Benedict Option Denialism is like Climate Change Denialism

Confusing the phenomenon of El Niño for climate change (to be charitable, because he spends most of his time online he's not particularly knowledgeable about the real world)

We just came off a month of record-breaking heat and rainfall in the US, which is the kind of thing scientists predicted would happen as the planet warms

Rod Dreher then goes on to construct a rather random mashup of denialisms in order to suggest, in reverse application, that if one denies his Benedict Option is needed, one is remarkably like the cretinous Climate Change Denier (who in turn, of course, is like the savage and barbaric Holocaust Denier).

When several commenters question the validity of these associations, Dreher lays down St. Rod's Rule of Benedict Option Political Correctness:

Look, I’m not going to let this thread turn into a climate change argument. I brought up the global warming article to draw an analogy with the Benedict Option concept. If global warming turns out to be not true, that doesn’t obviate the Benedict Option, which is about something else...

But, wait, Slick: you linked the BO to climate change to give it the gravitas currently enjoyed by climate change. So any loss of credibility climate change may suffer directly vitiates the artificial link you're trying to construct here, in turn draining the credibility you're trying to pump from climate change over to your Benedict Option.

Are all BOppers as patently intellectually dishonest as you, High BOpper?

Anybody who wants to turn this thread into an argument about global warming per se, I’m not going to post your comment, no matter which side you take, and no matter how minor a part of your overall comment it is. I don’t have time to edit that part out. You have been warned.

Well, that's one way to save the village.

Rod's TAC blogging colleague Noah Millman asked

So I have to ask: is one of the strictures of the Benedict Option going to be to stop pursuing outrage porn? And if it isn’t – why isn’t it?

 and, for his trouble, found his post unpublished down the memory hole.

Those of us not yet within the Benedict Option's Soviet sphere are thus obligated to ask in turn: is one of the strictures of the Benedict Option going to be Liberal Political Correctness and, in particular, Liberal Political Correctness with respect to Climate Change Denialism and other Liberal apostasies? And if it is - why is it?
 
You have been warned, Mark Steyn.

A hit parade of options, one Benedict

Diane's blog friend, the Catholic < - > Orthodox Gabriel Sanchez, has put together a list of Christian Options worthy of being perused far beyond the borders of his own blog. So as not to over-borrow, I have only excerpted the first and last four. Go here to read all the rest.

Too Many Options

After months of painstaking research and serious scholarly inquiry, I have uncovered a comprehensive list of all of the available “Options” that we Christians of 21st Century liberal America can exercise during these most unsettling times. You’re welcome.

 1.  Cupich Option – I’m ok, you’re ok
 2.  Ligouri Option – You’re definitely not ok and neither am I; in fact we’re probably both going to hell
 3.  Romanides Option – The Franks are definitely not ok
 4.  Bandera Option – Poles and Russians are definitely not ok; Ukrainians, however, are
:
22. Kallistos Option – Birth control is not ok, then again maybe it is sort of ok. Never mind, now it’s ok
23. Palamas Option – Seeing God’s uncreated energies is perfectly ok
24. Thomist Option – No it isn’t
25. Benedict Option – To be determined

Keith interviews Keith about Rod Dreher, his Benedict Option and much more

I found the standard just set by journalist Rod Dreher in interviewing himself about his Benedict Option to be a handy and highly efficient way to get directly to the heart of things while keeping the distractions of inappropriate questions to an absolute minimum.

Keith: A few disaffected voices claim you're critical of Rod Dreher and his Benedict Option, although most people would argue you're more than fair when it comes to those subjects. What say you?

Keith: Oh, I quite agree.

:

Keith: What about his self-interviewing technique, the one we're currently employing ourselves?

Keith: It's pretty obvious, isn't it? It's absolutely critical for successfully resolving the Benedict Option, particularly in the post-cognitive culture we find ourselves in today.

:

Keith: So, can you tell us what Rod Dreher's Benedict Option is?

Keith: No, I'm afraid not, but that's because it's Rod Dreher's Benedict Option, not Keith's Benedict Option, and, like Rod himself says, "there is no formula!". So we're simply going to have to pass Rod Dreher's Benedict Option to find out what's in it. For better or worse, though, you will be assuming the consequences of testing out Rod's blogging ideas on yourself and your children and letting others know whether they're better or worse than what you're doing now, not I.

:

Keith: Wait a minute: I am you, so neither of us will be testing anything.

Keith: I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I believe you've checkmated me on that one. Let's just agree to disagree and move on to the next question, shall we?

:

Keith: Very well, now that we've exhausted all possible questions concerning your treatment of Rod Dreher and his Benedict Option, if you were a tree, what kind would you be?

Keith: Man, you're ruthless! Okay. Let me think. Offhand, I'd say an oak, because that was the original answer to the original what-kind-of-tree-are-you interview question, plus oaks are majestic and strong, so it's just plain cool to say "oak", but you know? There's nothing quite like a lonesome pine soaring into the evening sky, silhouetted against the setting sun.

What happened to Noah Millman's "Three More Benedict Option Questions"?

Yesterday Rod Dreher's The American Conservative colleague Noah Millman published a probing critique of Dreher's Benedict Option entitled "Three More Benedict Option Questions" which, unfortunately, you can now only read by way of Google's cached version; a screen capture of the cached version may also be found here.

This morning, after Rod Dreher had awakened from a customary long nap, Millman's article had mysteriously disappeared.

Perhaps TAC has simply misplaced Millman's post from yesterday critical of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option and written without Dreher's editorial guidance or prior approval and it will re-emerge some time in the future.

In the meantime, if you happen to be one of those hapless bloggers who linked to Millman's piece and are having to deal with a 404 today, again:

Google's cached version.

Our screen capture of Google's cached version, in the event the latter swan dives into the memory hole as well.

Oh, you're quite welcome.

UPDATE (as they say): In fast-breaking Benedict Option news, this just in: Noah Millman's piece critical of the Benedict Option has been superseded by Rod Dreher's piece controlling the narrative from both sides:

While I was away in Italy and France these past nine days, there has been lots of talk, much of it critical, about the Benedict Option. I think I’ll answer these critics by interviewing myself.

As I explained above, whatever Rod Dreher does in fact defines the Benedict Option, so this sort of narrative control and revisionism is not only perfectly understandable but perfectly consistent as well. Moreover, if you find yourself in a Rod Dreher Benedict Option community, this is the sort of control you should look forward to embracing as your defense against the forces of cultural darkness.

Although I think the Clintons have always done this sort of narrative thing more elegantly, don't you?

Most American Muslims Want Sharia Law in America

A new CSP poll shows that a significant number Muslims living in America would prefer to be governed by Sharia law rather than the U. S. Constitution.

According to the just-released survey of Muslims, a majority (51%) agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to shariah.”  When that question was put to the broader U.S. population, the overwhelming majority held that shariah should not displace the U.S. Constitution (86% to 2%).

More than half (51%) of U.S. Muslims polled also believe either that they should have the choice of American or shariah courts, or that they should have their own tribunals to apply shariah. Only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts.

So 61% OF Muslims believe that they should not be subject to American courts. And they prefer Sharia law. We disagree; we're in the majority.

These notions were powerfully rejected by the broader population according to the Center’s earlier national survey.  It found by a margin of 92%-2% that Muslims should be subject to the same courts as other citizens, rather than have their own courts and tribunals here in the U.S.

One in four American Muslims are also cool with violence toward people who disrespect their phony religion, and one in five are cool with violent takeover to impose Shariah.

Even more troubling, is the fact that nearly a quarter of the Muslims polled believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

...

Nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country.

Here's the conclusion, which I agree with, presented by the CSP President, Frank Gaffney:

The findings of the Center for Security Policy’s survey of Muslims in America suggests that we have a serious problem.  The Pew Research Center estimates that the number of Muslims in the United States was 2.75 million in 2011, and growing at a rate of 80-90 thousand a year.  If those estimates are accurate, the United States would have approximately 3 million Muslims today.  That would translate into roughly 300,000 Muslims living in the United States who believe that shariah is “The Muslim God Allah’s law that Muslims must follow and impose worldwide by Jihad.”

It is incumbent on the many American Muslims who want neither to live under the brutal repression of shariah nor to impose it on anybody else to work with the rest of us who revere and uphold the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution in protecting our nation against the Islamic supremacists and their jihad.

The Benedict Option fully and finally explained

Here.

Rod Dreher going full Benedict Option

The circular waterfall of emotive exposition I linked above, overflowing with illustrations, is probably the most cogent exegesis of the Benedict Option to date, but because, as its creator continues to stress time after time, "everything is connected", it would be impossible for me to excerpt any single part of it as representative without thereby unraveling the whole thing into an incoherent mess. To grasp it in all its fullness, therefore, you must read the whole thing, but, because it illuminates the Benedict Option like nothing which has ever come before, I believe the serious seeker after the Benedict Option will find it well worth the effort.

Now the overriding element of the Benedict Option everyone has been clear about from the outset is that, unlike an oil change or a haircut, the Benedict Option is a wholesale and transcendentally transformative lifestyle - otherwise we would simply be calling it the Status Quo Option. The Benedict Option is not a task on a honey-do list; having chosen it, it is one's life as one now lives it.

Because Rod Dreher has spun the whole cloth of the Benedict Option out of a single, slender thread from Alasdair MacIntyre, no one doubts that Rod and Rod alone is its creator and champion. And, because it would be the apotheosis of hypocrisy for that creator not to adopt and practice that wholesale lifestyle himself, what Rod Dreher does therefore is the Benedict Option. The life you see Rod Dreher living at any given moment is the Benedict Option in practice.

The lettuces

But perhaps at this point you have now read the whole thing I linked initially, the unfurling scroll of a latter day Jack Kerouac blessedly hooked on lettuces rather than amphetamine, and somehow, perversely, you still don't get it. You still cannot see how to achieve the transcendence of our dark, ruined culture as Rod Dreher is doing every day with every fiber of his being, demonstrably living the true Benedict Option to its fullest.

Well, my friend, I'm afraid you must simply address your failures honestly and just try harder. It's your only hope, and the very future of your children and their children in turn depends on it.

Perhaps you should meditate more deeply upon the lettuces. Maybe that will help.

Benedict Option? "I think he deserves an answer."

Yes, indeedy.

Happy Independence Day! You, too, marriage!

Is this an example of the Benedict Option? Well, really, why not?

Fact-based criticism of the Benedict Option

Found this via Twitter. Good stuff with regard to why the Benedict Option would be no protection for the Faithful. Excerpt:

In any case, St. Benedict wasn't running away from an oppressive state. Had there been a state wanting to stamp out monasticism, he would have been a sitting duck. The Protestant rulers of Ireland found it extremely difficult to impose Anglicanism on the hearts of the people, but childishly simple to burn down the monasteries. Later there were secret seminaries, but even this had to wait for the persecution to move into a less militant phase.

St. Benedict is the wrong model; his was a capital-intensive approach to preserving learning and Catholic orthodoxy. We are going to need to be lighter on our feet. St. Edmund Campion and St. Oliver Plunket are the people to study. The exiled institutions, the secret printing presses, the underground Cathedrals, the network of trusted Catholics, and a resistance to torture.

A ghetto has a lot to say for it, for a beleagured cultural minority, but it requires at least a degree of cooperation with the civil authorities. The original 'geto' was the Jewish quarter in Venice: half protected space, half prison camp.

However I'm not sure he is entirely correct in predictions like the following:

Gay couples will demand to be 'married' in Church. Some priests will give them some kind of ceremony: some priests will refuse. The latter will be prosecuted for discrimination. It will be no protection to them to say they are not acting as agents of the state. It is not only agents of the state who are under the law. They are offering a service to the public: they should not discriminate. The difference between making a reasoned distinction between real and pseudo marriage, on the one hand, and homophobia, on the other, has already been collapsed by the courts in England.

There are presently some legal hurdles to a successful prosecution, at least in the UK, but those hurdles will come under intense pressure and, if the success of the so-called progressive agenda continues, they will disappear. Faithful priests will go to prison. On present trends, this will happen in the next few years.

Certainly we should prepare for the worst even as we hope for the best. I think a pretty good case can be made that the Sacrament of Matrimony "offered" by the Church is not something which has ever really been a "service offered to the public." There are quite a few hurdles to be cleared, and being opposite genders is only one of them. There's age, relationship—first cousins can't marry—status, etc. 

I don't know if that fact could be translated into a legal case in court. I actually think it would be great for a gifted Catholic lawyer to start quoting theological statements and canons of the Church on marriage in the civil courts, explaining at length why the Church teaches what it does with regard to marriage. That would be the perfect imitation of the martyrs, and it would drive the butt pirates and the demons they serve crazy.