{"id":1191,"date":"2017-06-18T16:49:10","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T20:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2021-04-08T12:15:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T16:15:02","slug":"a-short-book-review-of-rod-drehers-the-benedict-option-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/18\/a-short-book-review-of-rod-drehers-the-benedict-option-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Short Book Review of Rod Dreher\u2019s \u2013 The Benedict Option \u2013 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Short Review of Rod Dreher’s Book, “The Benedict Option” – Part 1<\/a><\/p>\n

Today I finished \u201cThe Benedict Option.\u201d\u00a0 Regardless of whether you are a Christian or just someone who adheres to the traditional cultural norms of western civilization this book gives you a great deal to think about.\u00a0 And for someone trying to live as a Christian in this post-Christian world and even more importantly someone raising Christian children this book is extremely relevant.<\/p>\n

Dreher presents his thesis as bad news\/good news, in that order.\u00a0 The bad news is we\u2019ve lost the culture wars and the younger generations have rejected the Christian precepts on sexuality and hedonism.\u00a0 He declares that to pretend that we can win back the culture is delusional and counter-productive.<\/p>\n

The good news is now Christians can prove that they are Christians.\u00a0 His thesis is that because we thought we could depend on the Christian nature of America we didn\u2019t have to do the hard work of living the Christian lifestyle and making sure our children were brought up in the faith.\u00a0 We assumed our kids would pick up faith through osmosis, even if we ourselves didn\u2019t really reflect this lifestyle.\u00a0 America stopped being Christian because Americans weren\u2019t living as Christians.\u00a0 Basically, the communists who were running our schools and Hollywood made an end run around religion by replacing God with fairness and used the highly materialistic consumer culture that is present day America to convince our children that this culture is really all there is to America.\u00a0 And they bought it.<\/p>\n

His logic is that in order to survive in this anti-Christian society we\u2019ll have to return to the mindset and behaviors that the Christians adopted when they lived in a non-Christian society.<\/p>\n

After this Dreher compares the present-day situation to late 5th<\/sup> century Italy when Saint Benedict was starting his monastic system to allow Christians to survive the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome.\u00a0 There is a good deal of description of the components of the Benedictine Rules and how these would apply to lay Christians.\u00a0 This is followed by chapters that describe the ways that Christians can circumvent the dangers of present day educational and work-life anti-Christian realities.\u00a0 These sections are full of examples of individuals and groups building organizations and support systems that are referenced in the Notes section at the end of the book.\u00a0 I was surprised at how much already exists to allow parents to locate traditional Christian schooling or resources for home schooling.\u00a0 But most important is the need for parents to heavily involve themselves in teaching their children what Christianity means.\u00a0 One thing that I found interesting was his insistence that in order to inoculate children against the sexual hedonism of the modern world parents were going to have to learn how to talk about sex with their children.<\/p>\n

And finally, the book stresses the fact that it wasn\u2019t really an enemy from without that destroyed the Christian West.\u00a0 It was the logical conclusion of the Enlightenment philosophy that puts man at the center of the universe.\u00a0 Basically, there was no longer a place for God.<\/p>\n

For those interested in practical solutions to the problem of living a traditional Christian life in these godless times I highly recommend this book.\u00a0 Even if you disagree with some of the suggestions you will find yourself thinking of the world and your place in it in a totally different way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Short Review of Rod Dreher’s Book, “The Benedict Option” – Part 1 Today I finished \u201cThe Benedict Option.\u201d\u00a0 Regardless of whether you are a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,5,2852,237],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-current-events","category-religion","category-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\nA Short Book Review of Rod Dreher\u2019s \u2013 The Benedict Option \u2013 Part 2 - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/18\/a-short-book-review-of-rod-drehers-the-benedict-option-part-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Short Book Review of Rod Dreher\u2019s \u2013 The Benedict Option \u2013 Part 2 - 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