By ERASMUS
ROD DREHER is one of America’s most influential religious commentators. He has made the case that in today’s godless West, the only viable strategy for traditionally minded followers of Jesus Christ is to make a partial withdrawal from society, and abandon the struggle to assert political power. It is a case he lays out in his book “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation”.
Although he finds much to admire in Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, the title of his book came from Saint Benedict, the church father of the sixth century who laid the foundations of monasticism in the Western world. Mr Dreher is not suggesting that today’s Christians, apart from a small minority, will literally become monks. But he thinks that Christians’ best hope of survival lies in a self-conscious retreat into disciplined, prayerful and perhaps relatively small communities.
