"Why so many Catholic laypeople are thinking about some form of the Benedict Option"
Really? How many? Rod Dreher doesn't say, nor does he need to, because "so many" means exactly the same thing as "Benedict Option" - anything and nothing. However many "so many" may be, Rod desperately needs every last one of them he can make you believe exists if he is to give his Benedict Option book proposal marketing angle any sort of meaningful religious grounding.
What may help that "so many" become a few more, though, is Rod Dreher's sock puppet blog The Benedict Post, designed to woo Catholics to his Benedict Option by posing it as a weekly staple of Catholic thinking. Benny, as I like to call Rod's Catholic-fishing alter-ego, has had some publishing gaps over the last several weeks because Rod has been preoccupied with the death of his father. Our condolences on their loss. I'm confident Benny will be back up and chirping out Dreher-pitch-perfect Benedict Option Catholicisms any day now.
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| Benny |
With Jake Meador on his team, dutifully referring to Rod's Benedict Option by its inventor's preferred trade mark, the shibboleth "BenOp" (because, for a Christian concerned with thickening his religious faith, those full five syllables can be a burden far too heavy and distracting; and, of course, because Twitter) and with Rod invited to retreat with Evangelicals to make his pitch directly, so far Benny doesn't have a little Protestant sock puppet blogging brother.
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| The rebrand that "everybody" is talking about. |
But stay tuned. It's still early in the campaign season, and a Protestant Benny may still pop up. Or, less likely, I may be proved wrong about Benny, an option statistically as likely as Rod posting a picture of Francis that just once invokes the Vicar of Christ instead of a sixth Marx brother.
The ever-growing elephant in the middle of the room which is sighted again here is that Rod Dreher cannot stop commentating on the Catholic Church 9 years and 2 denominations after he left it. The pederast scandal is for all legal and media purposes over, so now the drumbeat is on the badly-catechized and dissenting Catholics.
ReplyDeleteThe laughability factor of Dreher mentioning dissenting on artificial contraception is pretty high, considering that is likely one of the reasons that he and his wife left the Catholic Church.
The questions rational people ask in situations like this are
Delete- The reasons to get behind a cool new idea proposed by someone who undergoes regular, fundamental convulsions of faith and psyche - Dreher's ostensible repudiation of the Church because of the scandal, in reality, because 3 kids was all his wife wanted; his meltdown when his family didn't embrace him sufficiently - are, what, again?
- What is the alternative these supposed BO-eager Catholics are eager to pursue? Catholicism isn't distributed homeschooling, it's a Rome-centered, hierarchical world religion.
- When reading these sorts of posts Dreher likes to throw up detailing the faults, breakdowns, problems, and, here, detailing, gosh, just how ineffectively catechizing the Church in America seems to be, the obvious answer to Q1 +Q2 eventually becomes...Rod's Orthodoxy.
So that's pretty much how I see Rod/Benny's play with Catholics:
1. Identify the disgruntled Catholics by diving directly into their ranks
2. Inveigle the BO as a staple of their Catholicism, or, rather, the BO as the way the Church should be doing Catholicism if it weren't so, gosh, you know, just terminally corrupt and ineffective and prone to throw ordinary people into convulsions of faith and psyche.
3. Allow them to discover that the only BO of Catholicism is - guess what? - the Catholicism they're in the process of searching for alternatives to. There's not some cable reality show-style alternate Wild Alaskan Roots Catholicism they can run off to instead. No, "thickening their communities of faith", for Catholics, can only mean sucking it up, sticking with what they've got, and trying to make the very best of it.
4. Mention that...you, know...he used to be Catholic, just like them, but, like them, one day... Why, he adores Catholics, but, you know, thank God, there just aren't any tranny unicorns in Orthodoxy. Nope, Orthodoxy just doesn't countenance any of that sort of crap, chuckle. But, of course, it's up to you, pilgrim, what you and your immortal soul are willing to settle for...
This is the way you "groom" any susceptible population into an alternative you would have for them.
Rod reminds me of the late Bart Brewer, the Head of the group Mission to Catholics Int. He was a former Carmelite Priest who made everyone believe he had all of these noble reasons for leaving the Catholic church. Karl Keating of Catholic Answers found the main reason for his departure was his disliking the Vow of Celibacy he took.
Deleteso now the drumbeat is on the badly-catechized and dissenting Catholics
ReplyDeleteGood grief. Eastern Orthodoxy is brimming over with badly catechized members -- with people who believe all sorts of nonsense from far-left kookiness (approving gay marriage) to far-right kookiness (rabid anti-semitism, nutty nationalism). I'm not knocking this at all. That's what you get with a large, old church: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Rod keeps trying to uphold this pretense that his current communion is utterly pure and singularly holy. But no authentic church is like that. Cults are purist -- not actually pure, just deludedly purist: convinced they're pure. But real churches are a mess -- and acknowledge it.
Rod cannot seem to come to grips with that. So, he deflects -- focusing on the Catholic mess while pretending that the Orthodox one doesn't exist. This is just silly. And, as the Orthodox folks who comment here have so frequently pointed out, it's NOT. Orthodox.
I don't know what the hell Rod thinks he is, but he's not Orthodox. Not Catholic. Not Orthodox. He might as well just found his own church. Oh wait -- he pretty much has.
Sorry if that comment was confused and unclear. Am writing in haste at work. But it all boils down to: Catholicism's no messier than Orthodoxy. And that's a Good Thing, because purist communions - all wheat, no tares -- tend to be crazy cults full of scary, deranged people.
DeleteNo, Diane, you're making perfect sense: Rod's seeking Rod-defined nirvana/utopia - but to legitimize it everyone should be doing so, too.
DeleteThe answer, at the final scene of the BO mind-drama Rod is discharging into the contemporary public religious waterways, is (sotto voce) "Rosebud", little pre-sexual Rod, free from the sexual sin of both personal maturation and torturing bullies alike, in the little BO cottage in the woods with his maiden aunts, giggling with chubby, floured cheeks and apron tied around his chubby waist, making cookies in the Christian purity of childhood for eternity.
Meanwhile, for the adults necessarily left behind to run things, life remains perennially dirty, gray, and complicated.
...life remains perennially dirty...
DeleteWait... no platonic idealism?
BTW, "why are so many Catholics BenOpping" reminds me of Perry Mason's classic line: "You're assuming a fact not in evidence, Hamilton Rod-Man Burger!"
ReplyDeleteBut it doesn't matter, Diane, because the whole BO is a Potemkin Village anyway. Certainly Dreher isn't going to live any differently because of the BO than he otherwise would -- nor will he turn into the actual leader of an actual group or movement, because then he'd have to actually deliver the goods.
DeleteNo, this is just a paper exercise anyway (hopefully, for Dreher, using enough paper to make a book out of it). And because the whole thing is a dry lab*, evidence doesn't matter and he's free to assume away.
*A "dry lab" is what we electrical engineering students called it when someone didn't actually do the experiment but just faked the data to get the right answer.
You'll notice his expansion to contain multitudes on the Kim Dawson affair.
DeleteInitially it was: she should resign, not the hill to die on, Christians have no hope in the public square, go BO or go home.
Latest: Ooooh! More orifices to lick than tongues if Dreher is now to be on everyone's side and maximize his own place in the public square.
The BO is rapidly becoming a litmus test of a Christian's willingness to sell his birthright for a mess o' cyber/contempo-pottage. Dwight Longenecker & Jake Meador are both on board, both rising cyber-stars now with excellent authority links.
Who'll bid more?
To what Pikkumatti wrote, I think the Dreherian way to look at his lifestyle is this: he is doing more than most Christians are doing to live up to the BenOp standards (home schooling, church in backyard,etc.), but until every single serious Christian wises up and does BenOp, Dreher himself really can't be expected to do any more. This predicament explains why this upcoming book is so desperately crucial to the survival of the Christian faith.
DeleteNow in the circles with which I am familiar this is basically referred to as "finger pointing". Pointing out the fault committed by others is one thing, but pointing out their omissions is taking finger pointing to another level, especially when the omissions which are in matters of strategy and not morality. I think it is necessary to point out both at times, but sparingly. That's why St. James says "be slow to judge."
Of course his premise that he embodies whatever the BenOp is can't be incorrect; since the whole BenOp project is a moving target and reflects whatever he says it is at any given moment, he is always living it. A personal European vacation away from his family is 100% BenOp just like drinking French wine in America is 100% in accord with eating locally.
Finger pointing. Yep. Nailed it.
DeleteHow is Dreher any different from the hyper-judgmental fundy preacher who rails at all those other Christians (including other fundies of different flavors) because they allow women to wear pants and aren't KJV-Only?
To your point about finger pointing, an interesting observation by commenter Eamus Catuli about commenter Irenist. Second, an unrelated suck-up from Irenist:
DeleteIrenist says:
September 2, 2015 at 12:50 pm
it’s all over for traditionalists in the public square.
Yes, it is. And God bless you for writing a BenOp book about what to do about that.
First:
Irenist says:
September 2, 2015 at 12:56 pm
This is not only why we need the BenOp, but why the idea that we can somehow roll back SSM politically is laughable: even our own parishioners don’t believe the Truth on this stuff! We need to rediscover how to live in communities of discipleship that embrace a culture of life, rather than a culture of abortion, sodomy, divorce, and contraception.
If you were the Pope, what would you do to address this less-than-ideal situation?
Look, the Catholic situation in this country is grim. But look on the bright side: it could be a lot worse–at least I’m not Pope!
(continues)
Eamus Catuli says:
ReplyDeleteSeptember 2, 2015 at 5:42 pm
@Irenist:
….even our own parishioners don’t believe the Truth on this stuff! We need to rediscover how to live in communities of discipleship that embrace a culture of life, rather than a culture of abortion, sodomy, divorce, and contraception.
As you know, I disagree with you about what constitutes a “culture of life.” But, taking this on its own terms for the moment: What are you actually saying?
What provokes me is the phrase “We need X.” I have heard this phrase many, many times, and usually from the left. It is almost always either an evasion or an admission of defeat.
For instance, back in the Nuclear Freeze era of the ’80s, I remember lots of “We needs” from the antinuclearist crowd. “We need” to break “our” neurotic dependence on nuclear weapons. “We need” to stop supporting politicians like Reagan (as if most or all of us did). Very few ideas were ever forthcoming about how, exactly, “we” were going to achieve this, particularly since the person issuing the call obviously did not really consider him- / herself part of the “we.” Talking about what “we need” was a polite way of not saying what was really meant, which was that THEY needed to do something and were wrong for not doing it.
My favorite was some Marxist grad student who was in a group with whom I watched the 1988 presidential debates. “We need a praxis,” he kept saying. A praxis? What effing “praxis”? What we needed was a Democratic candidate who could win, and we got one four years later.
And just to make clear that it’s not only the left: I have a Facebook “friend” who is putting up a half-dozen posts a day at the moment opposing the Iran nuclear deal. While other people post pictures of their new kittens, she weighs in every few hours to denounce Obama for his nefarious insistence on helping the mullahs prepare their doomsday weapons with the obvious intent of wiping Israel off the map. “We need a better deal,” she keeps saying. That six world powers plus a unanimous UN Security Council have signed off on this one is just of no interest at all. She has as much of a clue as to how “we” can get what she thinks “we” need as that Marxist goof had about what was wrong with the Dukakis campaign.
In short, if you have no control or even real influence over the “we,” then to say “we need to rediscover” something is empty, isn’t it? YOU don’t need to rediscover it; you already know it. Others, you think, need to rediscover it, but what you’re saying is, you don’t really have any idea what would lead them to. Or do you? Granting what you think “we” need, what can YOU do about the vast “we” that isn’t already on board? And in light of historical experience, what do you (seriously) think is the likelihood that this will work?
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Remember your Kierkegaard about the difference between the shoe shop sporting the sign "Shoes repaired here" and the sign shop with a shoe shop sign in the window saying "Shoes repaired here". BO fans run the sign shop and traffic in signs that say "Christianity should be practiced this way". Whether they sell very many of them to actual Christian communities who actually run their communities that way remains to be seen.
His comment reminds me of stuff I heard from the curmudgeon types in the mid-90s like "We need a third party for the middle class," etc. These people are observers, critics, arm-chair quarterbacks -- whatever you want to call them.
DeleteI'm guessing a lot of the Trump supporters are being won from their ranks. That may be a positive thing if they become active, actually DOing something, as a result. But I worry that they inhabit the Goldilocks zone and like hitchhikers holding out for a 2016 Cadillac with leather seats. As if that driver is going to pick them up....
This Orthodox Christian is very tired of DreRod. I wonder how he will milk his father's death ?
ReplyDeleteToo many squirrels up too many trees. What's a manic-depressive Working Boy to do?
ReplyDeleteBut first, to your point, I think Rod wrung the last juice out of his old man over the funeral days, making the babushkas who hang on his prose weep with his stylings, but I think now he's dusted his hands of him for the moment. From Dreher's accounts, their lifetime relationship was fraught, and only Paw's terminal infirmity allowed the hyena son to circle back in for the final act of public revenge domination of the once proud old man. We'll probably see intermittent references to Paw and his dying in periodic book or how-Christian-is-Rod? promotions, but for the most part Rod is probably secretly relieved the old bull is finally gone and no longer a threat.
It has been three weeks today now since Rod-as-Benny posted anything to The Benedict Post, nor has Benny tweeted or retweeted anything. Benny has currently gone dark.
Readers will remember how slickly that horse left the gate, with the immediate recognition and support of Rod's pals at the Federalist. But, as my opening line implies, what leaped forth on a manic high in service to the frenzied BO surge at the time can quickly snag an ankle and falter in the ADHD mine field of too many books to read, too many topical squirrels (Kim Davis! more trannies! refugees!) to chase up too many trees. The unavoidable detour to dispose of his father could hardly have helped.
In addition to the carefully posed, infinitely wide and dense reading list for the BO, Rod simply can't help himself from trying to don more books-as-scholarly-props-of-intellectual-fashion, hence
Reading all the coverage from the past few days, I couldn’t help thinking of a notorious novel I had never read: French author Jean Raspail’s apocalyptic The Camp of the Saints (1973). I found an English translation for free online, and spent a couple of hours this afternoon reading it.
Oh, why not, Rod? It's not as if the performance art known as blogging - to writing what Madonna's "vogueing" is to the Shakespearean stage - requires that you understand anything you speed-scan and name-drop. But the hours in a day are not infinite, so burying Paw + wrapping up probate + continuing to try to slog through the self-imposed Augean reading list for the BO + new-squirrel-for-the-immigrants-topic! leaves a Benny Boy little time to continue pretending being Catholic at the ambitious scope he first bit off.
Still, there may be a better reason to explain why a so slickly and apparently fully Catholic Benny burst forth so comprehensively into the blogging scene, with immediate support from already established bloggers like Ben Domenech and others, systematically plugging the BO, then, suddenly, just as EQE fingered it as a fraud, first took an extremely early, unearned "vacation" before quickly thereafter falling silent.
Maybe Benny will simply come clean and tell us himself.