Rod Dreher has caused a real stir by strongly suggesting that, in the light of today's lost culture war, Christians should look to St Benedict (click here), a monastic, for learning how to live in more tight knit communities. The reason for doing this is so that we don't lose our values and traditions to an increasingly hostile, secular and modernistic culture.
We've lost the culture war to secularism and modernity, Dreher says, and so now it is our turn to be marginalized. Here we should note the first funny, not ha ha funny, thing about Dreher's view of our situation. That because Christianity has lost control over culture, its enemies stand poised to marginalize us. But never does Dreher say anything about whether Christians had marginalized unbelievers when Christianity ruled culture. We do know that many Christians definitely worked to marginalize people of color and the LGBT community, but as long as unbelievers followed Christian inspired civil laws, such as the Blue Laws. Thus, it seems that Christianity coexisted to some extent with parts of secularism and modernity. But now that secularists and modernists are in control via the sexual revolution, we can anticipate being persecuted to varying degrees with the result that we will be marginalized in society (click here for Dreher''s Christianity Today article describing his Benedict Option).
So Dreher has proposed that Christianity, in several senses, circle the wagons because of our anticipated torment. And here is the next funny thing. For while Dreher is adamant about denying that we are to withdraw from society, he sees a strong need for us to become more insular because culture has gone too far for us work with it.
Dreher has received both positive and negative reactions from a number of Christians. This blog has rejected Dreher's proposal starting with his analysis of the problem and finishing with his solution. This blog has stated that Dreher's analysis is flawed because it seems to assume that Christians and unbelievers cannot or should not share society as equals. And this blog has rejected Dreher's solution because it is similar to what was known as 'White Flight.' That was when Whites moved to the suburbs from urban neighborhoods in order to get away from neighborhoods where Blacks were beginning to move into. Other Christians who have rejected Dreher's Benedict Option do so because they see other Christian examples, such as that set by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of dealing with anticipated marginalization. Certainly, no one could argue against following Bonhoeffer's examples of how to deal with hostility and persecution.
But along comes Jemar Tisby (click here for bio) from the Reformed African American Network to throw an altogether different challenge at Dreher's Benedict Option. For Tisby sees racism in Dreher's approach. How could he possibly see racism in an issue where race has no bearing on the issue at hand? It is actually quite simple. For Tisby asks why, if Dreher is looking for examples on how to handle marginalization, has he not looked to the African American Church for examples of those who handled marginalization? After all, the vast majority of those from African American Church have been marginalized for most of America's history if not all of it.
In an article on the Reformed African American Network (click here for the article), Tisby answers that question. The answer is that White Christians do not go to Black Christians to be taught. In Dreher's case, it was because Dreher looked for help from examples that came from a completely different continent. It might not have occurred to him to look for examples from America because those examples were from those of a different skin color and race. And Tisby does share a couple of examples of Blacks who, because of their graceful responses to some of the most difficult hardships, could become sources of inspiration and enlightenment on how to handle being marginalized.
Tisby's point is rather simple and so obvious. Yet, neither Dreher nor his critics nor his supporters, at least the ones I have read, have considered looking to the African American Church as a resource for how to handle being marginalized in society. And all those who ignored the many African American examples of how to handle marginalization and worse included me. Yes, I thought that Dreher, despite his denial, proposes a significant withdraw to society. But never once did I think of looking the to African American Church for examples of and wisdom on how to handle marginalization in society. I am as guilty of overlooking the wisdom of the African American Church in this matter as Dreher is and this is despite my having read Martin Luther King Jr. and James Cone.
Before we consider how to handle the changing times in our culture, especially regarding how to endure potential marginalization and persecution, perhaps all of us should put the Benedict Option on hold while we research how the African American Christians endured all of the hardships that White Americans, including White Christians, threw their way.
Showing posts with label Rod Dreher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rod Dreher. Show all posts
Friday, April 7, 2017
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 15, 2017
March 10
To Brian Mattson and his blogpost review of a book by Ryszard Legato where liberal democracy and totalitarian communism are series as having many similarities including their opposition to Christianity. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There are two things we should note here. First, that the author of the book cited, Ryszard Legutko, is an honest broker with no religious strings attached that would color his world view and thus affect how he perceives liberal democracy. Of course such is not the case. Lequtko is a Roman Catholic who opposed the legalization of homosexuality and who is currently being sued for his verbal attack on students who called for the removal of 'Christian symbols' from schools.
Second, as with Ayn Rand, it is very possible that Lequtko's view of the Communism/Socialism is a bit distorted since his only personal experience with the Left is Bolshevism. There are many Leftists who strongly opposed Bolshevism both back when it hijacked the Russian Revolution and today. But Lequtko seems content to associate liberal democracy with its love of 'freedom, diversity, and tolerance' with the totalitarian communism seen in Bolshevism anyway.
So why tie liberal democracy to the totalitarianism of communism? Is it because both had legitimate gripes against Christianity so that their persecution of Christianity did not originate out of religious differences per say. Here we should note that Bolshevism persecuted the Church because the Church supported wealth and power prior to both the February and October Revolutions. We should note that not all on the Left opposed Christianity, but the Bolsheviks did. As for liberal democracy, we need to know the details of why it opposes Christianity. Let assume that, as some like Lequtko would advance, that America was founded on Christianity. We should first note that there was quite a bit of religious intolerance just between Christian denominations themselves. That intolerance finally ended when the Revolutionary War's demands for manpower meant that the American churches could no longer remain too divided.
Then it was out of Christianity that people felt entitled to take land from the Native Americans resulting in ethnically cleansing them from most of America. Then we saw that much of Christianity supported the subjugation of Blacks through slavery and then Jim Crow. And all through America's history we have seen how the American churches have worked to marginalize homosexuals first with criminalizing their practices so that homosexuals could be either executed or incarcerated on to allowing for the discrimination against homosexuals and opposing their equality in society.
It is the details of the diversity that both liberal democracy embraced and much of American Christianity opposed that perhaps sheds light on why Lequtko both would associate it with totalitarian Communism (Bolshevism) and would replace liberal democracy. Perhaps the term is ethnocracy would be the replacement. Ethnocracy refers to the rule of a specific group based on ethnic ties, race, language, national identity, or religion would exercise over the rest of a pluralistic nation using the democratic processes. For if diversity and freedom are our enemies because of their alleged similarities to totalitarian Communism, then some degree of conformity is the solution. And it appears that, according to Lequtko, Classical and Christian traditions would tell us how to conform. But how is it that insistence on conformity is not mentioned as being similar to totalitarian Communism while liberal democracy with its emphasis on diversity is? That, rather than what is attributed to Lequtko as a replacement for liberal democracy, is what requires further explanation in a sequel. And this would also add to why Lequtko said there was a justified fear of religion, which is rather paradoxical.
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March 11
To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost on “education liberation,” which is used to describe why we should support vouchers for school choice. This appeared in the Acton blog.
If we applied the school choice model to attending college, then each student who attended a for-profit college, a private college, or a religious college would receive from the state the same assistance that an instate student in a state college receives. Here we should note that what an instate student in a state college receives is hidden since states give money state schools to help finance these state schools.
We should also note that if we applied the college model to the school choice program, we would note that all private, charter, and religious schools would be responsible for providing assistance to students who could not afford to attend their schools.
Now here is the inconsistency. We wouldn't think of giving the same state money to any student who decided to attend for-profit, private, or religious college that is spent on in-state students at state schools. Why? To make that work, we would either have to raise taxes significantly to fund such a program or we would continue to spend less and less on each instate student attending a state school. And yet, we do not call for a college choice program where students who want to attend non-state schools are depicted as needing liberation through a freedom of choice for colleges. But knowing that public schools, some of which are already suffering from a lack of funds because of depleted tax bases, would receive less and less money because those attending non-public schools are taking public school funds with them as non-public schools are at least partially relieved from the responsibility of finding funding for some of their students. As a result, some public schools, which are basically community schools, will suffer deterioration. And if they collapse, there are not enough resources from the non-public school sector to pick up the slack. Then what happens to those students left behind?
The problem is that, just as in college, students are not prohibited from attending the primary and secondary schools of their choice. Therefore, school choice is not a freedom or liberation issue. It is a financial issue both in college and in primary and secondary education. But if we accommodate those who insist otherwise, we should note that enabling students to "escape" their community schools also becomes a student flight issue. And this points to one of the biggest problems with the school choice movement. For rather than addressing the problems and improving the communities in which under-performing schools are located, we are fleeing from problems. And the students that come from troubled communities only escape those communities during school hours. And then they are taught that success is achieved by leaving the community in which they grew up. This causes these communities to suffer further decay.
We have economic segregation in our nation where the houses we move into often depend on the neighbors we can afford to live with. And that means we can completely wash our hands of the plights of the communities we didn't want to live in. What is called school choice further exhibits this segregation not in terms of the schools students can choose, but in terms of the plights of the community schools those students leave behind. What was called 'white flight' is an instance of the kind of flight we see resulting from the school choice movement. And those who are left behind eventually become more and more invisible to government and society. Since not all students can flee from their community schools, we should call the school choice plan with its claims of freedom and liberation a student-flight program because their communities are not worth our concern. And yet, with all of what is being said, we haven't really touched on why we have a school choice movement.
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March 13
To Collin Hansen and his blogpost review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option where part of what is discussed is whether politics can save us. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
From the review, it appears is that Dreher does not see the threat that wrong associations can be to the Gospel. For by stating that we live in a post-Christian culture, does he ever ask about what from the Christian culture is being rightly rejected? Fortunately Hansen identifies one problematic association: racism. Another one that is often overlooked is economic classism. This is sometimes missed because the predominant branch of the Church of certain places has often sided with wealth. This was true in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And we should note that once the revolutions took place, the Gospel suffered dishonor because the Church had sided with wealth.
I'm afraid that aligning the Church behind Trump repeats this same mistake. For what has Trump done but to show himself an ally to wealth at the expense of eliminating more of business's social responsibilities than have done away with before. Think about the environment as we extract and use even more fossil fuels, dump fracking wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico, dump waste from coal mining into streams, or put a climate denier as head of the EPA. Or think about the new Republican healthcare plan and how it is projected that millions will lose their health insurance while insurance CEOs get tax breaks. Or think about how Trump's tax and spending plans, including cutting billion of dollars from HUD, continue to bankrupt the country. It is important that he wants to eliminate elective abortions performed by Planned Parenthood, but his other actions will be associated with the pro-life cause if we don't oppose him where he is wrong.
In these times, we need to both preserve the Christian faith while being able to interact with our culture. That includes being credible witnesses by acknowledging the past wrongs of the Church as well as being able to identify where the current culture is at least partially right. I don't see that happening under Dreher's Benedict Option. And if I am right, the pertinent question isn't regarding whether politics can save us. And even if we were to ask that question, we have to also ask save us from what? For apparently, having lost the culture war, some believe that politics could have saved us from that.
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March 14
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost video that makes comparisons in an effort to claim that Christian business owners have the right to refuse providing services to same-sex functions. This appeared in Heidelblog.
For the businesses refusing to sell Ivanka's fashions is not an apples to apples comparison with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex wedding. For one thing, the business that refuses to sell Ivanka's fashions is determining what iventory they will have. And in the of Nordsrum when they refused to continue to carry Ivanka's fashions, it was because her products were not selling. So on two counts, the comparison is not an apples to apples comparison.
As for the Muslim singer having the right to refuse to sing in a church service, again, one must look for an apples to apples comparison if one wants to compare that with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex function. Does the Muslim singer provide his singing as a businessman who serves the general public? If not, there is no apples to apples comparison exists here between his/her refusal and a Christian business owner's refusal to do provide goods and services for the LGBT community or a same-sex function.
As for the Christian business owner who refuses to provide goods and services to a same-sex function because of their personal religious convictions, we must remember that the most apt comparison we can make with this is the Christian business owners who, because of their religious beliefs, refused to serve Blacks during Jim Crow days. Should White Christian business owners have the right to refuse to do business with Blacks for privately held religious reasons? See, here we have more of an apples to apples comparison with Christian business owners' rights to refuse to serve same-sex functions. Why? It is because in both cases, groups from individual consumers are being discriminated against because of their group identity. Allowing such discrimination means that certain kinds of groups of people can suffer partial or full depricvation of goods and services either in isolated locations or throughout the nation in general.
See, the missing ingredient in all of the other examples compared with Christian business owners who refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex functions is the relationship the consumer has with the business refusing a business transaction and the welfare of the group being denied. The way the questions were asked in the video focussed solely on the business owners' concerns; there was no expressed concern for what happens to the other party. And this is what dishonors the Gospel when Christian business owners refuse to provide goods and services to either the LGBT community in general or to same-sex functions. These business owners are only expressing concern for themselves; they are expressing no concern for what potentially can happen to the LGBT community. This is the kind of mistake that Christian business owners made when they refused to serve Blacks or served them in segregated fashion during Jim Crow.
To Brian Mattson and his blogpost review of a book by Ryszard Legato where liberal democracy and totalitarian communism are series as having many similarities including their opposition to Christianity. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There are two things we should note here. First, that the author of the book cited, Ryszard Legutko, is an honest broker with no religious strings attached that would color his world view and thus affect how he perceives liberal democracy. Of course such is not the case. Lequtko is a Roman Catholic who opposed the legalization of homosexuality and who is currently being sued for his verbal attack on students who called for the removal of 'Christian symbols' from schools.
Second, as with Ayn Rand, it is very possible that Lequtko's view of the Communism/Socialism is a bit distorted since his only personal experience with the Left is Bolshevism. There are many Leftists who strongly opposed Bolshevism both back when it hijacked the Russian Revolution and today. But Lequtko seems content to associate liberal democracy with its love of 'freedom, diversity, and tolerance' with the totalitarian communism seen in Bolshevism anyway.
So why tie liberal democracy to the totalitarianism of communism? Is it because both had legitimate gripes against Christianity so that their persecution of Christianity did not originate out of religious differences per say. Here we should note that Bolshevism persecuted the Church because the Church supported wealth and power prior to both the February and October Revolutions. We should note that not all on the Left opposed Christianity, but the Bolsheviks did. As for liberal democracy, we need to know the details of why it opposes Christianity. Let assume that, as some like Lequtko would advance, that America was founded on Christianity. We should first note that there was quite a bit of religious intolerance just between Christian denominations themselves. That intolerance finally ended when the Revolutionary War's demands for manpower meant that the American churches could no longer remain too divided.
Then it was out of Christianity that people felt entitled to take land from the Native Americans resulting in ethnically cleansing them from most of America. Then we saw that much of Christianity supported the subjugation of Blacks through slavery and then Jim Crow. And all through America's history we have seen how the American churches have worked to marginalize homosexuals first with criminalizing their practices so that homosexuals could be either executed or incarcerated on to allowing for the discrimination against homosexuals and opposing their equality in society.
It is the details of the diversity that both liberal democracy embraced and much of American Christianity opposed that perhaps sheds light on why Lequtko both would associate it with totalitarian Communism (Bolshevism) and would replace liberal democracy. Perhaps the term is ethnocracy would be the replacement. Ethnocracy refers to the rule of a specific group based on ethnic ties, race, language, national identity, or religion would exercise over the rest of a pluralistic nation using the democratic processes. For if diversity and freedom are our enemies because of their alleged similarities to totalitarian Communism, then some degree of conformity is the solution. And it appears that, according to Lequtko, Classical and Christian traditions would tell us how to conform. But how is it that insistence on conformity is not mentioned as being similar to totalitarian Communism while liberal democracy with its emphasis on diversity is? That, rather than what is attributed to Lequtko as a replacement for liberal democracy, is what requires further explanation in a sequel. And this would also add to why Lequtko said there was a justified fear of religion, which is rather paradoxical.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 11
To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost on “education liberation,” which is used to describe why we should support vouchers for school choice. This appeared in the Acton blog.
If we applied the school choice model to attending college, then each student who attended a for-profit college, a private college, or a religious college would receive from the state the same assistance that an instate student in a state college receives. Here we should note that what an instate student in a state college receives is hidden since states give money state schools to help finance these state schools.
We should also note that if we applied the college model to the school choice program, we would note that all private, charter, and religious schools would be responsible for providing assistance to students who could not afford to attend their schools.
Now here is the inconsistency. We wouldn't think of giving the same state money to any student who decided to attend for-profit, private, or religious college that is spent on in-state students at state schools. Why? To make that work, we would either have to raise taxes significantly to fund such a program or we would continue to spend less and less on each instate student attending a state school. And yet, we do not call for a college choice program where students who want to attend non-state schools are depicted as needing liberation through a freedom of choice for colleges. But knowing that public schools, some of which are already suffering from a lack of funds because of depleted tax bases, would receive less and less money because those attending non-public schools are taking public school funds with them as non-public schools are at least partially relieved from the responsibility of finding funding for some of their students. As a result, some public schools, which are basically community schools, will suffer deterioration. And if they collapse, there are not enough resources from the non-public school sector to pick up the slack. Then what happens to those students left behind?
The problem is that, just as in college, students are not prohibited from attending the primary and secondary schools of their choice. Therefore, school choice is not a freedom or liberation issue. It is a financial issue both in college and in primary and secondary education. But if we accommodate those who insist otherwise, we should note that enabling students to "escape" their community schools also becomes a student flight issue. And this points to one of the biggest problems with the school choice movement. For rather than addressing the problems and improving the communities in which under-performing schools are located, we are fleeing from problems. And the students that come from troubled communities only escape those communities during school hours. And then they are taught that success is achieved by leaving the community in which they grew up. This causes these communities to suffer further decay.
We have economic segregation in our nation where the houses we move into often depend on the neighbors we can afford to live with. And that means we can completely wash our hands of the plights of the communities we didn't want to live in. What is called school choice further exhibits this segregation not in terms of the schools students can choose, but in terms of the plights of the community schools those students leave behind. What was called 'white flight' is an instance of the kind of flight we see resulting from the school choice movement. And those who are left behind eventually become more and more invisible to government and society. Since not all students can flee from their community schools, we should call the school choice plan with its claims of freedom and liberation a student-flight program because their communities are not worth our concern. And yet, with all of what is being said, we haven't really touched on why we have a school choice movement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 13
To Collin Hansen and his blogpost review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option where part of what is discussed is whether politics can save us. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
From the review, it appears is that Dreher does not see the threat that wrong associations can be to the Gospel. For by stating that we live in a post-Christian culture, does he ever ask about what from the Christian culture is being rightly rejected? Fortunately Hansen identifies one problematic association: racism. Another one that is often overlooked is economic classism. This is sometimes missed because the predominant branch of the Church of certain places has often sided with wealth. This was true in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And we should note that once the revolutions took place, the Gospel suffered dishonor because the Church had sided with wealth.
I'm afraid that aligning the Church behind Trump repeats this same mistake. For what has Trump done but to show himself an ally to wealth at the expense of eliminating more of business's social responsibilities than have done away with before. Think about the environment as we extract and use even more fossil fuels, dump fracking wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico, dump waste from coal mining into streams, or put a climate denier as head of the EPA. Or think about the new Republican healthcare plan and how it is projected that millions will lose their health insurance while insurance CEOs get tax breaks. Or think about how Trump's tax and spending plans, including cutting billion of dollars from HUD, continue to bankrupt the country. It is important that he wants to eliminate elective abortions performed by Planned Parenthood, but his other actions will be associated with the pro-life cause if we don't oppose him where he is wrong.
In these times, we need to both preserve the Christian faith while being able to interact with our culture. That includes being credible witnesses by acknowledging the past wrongs of the Church as well as being able to identify where the current culture is at least partially right. I don't see that happening under Dreher's Benedict Option. And if I am right, the pertinent question isn't regarding whether politics can save us. And even if we were to ask that question, we have to also ask save us from what? For apparently, having lost the culture war, some believe that politics could have saved us from that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 14
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost video that makes comparisons in an effort to claim that Christian business owners have the right to refuse providing services to same-sex functions. This appeared in Heidelblog.
For the businesses refusing to sell Ivanka's fashions is not an apples to apples comparison with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex wedding. For one thing, the business that refuses to sell Ivanka's fashions is determining what iventory they will have. And in the of Nordsrum when they refused to continue to carry Ivanka's fashions, it was because her products were not selling. So on two counts, the comparison is not an apples to apples comparison.
As for the Muslim singer having the right to refuse to sing in a church service, again, one must look for an apples to apples comparison if one wants to compare that with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex function. Does the Muslim singer provide his singing as a businessman who serves the general public? If not, there is no apples to apples comparison exists here between his/her refusal and a Christian business owner's refusal to do provide goods and services for the LGBT community or a same-sex function.
As for the Christian business owner who refuses to provide goods and services to a same-sex function because of their personal religious convictions, we must remember that the most apt comparison we can make with this is the Christian business owners who, because of their religious beliefs, refused to serve Blacks during Jim Crow days. Should White Christian business owners have the right to refuse to do business with Blacks for privately held religious reasons? See, here we have more of an apples to apples comparison with Christian business owners' rights to refuse to serve same-sex functions. Why? It is because in both cases, groups from individual consumers are being discriminated against because of their group identity. Allowing such discrimination means that certain kinds of groups of people can suffer partial or full depricvation of goods and services either in isolated locations or throughout the nation in general.
See, the missing ingredient in all of the other examples compared with Christian business owners who refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex functions is the relationship the consumer has with the business refusing a business transaction and the welfare of the group being denied. The way the questions were asked in the video focussed solely on the business owners' concerns; there was no expressed concern for what happens to the other party. And this is what dishonors the Gospel when Christian business owners refuse to provide goods and services to either the LGBT community in general or to same-sex functions. These business owners are only expressing concern for themselves; they are expressing no concern for what potentially can happen to the LGBT community. This is the kind of mistake that Christian business owners made when they refused to serve Blacks or served them in segregated fashion during Jim Crow.
Friday, March 3, 2017
The Snaglepuss Solution For A Sexually Apocalyptic World
To summarize Rod Dreher (click here for bio), the only hope that American Christianity has in passing down its traditions, especially those about the family, in today's sexually apocalyptic world is for Christians to find ways to exit, stage left, that world in groups that become communities. Why? It is because, in his opinion, certain Christian traditions can no longer survive today's world because Christians have lost the culture war to an aggressive sexual depravity. And in talking about the state of today's culture, Dreher is not mimicking Chicken Little in saying that the sky is falling; rather, he is saying that the sky has fallen and that the fallout will destroy Christianity and the Christian family. Therefore, we Christians have to find ways of living in tight-knit communities in order to preserve our faith and family life for the future.
Dreher's solution is what he has called the Benedict Option and he wrote about it on more than one occasion. One such occasion is in a Christianity Today article (click here for the article). And though it would be good to review the whole article, time does not permit that. Rather, this blog will examine Dreher's analysis of today and take an initial look at his proposed solution.
The idea that the sexual values taught and practiced in American culture today are beyond the pale have become much more widely accepted by religiously conservative Christians especially since the Obergefell decision. The belief that we Christians have lost a fiercely fought culture war to an unrelenting enemy that takes no prisoners is now popular among many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians. Dreher looks at the conflict between the Christian view of sex and our culture's view as two gunfighters saying to each other that 'this town isn't big enough for the both of us.' At least that is his perception. And we have to realize that there is some evidence for this perception.
For one thing, Christianity use to have a degree of dominance over our culture's sexual values. Earlier in our nation's history, certain sexual practices warranted incarceration or even the death penalty. Eventually the death penalty was phased out, but I remember when homosexuality, for example, was punished as a crime. In fact, it was not too long ago when certain sexual practices were criminalized even when practiced by heterosexual couples. Starting with the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and culminating in the legal recognition of certain rights for the LGBT community, that dominance was lost. And thus, the following paragraph from Dreher's article is confusing for it seems to lack self-awareness.
The confusion is seen in the parts where Christians are seen as persecuted while the 'cultural left' is portrayed as being overly aggressive. For how is it that history could not paint the LGBT community as victims and Christians as being the uuncompromisingly aggressive ones? And even now, when legal action is taken against or disdain shown for taking a "Christian position" on sexual issues, it is when the rights of the LGBT community are being threatened by Christians.
In fact, to claim that we have had a culture war starting with the Sexual Revolution means that we have viewed ourselves as being in a battle to conquer an enemy. In fact, it wasn't until the Obergefell decision when many of us Christians acknowledged that we had lost the war. And even now, some Christians are battling to pass laws that would take away the rights gained by those in the LGBT community. So when Dreher complains that the cultural left refuses to live in a postwar peace, he demonstrates the self-awareness of a bull in a china shop.
We also have to note that in looking at his proposed solution, why does it take the Sexual Revolution to make us want to exit from society? Yes, Dreher acknowledges the problems that the materialism of our culture can cause. And yet for Dreher, culture is irrevocably lost not to materialism or during slavery, Jim Crow, the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land, or through the wars and interventions it has taken to build and maintain our empire. Instead, our culture is without hope because its sexual values have changed.
Now when we look at Dreher's solution, we find that it is not based on any New Testament example. For the worst case New Testament scenario was in Corinth and yet the Corinthians were never encouraged to leave their culture in order to protect themselves. Rather, they were to live out their faith in a community of believers so that they could live righteously as a witness to their culture by being a part of the culture.
But something else could be said. Dreher's Benedict Option demonstrates an immaturity that revolves around self-absorption. For what it is really saying is that we Christians should take our toys and go home because we lost a game. Thus, we will play with our toys by ourselves rather than sharing with others because we can't tolerate not winning.
However, there is one point where we should give Dreher his due. Unbiblical sex is a very strong temptation. And we do need each other to battle that temptation. But there are more issues than just our own self control here. How we will share society with others is one such issue. And we cannot afford to take our own weaknesses out on our culture. We can't afford to because, just like falling to temptation, it brings dishonor to the Gospel.
Dreher's solution is what he has called the Benedict Option and he wrote about it on more than one occasion. One such occasion is in a Christianity Today article (click here for the article). And though it would be good to review the whole article, time does not permit that. Rather, this blog will examine Dreher's analysis of today and take an initial look at his proposed solution.
The idea that the sexual values taught and practiced in American culture today are beyond the pale have become much more widely accepted by religiously conservative Christians especially since the Obergefell decision. The belief that we Christians have lost a fiercely fought culture war to an unrelenting enemy that takes no prisoners is now popular among many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians. Dreher looks at the conflict between the Christian view of sex and our culture's view as two gunfighters saying to each other that 'this town isn't big enough for the both of us.' At least that is his perception. And we have to realize that there is some evidence for this perception.
For one thing, Christianity use to have a degree of dominance over our culture's sexual values. Earlier in our nation's history, certain sexual practices warranted incarceration or even the death penalty. Eventually the death penalty was phased out, but I remember when homosexuality, for example, was punished as a crime. In fact, it was not too long ago when certain sexual practices were criminalized even when practiced by heterosexual couples. Starting with the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and culminating in the legal recognition of certain rights for the LGBT community, that dominance was lost. And thus, the following paragraph from Dreher's article is confusing for it seems to lack self-awareness.
Today, Christians who hold to the biblical teaching about sex and marriage have the same status in culture and, increasingly, in law, as racists. The culture war that began with the sexual revolution in the 1960s has now ended in defeat for Christian conservatives. The cultural left—which is to say, the American mainstream—has no intention of living in postwar peace. It is pressing forward with a harsh, relentless occupation, one that is aided by the cluelessness of Christians who don’t understand what’s happening.
The confusion is seen in the parts where Christians are seen as persecuted while the 'cultural left' is portrayed as being overly aggressive. For how is it that history could not paint the LGBT community as victims and Christians as being the uuncompromisingly aggressive ones? And even now, when legal action is taken against or disdain shown for taking a "Christian position" on sexual issues, it is when the rights of the LGBT community are being threatened by Christians.
In fact, to claim that we have had a culture war starting with the Sexual Revolution means that we have viewed ourselves as being in a battle to conquer an enemy. In fact, it wasn't until the Obergefell decision when many of us Christians acknowledged that we had lost the war. And even now, some Christians are battling to pass laws that would take away the rights gained by those in the LGBT community. So when Dreher complains that the cultural left refuses to live in a postwar peace, he demonstrates the self-awareness of a bull in a china shop.
We also have to note that in looking at his proposed solution, why does it take the Sexual Revolution to make us want to exit from society? Yes, Dreher acknowledges the problems that the materialism of our culture can cause. And yet for Dreher, culture is irrevocably lost not to materialism or during slavery, Jim Crow, the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land, or through the wars and interventions it has taken to build and maintain our empire. Instead, our culture is without hope because its sexual values have changed.
Now when we look at Dreher's solution, we find that it is not based on any New Testament example. For the worst case New Testament scenario was in Corinth and yet the Corinthians were never encouraged to leave their culture in order to protect themselves. Rather, they were to live out their faith in a community of believers so that they could live righteously as a witness to their culture by being a part of the culture.
But something else could be said. Dreher's Benedict Option demonstrates an immaturity that revolves around self-absorption. For what it is really saying is that we Christians should take our toys and go home because we lost a game. Thus, we will play with our toys by ourselves rather than sharing with others because we can't tolerate not winning.
However, there is one point where we should give Dreher his due. Unbiblical sex is a very strong temptation. And we do need each other to battle that temptation. But there are more issues than just our own self control here. How we will share society with others is one such issue. And we cannot afford to take our own weaknesses out on our culture. We can't afford to because, just like falling to temptation, it brings dishonor to the Gospel.
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