Rod Dreher | |
---|---|
![]() Dreher in 2018 | |
Born | Ray Oliver Dreher Jr. February 14, 1967 Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. |
Education | Louisiana State University (BA) |
Occupation(s) | Columnist, writer |
Notable work | The Benedict Option (2017) |
Political party | American Solidarity Party |
Spouse |
Julie Harris
(m. 1997; div. 2022) |
This article is part of a series on |
Conservatism in the United States |
---|
![]() |
Ray Oliver Dreher Jr.[a] (born February 14, 1967), known as Rod Dreher,[1] is an American conservative writer and editor living in Hungary.[2] He was a columnist with The American Conservative for 12 years, ending in March 2023, and remains an editor-at-large there.[3] He is also author of several books, including How Dante Can Save Your Life, The Benedict Option, and Live Not by Lies. He has written about religion, politics, film, and culture in National Review and National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
He was a film reviewer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and chief film critic for the New York Post. His commentaries have been broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and he has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Court TV, and other television networks.[4]
Early life and education
[edit]Dreher was born on February 14, 1967, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[5] He was named after his father, Ray Oliver Dreher, a local landowner and parish sanitation official.[6]
Dreher was raised in the small town of St. Francisville, the parish seat of West Feliciana Parish north of Baton Rouge.[7] He attended the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts in Natchitoches, where he was part of the school's first graduating class in 1985.[8] In 1989 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Louisiana State University.[9]
Career
[edit]Dreher began his career as a television critic for The Washington Times, and later worked as chief film critic for the New York Post and editor for National Review.[7] In 2002, Dreher wrote an essay that explored a subcategory of American conservatism he defined as "granola conservatism", whose adherents he called "crunchy cons".[10] He defined these people as traditionalist conservatives who believed in environmental conservation, frugal living, and the preservation of traditional family values, while also expressing skepticism toward aspects of free-market capitalism. He portrayed "crunchy cons" as generally religious (typically traditionalist Roman Catholics, conservative Protestants, or Eastern Orthodox). Four years later, Dreher published a book expanding on the themes of this manifesto, Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or At Least the Republican Party).[11]
From 2006, Dreher maintained a Beliefnet blog called "Crunchy Con"; the blog was renamed "Rod Dreher" in 2010, with a shift in focus from political to cultural topics.[12][13] During this time, Dreher worked as an editorial writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News, which he left in late 2009 to become the publications director for the John Templeton Foundation.[14] On August 20, 2011, Dreher announced on Twitter that he was leaving the Templeton Foundation in order to return to full-time writing.[15] In 2013, Dreher published a book titled The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, about his childhood in Louisiana and his sister's battle with cancer.[16] In 2015, Dreher published How Dante Can Save Your Life, a memoir about how reading Dante's Divine Comedy helped him after his sister's death.[17] Dreher began writing a blog for the American Conservative in 2008;[18] in 2017, the blog received on average more than a million page views per month.[19]
In March 2023, funding for Dreher's blog at The American Conservative was withdrawn. According to Vanity Fair the departure was prompted by a withdrawal of support for Dreher by philanthropist Howard Ahmanson Jr. who, per Vanity Fair, single-handedly funded Dreher's salary at the website in an unusual arrangement that also allowed Dreher to publish without an editor.[20] Ahmanson had become dissatisfied with the tone of Dreher's posts, calling them "too weird", citing as the prime example a post where Dreher reminisced about a Black elementary-school classmate of his who had an unusual-looking uncircumcised penis that Dreher described as a "primitive root wiener". Dreher said he intends to continue blogging on Substack and may also contribute to The American Conservative with editorial oversight.[20]
The Benedict Option
[edit]From 2015 to 2021 Dreher wrote about what he calls the "Benedict Option", the idea that Christians who want to preserve their faith should segregate themselves to some degree from "post-Obergefell" society, which he sees as drifting further away from "traditional Christian values" (particularly those regarding sex, marriage, and gender).[21][22] Dreher says that Christians should try to form intentional communities, such as the Bruderhof Communities[23][24] or the School for Conversion.[25][26][27] The phrase "Benedict Option" was inspired by Alasdair MacIntyre's 1981 book After Virtue, and refers to the sixth-century monk Benedict of Nursia. Dreher's book on the subject, The Benedict Option, was published by Sentinel in 2017.[19][7]
Reviews of The Benedict Option ranged from laudatory to highly critical. David Brooks of The New York Times called it "the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade"[7] while also expressing concern that "by retreating to neat homogeneous monocultures, most separatists will end up . . . fostering narrowness, prejudice and moral arrogance."[28] Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote that the prominence the book gives to "same-sex relations", as opposed to "poverty, racism and war", "reinforces the common perception that the only ethical issues that interest traditional Christians are those involving sexual matters." Nonetheless, Williams suggested, "The book is worth reading because it poses some helpfully tough questions to a socially liberal majority, as well as to believers of a more traditional colour."[29] Russell D. Moore, the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, called Dreher's book "brilliant, prophetic, and wise".[30] Alan Levinovitz, a religious scholar at James Madison University, called it "spiritual pornography," the soul of which "is not love of God; it is bitter loathing of those who do not share it."[31] Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cited The Benedict Option in a court ruling in favor of the freedom of hiring by two religious schools on July 8, 2020.[32]
Various conferences and symposia have discussed the Benedict Option as an idea,[33][34][35][36] as have Christian theologians and commentators. The Reformed philosophical theologian James K. A. Smith, for instance, has written a number of critical responses to the idea,[37][38][39][40] including one in which he argues that the world Dreher laments the loss of "tends to be white. And what seems to be lost is a certain default power and privilege."[38][41] Dreher has repeatedly called these charges "motivated reasoning" on his blog.[42][43][44][45] The Catholic writer Elizabeth Bruenig has argued that Dreher's strategy of "withdrawing from conventional politics is difficult to parse with Christ's command that we love our neighbors".[46] The Christian literary scholar Alan Jacobs has responded to these and other criticisms of The Benedict Option.[47][48][49] The writer Leah Libresco has published a guide to the practical aspects of building "BenOp communities".[50]
Dreher's experience as a 2021 fellow at Hungary's Danube Institute and his observation of Viktor Orbán's government persuaded him that Christian conservatives could in fact still win and wield substantial political power. "Orbán was so unafraid, so unapologetic about using his political power to push back on the liberal élites in business and media and culture," Dreher told The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz in 2022. "It was so inspiring: this is what a vigorous conservative government can do if it's serious about stemming this horrible global tide of wokeness." Dreher also argued that the U.S. Republican Party needs "a leader with Orbán's vision—someone who can build on what Trumpism accomplished, without the egomania and inattention to policy, and who is not afraid to step on the liberals' toes."[51]
Political views
[edit]Views on sexuality, sexual assault, and gender
[edit]Dreher holds to what he describes as biblical Christian teaching on sexuality and gender, including on the sinfulness of same-sex sexual relations and the naturalness of male–female difference.[52][7] Some writers have praised Dreher's insights into the fundamental nature of the social changes caused by the sexual revolution,[53][54] but others have argued that Dreher has not sufficiently grappled with the problem of how conservative Christians should live alongside gay people[52][55][56] and have criticized the language Dreher has used to describe them.[57][58] Dreher has published numerous articles expressing alarm at the growing visibility of transgender people in American society, which he sees as part of a "technology-driven revolution in our view of personhood."[7][59][60] He has been described in The Guardian as "a man who appears to view fomenting transgender panic more as a vocation than a job."[59]
In September 2018, during Brett Kavanaugh's U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Dreher sided with those conservatives who minimized the importance of an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh when he was 17. Dreher tweeted: "I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53 year old judge."[61][62][63][64]
Views on race and immigration
[edit]In a 2014 blog post titled "Tips for Not Getting Shot by Cops,"[65] Dreher wrote that Michael Brown was shot by police in part because Brown was a "lawbreaker" who "hung out with lawbreakers," although "None of this means that Wilson was justified in using deadly force against Brown" and "it doesn't mean that there aren't big problems with policing in Ferguson."[66][67][68]
Dreher is a critic of large-scale immigration to the U.S. and Europe; he has defended the concept of Western civilization and condemned identity politics associated with race.[18][69][70][60] In 2001, Dreher published an article mocking the funeral celebrations of the African-American singer Aaliyah, and subsequently reported receiving threatening phone calls from people with "black accents". (Dreher later expressed regret for his comments on the funeral.)[70][18] In June 2018, Dreher compared African immigration to Europe to a "barbarian invasion".[71] After the Christchurch mosque shootings of March 2019, Dreher strongly condemned the shooter's actions and aspects of his ideology, but also said the shooter had "legitimate, realistic concerns" about "declining numbers of ethnic Europeans" in Western countries; as a result of these comments, multiple scholars criticized the University of Wollongong's Ramsay Center for Western Civilization for inviting Dreher as a speaker.[72][73][74][75][76] Dreher has said that his concerns about immigration stem from sympathy for the less well-off, whom he argues are most adversely affected by it, and by a desire to preserve Western cultural traditions.[77]
In January 2018, Dreher attracted criticism for his qualified defense of Donald Trump's comments regarding "shithole countries" (he defended the content of the comments while criticizing their vulgarity), and in particular, for his suggestion that readers would object to section 8 housing being built in their neighborhoods because "you don't want the destructive culture of the poor imported into your neighborhood."[18][78][79] In response to those remarks, Sarah Jones of The New Republic said Dreher had a "race problem."[18] Her article also referred to Dreher's comments on Jean Raspail's 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints. Dreher has strongly criticized the novel's use of derogatory language to describe non-Westerners and called the book bad, both aesthetically and morally. But he has also referred to the "valuable" and "prophetic" lessons that can be drawn from the work, including from Raspail's argument, which Dreher presents as potentially correct, that "the only way to defend Western civilization from these invaders [non-Western immigrants] is to be willing to shed their blood." He has also drawn parallels between the migrant crisis the book describes and contemporary immigration to Europe and the United States. Dreher replied to Jones by calling her a "social justice warrior" and "propagandist."[18][80][81][82][83] Dreher's comments on section 8 housing were defended by the columnist Damon Linker, who wrote: "Every time a wealthy liberal enclave takes a NIMBY position on affordable housing, it shows he [Dreher] has a point about the need for greater honesty on these issues".[84]
Views on international affairs
[edit]Dreher has been a consistent critic of the role of Islam in international affairs, but has shifted in his view of the efficacy of foreign military interventions. After the September 11 attacks, he published numerous articles critical of Islam,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91] including one in which he praised the anti-Islamic[92] Italian writer Oriana Fallaci's anti-Islamic[93] book The Rage and the Pride as containing "much truth" to "shock awake a noble civilization hypnotized by multiculturalist mumbo-jumbo"; he also noted that the book contained a "few ugly parts".[87][85][94] In 2002, Dreher described the assassinated Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn as a "martyr in the war on political correctness."[88][95] Dreher supported the Iraq War in 2003, but later came to believe that the invasion was a mistake;[96][97] he now supports a non-interventionist foreign policy.[98] He was critical of President Donald Trump's decision to order missile strikes in Syria in April 2017.[98][99]
Dreher has expressed support for various conservative and neo-nationalist governments and parties in Europe. He has praised the French Front National politician Marion Maréchal.[100][101] He has written that although Francisco Franco and his regime were not "without sin", he is "glad that Franco won" the Spanish Civil War, due to the Red Terror carried out by the Second Spanish Republic.[102] In 2020, Dreher attended a conference of nationalist politicians and thinkers in Rome that included Orbán, Maréchal, and Giorgia Meloni.[103][104][105][106]
Views on Hungary and Viktor Orbán
[edit]Dreher has written supportively of the government of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,[107][108][109] whom Dreher first met at a religious-liberty conference in Budapest in 2019.[110] In 2021, Dreher was given a paid fellowship by the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank based in Budapest and funded by Orbán's government.[107] While many international observers believe that Orbán's premiership has eroded democracy, human rights, an independent judiciary, press freedom, and the rule of law in Hungary,[111][112][113][114][115] Dreher commented, "I was there about ten days before I realized that eighty, ninety per cent of the American narrative about the country just isn't true."[110] Observing Orbán's government, Dreher found "so inspiring ... what a vigorous conservative government can do if it's serious about stemming this horrible global tide of wokeness."[51] Dreher identified as instructive for U.S. conservatives Orbán's belief "in national sovereignty, not globalism. He's not opposed to transnational alliances and organizations, but he believes that it's important for people to keep and defend their own traditions and ways of life. That entails controlling immigration."[116] Of Orbán's anti-LGBT+ policies,[117][118] Dreher said, "We are living, right now, through an ongoing societal catastrophe with gender confusion and transgenderism. Viktor Orbán wants to save his nation from this ideological toxin and does not hesitate to use the power of the state to do so, even if it might violate the spirit of liberalism."[119] Orbán famously asserted in a 2014 speech that "The new state that we are building in Hungary is an illiberal state."[120][121] Comparing dynamics in Hungary to those in America, Dreher said, "We all seem to be barreling towards a future that is not liberal and democratic but is going to be either left illiberalism, or right illiberalism. If that's true, then I know which side I'm on: the side that isn't going to persecute me and my people."[110]
Dreher has played a key role in encouraging the American conservative movement to engage with Hungary and look toward Orbán's political strategy and governance as a model. In 2021, Dreher invited Tucker Carlson, whom Dreher calls "the most important conservative figure in America," to visit Hungary. After Carlson replied that he was already considering a visit but that the trip had become entangled in red tape, Dreher personally spoke to Hungarian government ministers and one of Orbán's closest advisers to assure them that "Tucker was somebody who could be trusted." Carlson subsequently spent a week in Hungary taping episodes of his Fox News series Tucker Carlson Tonight, during which Carlson conducted a one-on-one interview with Orbán and praised him as the only elected leader on Earth who "publicly identifies as a Western-style conservative."[110][51][107] Subsequently, the American Conservative Union hosted its first conference in Europe, CPAC Hungary, in Budapest in May, 2022, with Dreher in attendance.[51][107]
Dreher has said that the U.S. Republican Party needs "a leader with Orbán's vision"[51] and has written favorably about American candidates and elected officials whose words and actions echo Orbán's.[122] In 2022, speaking to Andrew Marantz of The New Yorker he said, "Seeing what J. D. Vance is saying, and what Ron DeSantis is actually doing in Florida, the concept of American Orbánism starts to make sense. I don't want to overstate what they'll be able to accomplish, given the constitutional impediments and all, but DeSantis is already using the power of the state to push back against woke capitalism, against the crazy gender stuff."[51] By contrast, Dreher's close friend[123][122] and fellow conservative writer Andrew Sullivan has spoken critically of U.S. conservatives' admiration for Orbán: "If these people think the extreme left is hijacking American society in dangerous ways, then, yes, I agree. ... But to go from that to 'Let's embrace this authoritarian leader in this backwater European country, and maybe try out a version of that model with our own charismatic leader back home'—I mean, that leap is just weird, and frankly stupid."[51]
Political endorsements
[edit]On November 1, 2020, Dreher recommended that "unsafe state readers" of his blog vote for Donald Trump, while noting that he planned to vote for the American Solidarity Party because his state is already "safely in Trump's hands."[124] In October 2020, Dreher tweeted that the American Solidarity Party enabled him, for the first time, to vote "for a party [he] actually [believes] in."[125] He also later said on MSNBC's Morning Joe that he is a supporter of the American Solidarity Party,[126] and on the same day published an article endorsing Brian T. Carroll of the American Solidarity Party.[127] In 2024, Dreher told a Hungarian news outlet he voted for Trump in 2020 and intends to again in 2024.[128]
In 2008, 2012 and 2016, Dreher declined to endorse a candidate for president.[129][130]
In the 2015 and 2019 Louisiana gubernatorial elections, Dreher voted for Democrat John Bel Edwards, citing his views on abortion, guns, and economics.[131]
Postliberalism
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/David_Jeffery_%286%29.jpg/220px-David_Jeffery_%286%29.jpg)
Dreher has been associated with a recent political movement that has been alternatively labelled "postliberalism," "anti-liberalism," "national conservatism," or "the new nationalism."[132][133][134][135][136][137] The movement has been defined in connection with a manifesto titled "Against the Dead Consensus," published in First Things in March 2019, which Dreher was a signatory to, and which argues that the "pre-Trump conservative consensus failed to retard, much less reverse, the eclipse of permanent truths, family stability, [and] communal solidarity," and "too often bowed to a poisonous and censorious multiculturalism"; the manifesto argues for a conservatism of national, communal, and familial solidarity.[138][139] Critics of the movement have compared its proponents to the intellectual defenders of fascism in the 1930s,[137][135] while those sympathetic to the movement have argued that "there is nothing shameful about love of one's own, the impulse that links individual self-regard and love of family to affection for one's own neighborhood, town or city, state, and political community as a whole (the nation)."[140][141]
Controversies
[edit]In the early 2010s, Dreher involved himself in a controversy surrounding Metropolitan Jonah, then serving as the primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), who had encountered resistance in his attempts to involve the OCA more heavily in political issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.[142][143][144][145][146] Dreher started an anonymous website called OCA Truth, which published alleged private information about an opponent in the controversy.[147] Dreher's connection with the website was exposed when emails connected to the website were leaked.[142][146][148][149] Dreher later described his involvement in the affair as "foolish".[150]
In May 2017, Dreher published, without context, remarks of Professor Tommy Curry of Texas A&M University, quoting a single sentence from the remarks misleadingly to suggest that Curry had incited violence against white people.[151][70][152][153][154][155][156] Curry was subsequently subjected to a wave of racist abuse and intimidation.[151][70][153] Dreher said that he did not seek comment from Curry prior to publishing his blog post, and Curry received the support of his faculty colleagues and university president.[151][70][153][157]
In January 2020, Dreher was named in a lawsuit brought by the parents of Kayla Kenney, a 15-year-old girl whose private Instagram images he posted to his blog allegedly without parental permission, and against whom he made allegations of sexual harassment, based on anonymous sources, that are denied by the girl and her family. The lawsuit accuses Dreher of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.[158][159][160][161]
Personal life
[edit]Dreher married Julie Harris Dreher in 1997. Dreher announced publicly through his blog the couple had begun the divorce process in April 2022.[162][163] The couple had three children together. Dreher lived in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.[19] Raised a Methodist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993,[7][164] and subsequently wrote widely in the Catholic press.[citation needed] Covering the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, starting in 2001, led him to question his Catholicism, and on October 12, 2006, he announced his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy.[7][165] At the time, Dreher had argued that the scandal was not so much a "pedophile problem," but that the "sexual abuse of minors is facilitated by a secret, powerful network of gay priests," known as the "Lavender Mafia."[166][167]
In 2022, following his separation from his wife, Dreher moved to Budapest, Hungary, where he lives in what he has described as a self-imposed "exile".[168]
Father and uncle and the Ku Klux Klan
[edit]FBI documents uncovered in 2022 named Rod's father Ray Dreher as a leader (Exalted Cyclops) of the Ku Klux Klan, a revelation which Dreher described as "proof of a terrible story that I had long suspected was true, but hoped against hope was not."[169] Ray Dreher Sr. and his brother, Murphy Dreher Jr., were close to local U.S. Representative and noted Klansman John Rarick; all three men belonged to the same Masonic lodge.[170]
Bibliography
[edit]Books
[edit]- Dreher, Rod (2006). Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (Or at Least the Republican Party). New York: Crown Forum. ISBN 9781400050642.
- — (2013). The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life. New York: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 9781455521913.
- — (2015). How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem. New York: Regan Arts. ISBN 9781941393321.
- — (2017). The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. New York: Sentinel. ISBN 9780735213319.
- — (2020). Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. New York: Sentinel. ISBN 9780593087398.
Essays
[edit]- Dreher, Rod (April 22, 2002). "The Gay Question: Amid the Catholic Church's current scandals, an unignorable issue." National Review.
- — (September 30, 2002). "Crunchy Cons: Picking up organic vegetables in your National Review tote bag." National Review.
- — (June 10, 2010). "Orthodoxy and Me." Journey to Orthodoxy.
- — (June 26, 2015). "Orthodox Christians Must Now Learn To Live as Exiles in Our Own Country." Time Magazine.
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Davis, Karolyn (October 22, 2018). "A Conversation with Rod Dreher". gracetyler.org. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 2, 2022). "Goodbye, Louisiana. I Tried". The American Conservative. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
- ^ "After 12 Years, A Farewell To This Blog". The American Conservative. February 24, 2023. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
- ^ "Rod Dreher, Author at The American Conservative". The American Conservative. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- "Rod Dreher - Speakers - Orthodox Speakers Bureau". March 27, 2011. Archived from the original on March 27, 2011. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ "Rod Dreher — The Faith Life of the Party: Part II, The Right". The On Being Project. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (August 25, 2015). "That Was A Man". The American Conservative. Retrieved March 27, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Rothman, Joshua (April 24, 2017). "Rod Dreher's Monastic Vision". The New Yorker. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ "Cultivating Alumni Relationships: LSMSA's Connections Weekend". Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts. January 24, 2019. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (September 30, 2002). "Crunchy Cons". National Review. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Stuever, Hank (May 3, 2006). "Crunchy Culture: Author Rod Dreher Has Defined A Political Hybrid: The All-Natural, Whole-Grain Conservative". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
- ^ "Welcome to the new Rod Dreher blog". Rod Dreher. January 3, 2010.
- ^ "The last days of Crunchy Con - Crunchy Con". February 6, 2010. Archived from the original on February 6, 2010. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (January 1, 2010). "The last days of Crunchy Con". Archived from the original on February 6, 2010.
- ^ "Rod Dreher". Twitter. August 20, 2011. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (2013). The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life: Rod Dreher: 9781455521913: Amazon.com: Books. Grand Central. ISBN 978-1455521913.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (April 14, 2015). How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem: Rod Dreher: 1941393322: Amazon.com: Books. Regan Arts. ISBN 978-1941393321.
- ^ a b c d e f Jones, Sarah (January 25, 2018). "Rod Dreher's Race Problem". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- ^ a b c Heller, Karen (October 29, 2017). "Rod Dreher is the combative, oversharing blogger who speaks for today's beleaguered Christians". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
An influential and prolific blogger for the American Conservative — he averages 1.3 million monthly page views on his blog.
- ^ a b Ecarma, Caleb (March 10, 2023). "How Rod Dreher's Blog Got A Little "Too Weird" For The American Conservative". Vanity Fair. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (2017). The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. New York City: Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0-7352-1329-6.
Post-Obergefell, Christians who hold to the biblical teaching about sex and marriage have the same status in culture, and increasingly in law, as racists.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (June 26, 2015). "Orthodox Christians Must Now Learn To Live as Exiles in Our Own Country". Time. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (March 20, 2017). "Life Among The Bruderhof". The American Conservative. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (May 6, 2018). "Weekend At The Bruderhof". The American Conservative. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
- ^ Linker, Damon (May 19, 2015). "The Benedict Option: Why the religious right is considering an all-out withdrawal from politics". The Week. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
- ^ DeVille, Adam A. J. (July 14, 2015). "Would Alasdair MacIntyre Live in a "Benedict Option" Community?". Catholic World Report. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 6, 2015). "Benedict Option FAQ". The American Conservative. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
- ^ Brooks, David (March 14, 2017). "The Benedict Option". The New York Times. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Williams, Rowan (May 30, 2017). "The Benedict Option: A new monasticism for the 21st century". New Statesman. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
- ^ Kushiner, James M. (August 23, 2019). "Operation Benedict". Touchstone. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Levinovitz, Alan (May 29, 2017). "The Awful Pleasures of Spiritual Pornography". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (July 8, 2020). "Big SCOTUS Win for Religious Liberty". The American Conservative.
- ^ "Benedict Option Conference". The American Conservative. March 21, 2016. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ "Time for the Benedict Option?". Plough. March 16, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ "Benedictine Symposium on the "Benedict Option"". The Gregorian Institute. April 3, 2017. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ "Fight or Flight? The 2019 Touchstone Conference". Touchstone. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Smith, James K. A. (March 16, 2017). "The Benedict Option or the Augustinian Call?". Comment. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ a b Smith, James K. A. "Perspective | The new alarmism: How some Christians are stoking fear rather than hope". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Smith, James K.A. "Re-imagining Religion in a Secular Age". Ethics and Public Policy Center's Faith Angle Forum. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ "James K. A. Smith's Theological Journey". America Magazine. October 18, 2018. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Tisby, Jemar (March 29, 2017). "The Real Reason the Benedict Option Leaves Out the Black Church". The Witness. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (March 17, 2016). "'Despair,' 'Alarmism,' & the Benedict Option". The American Conservative. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (March 10, 2017). "The Benedict Arnold Option". The American Conservative. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ "A Cheap Shot on Chaput, Esolen, Dreher | Mark Bauerlein". First Things. March 14, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Littlejohn, Bradford (March 29, 2017). "Alarm, Alarmism, and Faithful Witness: The Benedict Option and Its Critics". Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Stoker Bruenig, Elizabeth (March 1, 2017). "City of Rod". Democracy Journal. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Jacobs, Alan (March 20, 2017). "The Benedict Option and the Way of Exchange". First Things. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Jacobs, Alan. "questions for the critics of the Benedict Option". The Homebound Symphony (blog). Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Jacobs, Alan. "on spears, throats, and motivated reasoning". The Homebound Symphony (blog). Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Gordon, Mark (August 10, 2018). "Getting Practical with the Benedict Option". Plough. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g Marantz, Andrew (June 27, 2022). "The Illiberal Order: Does Hungary Offer a Glimpse of Our Authoritarian Future?". The New Yorker. No. July 4, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
- ^ a b Green, Emma (February 22, 2017). "These Conservative Christians Are Choosing to Retreat From Public Life". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Trueman, Carl R. (June 2016). "Eating Locusts Will Be (Benedict) Optional". First Things. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Anderson, Bradley W. "Choosing the Good Portion". Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Ford, Zack; Jenkins, Jack (March 24, 2017). "An atheist and a Christian review 'The Benedict Option,' a guide to hiding from queer people". ThinkProgress. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ Camacho, Daniel José. "The Reactionary Option: Musings on the decline of western civilization". The Christian Century. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ Green, Elon (February 26, 2013). "Conservatism's "friendly face" is an old-school homophobe". Salon. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- ^ Linker, Damon (March 23, 2009). "The Gay Fixation". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ a b Wilson, Jason (July 28, 2017). "'Biology is not bigotry': conservative writers react to ban on trans troops". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- ^ a b Baumann, Paul (December 13, 2018). "Reading the Opposition". Commonweal. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Tolentino, Jia. "After the Kavanaugh Allegations, Republicans Offer a Shocking Defense: Sexual Assault Isn't a Big Deal". The New Yorker. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ Heer, Jeet (October 3, 2018). "The New Face of Men's Rights". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ Heer, Jeet (September 17, 2018). "Kavanaugh accusations divide the right". The New Republic. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ Sean, Rossman. "Kavanaugh allegations: Is what someone does at age 17 relevant?". USA Today. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ "Tips For Not Getting Shot By Cops". The American Conservative. November 29, 2014. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
- ^ Bouie, Jamelle (September 19, 2018). "Brett Kavanaugh Is the Culmination of a Political Movement Devoted to the Status Quo". Slate Magazine. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ Hohmann, James (September 18, 2018). "The Daily 202: Polarization poses problems for Kavanaugh as he prepares to testify in his defense". Washington Post. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ Weaver, Vesla Mae (September 28, 2018). "The Kavanaugh hearings show who we afford a second chance and who we don't". Vox. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ Livingstone, Josephine (July 3, 2018). "Rod Dreher's Bad History". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e Kolowich, Steve (August 3, 2017). "What is a black professor in America allowed to say?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ Livingstone, Josephine (July 3, 2018). "Rod Dreher's Bad History". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- ^ Singhal, Pallavi (March 19, 2019). "'Everything Tarrant identifies...is true': Ramsay Centre under fire for speakers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Riemer, Nick (March 18, 2019). "After Christchurch universities have a responsibility: abandon Ramsay". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Riemer, Nick (March 28, 2019). "The Ramsay Centre and the reality of ideology". Overland literary journal. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Payne, Jemma (August 8, 2019). "Alt-Right? Academics Break Ranks Over Ramsay Centre". Farrago Magazine. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ Moses, A. Dirk (April 3, 2019). ""White Genocide" and the Ethics of Public Analysis". Journal of Genocide Research. 21 (2): 201–213. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1599493. ISSN 1462-3528. S2CID 132394485. Moses writes that Dreher "concedes too much" (p.213) to the Christchurch shooter, and that Dreher and others who advance "an alarmist 'decline of the West' narrative need to think carefully about how they are intellectually equipping those with catastrophized subjectivities to take their proclaimed state of emergency as a green light for desperate measures." (p.212)
- ^ "Rod Dreher on America's post-Christian culture war [CORRECTED] from The Ezra Klein Show". www.stitcher.com. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ Roberts, Molly (January 24, 2018). "A lesson in what made Trump's 'shithole' comments so racist". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Gilger, Patrick (January 26, 2018). "Is the Benedict Option based on Christian principles—or white middle-class ones?". America Magazine. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Jones, Sarah (February 2, 2018). "The Notorious Book that Ties the Right to the Far Right". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (September 14, 2005). "Good Lessons from a Bad Book". The American Conservative. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 22, 2018). "America's Camp Of The Saints Problem". The American Conservative. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (January 25, 2018). "Sarah Jones: SJW Propagandist". The American Conservative. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
- ^ "Twitter". mobile.twitter.com. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ a b TAMNEY, JOSEPH B. (2004). "American Views of Islam, Post 9/11". Islamic Studies. 43 (4): 599–630. ISSN 0578-8072. JSTOR 20837376.
- ^ Choudhury, Cyra Akila (April 2006). "Terrorists & Muslims: The Construction, Performance and Regulation of Muslim Identities in the Post-9/11 United States". Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion. 7. SSRN 939812.
- ^ a b Razack, Sherene (2005). "Geopolitics, Culture Clash, and Gender After September 11". Social Justice. 32 (4 (102)): 11–31. ISSN 1043-1578. JSTOR 29768334.
- ^ a b Verheul, Jaap (2009), ""How could this have happened in Holland?" American Perceptions of Dutch Multiculturalism after 9/11", American Multiculturalism after 9/11, Transatlantic Perspectives, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 191–206, ISBN 978-90-8964-144-1, JSTOR j.ctt46n1tg.16
- ^ Wilonsky, Robert (February 9, 2007). "Why Do the Muslims Hate Rod Dreher So?". Dallas Observer. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Schutze, Jim (July 1, 2015). "Former DMN Writer Urges Christians to Desert America. Maybe He'll Go First". Dallas Observer. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ The Clash of Civilized Bloggingheads | Reza Aslan & Rod Dreher, retrieved December 24, 2019
- ^ "When Fear Leads a Nation: Islam in the Netherlands | Harvard Political Review". Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Hooper, John (July 12, 2005). "Anti-Islamic Italian author in new legal fight". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (January 23, 2003). "My Favorite Italian". National Review. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Ayalew, Helinna (April 1, 2010). "Political Leadership in the Transformation of Societies: F.W. de Klerk and Pim Fortuyn in the Multicultural Project". Macalester International. 25 (1). ISSN 2158-3676.
- ^ "Bush, Iraq Lead a Conservative to Question". NPR. January 11, 2007. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Sullivan, Andrew (January 13, 2007). "The Conscience of Rod Dreher". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ a b Hemmer, Nicole (April 15, 2017). "After the Syria strikes, right-wing non-interventionists are back in the wilderness". Vox. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (April 6, 2017). "Trump Flip-Flops On Non-Intervention". The American Conservative. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- ^ Heer, Jeet (February 23, 2018). "The American Right's Deep Ties to Reactionary Europe". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ Tooley, Mark (February 25, 2018). "Marion Le Pen, Catholics, Protestants & Conservatives". Providence Magazine. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ Kiliccote, Atahan. "Legacy of the Spanish Civil War". The Tartan. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
- ^ Mammone, Opinion by Andrea (June 25, 2020). "Let's not allow Bannon and 'conservatives' to legitimize extremism in Europe". CNN. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
- ^ Ferraresi, Mattia (April 10, 2020). "Nationalists Claim They Want to Redefine Conservatism, but They're Not Sure What It Is". Foreign Policy. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
- ^ "The surprisingly Catholic roots of the European Union". America Magazine. April 23, 2020. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
- ^ Applebaum, Anne (February 10, 2020). "This Is How Reaganism and Thatcherism End". The Atlantic. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
- ^ a b c d Novak, Benjamin; Grynbaum, Michael M. (August 7, 2021). "Conservative Fellow Travelers: Tucker Carlson Drops In On Viktor Orban". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 8, 2021.
- ^ "The American Conservative: Orbán Wants to Avoid Problems of the West". Hungary Today. September 11, 2019. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ Kampmark, Binoy (September 19, 2019). "Strong Men in Europe: Tony Abbott Visits Hungary". International Policy Digest. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Wallace-Wells, Benjamin (September 13, 2021). "What American Conservatives See in Hungary's Leader". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ Zalan, Eszter (October 1, 2016). "Hungary Is Too Small for Viktor Orban". Foreign Policy. Graham Holdings Company. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ "How Viktor Orban hollowed out Hungary's democracy". The Economist. August 29, 2019. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ Serhan, Yasmeen (April 11, 2022). "The Other Threat to Democracy in Europe". The Atlantic. Emerson Collective. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ Shattuck, John (January 11, 2019). "How Viktor Orban degraded Hungary's weak democracy". The Conversation. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ "Freedom in the World 2021: Hungary". Freedom House. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (June 29, 2022). "Defender Of The Normies". The American Conservative. American Ideas Institute. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
- ^ Fae, Jane (May 20, 2020). "Viktor Orban has quashed transgender rights in Hungary. The rest of Europe is next". The Independent. Independent Digital News & Media Ltd. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
- ^ Rankin, Jennifer (June 15, 2021). "Hungary passes law banning LGBT content in schools or kids' TV". The Guardian. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
- ^ Liasson, Mara (May 19, 2022). "Here's why American conservatives are heading to Hungary for a big conference". Morning Edition. National Public Radio. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
- ^ Simon, Zoltan (July 28, 2014). "Orban Says He Seeks to End Liberal Democracy in Hungary". Bloomberg. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ Tóth, Csaba (July 29, 2014). "Full text of Viktor Orbán's speech at Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő) of 26 July 2014". The Budapest Beacon. Real Reporting Foundation. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ a b Dreher, Rod (June 27, 2022). "American Orbanism". The American Conservative. American Ideas Institute. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
- ^ Rothman, Joshua (May 1, 2017). "Rod Dreher's Monastic Vision". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (November 1, 2020). "Peggy Noonan Hates Both Choices". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on November 1, 2020. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod. "Rod Dreher". Twitter. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
- ^ "Rod Dreher name drops the American Solidarity Party on MSNBC". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 16, 2020). "Solidarity? In America?". The American Conservative. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
- ^ SZŐCS, LÁSZLÓ (February 20, 2024). "Woke is a religion supplement based on division". Magyar Nemzet. Retrieved February 22, 2024.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 31, 2012). "The Conservative Vote: A Symposium". The American Conservative. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (November 4, 2016). "The American Conservative Presidential Symposium". The American Conservative. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
- ^ "Trump Loses Louisiana". November 17, 2019.
- ^ Continetti, Matthew (June 1, 2019). "Making Sense of the New American Right". National Review. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Baskin, Jon (September 12, 2019). "Academia's Holy Warriors". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Hamid, Shadi (February 21, 2018). "The rise of anti-liberalism". Brookings Institution. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ a b Beauchamp, Zack (September 9, 2019). "The anti-liberal moment". Vox. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Sessions, David (August 7, 2019). "The Right's Phony Class War". Jacobin. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ a b "Open Letter | Against the New Nationalism". Commonweal Magazine. August 19, 2019. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ "Against the Dead Consensus | Various". First Things. March 21, 2019. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Chotiner, Isaac. "Ross Douthat on the Crisis of the Conservative Coalition". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Linker, Damon (July 16, 2019). "The inauspicious timing of the inaugural National Conservatism Conference". The Week. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Linker, Damon (July 23, 2019). "Republicans are becoming more like Democrats. So why are Democrats so upset?". The Week. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ a b Walsh, Andrew (Spring 2012). "Cirque d'OCA". Religion in the News. 14.
- ^ Duin, Julia (March 20, 2011). "Metropolitan Jonah goes to Washington". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ "Orthodox". Religion News Service. July 9, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Gentry, Weston (August 27, 2012). "Eastern Orthodox Lose Two Evangelical Bridges". ChristianityToday.com. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ a b "The Truth Behind OCATruth.com". Orthodox Christians for Accountability. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- ^ Walsh, Andrew (Spring 2012). "Cirque d'OCA". Religion in the News. 14. According to Walsh, the website charged that an opponent in the controversy, Mark Stokoe, was gay, and "posted texts, including Stokoe's mother's recent obituary from the Dayton newspaper, to support the charge." It also "described how to find" Stokoe's home address and political contributions online.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link) - ^ Biberdorf, Fr Basil (May 4, 2011). "Lies and Leadership". The Orthodox Leader. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 17, 2011). "What I wish every bishop would get". The American Conservative. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (December 17, 2019). "Black Humor And Bishops". The American Conservative. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
- ^ a b c "Did a Texas A&M Professor Advocate Killing White People?". Snopes.com. June 2, 2017. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- ^ Kolowich, Steve (July 26, 2017). "Tough Talk". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN 0009-5982. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
- ^ a b c Weinberg, Justin (May 11, 2017). "Philosophy Professor Receiving Death Threats (updated with transcript, letter from colleagues)". Daily Nous. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ "Furor over Texas A&M philosopher's comments on violence against white people". www.insidehighered.com. May 11, 2017. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Gottbrath, Laurin-Whitney. "Threats and attacks: White supremacists target campuses". Al Jazeera. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Serwer, Adam (September 26, 2017). "A Nation of Snowflakes". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Gruenling, Jessica (May 12, 2017). "Texas A&M professors defend colleague's comments". www.kbtx.com. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Monserud, Andy (January 24, 2020). "Christian School That Expelled LGBT Student Sued for Defamation". Courthouse News Service. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
- ^ Dye, Elizabeth (January 24, 2020). "Parents Sue Principal Who Expelled Girl Over Rainbow Birthday Cake". Above the Law. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
- ^ Kobin, Billy. "Lawsuit: Louisville Christian school and conservative magazine outed 'rainbow cake girl'". The Courier-Journal. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
- ^ Bollinger, Alex (January 24, 2020). "Girl expelled from Christian academy for wearing rainbow sweater comes out as parents sue school". LGBTQ Nation. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (April 20, 2022). "Tears at Golgotha". The American Conservative. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (April 21, 2022). "A Resurrection In Jerusalem". The American Conservative. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- ^ "Conversion & Reconciling Narratives". The American Conservative. November 15, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
- ^ "Crunchy Con's Conversion Crisis". Journey To Orthodoxy. June 22, 2010.
- ^ "Flashback: Rod Dreher on Catholic Church & Homosexuality on National Review Online". National Review. February 5, 2004. Archived from the original on February 5, 2004. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Oakes, Kaya (October 8, 2018). "The Conservative Resistance Inside the Vatican". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (October 2, 2022). "Goodbye, Louisiana. I Tried". The American Conservative. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (December 27, 2022). "A Darkness Revealed". The American Conservative. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (December 27, 2022). "A Darkness Revealed". The American Conservative. Retrieved March 27, 2023.