Chapter 5: A Church for All Seasons

The fifth chapter is dedicated to building church communities that can, in theory, stand as pillars of faith through times of challenge.

Dreher starts by laying out the picture of our current situation, in which Christians have neglected to build their own distinct culture and have been essentially co-opted by modern secular culture in the name of reaching out to that culture and being “normal.” Noting that we cannot offer what we do not have, Dreger gives some recommendations for how we can rediscover a distinct, strong Christian culture even as the society around us tries to root it out.

He first notes that as Christians become more of a minority our focus should naturally sharpen to where it ought to be.

This brings back the identity vs. relevance dilemma that we talked about in chapter three, where focusing on being relevant to the culture diminishes a Christian group’s identity, but focusing on a strong identity makes the group less relevant in the prevailing culture. It is clear that Christians over the past few decades have sought so intently to become relevant in the culture that their identity has largely disappeared. It still exists in pockets, but is nowhere near what it used to be on a national level.

At some point, probably more recently, I believe that we began to slide back toward the identity end of that identity/relevance scale without necessarily putting a conscious effort into it. As church attendance and the devotion of the population to any form of Christianity has dwindled, the “pruning” effect has left many churches with smaller but more devout congregations.

Some churches have forsaken that pruning by digging out their roots completely and selling out to modern trends in a drastic effort to be more culturally relevant, effectively making themselves irrelevant to both the culture and Christianity simultaneously.

The churches that have held on to their teachings and traditions have slowly, necessarily been moving in the direction of a Benedict Option style community of strong, well-catechized congregations if they have been putting any effort into sustaining their faith into the future. The current moment in American history seems to beg for a turning point toward stronger Christian identity, and books like The Benedict Option as well as other by Anthony Esolen, Archbishop Charles Chaput, and others all seem to be bringing that call to the people in quick succession.

Dreher provides an outline for what a strong, Benedict Option-like church community must look like in order to withstand coming challenges from a secularizing culture. This includes re-learning Christian traditions, recovering liturgical worship, developing a habit of both individual and communal asceticism, tightening church discipline, evangelizing with goodness and beauty, and embracing the possibility of exile and martyrdom.

Dreher dives more deeply into each of these ideas, but a few points and illustrations stood out to me in particular. I like how I saw Matt Fradd describe this book recently – “Rod Dreher is saying things that, until I read them, were laying half asleep in my mind.” That is how some of these points make me feel.

First, on recovering liturgical worship Dreher has us imagine attending a Catholic Mass in a 1970’s-era suburban church and also in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. While every part of the Mass may be the exact same at the two places, the holiness of the Mass is conveyed much more effectively in the Cathedral than in the suburban pole barn church. The beauty helps lead us to desire deeper communion with God.

I’m not sure what a shrinking suburban Christian community can really do if they are stuck with a horrendous local church building, but I do agree that beauty in the church makes a big difference.

Second, on asceticism, Dreher says that “A church that does not emphasize asceticism and discipleship is as pointless as a football coaching staff that doesn’t care if the team shows up to practice.” On a related note, while talking about church discipline, he says that “The Way leads somewhere, and those who refuse to walk the Way need to be brought back to it or eventually be sent away if they persist in sin.”

Both of these point relate to a level of accountability that is far above any church that I have experienced. It is very interesting to contemplate what it would mean to have this accountability in our parishes, given that it was held in a pastoral and understanding manner.

The thought of asking somebody to leave a congregation is dramatic, and I am not certain that it can be correct. This is probably the first point in the book that I have had a real, hard disagreement with Dreher.

I realize that, like the monks setting boundaries to protect their communal life, some boundaries are probably healthy in parish life. However, in the Catholic Church, for example, even those who are excommunicated are still bound by the obligation to attend Mass each Sunday (while foregoing some sacraments until they are reunited with the Church), so preventing somebody from being a part of a congregation, especially if it is the only congregation around that area, is problematic.

I see and understand where he is going with this – it can be scandalous and a blow to the integrity of a church to have somebody living a life antithetical to church teaching involved at the church, but I think a more pastoral approach of limiting that person’s influence in the church by asking them to relinquish leadership roles and public ministries, including liturgical roles, and possibly refraining from some sacraments until a time that the error is corrected, is probably the more Christian way to go. They need to walk through the error, preferably with the pastor, rather than simply being banished.

An increased level of accountability and of communal asceticism, however, I can totally get behind.

Finally, Dreher quotes Russell Moore as saying that in the future we will no longer be reaching out to “baptized pagans” who are already on the church roles, but rather to people who are hearing the Christian message as something new, possibly for the very first time.

This is already happening. Most of today’s college students have no background in Christianity, no knowledge of Christianity and its teachings, and very little Christian vocabulary. At the Catholic campus ministry where I work we have seen an increase in the number of students with no religious background whatsoever getting involved just to learn what this whole Christian thing is about.

This was stunning to me, being only ten years ahead of many of these students. I had the sense that most of my peers at least were raised with a general sense of what religion and Christianity were. It is increasingly clear that I was on the tail end of that reality. Going into the future, Christianity will become increasingly unknown, which may actually help it to attract some interest as people with no background seek to find some of life’s answers. With few preconceptions, they can be more open to learning about it.

Chapter 6 will explore the concept of the Christian village.