If you need Rod Dreher to save you, are you really worth saving?

I've probably let it seep out that I'm not a big fan of whiners, particularly when it comes to Christianity and conservatism, both of which, it seems to me, should provoke us to more noble postures.

One expression of this that periodically irritates me is when I hear someone say that at the end of the day we can't be too hard on Rod Dreher - the archetype God studied when designing the weasel - because he stands up for us where we can't. Bullshit. Here's a prime example of just the opposite.

Today Dreher has a post up about a cop in Salt Lake City who found himself in some sort of trouble with his superiors for not marching in some sort of gay parade. Dreher's solution? Naturally, his Benedict Option - whatever that really is.

Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally,

This fall, a major university is planning a conference on the Benedict Option, as Christians and conservatives are considering the idea more seriously. I am planning a book about it, as a contribution to the public debate.

While the finer points of that LEO's obligations as an officer under orders remain unresolved, the main thing, the only thing, is that the officer chose to resign rather than fighting for his rights himself based on the abundance of rights and resources he already had available.

Dreher would encourage more to do the same, in the guise of a fatalistic vision of inevitable persecution, because it serves his personal bottom line.

One of Dreher's regular conservative commenters, Glaivester, comes to similar, if not quite as venally motivated, conclusions.

If you need a self-dealing weasel like Dreher to save you rather than standing up for yourself, what sort of Christianity or conservatism, exactly, do you represent that is really worth saving?

Moral Clarity

Charlie K brings the moral clarity, but it feels like a waste of time even as it reads like the Truth. Excerpt:

Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.

Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza.

And there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.

The reason it seems like a waste of time is that the people determined to perpetuate the ridiculous "cycle of violence" meme sound so morally superior to everyone. The sense I get from them is "Yes, yes, we know that one side may be more to blame that the other, but really, this part of the world has been fighting for hundreds and thousands of years. It's time to stop pointing fingers...." No! I want more finger pointing. What is wrong with a one-state solution, run by grown-ups (Israelis) where we recognize who's to blame for the violence (Palestinians)? And anyone who doesn't like that can move to one of the other wonderful Muslim countries in the area. If they'll allow them in.

Andrew Sullivan calls Rod Dreher a coward

And Rod won’t do it because someone might say something mean at the office!

And of course he's right.

Sully, though, is a day late and a dollar short. Rod's own commenters already know he's a sniveling moral coward, as we already discussed previously here.

Somehow in his morally paralyzed state of terror Dreher also forgets that even if he gets pushback against his beliefs at the office, he's first in line for protection under EEOC laws, laws that make it clear who the party in the wrong actually is: the firm tolerating any such anti-Christian discrimination.

Not some vague Zeitgeist, you quaking, gibbering jellyfish.

So let's review:

• Christ died on the Cross to bring Christianity


• Numerous saints, Catholic, Orthodox and probably a whole bunch of others I'm ignorant of suffered torture and died professing and standing up for their faith.


• Ordinary Christians across America, genuinely seated in their faith, also gladly shape their lives to profess and support that faith every day, although because in America we really don't allow torture and murder anymore, they take whatever occasional frownies or passed up opportunities for friendship they might get and shrug them off - like grown adults do

But pudgy little Rod Dreher of St. Francisville, LA, who struts around in life in a cloud of every hipster affectation of exotic religion he can think to muster (fashionably scraggly beard optionally included), who makes his living online acting out a Vegas-worthy performance art of religiosity that would make even Jimmy Swaggart weep, who somehow thinks life outside his Mam's belly should be a protected cozy corner, prepared for him by women and moderated like his blog, is too terrified of losing the gay audience for his blog and books he craves to even point out his own standing in a federally protected class, much less to actually ever have the spine to take any sort of direct moral stance against homosexuality on his TAC blog.

Man, oh, man, Mam and Paw Dreher, do I ever feel for you.

Your namesake Ray Dreher, Jr., only son and heir, is publicly whining and petulantly pleading why some vaguely referenced others should leave him alone to not have to be more of a stand-up Christian man than a depraved homosexual who likes to have butt sex with other men.

That's about as close to the incarnate definition of mangina as you can get.