The Benedict Option

A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

By: Rod Dreher

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

The light of the Christian faith is flickering out all over the West. American churches are beset by a rapidly secularizing culture, the departure of young people, and watered-down pseudo-spirituality. Political solutions have failed, as the self-destruction of the Republican Party indicates, and the future of religious freedom has never been in greater doubt. The center is not holding. The West, cut off from its Christian roots, is falling into a new Dark Age.

The good news is that there is a blueprint for a time-tested Christian response to this decline. In The Benedict Option, Dreher calls on traditional Christians to learn from the example of St. Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century monk who turned from the chaos and decadence of the collapsing Roman Empire and found a new way to live out the faith in community. For five difficult centuries, Benedict's monks kept the faith alive through the Dark Ages, and prepared the way for the rebirth of civilization. The Benedict Option shows believers how to build the resilience to face the modern world with the confidence and fervor of the early church. Christians face a time of choosing, with the fate of Christianity in Western civilization hanging in the balance. In this powerful challenge to complacency, Dreher shows why churches who fail to take the Benedict Option aren't going to make it.

©2017 Rod Dreher (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Challenging but insightful.

A book that will fuel many important discussions among Christians. Dreher's realistic assessment of modern culture can tend towards pessimism, and in some ways it is a declaration that the war is over, we lost, and what are camps in the hills going to look like.

Radical challenge

The Benedict Option is a radical challenge to painfully recognize and prepare for the cultural challenges confessing Christians must navigate now and in the near future.

my review

Good entry level reactionary Catholicism. would recommend as a first read for people interested in that side of politics/Catholicism

Must-Read!

This is a must-read for orthodox Christians today. Even if you disagree on some points, Dreher gets you pondering in general. You also receive an accessible primer on intellectual and theological history.

Refreshing and Timely

A wonderful and timely book for Catholics (and all Christians) who feel themselves torn between Christianity and modern society.

Thought provoking

You may not agree with everything Rod Dreher writes, but it certainly gets you thinking about what you believe and what you really love.

Good ideas

Overall I like this book. It provides some background, some of which I believe is mis-applied (hence a 4-star rating) which is useful in tracking with Rod Dreher's thesis: The Christian church needs to establish protected strongholds to maintain the faith in times of cultural struggle and antagonism (my summary, not his). I believe Dreher has some good ideas, but misses the point that we can not isolate ourselves (Christians) from the world. Christians need to be able to understand and interface with the world while still maintaining their integrity and faithfulness to God, but we can't completely protect ourselves by segregating ourselves from the world. The key, which I think Dreher makes well, is that the Christian church needs to train and ground younger generations in the Word and its reliability. When they have that anchor, dealing with and witnessing to the world is both much more effective and also safer for those younger generations. Younger generations have more empathy and understanding of culture than older ones and that needs to be strengthened and used and not hidden away. Read and extract the good ideas and put them to good use.

Spot on

Very well researched and written, this book looks at ways Christians can ride the current progressive wave taking over popular culture.

The Benedict Conclusion

This audiobook is fantastic, practical, and sobering. It is an honest assessment of the current age with proposed solutions that may be engaged by men and women seeking to save the culture in the long run. I have heard a critique by Christina Strafaci which, combined with Mr. Dreher's proposals make an even more practical and compelling case for a Benedictine spiritual/pragmatic response to our society.

Just get it

This book is not alarmist, but it is the way forward. Much better than I expected.