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

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David Brooks

In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. 

 

The absence of young people and an insipid pseudo–Christianity have hollowed out American churches from the inside. They are tormented by attacks to religious liberty from the outside in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have granted the West a little reprieve from the state's attack, but it will not stop the West's descent into decadence and disintegration.

 

Rod Dreher claims that the route forward is actually backwards, all the way to St. Benedict of Nursia. Fearful of the moral anarchy that followed Rome's fall, this sixth-century monk retired to the wilderness and established a new way of life for Christians. He established long-lasting communities centered on order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. Throughout the Dark Ages, his spiritual sanctuaries of hope were fortresses of light, saving not only Christianity but Western culture as well.

 

Today, a new kind of savagery has taken hold. Many Christians are oblivious to it, and their churches are unable to stop it. In this spiritual crisis, politics is of little use. The Benedict Option, a strategy based on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church, is required. The idea is to embrace exile from mainstream culture while building a strong counterculture.

 

The Benedict Option is a manifesto and a rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be vanquished, must learn to fight on culture war battlefields unlike any the West has seen in the last fifteen centuries. It's for all simple Christians who can see the signs of the times, whether they're Protestants, Catholics, or Orthodox. False optimism and fatalistic pessimism will not suffice. Only faith, hope, and love, expressed in a resurrected church, can keep believers alive in this dark age. These are the days for constructing sturdy arks in preparation for the long trek over a sea of darkness.