Name Rod Dreher | Role Writer | |
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Books The Little Way of Ruthie Le, Crunchy Cons: How Birkensto, How Dante Can Save Your Life, The Wind in the Reeds: A Similar People Ross Douthat, Megan McArdle, Steve Sailer, Wendell Berry, Mark P Shea | ||
Rod Dreher - Why Did You Become Orthodox?
Ray Oliver "Rod" Dreher (born February 14, 1967) is an American writer and editor. He is a senior editor and blogger at The American Conservative and author of several books, including How Dante Can Save Your Life.
Contents
- Rod Dreher Why Did You Become Orthodox
- Eric metaxas interviews rod dreher on the little way of ruthie leming
- Early life
- Career
- Benedict Option
- Views on Judaism
- Personal life
- References
He has written about religion, politics, film and culture in National Review and National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Touchstone, Men's Health, the Los Angeles Times, 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.
Eric metaxas interviews rod dreher on the little way of ruthie leming
Early life
Rod Dreher was born on February 14, 1967 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was raised in the small town of St. Francisville. He graduated with a BA in journalism from Louisiana State University in 1989.
Career
In 2002, Dreher wrote an essay in National Review that explored a subcategory of American conservatism he defined as "granola conservatism", whose adherents he described as "crunchy cons." He defined these individuals as traditionalist conservatives who believed in environmental conservation, frugal living, and the preservation of traditional family values. They also express skepticism about aspects of free market capitalism and they are usually religious (typically traditionalist Roman Catholics or conservative Protestants). Four years later, Dreher published a book that expanded upon 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). He later wrote a blog at beliefnet.com with an emphasis on cultural rather than political topics.
He was an editorial writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News, but left in late 2009 to become the publications director for the John Templeton Foundation. On August 20, 2011, Dreher announced on Twitter that he was leaving the Templeton Foundation in order to return to full-time writing. 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. 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.
Benedict Option
Dreher has written extensively about the "Benedict Option," the idea that Christians who want to maintain their faith should segregate themselves to some degree from mainstream society and try to live in intentional communities such as Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, the Bruderhof, or the School for Conversion. (The phrase comes from Alasdair MacIntyre's 1981 book After Virtue, referencing Benedict of Nursia.) His book The Benedict Option was published in March 2017 and was described by David Brooks, in the New York Times, as “the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade.” The book was widely reviewed, including by Rowan Williams, who said "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."
Views on Judaism
Dreher's emphasis on intentional Christian community have caused him to express admiration for Orthodox Jews. “We Christians have a lot to learn from Modern Orthodox Jews,” he said in a 2017 interview with The Atlantic, “They have had to live in a way that’s powerfully counter-cultural in American life and rooted in thick community and ancient traditions,” he said. “And yet, they manage to do it.” In an opinion piece on The American Conservative blog he added, "to readers of this blog who harbor anti-Semitic views: don’t even try to post them here. Anti-Semites are among the vilest people." Later in the same post he expressed support for the American-Israel alliance, writing: "Personally, I strongly believe in the US-Israel alliance. But it is not unlimited and unconditional...".
Personal life
Dreher has been married since 1997 to Julie Harris Dreher, and is the father of three children.
Raised a Methodist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993. He wrote widely in the Catholic press, but covering the Roman Catholic Church's child sex abuse scandal, starting in 2002, led him to question his Catholicism, and on October 12, 2006, he announced his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. 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" referred to as the Lavender Mafia.