Truth Really Matters

In 2005 sociologists Smith and Denton surveyed American teenagers on their religious and spiritual beliefs.  They found that most teenagers subscribed to a mushy set of beliefs that the researchers termed Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD), which is summarized in 5 points:

• Some God exists who created the world and watches over us.
• God wants people to be good and to be nice to each other.
• The chief goal of life is to be happy and have high self-esteem.
• God need not be involved in your life unless you want Him to solve a problem.
• If you’re good, you go to Heaven when you die.

Rod Dreher summarizes the consequences of MTD in his book, The Benedict Option:  A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (2018).  It’s not that MTD is entirely wrong, but that its focus is self, happiness, and simply getting along with others.  MTD is antithetical to Biblical Christianity, though, “which teaches repentance, self-sacrificial love, and purity of heart, and commends suffering – the Way of the Cross – as the pathway to God.”  In short, Dreher explains, MTD is “the natural religion of a culture that worships the Self and material comfort.”

I agree.   Just knock doors in your neighborhood and talk to folks about what they see as the point of life, what God expects out of them, and – particularly – whether they see themselves as ‘good people’ deserving of Heaven.

Dreher further reports  that in a 2011 followup survey, a remarkable 61 percent of young adults saw nothing immoral about a life devoted to materialism and consumerism.  Another 30 percent had some qualms but “figured it was not worth worrying about.”  Smith and his team concluded, “all that society is, apparently, is a collection of autonomous individuals out to enjoy life.”

In this essay I’ll pull out nuggets from Dreher’s book in which he does far more than criticize our culture, but has definite strategies he thinks Christians should employ for living in a post-Christian nation.  A caveat on Dreher – he was, apparently, raised Roman Catholic, but converted to an Eastern Orthodox faith.  He lives in Louisiana as part of an Orthodox church and expresses himself often from an evangelical point of view.  Exactly what his salvation theology is . . . I don’t know.  We’ll just focus on the book’s ideas.

Dreher sees the destruction of American culture as irreversible.  I would agree by considering that the pervasive hot-button topics include transgenderism, abortion, open borders, critical race theory, and several others.  Nobody even discusses anymore the issues of gay marriage, unbounded immorality, and internet pornography.  Furthermore, all political issues today are framed by racism.  The ‘conservative’ forces in the country mostly talk about upcoming elections.  And the churches continue to be content with their low-content, passive ‘worship services’ each week.

The culture has been lost and there are no countervailing forces that line up with Biblical morality, or the Great Commission as an offensive strategy to make a difference with God’s help.  Who is calling for national repentance and begging for God’s help for our country?  Additionally, there remains no open public square as debate is suppressed and ‘rebels’ are punished or cancelled.

Dreher’s argument is that Christians should face the reality that the culture is indefinitely lost, that we shouldn’t waste time and resources on unwinnable political battles, and that we should build our own communities and networks to “outwit, outlast, and eventually overcome the occupation.”

So, don’t think in terms of survivalists hiding in the mountains, or isolated monks in monasteries, but rather think in terms of vibrant churches,  home school networks, and associations with like-minded, mutual encouragers.

Dreher’s book spins off of the life of Benedict, a Roman of the early 6^th century, after the Visigoths had sacked Rome many years before.  Benedict was shocked and disgusted when he visited Rome and observed widespread vice and corruption.  Despite his opportunity to live a privileged life in the upper class, he moved to a cave about 40 miles east to begin a life of prayer and meditation.  Supported by a local monastery for the necessities of life, he eventually joined the monastery for a time before establishing his own.

Benedict established “rules” for Christian living, a training manual, oriented toward practical service in the local community.  Benedict’s monasteries worked to evangelize locals, to disciple them, to teach them to read and plant crops and build useful stuff in the midst of a crumbling and chaotic and decadent empire.

Now, I won’t try to unpack Benedict’s theology in this story.  That’s not the point of this essay, which is primarily to think about what strategies that Christians might employ – together – to effectively grow in spiritual maturity and to be a Gospel light to the lost world in which we live.  I would suggest that modern evangelical and fundamentalist churches are woefully inadequate to the challenge.  (See my many “church” essays in the Discipleship section of this site.)

Dreher notes that philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre likens present Western culture to the fall of the Roman Empire.  The West is governed by neither faith nor reason, but by emotivism:  moral choices are merely what individuals feel like doing.

When a society transitions to ‘post-virtue,’ it will consist primarily of strangers who have no local support structures, and look to their autocratic leaders for big decisions.  To achieve this Marxist utopia, objective moral standards have been abandoned, any religion that claims to be right is condemned, history is irrelevant, and local social obligations are dissolved.

Dreher sees this societal state as barbarism. “Our scientists, our judges, our princes, our scholars, and our scribes – they are at work demolishing the faith, the family, gender, even what it means to be human.”  Don’t be fooled by their smart phones and designer suits, he warns.  Their hearts are the same as those of their forebears who wore animal pelts and wielded spears.

What Dreher recommends as the Benedict Option, is for Christians to focus on families, on prayer, on building churches and private or home schools.  Invest in these rather than on partisan politics.  I would add a focus on 1-2-1 Gospel witnessing, the Great Commission, because the BIG issue with 98% of those around us is that they are lost and need to be saved and to embrace a Biblical worldview.  Further, the Christian cannot be obedient to his Savior unless he is about what Jesus was about, the saving of souls.  Almost all evangelical and even house churches – in practice – despise the Great Commission, and of those very few who have some life, only a miniscule fraction of their people lift a finger to give out a Gospel tract or share the truth verbally with someone outside their own family.

Dreher offers an interesting analysis of the history that led the West to our current state.  I won’t attempt to summarize it, but will mention a few points.  Sigmund Freud, the ‘founder of psychoanalysis’, namely talk-therapy, was a fervent atheist who “proclaimed the Self as a deity to replace the Christian religion.”  Religion, to Freud, was a man-made coping mechanism, a non-existent source for meaning.  He taught that Self-fulfillment should be your life’s goal.

Sociologist Philip Rieff described the shift in perspective that Freud helped inflict upon Western consciousness:  “Religious man was born to be saved.  Psychological man is born to be pleased.”

Dreher sees the 1960s as the period when Psychological Man began to dominate . . . “and now owns the culture – including most churches – as surely as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, and other conquering peoples owned the remains of the Western Roman Empire.”  The result is a culture now built on the absence of belief in anything or anyone transcendent, in fact, an “anti-culture” that is intrinsically unstable.  As the Roman Empire declined, Augustine described his nation as preoccupied with pleasure-seeking and selfishness.

Consider just some of the fruits of this shift:  Abortion kills nearly a million babies annually in the U.S., for the convenience of Self.  Sexual immorality is so rampant it is not even discussed anymore outside of particularly conservative churches – and sex in our anti-culture is disconnected from marriage, from love and commitment, and from responsibility.

In the 1992 Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, reaffirming abortion rights, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”  Then why do we need judges at all?  Aren’t laws just an imposition of one person’s morality onto another?  How dare you judge that any mass murderer or child molester is wrong, since he can define his own existence and pursue his own meaning with complete autonomy?

Dreher anticipates difficult times ahead for serious (genuine) Christians.  He recommends we embrace a God-centered view of work.   Certain professions will become closed to Christians who are open about their faith, namely all genuine Christians.  Some will lose jobs.  If we have the perspective that we are serving God and doing His will in the work that provides our sustenance, we can more readily adapt.  For example, as I see it, if we are really focused on God’s will above all, then it matters little how we make a living or how luxuriously we live.  Namely, it’s not about careerism, but about making a living and a life that counts in God’s sight.

Dreher on restricted opportunities:  “It’s hard for contemporary believers to imagine, in part because we are Americans, we are unaccustomed to accepting limits on our ambitions . . . Many of us are not prepared to suffer deprivation for our faith.”

He asks us to consider why the Benedictines lived with reduced comfort, fasted often, and submitted to strict rules.  The principle was to reign in the passions of the human heart through disciplined living.  “Asceticism is an antidote to the poison of self-centeredness common in our culture, which teaches us that satisfying our own desires is the key to the good life . . . Ascetical practices train body and soul to put God above self.”

“We expect our religion to be comfortable.  Suffering doesn’t make sense to us.”  We can see this in the design and practice of evangelical churches everywhere.  Where is the burden?  Where is the seriousness?  Where is the sacrifice?

I (Dr. Dave) am not recommending monastical life.  Frankly, neither is Dreher.  Yet  as America and the West implode we may well see our standard of living reduced dramatically.  It would be good to be aware of – and embrace – Biblical priorities.  On my own part, as America looks into the abyss I do not pray for economic restoration and I pray only occasionally for the quick return of the Lord Jesus – I figure that the timing of the Rapture will not be influenced by my prayers.  What I do pray for is that the Lord use these present circumstances to provoke repentance and saving faith among the lost and that He provokes more Christians to share the Gospel Biblically and boldly (Matthew 9:35-38).

Dreher has some political commentary, noting that the 2016 election of Donald Trump occurred with the support of Catholics and Evangelicals:  “The idea that someone as robustly vulgar, fiercely combative, and morally compromised as Trump will be an avatar for the restoration of Christian morality and social unity is beyond delusional.  He is not a solution to the problem of America’s cultural decline, but a symptom of it.”  He goes on to say that Christian conservatives are politically homeless, although most don’t see it, trying to keep hope alive via Republican politics.

Sure, I’ll continue to vote for the least worst candidates, which cannot conceivably be Democrats.  But voting is a trivial matter compared to an active daily and weekly witness for truth and, especially, Gospel truth conveyed personally to those around us.  What if a thousand Christians in your community determined to get out at least 100 tracts per week?  It would certainly change the conversation in your area and would likely result in at least some conversions.  Would there be controversy?  Yes.  That would be a good thing.  People might finally start thinking and talking about what matters.

The Great Commission is the Christian’s sword and shield in the spiritual war we find ourselves in.  It’s the only way to play both offense and defense.  Are you on the field?

Dreher:  “Trying to reclaim our lost influence (politically) will be a waste of energy or worse, if the financial and other resources that could have been dedicated to building alternative institutions for the long resistance went instead to making a doomed attempt to hold on to power.”

Institutions worthy of investment are few and local:  family and church must head the list.  Ministries must be local with a Gospel focus.  Putting energy into local politics may be feasible if there are enough people of like mind to elect officials with integrity, especially those that control the police force and the courts . . . in order to preserve some measures of liberty.

Vaclav Benda was a Czech dissident under Communist rule.  He was convinced that Communist tyranny was maintained by isolating people, by fragmenting their social bonds.  “Benda did not advocate retreat to a Christian ghetto.”  Rather he saw the need for people to bond together within the culture and work to speak truth into the culture.  Of course, the New Testament local church was designed by God precisely with this in mind!  Yet we Americans design and support churches whose practice is in disastrous violation of this principle.

Dreher warns that to speak truth into a politically oppressive woke culture will require courage and doubtless entail suffering and sacrifice.  It would be good if we had Christians around us when the adversary brings the hammer.

In all these areas, unfortunately, Dreher has too much of a rose-colored glasses perspective on the Roman Catholic Church which, throughout history, was the chief oppressor of Bible-believing Christians, especially in Europe.  But, like I said before, we can cull some of his ideas and approach / apply them Biblically.

A helpful point the author makes is that you cannot expect a Christian approach to these problems to ‘work’ politically.  It might, given enough time.  Tyrannies have been overthrown and revivals have occurred in history.  But it might not.  There is a long history of martyrs, and some tyrannies have lasted from decades to centuries.  The main thing is to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.  Namely, do God’s will and despise the temporal consequences, with an assured hope that God will take care of the eternal consequences.

Some specifics he offers on seceding from cultural wickedness:  “Turn off the television.  Put the smartphone away.  Read books.  Play games.  Make music.  Feast with your neighbors . . . Start a church, or a group within your church.  Open a classical Christian school, or join and strengthen one that exists.  Plant a garden, and participate in a local farmer’s market.  Teach kids how to play music . . . Join the volunteer fire department.”

Dreher has a lot to say about weakness in the churches.  Some of his solutions are non-starters, though, including a return to emphasis on liturgical services.  But he does see that the superficiality of evangelical churches opens the door for an unregenerate membership and a mostly anything-goes sexual immorality, with an accompanying divorce rate that is exponential.

A teenaged evangelical told Dreher that she dropped out of her local chapter of a Christian paragroup ministry because of her peers smoking, drinking, and having sex.  “Honestly, I would rather hang out with the kids who don’t believe,” she told him.  “They accept me even though they know I’m a believer.  At least around them, I know what being a Christian really is.”

Dreher:  “A church that looks and talks and sounds just like the world has no reason to exist.”  Amen.

Dreher also warns about retreating into an isolated family life, which often produces cult-like behavior.  Over-sheltering the kids prevents them from building spiritual strength to do something useful – for God – in the world when they grow up.  Most kids in these scenarios lose it when they move out, diving into sin and rejecting a Christian faith they never did understand.

On the other hand, Dreher is among the courageous few who boldly challenge parents http://rhythmsfitness.com/blog/wp-content/themes/sketch/404.php to pull their kids out of the public schools!  “Provide them with an education that is rightly ordered – that is, one based on the premise that there is a God-given, unified structure to reality and that it is discoverable.  They need to teach them Scripture and history.  And they should not stop after twelfth grade – a Christian plan for higher education is also needed.”

I don’t want to elaborate here on the overwhelming evils perpetrated on children in the public school system.  I do marvel at how long it has taken for some small fraction of parents to become disturbed at the most egregious revelations on CRT and transgender recruitment in the schools.  I get the distinct impression that the most conservative of the politicians and pundits and parents in this country would be content if the public schools would just return to the level of immoral indoctrination of just a couple of years ago.

My wife and I, among a minority of Christian parents, pulled our kids out of the public school system decades ago.  If only the Christians would divest themselves from the public school system, the educational establishment would be disrupted and private and homeschooling systems would flourish – supportive networks would multiply and family finances would enjoy a quantum leap as money flows back from the system into the wallets of parents.  Dreher has a lot to say about schooling, including some stats:  Did you know that 20% of twelfth graders smoke pot at least once per month and that six out of ten seniors admit to having sexual intercourse?  I do recommend the book to you, especially for this section.

Since some career fields will be closed off to Christians in the years ahead, Dreher advises, “Be entrepreneurial . . . Identify a need in your community, develop an excellent product or service that fills that need, and then work at it with your whole heart.”  Also, we should use the business services offered by other Christians in our community, especially as the federal government colludes with giant corporations to crush independent small businesses.  This began to happen on a large scale during the pandemic.

Furthermore, don’t blindly commit to sending your children off to college.  A trade can provide a very comfortable living.  “Better to be a plumber with a clean conscience than a corporate lawyer with a compromised one.”

I’ll end here.  I encourage you to acquire the book, but to treat it like a smorgasbord – just select the good dishes and leave the rest.  Dreher, at least, provokes thought about how to face the emerging woke / Marxist reality in the West.  You may come up with different conclusions or strategies than he does . . . or than I do . . . but I submit it is vital to start thinking and acting.  Just begin with a Biblical, born again worldview.

• drdave@truthreallymatters.com