Peter Carruthers
Recently, I was prompted to re-visit Rod Dreher’s ‘The Benedict Option’, and its later ‘companion’ volume, ‘Live Not by Lies’.
‘Benedict’ had quite an impact on me when I first read it. Dreher seemed to be advocating similar things to those I’d been (eg here & here), albeit in very different ‘packaging’ and to a much larger audience! What I especially liked was his emphasis on action beyond analysis, ie rather than just exposing all that has gone wrong (with society and church), he sets out a way to put it right.
The phrase from the book that especially came to mind recently was from a quotation in the chapter on ‘church’.
“At this moment in the Church’s history it is less urgent to convince the alternative culture in which we live of the truth off Christ than it is for the Church to tell its own story and to nurture its own life”.1
That’s not to say we give up on mission, apologetics and evangelism. But it does seem there is an urgent imperative to understand who we are, what we believe, and what we must do - hence, the ‘eleventh-hour’ priorities of ‘returning to the Scriptures with new fervour, and cultivating deeper fellowship with Jesus and with one another’.
There is much more to be understood, said and done, of course, and these two books can help shape an agenda for doing so, even if we can’t endorse or embrace everything in them.
In the coming weeks, therefore, I hope to expand on some more of Dreher’s programme and offer some commentary on it, asking, in particular, how it might work out in rural contexts. As a starting point, below, is an extended version of a review of both books, published originally in the Summer 2021 issue of Village Link.2
Both ‘best sellers’, ‘The Benedict Option’ and ‘Live Not by Lies’, attracted much interest and sparked much controversy after their publication in 2017 and 2020 respectively.
Their author, Rod Dreher is an American journalist, writer, and speaker. He is an Orthodox Christian, but these books are a rallying call to all ‘orthodox’ (ie theologically conservative) Christians to resort to scripture and tradition and to the example of our ancestors in the faith, both distant (ie St Benedict of Nursia, 480-537) and recent (ie Christian dissidents of the 20C Soviet era), and form a bastion against the (religious, cultural and political) storm and flood about to engulf formerly ‘Christian’ societies.
Both books offer an analysis of society, culture and church in the West. The Benedict Option likens our times to the barbarian invasions and fall of the (western) Roman Empire of the fifth century, and the so-called dark age that followed; ‘Lies’ sees the West as on the verge of a new, ‘soft’ form of the totalitarianism that engulfed Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. For the Benedict Option, western society is, essentially, post-Christian; for Live not by Lies it is anti-Christian.
The books’ great strength, however, is that most of their chapters (eight of ten in ‘Benedict’, and six out of ten in ‘Lies’) set out an agenda for what we must do to ‘weather the storm’ and ‘survive the flood’. Dreher is a refreshing contrast to those Christian polemicists who emphasise analysing and lamenting our situation to the almost total exclusion of setting out reasons for hope and a programme of action!
How, asks the Benedict Option, do Christians live and witness faithfully as a minority in a culture in which were once the majority? The answer is to construct close, intentional, communities as contexts for living out radical discipleship, and to reconfigure our relationships with state, society and culture. Like the Jews in Babylon, the NT church, and the early Benedictines, we are to be both good citizens and a community apart. The chapter on ‘church’, with its call to ‘evangelise with goodness and beauty’, is particularly inspiring; the warnings about digital technology and the idea of a ‘digital sabbath’ are particularly challenging.
Dreher emphasises that his programme is not retreat, but ‘strategic withdrawal’. Modern Christianity does not challenge, but rather has been infiltrated by modernity’s assumptions. Christians must regain confidence in who they are and to what they are called. The Church must tell itself its own story and nurture its own life.
Live not by Lies takes the Benedict Option programme into more hostile territory. The title and inspiration are from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s essay of the same name - his last to his people before he was exiled to the West in 1974. In ‘soft totalitarianism’, Christians need to ‘value nothing but truth’, ‘cultivate cultural memory’, and strengthen family, church and community. Especially, believers need to be prepared embrace the ‘gift of suffering’.
As a journalist, Dreher draws greatly on many other thinkers, writers and interviewees and tells many real-life stories. The stories in Live not by Lies are especially sober - be prepared to be moved and challenged! His ability to synthesise and summarise, and to weave in his own personal experiences and perspectives, is impressive making both books a very ‘easy read’.
Dreher has been criticised for being ‘alarmist’ - things are not as bad as he makes out, traditionalism is resurgent across the world or we are on the verge of a great Christian revival. Sadly, I do not think we can pin our hopes to any of these scenarios. And even if the storm subsides, the programme he sets out is good for any time.
Evangelicals may not be comfortable with the ‘father of western monasticism’ or with the implicit assumption that Christendom was Christian. Neither is essential to the core argument, however, and should not stand in the way of the books’ urgent message to all orthodox Christians.
There are other details one might question, but overall I would thoroughly commend both books as ‘essential reading’ for all who wish to remain faithful followers of Jesus in our present turbulent times.
Dreher, Rod. The Benedict Option, Sentinel, New York, p 100.