The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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PeterG
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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MaxPC wrote:The book The Benedict Option was written by a Catholic and addressed to Catholics
MaxPC wrote:As I mentioned earlier, this book is a proposal of a concept to Catholics, by a Catholic invoking a Christian lifestyle that has a history of supporting discipleship.
You seem to have missed an earlier mention of this: Dreher is Orthodox, not Catholic. And while I haven't read his book, I gathered from an interview of Dreher that he is addressing conservative Christians in general, not just Catholics or any other particular denomination.
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MaxPC
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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PeterG wrote:
MaxPC wrote:The book The Benedict Option was written by a Catholic and addressed to Catholics
MaxPC wrote:As I mentioned earlier, this book is a proposal of a concept to Catholics, by a Catholic invoking a Christian lifestyle that has a history of supporting discipleship.
You seem to have missed an earlier mention of this: Dreher is Orthodox, not Catholic. And while I haven't read his book, I gathered from an interview of Dreher that he is addressing conservative Christians in general, not just Catholics or any other particular denomination.
In his communiques with Plain Catholics he told us what I shared with you. As to what he appears to be saying in other venues, I have no knowledge. I'll leave it to you to guess why he appears to say different things in different situations.
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Josh
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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Max, are you saying Dreher is privately claiming to be Catholic to you whilst publicly Orthodox? That's a pretty big deal.
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PeterG
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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MaxPC wrote:
PeterG wrote:
MaxPC wrote:The book The Benedict Option was written by a Catholic and addressed to Catholics
MaxPC wrote:As I mentioned earlier, this book is a proposal of a concept to Catholics, by a Catholic invoking a Christian lifestyle that has a history of supporting discipleship.
You seem to have missed an earlier mention of this: Dreher is Orthodox, not Catholic. And while I haven't read his book, I gathered from an interview of Dreher that he is addressing conservative Christians in general, not just Catholics or any other particular denomination.
In his communiques with Plain Catholics he told us what I shared with you. As to what he appears to be saying in other venues, I have no knowledge. I'll leave it to you to guess why he appears to say different things in different situations.
Dreher has written at length about his conversion to Orthodoxy, and since then, according to everything that I've seen, he has explicitly and consistently identified himself as Orthodox. Either he is not Catholic, and you are wrong, or he is both Catholic and a serial liar.

In his Benedict Option FAQ, Dreher makes it extremely clear that he is Orthodox and is addressing conservative Christians generally, not only or even primarily Catholics:
Rod Dreher wrote:
But St. Benedict was a Catholic. I’m not. What’s in it for me?

Hey, I’m not Catholic either. So what? We Orthodox claim him as one of our own, as all the pre-schism saints are. But never mind. Evangelicals need to look deeply into Church history to find the resources to withstand the pressures of modernity. St. Benedict is one of them. Because of our varying ecclesiologies, a Catholic Ben Op is going to look different from a Protestant one, and an Orthodox one will look different too. That’s okay. Depending on the telos of the Ben Op institution, we may be able to work together ecumenically.
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Josh
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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I wonder if Dreher ever bothered to visit a conservative Mennonite church or a Hutterite colony.
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

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Peter, thank you for the article link. I haven't followed Dreher's personal spiritual journey. Have been too busy.

I personally do not think that he was intentionally lying to Plain Catholics. At the time that he communicated with us, it was before his conversion to the Orthodox Church (according to the dates given in that article). He communicated with Plain Catholics a year or two after 9-11. As I said before, he seemed to be seeking/searching. He told us he had wanted to write a book addressed to Catholics then, about leaving secularism and focusing on discipleship. He wanted to propose an intentional Catholic community model. It's not a new idea; the concept of reviving medieval style Communities has been emerging again in Catholic World for ~25 years now. Plain Catholics don't live in community so we referred him to the Arkansas Brothers and Sisters of Charity who are such a community.

Perhaps his goals for the book changed since his contact with us. At that time he was in his 30s we would guess; and many young men in their thirties do quite a bit of seeking, even bouncing from church to church hoping to find "their idea" of a perfect church community. Of course there is none but I think these young men have to work this out in that phase in their lives until they gain enough maturity and humility to realize that heaven and perfection is not here on earth.
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

Post by Valerie »

Josh wrote:I wonder if Dreher ever bothered to visit a conservative Mennonite church or a Hutterite colony.
Josh, there are Mennonites who have converted to Orthodox Christian Church and I've hoped they would write a book about why- the Orthodox are well aware of Anabaptists and their communities as there is even a section speaking about them in my Orthodox Study Bible- and even if they feel they have many redeeming characteristics (said by a former Mennonite who is a deacon in Orthodox Church) that doesn't mean they necessarily feel that they have become "The" Church, discarding 1500 years of Apostolic Christianity prior to their attempt at starting the Church over again. Still they are thankful for their upbringings.
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

Post by Wayne in Maine »

MaxPC wrote:
PeterG wrote:
MaxPC wrote:The book The Benedict Option was written by a Catholic and addressed to Catholics
MaxPC wrote:As I mentioned earlier, this book is a proposal of a concept to Catholics, by a Catholic invoking a Christian lifestyle that has a history of supporting discipleship.
You seem to have missed an earlier mention of this: Dreher is Orthodox, not Catholic. And while I haven't read his book, I gathered from an interview of Dreher that he is addressing conservative Christians in general, not just Catholics or any other particular denomination.
In his communiques with Plain Catholics he told us what I shared with you. As to what he appears to be saying in other venues, I have no knowledge. I'll leave it to you to guess why he appears to say different things in different situations.
Could you share those communiques? They will be fascinating reading supplements to the book.
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Josh
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

Post by Josh »

Valerie wrote:
Josh wrote:I wonder if Dreher ever bothered to visit a conservative Mennonite church or a Hutterite colony.
Josh, there are Mennonites who have converted to Orthodox Christian Church and I've hoped they would write a book about why- the Orthodox are well aware of Anabaptists and their communities as there is even a section speaking about them in my Orthodox Study Bible- and even if they feel they have many redeeming characteristics (said by a former Mennonite who is a deacon in Orthodox Church) that doesn't mean they necessarily feel that they have become "The" Church, discarding 1500 years of Apostolic Christianity prior to their attempt at starting the Church over again. Still they are thankful for their upbringings.
What on earth does Mennonites converting to Orthodox have to do with living in a community of goods and maintaining separation from the world?

Orthodox typically works as a state church and outlaws other denominations once it gets a chance, like in Russia.
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: The Benedict Option .. (Hoax?)

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Josh wrote:I wonder if Dreher ever bothered to visit a conservative Mennonite church or a Hutterite colony.
I have yet to read the book, but I think a worldview that wants to create a "Ben Op" for Protestants and Catholics and Orthodox is far, far removed from the worldview that makes the "Hutter Op" the only option for Hutterites.
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