Brother Boris on the Benedict Option: "The Church as a Purity Cult"

The Internets are truly amazing. Yesterday Tom throws out the phrase "creepy culty", which naturally reminds me of Boris the Spider. This morning I find some musings about the Benedict Option as a "purity cult" by someone calling himself Brother Boris.

I am not sure what to think about Rod Dreher. To be honest, I really don't know that much about him. I have no strong feelings either in favor of him nor against him. From what I have researched on the Internet, Dreher was raised as a Methodist. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993 and then to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2006.

Forgive me for being so blunt, but I do not think it is in good spiritual form for recent converts to the Orthodox faith to tell others (especially those outside of the visible Orthodox Church) how to live or to dispense ecclesiastical or spiritual advice. Dreher has been Orthodox for less than a decade. He is still taking his baby steps in Orthodoxy. He is still in the process of acquiring an Orthodox phronema (mindset). This is a process that takes many years, especially for adult converts and especially for American Orthodox converts. The Orthodox Church in the United States is exceedingly small and marginalized. Less than one-half of 1% of Americans are Orthodox.

Brother Boris then explains how he had talked to an Orthodox Bishop about his interest in the monastic life soon after his conversion, and how the Bishop advised him to go live at a monastery for three years, then come back to the United States and go to seminary, get a degree and then decide whether or not to take monastic vows. This makes sense to him now as being wise advice, but at the time he felt it was unrealistic. The insinuation is that he was impatient and wanted to start something before he knew or understood anything about it. Then he goes on:

I say all this just to caution people, especially people who are not Eastern Orthodox, to be cautious about taking spiritual advice from new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. Our new converts often have zeal, but it is not always a zeal born of knowledge or spiritual discernment. Often it is simply the passion of the neophyte. It can also manifest itself in what political position or cause this neophyte happens to embrace. Be especially cautious about Orthodox converts who take dogmatic political positions on any issue. Remember that politics, of whatever nature, is not and never has been dogma.

Checklist time; let's see. Zeal without spiritual discernment: check, passion of the neophyte: check, dogmatic political positions: check. I admit I said a lot of dumb things when I was converting which I truly wish I could go back and do over, usually by following the advice of St. James: STFU.

Then Brother Boris delivers a warning based on the derangement of another Orthodox convert.

When I became Orthodox twenty years ago, Franky Schaeffer was all the rage. He had just published his book, Dancing Alone, and he had all the answers. He was angry, self-righteous, and he had all the answers to society's shortcoming and yours as well. He was very much a finger-pointer. Now look at him. He's nearly burned out on his own rage. I sincerely wonder now if Franky is even a Christian, let alone Orthodox. In the last youtube videos I've seen of him, he sounds so incredibly depressed and agnostic, almost bordering on being an atheist. It made me wonder if he embraced Orthodoxy because he thought it was true, or because he thought it was the PERFECT Church or the PURE Church. Making the Church into a Purity Cult is always a danger to the adult convert, and perhaps part of Franky's Calvinist heritage that he never could leave fully behind.

I see a similar strain of "Purity Cult" thinking in Rod Dreher's "Benedict Option" and it concerns me. The very idea that Christians should separate themselves from the rest of society and live in intentional communities reminds me a whole lot more of Calvinist New England under the Puritans than Byzantine "symphonia" in Constantinople or Holy Russia. In addition, Dreher's rigorism concerns me, especially where he says:

The community is going to have to be the center of your life, not just something you do on Sunday.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not advocating nominalism, casual church attendance and spiritual lukewarmness. Its Dreher's tone that concerns me. It's the tone of the fanatic. The Church, especially the Orthodox Church, has always been "here comes everybody." In Orthodoxy it is the whole village at worship, not some sectarian conventicle of the elect few and holy. Again, this seems to go back to the same theme I saw in Franky Schaeffer, the Church as a Purity Cult.

Personally I can't see Dreher ever becoming as deranged as Schaeffer, although anything is possible. Schaeffer did write books slamming his family post mortem, and he has seemed to be driven as a sort of contrarian no matter where he is as we had been discussing.

There can be no doubt, however, that Brother Boris's words are insightful written as someone who has witnessed the effects of flighty zeal without the foundation of experience and discernment.

One more observation and I'll leave the rest to readers. Brother Boris mentions Dreher's "rigorism". I would point out that it is selective rigorism as so much else is with Dreher and as I've noted before.

Answers for Kemetica

In a previous thread, our new commenter Kemetica posed a few questions:

My point was that those who oppose SSM must be very clear on what it is that they want:
Just to be allowed to dissent (e.g. a clerk doesn't have to file an SSM marriage license) because of conscience?
To be allowed to refuse gays service for arguably expressive activities (e.g. cakes and photos and flowers)?
To be allowed to reject any service to gays in any context (e.g. housing)? 
To eventually be able to ban SSM?
To eventually be able to ban domestic partnerships? 
To eventually be able to reinstitute the closet?

My answers are a bit too long to be conveyed in a comment in that thread, not to mention that the comments are taking off in a different direction from Keith's original post, so I'm answering them in this new post.

But to answer fairly, I'll need to reframe the questions differently. Actually, they fall into two separate questions.

1.  "To eventually be able to ban SSM?" 

The short answer is:  unquestionably yes.

As I discussed here, IMO and under current equal protection law, a State can have a perfectly rational basis for establishing a special status for one-woman-one-man committed relationships (i.e. marriages).  To rehash briefly, biology matters in that men and women are different in ways that complement each other -- and that complementarity not only results in procreation, but indeed has shown through history to be the basis of stable and prosperous societies.  A State can (and should) recognize the importance of these facts, as based in biology, by favoring such arrangements.

Secondly, under our constitutional system, a State may, through its duly elected legislature, choose to define marriage to extend to same sex arrangements.  I don't think they should, but under our system they can. But the electorate and their representatives ought to be permitted to work out this question one way or the other, so that those who are disappointed by the result can at least respect the process. But if the Supreme Court rules that a State cannot define marriage as one-woman-one-man, that process is taken away from the electorate -- rather than settling the question, preventing the question from being settled  See the political effects of Roe v. Wade if you don't believe me.

2.  Why should you not be compelled, under penalty of law, to offer services to those selected by the State?

On the questions about "rejecting service" and the like, your questions are framed incorrectly IMO.  What you are asking is why the State shouldn't compel any business to offer their services to those identified by the State.

Here's where I'll earn some libertarian points, maybe.  IMO, the starting point should be:  no person shall be compelled, under threat of law, to perform services to anyone who he or she do not want to, unless there is a damn good reason.

As I mentioned here, race is a damn good reason.  We fought a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of our citizens lost their lives over this issue, and we have express constitutional amendments on this issue.  And MLK showed us why racial discrimination is contrary to reason and God's laws.

I would pose that there are few other "damn good reasons" to compel businesses, under penalty of law. Preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation falls short of a damn good reason, IMO.  And as Keith mentioned, the market and social stigma can provide excellent motivations in this regard.  Few businesses will turn away willing customers -- and if some do for illegitimate reasons as judged by the consuming public, competition will take care of the issue.

But in any case, the law should never require one to violate one's religious tenets (facilitating sin) in order to comply with the law.  We must not entertain a regime, as we have now with Obamacare and in the Indiana situation, in which the approach is to enact and enforce such a law, with the possibility that waivers or exemptions may be granted for religious reasons.  No -- a law requiring compliance by violation of religious tenets is an unjust law, and "an unjust law is no law at all" (St. Augustine).

Does this mean that a homeowner renting out a room or half of a duplex via AirBnB can choose not to rent to practicing homosexuals so as not to facilitate sin?  Of course.  Does this mean that a Muslim restaurant can require men and women to sit in separate rooms if required by their flavor of Islam?  Sorry, but it means that too.

There you go.  Have at it. Convince me of my error.

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What is Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ like?

Question: What is Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ like?

(Answer below. Turn screen upside down to read.)


(A) A monastery

(B) The Walrus

(C) Marriage

(D) A puffin

(E) Mowing the lawn

(F) Tiny, early peas

(G) Christian families

(H) Everything, man

(I) All of the above

∀usʍǝɹ: (I)

Martyrdom Is Not Optional

Martyrdom is not optional, but it comes in several colors.

The word "martyr" is Greek for witness. The early Christians gave witness to Christ through their death, hence they were honored with the title of Martyr. But every Christian has to give witness; that's why Pope Francis recently said this:

He encouraged Christians to turn to the Holy Spirit to remind them of Jesus' words, and guide them in preparing to be witnesses “with small every day martyrdoms, or with a great martyrdom, according to God’s will.”

So, red or white. But not both. And unlike wine choices, God makes the call.

When I first read this I thought "Huh. This fits in with something Diane and I were discussing on her Facebook page. So the Pope must want everyone to read my blog!" Actually I didn't really think that last thing. But one of Diane's friends wrote something which I thought was pretty good:

The problem with the Benedict Option (whatever it may mean as a withdrawal from general society in order to preserve the Church and the culture and society that springs forth from Her) is that it is a fundamentally incorrect analogy to apply to the societal problems of post-Christian cultures.

The Benedict(ine) option, and monasticism in general, developed as a *response* to the CHRISTIANIZATION of culture. No longer able to pursue a martyrdom of blood, Christians pursued spiritual martyrdom alone, in the desert, and eventually, with other ascetics in community. Monasticism started in Egypt, and eventually spread throughout Christendom. It did not develop as a result of the loss of faith, nor did it develop as a response to the fall of Roman civilization.

Just as the Church within a society that has become Christian creates monasticism, likewise the Church will no longer produce many monastics within a society that de-Christianizes. Small parishes, house churches, and underground churches will be the places that the faith survives, and saints are made. Monasticism will become less and less necessary, because martyrdom and ascetic challenges will no longer have to be sought out in order to be found.

Benedictine monasteries, of course, did thrive, survive and preserve culture in a West being ravaged by Pagan invasions and piracy, but to try to apply the lessons learned from "Paganism vs Christianity" to "Christianity vs post-Christianity" is to fundamentally misunderstand what post-Christianity *actually* is, how it relates to Christianity, and how it will need to be endured.

The fundamental difference, of course, is that Pagans can be converted.

"Christians and Pagans had much more in common with each other than either has with a post-Christian. The gap between those who worship different gods is not so wide as that between those who worship and those who do not…” - C.S. Lewis

The Church will return to something closer to what She was in the earliest days. Branding it the "Benedict(ine) Option" may make the future more palatable for some Christians, and it's got a nice ring to it, but as a concept it is essentially, well, pointless.

If the person who authored this wants attribution I can provide it, but I'm starting off by just stating that it didn't originate with me. I think he makes a strong argument for why there is nothing really Benedictine or monastic about this thing we keep hearing about called the Benedict Option. In fact, the very absence of any type of rhyme or reason—never mind a rule—in the chaotic descriptions of the Benedict Option by those who claim to favor it demonstrates it's dissimilarity to anything Benedictine. They are called Orders for a reason, you know.

We've pointed this out again and again but I am convinced there is no reason to stop. This is reinforced constantly; there were other people chiming in on the thread who were obviously serious, educated Catholics but who were utterly unable to explain what was even meant by the Benedict Option. They did, however, display some classic behaviors of people who are losing an argument:

1. The first reflex was to call Diane a "hater". So the conclusion is that Diane hates the Benedict Option because Dreher preaches it rather than considering that maybe Diane has contempt for Dreher because ideas for which he is responsible—like the Benedict Option—are so incoherent and cockamamie. *
2. Then there was a classic line from the Benedict Option defenders: "If you've home-schooled your children then you've used the Benedict Option." Wow, so that makes me an idiot or a hypocrite or both for ever criticizing the Benedict Option since I also home-schooled my kids at one point. I might as well be saying "hands off my medicare!" It's also sort of daunting to realize that Adam and Eve, Noah and many other Bible personages were practicing the Benedict Option thousands of years before the birth of St. Benedict. I guess they kind of got us there.
3. Then I was accused of possessing a "deep ignorance of what the Benedict Option is" because I pointed out that whenever someone mentions some example of Christian virtuous practice the Benedict Option people claim it and say "Yeah, Benedict Option! Benedict Option!" Because, well, they do—see point number 2. But actually I won't doubt my ignorance about something that no one can define.
4. Then Diane tried to order up a short overview summary of the Benedict Option and was told that there was no such thing since the Benedict Option is "merely an ongoing conversation among Christians about strategies for withdrawal from an increasingly hostile liberal society and state." So while it might be that coming up with a explanation isn't too difficult a task for their communication skills, it is too condescending an undertaking for their powerful minds.

Diane can provide other highlights from the exchange. Others added remarks which were insightful and, in Maclin Horton's case, borne out by experience. There is still the need to correct a knee-jerk proposal of the nebulous Benedict Option as a panacea in holier-than-thou circles and possibly in more sincere circles.

The man who wrote the passage I first quoted later stated this: "Saints have been made in many places throughout history - but arguably the majority have come from the ranks of the monastics since Constantine." Well, that's where people were paying attention the most—that's where they were looking for saints. It is well to familiarize one's self with a 1988 writing by JP II titled Christifidelis Laici which undertakes the hard task of describing "The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World." It's an actual blue-print to follow. Once you read it you realize that you don't need a "Benedict Option".

-----
* - Yes, I know who Alasdair MacIntyre is. That was one of the questions thrown at me. But Googling Benedict Option produces one name over and over again and it isn't MacIntyre's.

Apparently, now "we" will be fighting the gays for Rod Dreher's religious liberty

while he reclines in the Cozy Corner with a Calvados and coffee.

As they say, "let's you and him fight". Remember, this is the feckless boy-child still wailing into his 40's about teachers not doing his fighting for him in high school.

Just today, here, we had a discussion of why Dreher's provocative lunacies matter. Here is a prime example of classically provocative Dreher imbecility: there are no "gay rights" - only constitutional rights for all - and "religious liberty" is available to all who will assert it; but unfortunately unavailable to those like Rod Dreher who can't be bothered to assert it himself.

By Dreher's distorting and subsuming the pursuit of religious liberty by any who would have it within his own personal and cynical effort to drive hits to the blog he's paid to write, Dreher knowingly sells out the very social conservatives he so piously appoints himself spokesman for.

This, Kemetica, is why I continuously criticize him, because he persists as a septic boil on the body politic and particularly on the corpus of those social conservatives he attempts to traffic in.

"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."

We must figure out what Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is - and hurry!

It's time, people. Past time.

We have to continuing arguing about what Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ really is, and figure it out, and soon, so that Rod can write a book about it, taking official public credit for it under his name, and sell it back to us, enabling us to then know once and for all what the Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ we all finally agreed upon actually is and is not so that we can then take it (but not take that - what, are you kidding?), whatever it finally turns out to be.

I can already see this is going to be harder than the witches' brew of crunching a universe of totally unrelated social types into a Crunchy Con.

I’m pleased to see more and more people arguing about the Benedict Option. This is important. I don’t have a hard, fixed, formulaic idea of what it is, and all this back and forth is helpful to me in thinking through it.

but

I want to make it clear, though, that as I undertake this Benedict Option book, I am investigating, trying to learn what it could  and should mean, and what it cannot and must not mean. I do not have all the answers, but I am committed to talking to a number of people who have thought deeply about these things, and who have tried different things, even if they have failed. And I am trying to make this practical, that is, something that families like mine can do. Despair is not an option.

Despair is not an option, people. Platitudes, though - platitudes may be crucial in filling out the book, like that expanding foam that's so useful in keeping the drafts out around poorly framed windows.

Finally

More argument, please. More discussion, more debate. We have to figure this out together.

And, do I need to add? We must hurry. If Rod's Dante book doesn't fly, this is the only thing he seems to have in the pipeline and, as he himself says, he has no clue as to what Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ really is. We have to do this together, people, for Rod, so that he'll have another book to sell for us to buy so that he can purchase more of those delicious raw oysters he loves so much.

Let's not think of this as personal financial welfare for a millionaire gourmand, people, but as simple Christian community. If not St. Benedict himself, someone, somewhere named Benedict would surely want us to.