Brother Boris on the Benedict Option: "The Church as a Purity Cult"
The Internets are truly amazing. Yesterday Tom throws out the phrase "creepy culty", which naturally reminds me of Boris the Spider. This morning I find some musings about the Benedict Option as a "purity cult" by someone calling himself Brother Boris.
I am not sure what to think about Rod Dreher. To be honest, I really don't know that much about him. I have no strong feelings either in favor of him nor against him. From what I have researched on the Internet, Dreher was raised as a Methodist. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993 and then to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2006.
Forgive me for being so blunt, but I do not think it is in good spiritual form for recent converts to the Orthodox faith to tell others (especially those outside of the visible Orthodox Church) how to live or to dispense ecclesiastical or spiritual advice. Dreher has been Orthodox for less than a decade. He is still taking his baby steps in Orthodoxy. He is still in the process of acquiring an Orthodox phronema (mindset). This is a process that takes many years, especially for adult converts and especially for American Orthodox converts. The Orthodox Church in the United States is exceedingly small and marginalized. Less than one-half of 1% of Americans are Orthodox.
Brother Boris then explains how he had talked to an Orthodox Bishop about his interest in the monastic life soon after his conversion, and how the Bishop advised him to go live at a monastery for three years, then come back to the United States and go to seminary, get a degree and then decide whether or not to take monastic vows. This makes sense to him now as being wise advice, but at the time he felt it was unrealistic. The insinuation is that he was impatient and wanted to start something before he knew or understood anything about it. Then he goes on:
I say all this just to caution people, especially people who are not Eastern Orthodox, to be cautious about taking spiritual advice from new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. Our new converts often have zeal, but it is not always a zeal born of knowledge or spiritual discernment. Often it is simply the passion of the neophyte. It can also manifest itself in what political position or cause this neophyte happens to embrace. Be especially cautious about Orthodox converts who take dogmatic political positions on any issue. Remember that politics, of whatever nature, is not and never has been dogma.
Checklist time; let's see. Zeal without spiritual discernment: check, passion of the neophyte: check, dogmatic political positions: check. I admit I said a lot of dumb things when I was converting which I truly wish I could go back and do over, usually by following the advice of St. James: STFU.
Then Brother Boris delivers a warning based on the derangement of another Orthodox convert.
When I became Orthodox twenty years ago, Franky Schaeffer was all the rage. He had just published his book, Dancing Alone, and he had all the answers. He was angry, self-righteous, and he had all the answers to society's shortcoming and yours as well. He was very much a finger-pointer. Now look at him. He's nearly burned out on his own rage. I sincerely wonder now if Franky is even a Christian, let alone Orthodox. In the last youtube videos I've seen of him, he sounds so incredibly depressed and agnostic, almost bordering on being an atheist. It made me wonder if he embraced Orthodoxy because he thought it was true, or because he thought it was the PERFECT Church or the PURE Church. Making the Church into a Purity Cult is always a danger to the adult convert, and perhaps part of Franky's Calvinist heritage that he never could leave fully behind.
I see a similar strain of "Purity Cult" thinking in Rod Dreher's "Benedict Option" and it concerns me. The very idea that Christians should separate themselves from the rest of society and live in intentional communities reminds me a whole lot more of Calvinist New England under the Puritans than Byzantine "symphonia" in Constantinople or Holy Russia. In addition, Dreher's rigorism concerns me, especially where he says:
The community is going to have to be the center of your life, not just something you do on Sunday.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not advocating nominalism, casual church attendance and spiritual lukewarmness. Its Dreher's tone that concerns me. It's the tone of the fanatic. The Church, especially the Orthodox Church, has always been "here comes everybody." In Orthodoxy it is the whole village at worship, not some sectarian conventicle of the elect few and holy. Again, this seems to go back to the same theme I saw in Franky Schaeffer, the Church as a Purity Cult.
Personally I can't see Dreher ever becoming as deranged as Schaeffer, although anything is possible. Schaeffer did write books slamming his family post mortem, and he has seemed to be driven as a sort of contrarian no matter where he is as we had been discussing.
One more observation and I'll leave the rest to readers. Brother Boris mentions Dreher's "rigorism". I would point out that it is selective rigorism as so much else is with Dreher and as I've noted before.
Perhaps you and Brother Boris are referring to Wagnerian Sturm und Drang such as this from the apocalyptically entitled Christianity in Collapse:
ReplyDeleteAgain and again: these are not normal times. We can’t be about business as usual. The future of Christianity in America will be Benedictine — as in Benedict Option — or it won’t be at all.
Well, gee, of course...of course that's why we now need a New Vision, Dear Leader. Will you, oh, could you, oh, will you please supply us with one, one blessed with your unique, transcendental insights so that we do not perish from this Earth?
Brother Boris's observation:
DeleteOur new converts often have zeal, but it is not always a zeal born of knowledge or spiritual discernment. Often it is simply the passion of the neophyte. It can also manifest itself in what political position or cause this neophyte happens to embrace. Be especially cautious about Orthodox converts who take dogmatic political positions on any issue.
on the "passion of the neophyte" is especially appropriate when tag-teamed with that Dreher quote.
Unmoored zeal with a belief that these are the end times or Dark Ages is indeed a dangerous combination.
Bravo, Brother Boris!!! That is exactly what concerns me as well. I have nothing against intentional communities in se. But, when they are set up as sort of para-church / extra-parochial entities -- often in disdainful, pharisaical contradistinction to the unwashed hoi polloi at the local parish -- then they can get "creepy culty" very quickly. The '70s/'80s-vintage "Catholic Charismatic Covenant Communities" are a prime case in point; my own college friend / goddaughter was caught up in one of these cult-like communities for 23 years and has the battle-scars to prove it. Other examples abound: Doug Phillips's Calvinista / homeschooling cult; the Watchman Nee cult; the International Disciples of Christ; and on and on.
ReplyDeleteEarlier I mentioned a young woman who had been raised in a cultish non-canonical Orthodox group (ROCA). Her experiences were horrific. ROCOR is apparently not as batsh*t-crazy as ROCA, but it does seem to attract some of the same sort of kooky konvertzi -- the sort who think that living as monastically as possible is appropriate for laypeople, no matter what sort of psychological damage this may do to their families.
I think Brother Boris has nailed it. Yep, I'll take "here comes everybody" any day.
Like McDonalds stores, Benedict Option blogging franchises are apparently also available.
ReplyDeleteRed Cardigan once again demonstrates that Benedict Option just means doing everything you're supposed to be doing anyway, and saying the magic words Benedict Option is a code-word to other like-minded people that "We are doing a better job than those other people over there."
DeleteI could not make it past the first few sentences of her blog post without gagging. Skimmed a bit here and there but just couldn't take it after a very short while. Yes, there is a holier-than-thou sensibility at work here -- which, as Kemetica incisively pointed out, is covered by a faux humbler-than-thou veneer. With all due respect to Ms. Cardigan, it is just really hard to swallow.
DeleteI'm still waiting for her to wake up and realize how she's been used by Dreher as a puppet on one hand for years to shore up his Catholic cred while he tears into her religion with the other hand.
DeleteBut she is no doubt more comfortable with ignoring that, thinking about England and cheering "Benedict Option! Yay! Woo-hoo!"
Yes, this is one reason I don't just ignore Rod. Every minute Catholics spend thinking about Rod's BO -- which is to say, helping him write a book about his personal angst for the future -- is a minute they aren't spending thinking about something useful, virtuous, or beautiful.
DeletePretty astute and succinct, Tom. Here's something of a more longwinded take.
DeleteThere are several interesting patterns in play here within which Dreher ironically serves as something of a canary in a coal mine with respect to the manner and degree his followers like Red Cardigan are obviously not having their needs fully realized by their faith.
But first, and we understand Crunchy Cons better because of it, with the BO here is the standard Dreher playbook in action once again: appropriate disparate phenomena other people have originated and invested themselves in doing, throw them together in an arbitrary jumble, and wrap them tightly in a new Rod Dreher Brand Identity Bag™. Now separate consumers of grapes, apples, grapefruit, etc. find themselves confronted with the option of Dreher's Own Fruit Salad™. How have they lived without this for so long? What a remarkably inspired intellectual integration! And obviously only a Dreher could create such an inspiration. If they tried it themselves, what would they have? Pfft: grapes, apples, and grapefruit. Not at all the same.
The more insidious element is the standard cult psychological symbiosis between cult leader and cult follower. In this case, in addition to their different individual responses (grapes, apples), what Dreher is appropriating is the psychological fears and needs underpinning them, in the case of Red Cardigan as an example from Beliefnet days, a previously timid, insecure English major toiling anonymously in motherhood and home schooling suddenly raised to the rank of temple princess and Crunchy Cons blog replacement when Rod went on vacation.
Cult leader Dreher symbiotically appropriates his flock's and others' (Alan Jabobs) needs and individual responses and unifies them into a high visibility brand of his own; the flock in turn symbiotically finds their previously unheralded needs and responses suddenly more publicly important than they have ever been. Dear Leader understands them!
"We must make ready," Dear Leader intones. "We must make ready," Red Cardigan responds.
Priests and other clergy should probably take note: some fundamental human needs are obviously not being met here, for whatever reason, and pimps like Dreher are successfully moving in on territory it would seem to be more properly the province of the Church and churches.
"Personally I can't see Dreher ever becoming as deranged as Schaeffer, although anything is possible."
ReplyDeleteGive him time. The slide into abject despondency has just begun for Dreher. Soon enough every dog who stops by to water a tire on his family car will be evidence of "persecution for his faith", and there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth as he sends yet another book proposal to his pimp for "Surviving When Your Pet Bullies You By Urinating On Your Leg".
Rod has been Orthodox for about as long as he was Catholic when the Scandal broke open in 2002. Evidently nine years doesn't guarantee a Catholic phronema either (though Roman Catholics probably have a ratione or something).
ReplyDeleteLOL. ;)
DeleteThis may be the scariest Dreherrhean statement of all:
ReplyDeleteAgain and again: these are not normal times. We can’t be about business as usual. The future of Christianity in America will be Benedictine — as in Benedict Option — or it won’t be at all.
Yikes. Apocalyptic-millennarian much? The future of American Christianity = the Benedict Option, or else there is no future at all? WTH?
Never mind that we still don't really know what the Benedict Option even is. The exclusivist claims Rod is making for it should, in themselves, be cause for concern. Talk about control freakery on steroids.
Keith is right. Rod is setting himself up as a sort of End Times Prophet, an Orthodox David Koresh or Jim Jones, albeit not as far out there in kool-aid kookery.
This is getting weird.
Never mind that we still don't really know what the Benedict Option even is.
DeleteWe're not alone, Diane. Over on the Dreher blog today, Dreher approvingly quotes a fellow traveler:
God bless Rod Dreher for continuing to post critiques of his Benedict Option. But I still haven’t seen a critique that is genuinely to the point — they all seem to be responding to things that Rod hasn’t said ...
Yeah, so we don't know what the BO is. That's a feature, not a bug.
P.S. But even though we can't know what the BO is, we do have another metaphor for it, courtesy of that same fellow-traveler:
Ultimately, whatever specific form the Benedict Option takes, this is what it’s about: securing our own oxygen mask first before attempting to assist others.
Link to Dreher piece noted above.
DeleteWhat happened to women and children first?
DeleteKeith, that's what popped into my mind, too.
DeleteI thought the BO was just silly and chimerical. Now I'm starting to think it's evil.
Securing our own oxygen mask before assisting others? WTH???
ReplyDeleteThis is Christian how?
Pauli's right. These guys want to play Preserve the Master Race the way their kids play Minecraft.
DeleteOn a tangential note, you see Dreher packing his comment boxes with useful anti-Dreher's, atheists and gays all screaming about his wicked delusional religion. See? They're all out to get him - and you, too. Your only hope is the BO. The wise head count seems way down from previous times while the count of extras for the big mob scene being scripted way up.