Still in search of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option
In response to a claim that "[Rod Dreher's] Benedict Option work is massively important for American Christianity"*, Vox Popoli commenter YIH has unearthed an early training film:
But who says Benedict Option ducking and covering can't also be fun?
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| Rod Dreher & Marvin Olasky practice practicing Rod Dreher's Benedict Option |
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| Marvin Olasky whacks the wood |
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| Franklin Evans |
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| Rawlins Gilliland |
That can only be better than the pathetic, failing job you're doing now, right?
Right.
Say, why not start right now, practicing Rod Dreher's Benedict Option at home yourselves?
First, have a little family fun Criscoing everyone's hair into fanciful tempests of twirls.
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| A culture-tossed family chooses Rod Dreher's Benedict Option |
Finally, sit everyone in a circle on the couch around your Apple laptop (no Apple laptop?...I-I'm so sorry...) and get the whole family to read one of Rod's best culture-disengaging posts aloud, maybe one of the ever-popular ones about trannies, or, hey, how about something fresh and new, like a bold, ground-breaking put-down of Donald Trump?**
With brave new Christian cultural-thickening moves like these, I can assure you, it's only a matter of time before our enemies begin falling before us like matchsticks.
*How something Dreher himself has characterized as "inchoate" can be massive is unclear. Maybe it's like dark matter.
**See how Rod did that? Pretty cool, huh: took a free comment and recycled it as one part of a build-a-Mr. Potato Head post, then a free article by a colleage, then stuck it al together with some straw argumentation. You could have written your own Benedict Option book this way, but I think by now Rod's got the jump on you. But maybe a book on something else? Remember, you don't have to know a bit about your subject until the contract is inked.
You know, I'm not going to defend anything Trump says or does, but I will say that if had said the following...
ReplyDeleteYeah, when you lay me out
My heart is beating louder than a big bass drum, alright...
Yeah, you got to mix it child, you got to fix it must be love... it's a BITCH.
... that would have been fine because, you know... he's a male and everything.
Why, Pauli, that's positively feral, snarling; it is a perfect expression of masculine sexual potency, which makes it a near-perfect rock song.
DeleteJust another Benedict Option antidote that will help thicken conservative Christian culture.
This is kind of hilarious to me, but I have an acoustic bass almost exactly like the one in that photo.
DeleteSince Trump will prove as transient as Kim Kardashian's butt, I feel I owe it to Rod to keep a list of perennial banal outrages he can phone in to keep those culture-thickening blog hits a-happenin'. Let's see...Okay...
Delete1. Toilet seat: up or down!?!
2. Toilet roll: over or under!?!
Hmmm...maybe too much toilet...what else will keep a razor's edge on that book-buying cultural anxiety?
This is kind of hilarious to me, but I have an acoustic bass almost exactly like the one in that photo.
DeleteBut Pauli, according to the journalist who wrote the blog post, that's an electric bass. No doubt wireless.
It probably has a bridge pickup in it and a pre-amp. It's a nice axe for unplugged gigs, mariachi bands or violent femmes covers.
DeleteBut back to the writing. The commentary on Bitch would be like writing "The elegance and attention to detail of the cuckoo clock perfectly epitomized the near-perfect craftsmanship of the German Black Forest," or "Her perfectly arranged office expressed her near-perfect decorating style." It just reads wrong to me; it's forced.
I supposed I've written plenty of hamfisted commentary myself. It is pretty rich, however, that he praises the song for being so testosterone-soaked, but when some alpha-male whom he dislikes lets out a snarl he turns into Mister Proper (see Mark Levin).
It is pretty rich, however, that he praises the song for being so testosterone-soaked, but when some alpha-male whom he dislikes lets out a snarl he turns into Mister Proper (see Mark Levin).
DeleteMy takeaway from these sorts of phoned in, what's-the-Google-feed-outrage-of-the-moment Dreher posts is imagining him saying, "Oooh! The monkeys like peanuts! Here, monkeys! Have I got some peanuts for you! Good monkeys!"
Apropos of Dreher savoring the feral, snarling, perfect expression of male sexual potency himself while begging for a book deal to instruct other Christians how to "thicken" themselves against it:
ReplyDeleteA reader of this blog said something to the effect of the Benedict Option cannot be about the church doing what we’ve been doing all along, except pushing even harder for our kids to save sex until marriage. This Tinder article is a perfect illustration of why she is right. The culture itself has changed to allow for a sexual free-for-all, but the most important aspect of this story is the role technology plays in driving the culture. Any Benedict Option that fails to deal honestly and forcefully with our relationship to technology and popular culture will fail.
Rod Dreher's 5 Benedict Option Rules:
1. If you like what you think Rod Dreher is saying, that's what the Benedict Option is all about.
2. If you object to what you think Rod Dreher is saying, that's not at all what he means by the Benedict Option.
3. If you agree with Rod Dreher about the need for his Benedict Option, all the lifestyle selections you exercise in common with him are examples of it.
4. If you disagree with Rod Dreher about the need for his Benedict Option, all the lifestyle selections you exercise will inevitably lead to the triumph of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, then the collapsing barbarism of Babylon.
5. Ultimately, the Benedict Option cannot be about doing what we’ve been doing all along, unless it falls within Rule 1.
By the way, in our forum the other day in Nashville, Michael Gerson objected to my use of the term “barbarians.” It was my fault for not being more specific, and explaining that I was using it in a philosophical way, a la MacIntyre.
As am I, when I explain why Rod Dreher is the "anus" of the Corpus (body) Christianum, the portal through which all things questionably Christian are fated to be passed so that the whole may ultimately remain pure.
The latest wrinkle in BO evolution is the breakout pariah distinction of "modernist" - again, a content-free term - Christians who, we can assume, JUST DO NOT GET why they should be BenOp (Dreher's catchy topical abbreviation) Christians instead.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, no one wants to be the wrong sort of Christian, now do they. So the only recourse is to join the crusade and become a clued-in BenOp Christian instead.
In other news: Choosy Mothers Choose JIF.
Dreher's "Option" is like the weather in Texas. If you do not like it, wait a minute.
ReplyDeleteIt's also like the baby bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks. Not too hot, not too cold, just right.
DeleteHe's running back to back to back Trump posts right now because in the Benedict Option World of Christian cultural-thickening strategic disengagement tranny ex-jocks are now so last week while meteorically arcing early GOP candidates are happen' now, baby!
DeleteI know I'm not one of the cool kids because I don't see the awesome Cadillac commercial (referred to in this Dreher "update") as a "send-up".
DeleteAnd I question his conclusion that the Venn diagram of people who dig that ad perfectly overlaps that of Trump supporters (because I believe Trump is a fraud). I think it's more accurate to say that the Venn diagram of people who dig that ad is perfectly contained within that of people who think Dreher is a sniveling fool.
And might I add Dreher having his guest pose for a blog photo with that stupid ice hammer is the equivalent of the TV interviewer who asked her guests to stand up and jump (and whom Lady Thatcher of course refused) .
ReplyDelete