Could Benedict Option communities be MORE susceptable to child sexual abuse?

An unfortunate "BenOp" community member?

The clickbait-inspired blog war instigated by Rod Dreher against an obscure Moscow, ID pastor named Doug Wilson - before, having ginned up the attention to himself he sought, Dreher subsequently demurred

I don’t want to get dragged into an extremely bitter fight that has way, way more layers than I am capable of understanding from this far away.

nevertheless leads one necessarily to think of the possibilities for child sexual abuse in small, semi- and self-isolated Christian communities "thickened" in their own particular ways according to the particular interests driving each one.

As more than one commenter on Rod's blog remarked, "good thing you didn't raise this as an example of the Benedict Option." Yes, good thing, but he really didn't need to, did he. The question of children vulnerable to abuse, sexual and otherwise, in Dreher's speculative communities was already implicit in Dreher's "BenOp" concept itself.

In other words, the conceptual architecture of Dreher's proposed Benedict Option itself raises the perfectly reasonable question of whether Benedict Option communities might naturally be more susceptible to child sexual abuse than their more traditional, mainstream, more fully culturally invested, more fully transparent to public scrutiny, normal Christian alternatives.

Take, for example, the world wide Catholic Church which Rod, who never met a sexual perversion that didn't interest him, gleefully made a name for himself writing about during the Scandal. The reason there was in fact a Scandal at all that someone with even Dreher's rudimentary journalistic skills could eventually stumble over was due overwhelmingly to the mainstream role the Church played and continues to play in modern culture and the public exposure that must inevitably accompany such a public cultural role.

Now take the similar scandals which have plagued Rod's own Orthodox Church, including those involving church officials he personally supported and lobbied for internally. One reason these haven't seen as much light of day, of course, is that Dreher has studiously avoided reporting on them.

But the larger reason is that the churches themselves are far more peripheral to mainstream culture, tiny, on the fringes, virtually invisible and unknown to most people. Rod's own current backwoods ROCOR church was created out of nothing, virtually bought and paid for by Rod himself, its space leased from a long time Dreher family friend, Rod's wife installed as the Rodfather's consigliere power equal of the priest's wife, and, most recently, the priest himself personally beholden to Rod for the money that saved the life of his newest child.

So let's try to imagine how prone to either (A) discovery and relentless public journalistic exposure or (B) quiet, in-house application of X-number of really very stern prayer rules any child sexual abuse occurring in Rod's own particular back bayou church itself is likely to be. Yeah, I'm LMAO, too.

But even Rod's communion at least has a long-standing historical pedigree dating back to the Apostles themselves. While one cannot help but love any religious movement whose founder first looks to smartly fitting reference to it into 140 character-limited Twitter before even bothering to be able to tell you what it is, not necessarily so the impromptu Rod-coined "BenOp" communities their founder and ur-patriarch Rod Dreher is promoting.

Those Christian-flavored assemblies will, by Rod's account at least, "strategically withdraw" from the world while "thickening" themselves according their own interpretations of Scripture and its applications to those under their control.

Frankly, I'd be concerned for any children marooned in "strategically withdrawn" fringe communities where things might be unilaterally "thickening".

But, as much as Dreher bangs on whatever he can press into service as his gong o' the moment, it's never been "about the children" and most certainly never about any children who may find themselves unwillingly trapped in Moscow, ID or even potentially in his own "BenOp" compounds.

It's only and always and forever been about promoting Rod Dreher as the ultimate Kardashian of Christianity, today's and every day's click boy winner of the Internet. Any real children have only and always and forever been nothing more than a means to that end.

Maybe someone could somehow launch a GoFundMe account that could just buy out Dreher's whole "BenOp" book ambition contractually once and for all.

Just think of how many innocent children that effort might potentially save.