Rod Dreher, Journalist for Jesus.
It's really arrogant to claim guidance from above, unless you really have heard God's calling. To wit:
To think, I've been spending so much time criticizing one of God's own reporters. As a faithful Christian, I suppose I should apologize for impeding Rod's work to do the Lord's will.
I'm not quite doing that, but I do have more to say, in the comments.
You know, whenever someone says, "God called me to do..." or "God told me to do...," my b.s. detector automatically comes on. It's not that I disbelieve that God calls individuals to do this or that. In my life, I got a very clear and even startling call back to journalism at a time I was considering leaving it, and spent months in prayer and reflection about the path I should take. I honestly believe the hand of the Divine was in that. But I can't imagine declaring so confidently, "God told me to run for Congress" (or write a book, mow the grass, adopt an African orphan, whatever). Isn't that dangerously presumptious? Don't we risk confusing the promptings of God with our own desires? What if God "told" Bachmann's opponent to run for office against her? What's wrong with saying simply, "I believe part of my Christian vocation is to public service as a U.S. Congressman?" Why bring God into it like this? [emphasis mine]
To think, I've been spending so much time criticizing one of God's own reporters. As a faithful Christian, I suppose I should apologize for impeding Rod's work to do the Lord's will.
I'm not quite doing that, but I do have more to say, in the comments.
posted by Anonymous at 4:45 PM
5 Comments:
Bubba
You said:
1) I've yet to see an argument that the ideals of neo-traditionalism are, in fact, valid.
Can you please give me an idea of what are these “ideals”? I could make up just about anything here and say this is an ideal of neo-traditionalism. Are you referring to Kirk here or Dreher?
2) If the ideals themselves are internally inconsistent -- such as when the crunchy ideals weirdly support both community and the isolation of home-schooling and dietary self-sufficiency -- then the ideals might just be invalid.
The word community is often abused. What type of “community” do you mean? One could argue that an individual’s responsibility to the greater “community” is to be as self-sufficient as possible so as not to be a burden to its members. Regardless of the type of community this would hold true. An individual’s attitude should not be arrogant self-sufficiency, but these efforts in general should be an act of self-donation. I’d like to explore these ideas more, so if you can clarify 1 and 2 I would appreciate.
When I got into this debate, I came with notion that these were conservative 101 ideas. I was quite shocked that there were conservatives who held antithetical views to Mr. Dreher. I was also shocked by the lack of engagement at the CC blog. I have a friend, he has a PhD in the hard sciences. He’s a researcher right now. You argue like him. Rod should have appreciated having such a methodical interlocutor. It really helps to cut through the BS and focus on the core issues. None of that really happened.
It has become too shrill over there for my tastes, also words have meaning and if you say something you have to stick with your decision despite the post decision temptation to keep arguing. There is a pattern there of destructive criticism. There is a way to be highly critical of your team without attacking them. If you are democrat you say things like, the democrats need to develop a more socially conservative agenda in order to retain Reagan republicans. If you are really on the democratic team you don’t call your team members a bunch of debauched socialist baby killers. They might rightly construe you as the enemy.
There is a pattern over there. Bash the leadership, leave the institution, say things you don‘t mean. Leaving might not happen soon, but that seems to be the pattern. I suspect that there will be a Democrats and Me post before 2008. Truly, I have considered that his writing might not reflect his intentional state. But what is written and actions written about, give the impression of something other than what the man claims is his reality. We are all blinded by our pride, and cannot see or hear about our own faults.
Finally, you all should do your own proactive thing. You all have the talent to pull it off.
Is he trying to draw a distinction in the level of presumption between saying, "God told me to do this," and, "God called me to do this"?
Does he think speaking of a "Christian vocation" doesn't bring God into it?
It really is a waste of time to read Benedict. there is the "car crash in slow motion" or "watching an ant colony devour itself" factor, but even that gets old. After a while you're just left irritated and incredulous that someone could be that .... absurd.
i think the guy must feel a need to write about what he is thinking all the time because it momentarily quiets the utter cacophony in his own head.
Rod clarified his distinction: It is between how weird he would feel saying, "I *think* God directed me," and how weird saying, "God told me."
So his "b.s. detector" in this case seems to be more of a "weird feeling detector." Feelings defining truth? Imagine that.
On so many topics, you can't really reason with him, since he himself isn't really reasoning. You can, in some cases, emote with him, as his schism with the Church demonstrates.
Now, engaging Rod Dreher is not a uniquely virtuous act. I'm not sure it even has much of a return on investment; how many people, to date, have actually signed his manifesto?
But there may be some lessons to extract from all this in engaging other emoters we might have more direct and significant relationships with.
Guys you might enjoy this post on my site.
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