The Benedict Option: a problem understanding monasticism
 |
| Wrong monk |
What has come to be known as the Benedict option seeks to answer this question. According to this theory, Christians should retreat from the culture at large, form their own communities where “neo-monasticism” is practiced, which seems to be a selective retreat from the world, where those participating are laymen and laywomen in every respect except that they remain uninvolved in the culture, one could even use the term quasi-monks. A good example of what these communities would look like would be the Hasidic Jewish communities that exist throughout the U.S.
As I, in my own life and discernment process, consider the monastic life, I must say that this is a misrepresentation of what it means to be a monk. A monk does not seek to retreat from the world because he has some sort of ideological or practical disagreement with it; he does so because he comes to the realization that everything that is in and of the world is to him an impediment to the radical union with God which he seeks. Thus, he gives up everything, including the opportunity go hold a job and have a family and children of his own, to own a home, to network with others, to be able to make meaningful change in society, for the purpose of pursuing only one thing, complete dedication to God. Yet, the monk—though he retreats from the world—does not abandon the world, because his great love, Christ, did not abandon the world. Rather, having retreated from it, he prays for the salvation of the world. Thus, he does not seek to forget the world, but to serve it in a different manner.
before concluding
In regards of the Benedict option, imagine the disaster that would have happened had the early Christians chosen it. After all, if Western culture has in some important regards moved away from Christianity, how much farther from Christ was it during the first three centuries of Christian existence? Of course, the early Christians did not choose the Benedict option. They did not choose the Benedict option because they understood that they had a duty to God and a duty to their neighbor to spread the good news that Christ is Lord, that He came back from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion, and that those who believe in Him will have eternal life. And so do we. The correct Christian response to the current culture is not to retreat from it, it is to work zealously to convert it and bring it to the truth and love of Christ. If the Benedict option instructs us to act differently, its validity is questionable.
Of course, it's very possible that Evangjeli gets the Benedict Option completely wrong, from two important standpoints.
First, the Benedict Option is an animagus in the process of being continually redefined by Rod Dreher even as I write this, so, like any week's upcoming Saturday Night Live production, the Benedict Option is in no way bound to be tomorrow what it was yesterday or today.
This is the Easter egg irony at its heart: what Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is is optional.
Second, though and most importantly, as close followers of Rod Dreher and his Benedict Option have verified on numerous occasions, Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ possesses a genetically programmed autonomic self defense* within the aforementioned Easter egg which prevents it from ever materializing as anything identical to an object of criticism.
So, sorry, Gjergji Evangjeli. By your very act of criticizing the Benedict Option you have almost certainly guaranteed that it will never admit to being what you understand it to be.
*In addition to these autonomic defenses preventing Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ from ever materializing within a locus of criticism, the Benedict Option Easter egg (BOEE) also contains within itself a process analogous to the enzyme reverse transcriptase which can be injected into any host it might encounter in passing.
Thus, if anything you're doing sounds decent, I must say, Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ immediately transcribes itself within that activity, and that activity in turn immediately becomes an example of the Benedict Option.
Unless someone happens to criticize what you're doing; then: buh-bye!
Yes, yes, yes!! He nails it. You can't have your quasi-monasticism and your oysters, too. ;)
ReplyDeleteA monk does not seek to retreat from the world because he has some sort of ideological or practical disagreement with it; he does so because he comes to the realization that everything that is in and of the world is to him an impediment to the radical union with God which he seeks. Thus, he gives up everything, including the opportunity go hold a job and have a family and children of his own, to own a home, to network with others, to be able to make meaningful change in society, for the purpose of pursuing only one thing, complete dedication to God. Yet, the monk—though he retreats from the world—does not abandon the world, because his great love, Christ, did not abandon the world. Rather, having retreated from it, he prays for the salvation of the world. Thus, he does not seek to forget the world, but to serve it in a different manner.
Eggzackly. Dreher would not last two days in Real Monasticism. (Neither would I, but, well, that's why I'm not a nun.)
Please...the Benedict Option qua monasticism is so six weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteToday's BennyOp is less about strategic withdrawl and more about the rebirth of the Counter-Enlightenment as a pathway to restoring Christendom. That is until someone points out that one of Rod's favorite snappy NFR comebacks "you're just emoting" was, for all intensive purposes, the same response enlightenment thinkers gave to their critics. Then the BennyOp will evolve again...it's really the Proteus Option.
"for all intents and purposes"
Deletenot "intensive purposes"
The Benedict Option = Moralistic Therapeutic Autism. In other words, whatever Rod skimmed today on the internet, curled up in his comfy chair, while Julie raised the kids.
ReplyDeleteSo what to make of today's post blaming the corny ~evil~ lyrics of an Eagles of Death Metal song for opening the door to evil ala a Louisiana ghost story and causing a terrorist attack, but don't get the wrong idea, Rod isn't BLAMING them, he's just saying...
ReplyDeleteOh and don't forget, if you come to the BenOpOneStopCommune and object to dear leader's Rolling Stones and cheerleader softcore, you're probably just a stuck up radfem prude. This is a safe space, bitches.
He might just be "saying", but the question I had is what is he just saying? Does he believe the victims to have been worshiping evil rather than merely at a commonplace whistling-in-the-graveyard rock-n-roll show? And if so, is he saying that the terrorists chose that show (intentionally or not) because of the deviltry in order to avenge the blasphemy, yet in doing so actually acted in league with Satan?
DeleteOr is he, as usual, "saying" precisely nothing and merely posing? My money is on this option.
P.S. The Stones also recorded "Sympathy for the Devil".
Rod makes me think of an old Gary Larsen cartoon with two amoeba (amoebae?) grouching at each other. "Stimulus, response, stimulus, response, Bob, don't you ever THINK?" He doesn't argue, he emotes. Except when he's infobombing you with 800 word block quote after 800 word block quote.
DeleteWell, technically speaking, Rod Dreher's BO is a meme he's calculatingly engineered, like a weaponized biological, to be introduced into religious environments where it is supposed to attach itself by rooting in psychological crevices of dissatifaction such as those erupting in the wake of Obergefell, between Pope Francis and his predecessor, and similar points where Christians mmight be expected to look for an outside lifeline and therein multiply and spread of its own awesomeness.
ReplyDeleteThe problem seems to be, it's as if the brainiac who weaponizes smallpox does so by successfully incorporating those qualities of microscopic black pepper which immediately cause explosive reflexive sneezing, thus canceling the intended delivery vector.
The BO meme is so badly engineered that, despite Dreher's best efforts to shove it up the snouts of fellow Christians, nine times out of ten the immediate reaction is "Ah-choooo!!!" and its intended recipients immediately find fault with it: it's not really monastic/it's actually a form of DIY Protestantism/etc., etc.
Regarding this point made by Mr. Evangjeli and highlighted by Diane (emphasis added):
ReplyDeleteA monk does not seek to retreat from the world because he has some sort of ideological or practical disagreement with it; he does so because he comes to the realization that everything that is in and of the world is to him an impediment to the radical union with God which he seeks.
You know, I could be more receptive to the BennieOpt if Dreher had said, just once, that the primary reason to pursue the BO is to become closer to God. Instead, its purpose is entirely reactionary, as Keith points out:
...rooting in psychological crevices of dissatisfaction such as those erupting in the wake of Obergefell, between Pope Francis and his predecessor, and similar points where Christians might be expected to look for an outside lifeline...
Just as Dreher's conversion to Orthodoxy was (as he himself stated) in reaction to his anger with the Catholic Church for various and sundry reasons (the Scandal, ugly churches, icky music, crappy homilies). And just as his use of The Divine Comedy more as a self-help and psychotherapy book than as a story of salvation, as this reviewer says ("The power of "Divine Comedy" is in finding God, not in avoiding stress. It isn’t about saving your life, as the title claims, it’s about saving your soul.").
THe BO is predicated on tprojection of blame onto "the culture." Its a sublimation of Rod's ongoing cult of victim hood. Just once Id like to read him describing the BO in some way other than through the lens of victimization oppression and resistance. But talking about God and Christ would not serve Rod purpose with is to construct a model of the world in which Christians are powerless pawns of vague cultural forces/
ReplyDeleteThe Benedict Option Theme Song. It is by Randy Newman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j5Be5a86uA
ReplyDeleteIt's not even "the culture" that's let Rod down anymore. It's "modernity." It's *every* culture all across the Western world for the past few hundred years. Rod is such a *very* special snowflake that only Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres in Medieval France are good enough for him. The Middle Ages represents a safe space, out of reach of mean girls and their cooties, where there's no one to pull Rod's pants down but a charming Prince.
ReplyDeleteRod is now in the rather untenable position of arguing against the enlightenment. But he seems to pick and choose whch asect of the enlightenment he feels is leading us to perdition and which ones are saqcred cows. Rod has been railing against "social justice warriors" who have tried to impose zones where "ffree speech is banned on campus because their sense ofpolitically correct morality is threatened .... poo rragile coddled things that they are. . Rod is deeply offended by this becasue for him free speech and the rights of the press aqre sacrosanct. There is a nice enlightenment value for you. But ask him about Christians having the right to discriminate against others because their sense of morality is outraged ... well that is a different matter. Its not really hypocracy as much as Rod is cut from the same piece of cloth as these social justice warriors, same motivations, same emotional reactions, the same sense of specialness, the same entitlement and delusions of persecution. The social justice warriors irritate our working boy so much because they are a mirror image of himself.
DeletePicking and choosing is the essence of Rod's BO. Whatever strikes Rod's fancy is the One True Path of Salvation. The BO is like a Greek drama of the inner recesses of Rod's soul. Which is fine, but what makes it so risible is that while others might, I don't know, write a novel, create some great work of art, build a cabin in the woods, etc, Rod lashes out at the world like an eternal 14-year-old and demands that the entire cosmos be transformed into a Cosmic Safe Space for Rod. He's shrank his life over the years, live over the Internet, all for safety - he now lives and works at home, away from all the friends he claims he made in New York and Dallas and Philadelphia and wherever. His life is him, his family, his private church, and his friends from the Internet.
DeleteAnd it's still not safe enough. The Benedict Option as Rod is living it can more accurately be described as the Michael Jackson Option, in which Rod's engineered his whole life to be a hall of mirrors.
Which does not end well.
Notice how self-segregation from mainstream academia has suddenly become a key component of the BO - and not on religious grounds but on purely political grounds. Rod doesn't like "SJWs," especially female ones, so opposition to SJWs suddenly becomes essential to the BO, thereby demonstrating how the BO is basically just a catch-all for Rod's "strategic retreat" from whatever cooties it is he's afraid of being infected by on a given day. It's all about Rod and his precious bodily fluids. It has nothing fundamentally to do with religion, culture, politics or anything else. It is absolutely nothing whatsoever but one very narcissistic man's attempt to build a safe space for his own benefit, at other persons' cost.
DeleteI'm not even sure it's political - it looks like Rod's saying "I don't like SJWs so neener-neener, the Universe doesn't like them either". His recent post - comparing some incident at Harvard to the Reichstag fire, no hyperbole there - was the first of his that I can recall not just disagreeing with or finding ridiculous, but in some places simply incomprehensible (truth and falsehood don't matter, except when they do, but they don't here, but they do, but they don't).
DeleteOn another note, Rod's Oxycontin-fueled aggro blogging (to steal a phrase) has started to go over into doxxing-style tactics - he posted the email address and employer of a critic during his "I sure hope policefolk would beat my daughter if she got out of line" phase. Last night, he posted a Facebook conversation between two random people, one of whom wasn't orthodox enough for Rod. Helpfully, Rod decided to leave the names unexpunged for his readership. He took the posting down, but not before several people called him on the ethics (and potential legality) of what he did. Luckily for the world, Google cached the post - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WXcodgZHJbgJ:www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christianity-arguing-with-nothingness/comment-page-1/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
What may explain Rod Dreher's periodically volatile emotional blogging.
DeleteI think its impossible for him to keep his oh so adumdant bigotry and malice confined to one group like gays or the transgendered. He cant help but spread it around.
DeleteThe theme song is from The Monk show It's a Jungle Out there.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. Perfect.
DeleteYes, I think that Keith and Jonathan have chosen or stumbled onto an apt metaphor for Rod Dreher and the Benedict Option. Adrian Monk lives like a monk to a great degree, but not because it helps him get closer to God or to serve his fellow man. He does it because the world freaks him out and he can't deal with it.
DeleteThe Newman theme song superseded the earlier instrumental jazz theme in the second season of the show. My opinion is that "It's a Jungle Out There" is a far superior theme for the show. The minor key and dismal lyrics fit the depressing state of the protagonist like a glove. And I think Jonathan is right -- the song fits the Benedict Option perfectly as well.
Also of note: in one of the episodes, and the scene was for awhile used in the intro, Monk has to go through larger than life replica of a birth canal at a science museum. He is freaking out the entire time because he is so hung up about sexuality.
The last place Dreher would feel at home is inside a vagina.
DeleteI just had to ask Rod a few questions regarding this post: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/nativism-the-benedict-option/
ReplyDeleteHe won't publish my comments. He never publishes them, and I'm never personally insulting. All I ever do is parse what he's written. How is this unpublishable?
Rod,
For the life of me, I really can't figure out your project here, other than seeing it as a way for you to guide your fellow Christian who are non-Orthodox to adopt Orthodox praxis in various ways. I'm just not sure how *you* can write these sentences as if they are true for you personally (because of how much you talk about just how fulfilling your church life is). Let's parse some of these words:
"The first and primary goal is to give Christians what they (we) need to worship and serve God faithfully in emerging circumstances, according to the great tradition."
***But it seems that you have everything you need. Your church has fasting, rigorous prayer life, liturgy, memory, everything you say that the BO needs. So why do you say "we" in this sentence?
"The second goal is to provide sources of resistance and re-spiritualization, both for the sake of reintegrating body and spirit (in Douglas’s sense), and to provide a cohesive group capable of taking collective action to defend itself and its members."
***Again, why would you say a RE-spiritualization. You have that. So it seems to me that you're trying to guide others in finding their way in these dark woods. And what you have as your resource is the Orthodox tradition. You really are expecting them to follow this tradition in whatever ways they can. I don't mean this as a criticism at all; I'm just confused as to why you act as if there has to be some sort of rediscovery and that everyone has to work together to rediscover it. It seems pretty clear that the rediscovery is found in YOUR tradition and that everyone needs to follow your lead.
"The leadership we need will not likely come from establishment leaders, religious, political, or otherwise."
***I don't see how you can actually mean this. No Orthodox religious leaders are going to help you? Not in confession, not in their teaching about virtue, liturgy, etc? I'm at a loss as to why you'd say this PERSONALLY. I get the feeling that you actually mean something closer to this: "None of your religious leaders are going to help you (not even the Pope)."
"We are going to have to do this ourselves, aligned with whichever men and women of good faith and humanity emerge from among us, and within those decaying and enfeebled institutions."
***Do you really mean that the Orthodox Church is an enfeebled institution? I don't think you do. But you lump yourself in with all of us. Again, I think you see yourself as an enlightened one already doing the BO and hope to lead the rest of us. And good for you. I think you have a really strong hold on all sorts of these things. I'm just not buying the rhetoric. Here's the bottomline: you think American protestantism and Catholicism (other than the trads) have bought into modernity hook-line-and-sinker. You think the only way to hold on is to reject modernity. You think the Orthodox Church does this exceptionally well. So, in short, to do BO is to do in some way Orthodoxy: some sort of tradition, some sort of liturgy, some sort of memory, some sort of physical worship, etc. Everything you call for in the BO is found in your parish.
Hugo
Hugo. Rod is a member of ROCOR. ROCOR is the closest thing we have in Orthodoxy to fundamentalists. They were a splinter group for over a century who redused intercommunion with evry other Orthodox body in the world. That has now changed but as an institution, ROCR tends to attract extremeists who regard the rest of Orthodoxy as too lax in praxis. Thet also obsess over the liturfical calendar, the New Martyrs (the Russian Royal family( and the various "pan-heresies" that supposedly infect the rest of the Orthodox world. Rod have picked up on some the extremeism in ROCOR , Certainly ROCOR tebs to attract hy[er orthodox converts who are obsessed with "purity" of practice. i don't know if Rod is one of those but the consensus among many in ROCOR is that the rest f Orthodoxy has compromised. So Rod may very well regard Orthodoxy asd a weakened institution
Delete