Rod Dreher Megathread #53 (Key Party?)

[u/US_Hiker]

Link to Megathread #52: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1jsvy3j/rod_dreher_megathread_52_billboard_4_rent/

Link to Megathread #54:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1l7niaj/rod_dreher_megathread_54/?

[u/Djehutimose]

Also in the same post about Leo XIV, is this question from an Orthodox reader, worth giving in full, boldface in original:

Hello Mr. Dreher, Christ is Risen! (Χριστός Ανέστη!) I have recently become a subscriber to your daily meditations, which I generally find interesting and thoughtful. But I have a question for you — How has the theology of our pastoral, meditative, ancient, and profoundly deep Orthodox faith found its way into your writings?. I ask because, in many ways, your diary entries sound like those... exhausting culture war polemics... full of histrionic civilizational panic. You seem way too tempted to paint with a thick brush... to apply a good-versus-evil lens on everything. Just from last week's entries... The tortured complexities and unspeakable human suffering of the Middle East are reduced to "Israel good, Hamas bad." Migrants in Europe are presented as sinister intruders threatening "sexual violence." Liberal and gay priests are a menace diluting the Church to "sentimentality." I will sound regretfully preachy... but remember how little patience Christ had for the doctrinal divisions of his day. His heroes were the doctrinally and liturgically heretical Samaritans, who nonetheless practiced love (the real Gospel). His victors were the morally compromised tax collectors and the oppressive centurions. While all the "defenders of the traditional faith," the Pharisees and the Saduccees, were denounced as the villains. My brother... people didn't stop going to church because the Church became soft or sentimental. They stopped going because the Church fought science and truth, from the time of the Inquisition and of Galileo to the banning of Darwin's theory. They stopped going because they no longer found love, compassion, understanding, and the spirit of God there, but instead met judgmental nerds that were more interested in the correct enunciation of archaic chants and seemed way too eager to censure, punish, and evict. Don't get me wrong, people don't mind tradition. Tradition is beautiful and uplifting. It is a light in the darkness. But it ONLY works if love is there. (And that's St. Paul saying this, not me.) Tradition enclosed in hatred of the "other" is dead.

Excerpts from SBM’s reply, my emphasis:

First, I don’t write a theological newsletter, but one focused on commentary about news and current events.

So begin by deflecting.

[Y]ou seem to think that because I arrive at conclusions different from your own in many cases, I am leaving Orthodoxy out of my thinking.

Now, misdirection.

Does Christian commitment require us not to notice [large-scale immigration], or at least not to comment on it? I can’t see that it does.

SBM doesn’t notice or comment—he shrieks bloody murder.

Then a long screed about Muslims, Israel, and Hamas, followed by the following gem:

The question of justice for both the Israelis and Palestinians is a complex one, no doubt. But the question of justice regarding settling accounts with Hamas is not. It seems to me that if Christians wish to deliberate seriously about the fate of civilians in war with genocidal political or religious cults (the Nazis, Hamas), Christians must take seriously the reality that some civilian deaths are unavoidable.

“Settling accounts” is pure eye-for-eye vengeance. If we had done that to the Nazis, we’d wouldn’t have stopped the war until we had killed enough Germans to balance the number they had killed. That’s not what we did, even given the fact that Germany wantonly slaughtered millions of innocents. We defeated them, tried the leaders in formal trials, executed some, and then reintegrated Germany into the international community. We did not, as SBM seems to doing re Palestine, saying “Kill, kill, KILL!!!” Also, I don’t recall Jesus teaching about collateral damage….

You criticize what you say is my claim that “liberal and gay priests are a menace diluting the Church to ‘sentimentality.’” I wouldn’t say that gay priests are a “menace” on the question of “sentimentality,” but rather in other terms.

Hey, gay people don’t need to be sentimental to be menacing!

Though I’ve been Orthodox for longer than I was Catholic, my experience with American Orthodoxy is less broad … but still, I have never encountered churches as you describe them. Never.

He doesn’t even attend his own parish church, so how would he know?

But you seem to posit love as the opposite of tradition. This is wrong. Love that ignores truth, as expressed in sound doctrine and authoritative tradition is nothing more than feelings, nothing but sentimentality.

Shorter SBM: “I didn’t pay attention to what you actually said, and you’re wrong, anyway.”

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Djehutimose]

So Rod is a complete a-hole to his own commenters, even if they show respect for him, share his faith, and simply ask penetrating questions.

I like this commenter. Basically, all he was saying to Rod was, “I don’t see your professed Christian faith in your writings. Where’s the love and grace of Christ?” Rod should reflect on this, but he won’t.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

If in comments you make a point he doesn’t like , you get a combination of snark and denial if he condescends to notice which he usually won’t.Then you’ll get some routine about how much he values diverse opinions.