NYT's David Brooks is so very precious about buggery. My friend Mark Albrecht forwarded a link to Brooks's latest piece dissing Rod Dreher's exquisitely titled "The Benedict Option" while flattering Dreher for writing the most important book on religion in ten years. He points out twice in his three-minute read that he disagrees with Dreher's opposition to buggery.
Noted.
Noted again.
Dreher thinks the inspiration for his book's title is the sixth century founder of the Benedictine monastic order who wrote...
the Rule of Benedict (a helpful read, BTW). Why did Dreher name his book after Benedict of Nursia?
Dreher says the proper direction for orthodox Christians to take in the face of today's sodomitic juggernaut is something akin to a return to the monastic life. Dreher wants to retreat into education and go private. Let paganism return while keeping our own boys safe at home reading the classics and playing with slingshots. Let's stop evangelizing the world and work to evangelize our children through education.
Dreher started life as a Protestant, converted as an adult to Roman Catholicism, then converted again—this time to Eastern Orthodoxy. I say Dreher's book is exquisitely titled because the Benedict most Americans will think of when they read its title, "The Benedict Option," is Benedict Arnold, the most notorious traitor in American history.
Whether the retreat action is called "Two-Kingdom," "Benedict option," or the more straightforward "Brer Rabbit he lay low," these calls for disengagement are coalescing into a unified strategy right now, and it must be said each of them is, Christianly-speaking, traitorous. Each turns away from the Great Commision of our Commander in Chief, the Lord Jesus Christ:
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
So have I got this right? The proposal is that we sit watching pederastic sodomy take over Western Christendom while entertaining ourselves with books pining for Western Christendom?
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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