Brand confusion about the Benedict Option

I had been meaning to post on this for awhile, but better late than never. I was reading a post from Father Shenan Boquet of Human Life International when another of his older posts caught my eye about Sanctuary Cities for Christians. Immediately I though "Hmmm, sounds kind of Benedict Option-y." And since he invokes the term and links to Dreher's blog, it seems upon a quick, first like he's getting on board the BenOp train. Except:

Still, it’s time we give this a shot before it is too late, if for no other reason than to help awaken those believers who are still sleepily going along with the culture. As one LGBT-celebratory Christian leader has recently argued, the “middle ground is disappearing.” Writer Rod Dreher and others have noted this has been underway for some time. Dreher reports on his blog how a growing number of parents are surprised to find themselves having to pull their children out of grade school as gender ideology has become dogmatic seemingly overnight, and schools are constantly undermining parental rights and privileges.

He even throws in the obligatory Benedict Option "we're not cutting and running" disclaimer which we are used to hearing:

I want to make this perfectly clear: There is a difference between running in fear and trying to escape reality, and a strategic retreat to a place of strong footing, from which a community can act in love and truth and build a real culture again.

Upon a closer reading, however, Father seems to be asking for a greater civic involvement of Christians and other people of good will who respect religious freedom to achieve the goal of justice and spiritual flourishing. The tone of the article is much more akin to "taking the country back" than the building of religious Christians-only safe spaces. One of the reasons it's difficult to see this first is that Fr. Boquet is very careful not to call for any direct political action, but instead uses the illegal-alien sanctuary city concept analogically:

....We need sanctuary cities for Christians.

There is a precedent for this: There are some 200 cities in the United States that have decided, through official policy if not in law, to not enforce federal laws on immigration. In essence, these “sanctuary cities” refuse to cooperate with federal agents when it comes to reporting crimes committed by those in the country illegally, arguing that such reporting would create a climate of fear and would ensure a lack of cooperation between migrant communities and local law enforcement.

There is an insinuation between the lines that in his proposed Christian sanctuary cities, officials would look the other way when someone refuses to sign a same-sex marriage license or break any other ordinance which violates a federal ordinance and yet upholds the moral law. That is his clear intention, yet, as I stated, he is careful not to explicitly lay out this rebellious course of action.

I think that Fr. Boquet is "glomming onto" the Benedict Option because it is a term out there already, but there is a pretty big difference between it and what he is advocating. A Christian Sanctuary City as he describes is would be a place where you don't have to be a Christian to live in or belong to the way a Benedict Option community is described. These cities would become strategic outposts in the culture wars rather than strategic withdrawals from the culture wars.

It has become unfashionable to speak of the "culture wars" due to the scorn of the elite cultural leftists who are claiming victory, those like Dreher who are advocating surrender and those still fighting in the ranks but tempted by war-weariness to cease. But this war is merely a part of the ancient War of good versus evil, and there is no reason to shy away from calling it a war. We didn't start it, and it will never end until Judgment Day. Each Christian and person of good will must fight these battles in the way he sees fit, trying not to rebuke others who fight it differently, at least not publicly.

On the other hand, I will continue to rebuke the Benedict Option because it represents a refusal to fight, withdrawing from the battle to instead hurl inane insults from their towers at those still fighting on the ground like those Frenchmen in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The rest of us will continue to fight the culture war, even if to many it seems like we're merely banging coconuts together.

Don't Take the Bait

If you are a mouse or a 21st century American I have some advice for you: learn to identify traps, then don't take the bait.

While driving down the road, several of my sons and I were watching some 20-somethings put up Black Lives Matter yard-signs in a neighborhood around West 150th Street in Cleveland. My oldest son stated it best. "Everyone believes that black people count just as much as whites, except for racists. So when someone says to you 'Black lives matter' what they really mean to say to you is 'You're a racist.' It's just an accusation."

He's right obviously. It's the same leftist abuse of language which infects the pathetic chant of the Occupy Movement "We. Are. The Ninety-nine Percent!!" But they're not; they are a tiny sliver of the American populace. They may speak for somewhere between 5% and 15% of the victicrat population, but that's probably generous of me.

Unfortunately some people who aren't anywhere near the fringe left have taken the rhetorical bait. The group Blue Lives Matter is one which I heartily support, but Oh! how I wish they hadn't named themselves that. Once you realize that saying "Black Lives Matter" is really a challenge which could be phrased as the question, "Are you going to support us or the police?", then saying "Blue Lives Matter" can be interpret as answering "No, I don't support you; I support the Police." It is a way to inadvertently perpetuate the perception that the police are out to get anyone who is black. That perception is a win for BLM and left's booming victim industry.

The latest abuse of this comes from the Charles Sheldon-style Protestant Socialist contingent in the form of WWJD-ing the rhetoric. The first place I saw this was a Facebook placard which simply appropriated the voice of Christ saying things like "Jesus didn't say all lives matter, He said leper's lives matter. Jesus didn't say all lives matter, He said the poor's lives matter." And on and on. The truth is that Our Lord didn't speak in hashtags and soundbites at all, and that is the best counterpoint here. One could point out the many times that Jesus used universal language (ever hear of John 3:16?) but I'd be wary of taking the bait.

The other place I saw something similar was a Patheos article which I won't even link to. It actually uses the Beatitudes in an attempt to make a similar point. It has a cartoon of Christ saying "Blessed are the poor in spirit," and a listener objecting "No, Jesus! Blessed are we ALL!" So the message is that anyone who says "All lives matter" is telling Jesus to shut up. One could point out that none of the Beatitudes mention race, but again, I think that getting into a theological discussion on this is getting into pearls/swine territory and we know how that ends. It's best to stay in one piece.

So the best comeback to shouts of "Black Lives Matter!" is not "Blue lives matter" or even "All lives matter". Calling out the Black Lives Matter movement for what it is, an organization profiting from civil unrest and organized by racist agitators, is the best reaction to anything touching which smells of their caustic rhetoric. Christians and especially American Christians have to become aware of real motives and quit being so gullible. Jesus instructed us as much.

Benedict Option Endorsed by National Newspaper

...or, I don't know, is The Onion international? Either way, a wise Soup Ladeler interviewed by the premium press outlet had this to say about Christianity's future with young, cool people:

“Yeah, but as soon as the church is obscure and hip again they’ll come rushing back.”

Some people try to make Christianity more relevant by accepting various disordered yet fashionable lifestyles like homosexuality. Other people try to make it more relevant by withdrawing from society and into a to-be-defined type of bunker. One might be morally worse, but neither ends up working.

A Ghost in the Family

The ISSUU site has a new embed feature which I am using here so everyone can read the classic short story A Ghost in the Family by Rod Dreher.

I think this story can serve as a qualification which explains this comment from the other day. In it, Dreher claims to "revel in news about religion" to explain away his relentless Catholic-bashing noticed by commenter Chip. I would suggest that this statement needs to be qualified. It may not be true that Dreher only revels in bad news about the Catholic Church, but it is certainly true that he only revels in some news about religion. Other religious news which might be interesting to most religious people is entirely boring to Dreher and thus ignored. For example, I would have figured he'd have been all over this Eastern Clergy Can Marry Now story like white on rice, but he hasn't posted on it that I can see.

Here's the entire comment:

Chip says:
November 14, 2014 at 3:09 pm

Rod, am I wrong, or do you revel in bad news about the Catholic Church? I would say about 1 post a day is on that topic. Are you having a hard time letting go?

[NFR: You are wrong, and thin-skinned to boot. I revel in news about religion. The fast-changing religion demographics in Latin America is a huge story with global implications. Neither one is my church, so I don't have a dog in that fight. But the fact that you don't want to hear the news doesn't mean the news isn't there. Blaming the messenger is not a good strategy for dealing with reality. -- RD]

Chip's observation is the one we have made over and over again. The revelry is reserved for tales of paranormal activity or narratives which reinforce his own prejudices. In other words, the religious news stories which he likes best are ones which aim to stimulate the curiosity and not edify the soul.

Rod of Arc

In his most recent post donkey punching the GOP, Rod Dreher draws his line in the sand, pokes his finger in the dike, and makes his stand in the pass at Thermopylae:

I am not a libertarian; if anything, I’m a Red Tory, or a Christian Democrat in the European sense. But ours is not a culture where Red Toryism or Christian Democracy makes much sense. It might have at one time, but not anymore. I have been thinking for a couple of years now that if I’m going to protect my religious liberty rights (the most important right, in my view), I’m going to have to figure out how to do so within a libertarian framework.

So here we have Dreher's latest branding: no longer the impossible to sell Crunchy Con, he has now burst forth transcendentally from that crunchy chrysalis to become the Jean D'Arc standing between you and the lime eaters ready to strip you of your religious liberty.

First question(s): How much relief and confidence does Rod's new stance instill in you? Enough to overlook his _______ (fill in the blank)?

Second question(s): Clearly in our current environment this is a gambit with potential. If you yourself wouldn't follow Rod to the barricades, who do you see as his most likely market and followers?

Final question(s): If your individual liberty ends up getting discounted and falling somewhere behind your religious liberty, are you still okay with having your religious options preserved for you by some non-individual-you religious group (the alternative to your own individual choice)? Might be the religious group you belong to now. Might not.

Oh...and where would you look to politics and in particular any of the political parties in all of this?