Today’s 60-second question is a hard one—what does the current national mood mean for the fate of Christianity in America? A much-touted new book called The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher envisions a new Dark Ages in America. With Christianity de-legitimized and pushed to the extreme margins of society, the author argues that a monastic, withdraw-from-the-world existence as popularized by St. Benedict in the first Dark Ages is the best alternative moving forward.
Ross Douthat in his New York Times column comments on both Dreher’s prognosis of total collapse of institutional Christianity as we know it and his Benedictine solution:
I can’t say whether the recent decline in American religiosity will become an unstoppable collapse, as Dreher argues, or if it’s just the evaporation of nominal Christianity that will leave a church going core intact.
Whatever comes in 2030 or 2040, whether or not a once-dominant Christianity is doomed to marginalization or merely in decline, we have a severe problem of rootlessness, hyper-individualism and anomie already — how do you think we got Trumpism? There is blame enough to go around, but the weakness of religious community is an important part of the story; strong religious bonds were often an antidote to rootlessness and dissolution in America’s more Tocquevillian, communitarian past, and they remain so in certain present-day case studies (Mormon Utah, most notably).
Here’s your 60-Second Question: Can American Christianity return to its roots of a deep community which maintains its core identity within an often-hostile society? Or is the only option withdrawal into modern monasticism?
Next week I plan a longer post delving deeper into this thought-provoking question. In the meantime, if you wish, you can read Douthat’s entire article here.
In a society that often settles for easy answers, my 60-second Question posts are mini-voyages in self-discovery. They invite you to take just 60 seconds out of your day to ponder a question that may offer new insights into yourself, God and the world around us. You might be surprised with the new insights or feelings generated by pondering a thoughtful question for just 60 seconds.
