Yes, that's why in "The Benedict Option" I wrote of "antipolitical politics" as an option for us. The concept came from the Czech anticommunist resistance. Vaclav Benda, for example, realized that one reason the Communist held such power was that the people had become totally isolated and demoralized. He conceived of doing simple things …
Yes, that's why in "The Benedict Option" I wrote of "antipolitical politics" as an option for us. The concept came from the Czech anticommunist resistance. Vaclav Benda, for example, realized that one reason the Communist held such power was that the people had become totally isolated and demoralized. He conceived of doing simple things like getting neighbors together for picnics as a form of politics. Why? Because anything that reversed the fear and isolation imposed by the dictatorship was, in some sense, about building a healthy politics. This is still open to us, even if we lose in formal politics.
Good point. I attend the Latin Mass because I believe in it. But I also enjoy attending the Latin Mass because there are so many people who attend who see the world as I do and my wife does. We are not alone. We are not isolated. Good people do exist. Many of them.
1 Kings 19: 18: “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”
When Leah Libresco wrote her book about the practical applications of the BenOp I had Catholic friends laugh at suggestions like this that she made. I found it very irksome.
I wish that Catholics like that could spend a year living in Europe -- anywhere in Europe, even in Hungary -- so they can come to grips with what a truly post-Christian culture is like.
And yet these are often the same people who moan about the staleness of American parish life! One friend claimed that Leah was simply taking normal things that parishes should be doing anyways and dubbing them "the Benedict Option." I told him that was correct in a certain sense, but the reason was that many parishes had ceased doing them. What was once common and natural now needed doing with a stronger intention, which if the BenOp could help provide it, why complain?
Yes, that's why in "The Benedict Option" I wrote of "antipolitical politics" as an option for us. The concept came from the Czech anticommunist resistance. Vaclav Benda, for example, realized that one reason the Communist held such power was that the people had become totally isolated and demoralized. He conceived of doing simple things like getting neighbors together for picnics as a form of politics. Why? Because anything that reversed the fear and isolation imposed by the dictatorship was, in some sense, about building a healthy politics. This is still open to us, even if we lose in formal politics.
Good point. I attend the Latin Mass because I believe in it. But I also enjoy attending the Latin Mass because there are so many people who attend who see the world as I do and my wife does. We are not alone. We are not isolated. Good people do exist. Many of them.
1 Kings 19: 18: “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”
When Leah Libresco wrote her book about the practical applications of the BenOp I had Catholic friends laugh at suggestions like this that she made. I found it very irksome.
I wish that Catholics like that could spend a year living in Europe -- anywhere in Europe, even in Hungary -- so they can come to grips with what a truly post-Christian culture is like.
And yet these are often the same people who moan about the staleness of American parish life! One friend claimed that Leah was simply taking normal things that parishes should be doing anyways and dubbing them "the Benedict Option." I told him that was correct in a certain sense, but the reason was that many parishes had ceased doing them. What was once common and natural now needed doing with a stronger intention, which if the BenOp could help provide it, why complain?