I have a lot of problems with Dreher’s idea of the Benedict option: a retreat into the desert to survive. The times are bleak, that is where I would agree with him. The narrative looks triumphant. But this is the time to blog, to preach: we are not silenced. Yet.
A fair amount of this agitation comes from what Brother Steve the Koran Burner calls the Jewish Lesbian Mafia that drive the progressive direction among the perverse and chain them to liberalism and demographic suicide. I think Spengler does mention the virtues of the book quite well.
Dreher’s book has both the charm and merit of a participant’s account of the practicalities of withdrawing from the world. The first half of the book tries to account for the decline of Western civilization, an issue to which I will return later; the strongest chapters come later, recounting the experience of the religious who have tried to separate themselves from secular society, and exhorting the reader to embrace work, risk, and faith. Christians should be prudent, that is, not seek needless career martyrdom in pursuit of principles where victory is impossible; they should save themselves for family and community. Where believers are driven out of certain professions by the new secular inquisition, Dreher says, they should instead be entrepreneurial. Christians should rediscover the trades, where the religious can make a living without signing on to secular ideology. They should buy from other Christians and help Christians find employment.
These examples and exhortations will be of great help to religious people who find it impossible to protect their children from the plagues of pornography and commercialism that erode the content of contemporary life. Dreher proposes sensible, well-considered measures to achieve family and community independence from mainstream society rather than radical demonstration.
Jews have no business telling Christians how to conduct their lives, but there is something in the Jewish experience that resonates with the idea of withdrawal from the mainstream of society. When I speak to Christian groups the question I hear most often is: “How do the Jews keep their children in the fold?” The answer, of course, is that most of us don’t. As the joke goes, the difference between Donald Trump and a liberal Jew is that Trump has Jewish grandchildren.
The second argument I have with Dreher is that, though we may want to shun the narrative and have nothing to do with the political priesthood, the political priesthood is interested in us. the number of trolls that need to be squashed at the more popular sites is increasing, and I’m getting not merely helpful comments here but those that stench of the pay of Soros.
If you know your history you know that the Peoples of God have often been driven out. The use of the Jews, to us, is that they show us both salvation, for Paul was a Jew and grieved for his tribe as we do, and the consequences of error.
For the liberals are in a death spiral among the children of Jacob: while all the people of promise are the children of Abraham.
1I am speaking the truth in Christ — I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit — 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. 4They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
6It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, 7and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named after you.” 8This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants. 9For this is what the promise said, “About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.” 10Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac. 11Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, 12not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.” 13As it is written,
“I have loved Jacob,
but I have hated Esau.”14What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. 17For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18So then he has mercy on whomsoever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomsoever he chooses.
A final comment on the text: one of the justifications for the doctrine of predestination is here. God chooses us, we do not choose God. There is a place for will, but in front of God we will find our arguments, pride and excuses falling aaside as they did for Job. For when he stood in front of God, and he had suffered, been almost destroyed and was in real pain, he said I have no complaint, I have seen you, and you are truly righteous. I did not know everything.
We are broken. We act like spoilt children crying for a third iceblock to parents who know that there is a long drive ahead, and that child gets carsick.
Pray that we are not the object lesson to correct a further generation. For the foolishness of those older than me who prioritized social transfer payments over defence and infrastructure is now apparent.
The narrative will try to suborn us. Use some of Dreher’s tactics: be where the crowds are not. Support your neighbours and family first. Make babies, raise children, get your young men into trades and your young women skilled at keeping house. Shun the social welfare system and the schools.
And do not be silence. Compliance with the narrative is consent.
