Huh?

In today's output, Dreher offers an early peek into the Benedict Option book, using his standby mechanism of a quote from an alleged reader:

Millenials are like the Bynars from one of the early episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation.  They are so merged in with their technology that one does not know where the human begins or ends and where the technology is.  Their memories, both short and long term, have been altered.  They have no idea of what community is because in the real world it does not exist.  And changing genders is part of high tech.  Shape shifting is part of this generation.  Look at the popular media.  If you don't like who you are, you can change yourself by being a super hero, or zombie, or become something else.  So, in a way it is not surprising that this is happening.  Alot of the changes in society are here because of technology and how it has become a master over us.

To which Dreher adds this analysis (emphasis added):

I think this is true.  The Technology chapter of The Benedict Option explores this insight.

He thinks what is true?  That "alot of the changes in society are here because of technology and how it has become a master over us", say, as opposed to our human nature that has persisted since the Fall?  Or is he agreeing that millennials "are so merged in with their technology" that they don't know "where the human begins or ends and where the technology is"?  If so, someone's been hiding bad sci-fi inside their MacIntyre so the Mrs. doesn't yell at him to get off his duff.

Anyhow,  if you can figure out what this is about, please enlighten.  To the extent it makes any sense (not much), it's patently false.  In any case, the "Technology chapter" ought to be a doozy.

"You didn't see that coming?"

Dreher-fan Jordan Poss writes a generally positive review of HDCSYL. But it is also quite honest, and he can't help pointing out several things with which I heartily agree. Excerpts:

Despite returning home, Dreher recounts that his relationships with family—especially his father and nieces—were terrible. I like Dreher a lot and value his opinions, but having read his work for several years now, he strikes me as a classic oversharer. Reading Little Way, I could only wonder, despite being moved to tears, what his family thought of such a soul-baring memoir. In my experience, a tell-all—even an affectionate, nostalgic tell-all—alienates people. This book gave me an answer: “I showed Mike the manuscript of Little Way before I turned it in, and asked him to let me know if he wanted me to make any changes. He did not ask for changes, but as I learned later, the book displeased him greatly. He thought I had used his wife’s death to tell a story about myself” (30). As a reader, I too had had a hard time escaping this impression.

We told you so, we told you so. Of course we all had that impression. The reason that Mike Leming thought Rod Dreher had used his wife’s death to tell a story about himself was that Rod Dreher had used Mike's wife’s death to tell a story about himself.

I really liked How Dante Can Save Your Life, but I still wonder about the propriety of what Dreher has chosen to share with his readers—especially considering that one of the sources of strife within his family is his previous book. Dreher writes with great feeling and sincerity but, as another reviewer has noted, the narration sometimes comes across as self-pitying, even in the later stages when he has learned how selfish he is and is striving toward greater humility. Even as he learns to let go of his bitterness and anger, he reminds himself over and over again of the incidents that made him bitter and angry.

Yes; he seems to love being bitter and angry. It's as if I said to Keith, "Keith, I have totally gotten over the time that you made fun of the space helmet I made for Halloween when I was 27 years old, and I hope that nothing will ever, EVER remind either one of us how much I cried about that at the time, and then got drunk and broke up with my girlfriend. But now that I've read Dante's Divine Comedy, I'm ready to forgive you ONCE AND FOR ALL for that and I will do so right after I pass out and take a 5-hour nap."

Rod Dreher explains the right way to believe in God...sort of

I found this teaching by the One both strangely ambitious and remarkably empty at the same time.

In a post entitled Postmodernism & Secular Fundamentalism, an atheist commenter said

My creator endowed me with a brain that does not allow me to believe in, say, the story of Shadrach.

And I also agree with Flannery O’Conner’s observation to Mary McCarthy concerning the taking of Communion: “If it’s a metaphor, then to hell with.”

Unlike many of the new atheists, I see that there is much that is good and beautiful about organized religion.

And like many Freethinkers, I realize that many people like Rod Dreher would be miserable without a personal deity.

Their belief neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

That seemed pretty tame to me for an atheist. But not to Dreher. He snarled,

[NFR: Like many so-called "freethinkers," you mistake your own worldview for a neutral one. How do you know I would be "miserable" if God did not exist? That's a self-serving perspective that seeks to explain away religious belief as a compensatory emotional or psychological phenomenon. Could I not say that people like you cannot accept the possibility that God exists because if He does, then you aren't free to do whatever you like? Yes, I could. And it may be true, because it was true for me when I was a young man. But it also might not be true, in your case. Point is, you don't know why I believe in God. -- RD]

In order not to disrupt the narrative flow, I'll let others examine any non sequiturs involved in Rod's reply. Ultimately, they don't really seem all that important, because the actual whammy conclusion ends up being no more than that "You don't know me, man, so you can't say anything about me!", which is always a good all-purpose remedy to anything anyone says. I wouldn't use it if a cop stops you for speeding, though, but otherwise. To continue.

Suitably chastened, the atheist later whined, 

I’m sorry Rod,

I thought you said that you WERE miserable during a period of your life when you were experiencing doubts about the existence of God.

Rod lets him kiss the Harry Potter frames in penance and explains

[NFR: I was miserable, but I didn't start believing in God as a way to get rid of misery (though it helped). Believing in God because you might get something out of it doesn't work. And in fact, some of the most miserable people I know are Christians ... but then, if they were atheists or Hindus, they would be miserable, I'm convinced. -- RD]

Doesn't work? I'd count getting saved as getting something out of it, but okay. Strangely, having pulled this "self-serving perspective" out of the bunny, Dreher never does say what does work. So we'll just have to guess.

So what else doesn't work? And what does?

Believing in God because Chartres Cathedral seems to have been on the approved list, although believing in God because of some smoking hot chick God made Himself probably doesn't, so if you don't believe already, you need to be saving for that ticket to France, not to Cancun. I think it's safe to say oysters are in, the vast wonder of the great outdoors itself, probably not so much.

While you're making your lists and checking them against the Book of Rod, I have to tell you I get the sense there's some kind of fix in on this, like one of those job descriptions that only happens to fit the CEO's nephew. It might or might not involve things like chairs and benches, or long natural beards, or even Dante. But whatever it is, I'll bet a six-pack that Dreher's got the qualifications and I don't. Dang.