The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

by Rod Dreher

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI foretells a world in which the church will live in small circles of committed believers who live the faith intensely, and who will have to be somewhat cut off from mainstream society for the sake of holding on to the truth.

Jesus Christ promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church, but He did not promise that Hell would not prevail against His church in the West.

The monastery cook, Father Basil, described his labors preparing meals for the brethren as a form of purification, of perfection, on both a human and a supernatural level. “By means of the work in the kitchen, I’m establishing order. I’m exercising my God-given governance of the creative world,” he said. “From a human perspective, work is so important because it helps us exercise that God-commanded dominance over the earth. And from a practical point of view, it provides for ourselves and others. It’s important for us to know that through our work, we are making an important contribution to the community.”

And on a supernatural level? “Ultimately, work serves as an expression of charity, of love, and that is what all work really should be,” Father Basil explained. “This is a lesson we have to work all our lives to learn. Work is not something I do in order to get something. Doing it is good for me, it’s constitutive of my happiness, because in it and through it I show love for others.

“The best defense is offense. You defend by attacking,” Brother Ignatius said. “Let’s attack by expanding God’s kingdom—first in our hearts, then in our own families, and then in the world. Yes, you have to have borders, but our duty is not to let the borders stay there. We have to push outward, infinitely.”

From this perspective, the parallel polis is not about building a gated community for Christians but rather about establishing (or reestablishing) common practices and common institutions that can reverse the isolation and fragmentation of contemporary society.

“They surrendered themselves to the idea that these things were worth doing in and of themselves, not because they might have definite, measurable consequences,”

Here’s how to get started with the antipolitical politics of the Benedict Option. Secede culturally from the mainstream. Turn off the television. Put the smartphones away. Read books. Play games. Make music. Feast with your neighbors. It is not enough to avoid what is bad; you must also embrace what is good. Start a church, or a group within your church. Open a classical Christian school, or join and strengthen one that exists. Plant a garden, and participate in a local farmer’s market. Teach kids how to play music, and start a band. Join the volunteer fire department.

Education not only has to reset our relationship to ultimate reality, it also must reestablish our connection to our history. That is, education is key to the recovery of cultural memory. The deeper our roots in the past, the more secure our anchor against the swift currents of liquid modernity.

The greater our understanding of where we came from, the more securely we can stand in the post-Christian present, and the more confidently we can chart a course for the post-Christian future.

We cannot understand the West apart from the Christian faith, and we cannot understand the Christian faith as we live it today without understanding the history and culture of the West. If future generations fail to learn to love our Western cultural heritage, we will lose it.

The best way to create a generation of aimless know-nothings who feel no sense of obligation beyond themselves is to deprive them of a past.

In the twentieth century, every totalitarian government knew that controlling the people’s access to cultural memory was necessary to gain dominion over them.

Today in the contemporary West, our cultural memory has not been taken from us by dictators. Rather, like the comfortable, pleasure-seeking drones in Brave New World, we have ceased caring about the past because...

The material may seem distant to them, especially because they have been formed by a culture that stresses contemporaneity (that is, “relevance”) and that incentivizes them to be passive test-taking conformists.

The most radical, disruptive, and transformative technology ever created is the Internet.

The Internet rapidly accelerates the political, social, and cultural fragmentation process that has been under way since the mid-twentieth century and profoundly compromises our ability to pay attention.

Study after study has confirmed the common experience many have reported in the Internet age: that using the Web makes it infinitely easier to find information but much harder to devote the kind of sustained focus it takes to know things.

In the traditional Christian view, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are objective realities, qualities of God and therefore intrinsic to Creation itself. To be free is to be able to see and participate in these supreme goods, thus realizing our true natures. As Christians, we behave virtuously not merely because God commands it but because acquiring virtue helps us to see Christ more clearly and in seeing Him, to reveal Him in turn to others. The early church sought nothing more than to see the face of God. Everything else followed.

Moms and dads who would never leave their kids unattended in a room full of pornographic DVDs think nothing of handing them smartphones. This is morally insane.