like most of what I offer it's not charitable, is that Dreher is and has always been no more than a Practicing Religious Writer (PRW), someone whose devotion begins and ends with writing about religion, in the end no more a true communicant of any communion he immerses himself in than fellow gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson ever really was a Hell's Angel. Both just rode along with their respective groups. If Dreher "never really understood the teaching on contraception", he never really bothered to become Catholic beyond appearances.
Keith
If Dreher "never really understood the teaching on contraception", he never really bothered to become Catholic beyond appearances.
DeleteExactly! I mean, can you really take a teaching which is a complete deal-killer for some -- for many in fact -- like contraception and say "Well, I don't understand it, but I like the art and history."? I'll grant it's possible to have a viewpoint like this coming into the church as an intellectual convert, but it is very strange nonetheless and betrays shallowness.
Also Dreher using the word "logically" in a sentence causes further Kellmeyerian snorting.
- It's not enough as Pik recommends below that the fewer eyes that take his stuff seriously, the better. Dreher has a big bully pulpit, and there need to be more Paulis and Kellmeyers to expose and refute him.
ReplyDeleteThere is probably a subtle clarification due from me on this, now that you mention it.
In saying "the fewer eyes that take his stuff seriously, the better", I'm referring to the substance of what he is saying. As I've recently discovered (and as you've known all along, Keith), Dreher himself doesn't mean what he is saying, so it does no good whatsoever for anyone to take seriously the substance of what he is saying. His pieces are bullshit in the philosophical or academic sense, in that he doesn't care whether or not what he says is true -- the only thing that matters to him is that he is saying it (and presumably collecting the cash for it).
On the other hand, the efforts of Pauli and Kellmeyer (and you, and all of us) to point out the fraud of his pieces is in fact important. IOW, carefully considering and refuting the substance of his output is a waste of time, while refuting the validity and sincerity of his posts is not.
Hope that makes sense. I'm still working through this myself.
Pik, I certainly wasn't criticizing you, and I absolutely agree with you that the fewer who treat Dreher seriously, the better.
DeleteMy point, and I think you're also making the same one, is that neither ignoring Dreher or reacting and responding to him is enough. If you ignore Dreher, you concede the field to him. If you react to him - well, that's what he works so hard to achieve, isn't it? Like that mythical creature (uh, I forget which one), he feeds and grows stronger on the negative energy, as long as it's a direct reaction to a particular stimulus gambit he's initiated.
You can't combat anti-matter by throwing more anti-matter at it. You need to throw matter at it. You need to refute it. You need to delegitimize it.
Dreher gets these easy platforms like Time because some drone looks in his handy source guide and decides, oh, here's a religious conservative, Dreher, lets dial him up for a few words.
But we know Dreher's not a conservative. The world should, too: over and over, on our initiative, why Dreher's not a conservative (and now picking up his offerings) based on the evidence he supplies
Same thing with being a Catholic: as we've already pointed out in this thread, based on his own idiotic comments about contraception, Dreher's not merely Catholic-bashing, he's no more qualified to write about Catholicism than Homer Simpson.
If there are enough different anchor points out there consistently offering these matter-anti-matter refutations, Paulis, Kellmeyers, others, all linked among themselves regularly enough that the casual Googler can easily see that there are easy refutations to a Dreher, eventually the more reputable and popular sites will start thinking twice about using him and he'll be relegated to doing guest pieces for Janie's Prairie Home Burble or whatever.
Anyway, that's what I meant.
Keith
Pikkumatti: "…it does no good whatsoever for anyone to take seriously the substance of what he is saying.…the only thing that matters to him is that he is saying it"
ReplyDeleteI have come to entirely agree with your assessment.
His writing has a consistent track record now.
Once in a while, he puts up an interesting web link, but otherwise I seldom bother anymore to read his bloggings. It's not worth my time.