If you need Rod Dreher to save you, are you really worth saving?
I've probably let it seep out that I'm not a big fan of whiners, particularly when it comes to Christianity and conservatism, both of which, it seems to me, should provoke us to more noble postures.
One expression of this that periodically irritates me is when I hear someone say that at the end of the day we can't be too hard on Rod Dreher - the archetype God studied when designing the weasel - because he stands up for us where we can't. Bullshit. Here's a prime example of just the opposite.
Today Dreher has a post up about a cop in Salt Lake City who found himself in some sort of trouble with his superiors for not marching in some sort of gay parade. Dreher's solution? Naturally, his Benedict Option - whatever that really is.
Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally,
This fall, a major university is planning a conference on the Benedict Option, as Christians and conservatives are considering the idea more seriously. I am planning a book about it, as a contribution to the public debate.
While the finer points of that LEO's obligations as an officer under orders remain unresolved, the main thing, the only thing, is that the officer chose to resign rather than fighting for his rights himself based on the abundance of rights and resources he already had available.
Dreher would encourage more to do the same, in the guise of a fatalistic vision of inevitable persecution, because it serves his personal bottom line.
One of Dreher's regular conservative commenters, Glaivester, comes to similar, if not quite as venally motivated, conclusions.
If you need a self-dealing weasel like Dreher to save you rather than standing up for yourself, what sort of Christianity or conservatism, exactly, do you represent that is really worth saving?
Dreher would have frowned upon St. Paul appealing to his rights as a Roman citizen, whereas St. Paul pulled that out as quickly as a cowboy pulls a six-shooter in Acts 22. Paul died a martyr in Rome but he wasn't going to give up prematurely.
ReplyDeleteThis is what has ALWAYS bothered me about the approach Dreher and other liberal Catholics had toward the abuse scandal. It was almost like they *wanted* priests to be guilty and then they *wanted* dioceses to be humiliated and have to shell out millions so badly that they supported SNAP and other "victims groups" which are some of the scummiest people on the face of the earth.
That is why I always supported William Donohue and people who went after these groups and said things like "Bishops should only hire tough lawyers."
We've already shown time and time again that the so-called Benedict Option isn't Benedictine, but neither is it Christian.
Yes! What Glaivester writes here. He's dying to lose so he can impress everyone with how gracious he is amid defeat.
ReplyDeleteJust like any good liberal, Dreher digs identity politics. Only problem is that he's not in a victim class himself, so he's trying to create one via the B.O.
DeleteJust like any good liberal, Dreher digs identity politics. Only problem is that he's not in a victim class himself, so he's trying to create one via the B.O.
DeleteUnfortunately, he can't promote university seminars and sell books if the victim class is limited only to himself, so he needs as many others as he can generate to preemptively and fatalistically surrender as servile victims as well to plump out that class and, in so doing, become the not-yet-existent market for his writing livelihood.
One piece of silver per victim delivered unto that livelihood marketplace is the current going rate, I believe.
Good point. There were too few at the intersection of those-who-had-their-pants-pulled-down ("Torture!") and those-who-had-a-mean-sister-who-died ("Disneyland Myth of Home and Family").
DeleteAnd for an example of the anti-Benedict-Option, I offer you the Archbishop of the Diocese of San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteThe progressive fascists must be opposed at every turn.
Okay, who here wrote the Wikipedia page (deleted, but cached) for "Benedict Option?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Sis' Raccoon did?
DeleteCan someone please provide the cached page? :D I need a laugh.
DeleteSorry, Diane, I don't see it any more. It was brief and derisive.
DeleteThen it was probably Constance Contraire.
DeleteIn contrast to Dreher's apocalyptic, esmasculated personality cult of gracious total surrender - or as the acid-gobbling Timothy Leary prescribed to a prior generation, "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out", commenter Chris 1 reminds us of the truly Christian, non-charismatic personality cult way:
ReplyDelete"This is hard work, but as the Noah myth should instruct us, it is past time to start building that cultural ark."
Well, hmmm.
Did Noah build a “cultural ark” before God instructed him to build the real ark? Scripture does not say this, it notes that he remained faithful and then God gave him his instruction.
Monasticism did not exist in the age of the martyrs when the Church was being persecuted by Jews and Romans alike. It did not exist when the Church was tolerated. It was created when the world embraced the Church…in response to the corrupting influence of that embrace.
And it is that embrace that you seem to be worried about, that the world no longer has warm feelings for a lukewarm faith that allows prosperity to be our true god.
The early Christians did not ark themselves away from the culture, they went about their lives and followed Christ. They were charitable to all, not condemning, something Julian the Apostate saw as a terrible trickery that pagans should try!
Now that may be what you mean, but the metaphor of the ark is not that…it is being shut away while the disaster unfolds outside. We should only do that as God commands, otherwise the command is to love God above all and the least of our brethren, those who are doomed, as we love ourselves.
The Benedict Option: Secular Millenarianism for the faint of faint, where you, too, can vicariously be Rod Dreher squealing on a hotel room floor in high school as your pants are being pulled down.
Don't be surprised if I just step over you and keep going.
Chris 1 is a voice crying out over in the desert of the Dreher combox. So thanks for posting his outstanding comment here, Keith, where it will get more notice and appreciation.
DeleteNow Dreher is now a now-dead Spock man. Alien. Feel for his alienness and attach the feelings you have for the late Nimoy to him now.
DeleteBut then maybe (as long as we throw logic to the winds) the big BO isn't Secular Millinarianism after all.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just a fun, counter-cultural Krunchy Kristianity™, the Back Again for Happy Hobbit fRoddo, who started off from the There of Crunchy Conservatism and has now come full circle to his cozy corner once again.
An officer under orders?? You do realize the officer had ZERO objection to providing security for the march, right? Since when can your empoyer order you to march in a parade that stands for something you don't agree with? Especially when marching in a parade has aboslutely nothing to do with your job?
ReplyDelete