Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Benedict Option 20170416

And the wisdom of the Eastern Orthodox Church Saint John Paul ii called it. We have so much to learn from each other. To be honest, we will be in for the older liturgical churches have a lot to learn from evangelical brothers and sisters which is a great blessing for me as ive written about the benedict option is getting to note evangelicals and learn their strengths, weaknesses and enjoy their friendship. I really do believe we ought to work together. That brings us also to your comments about the black church. I didnt feel when i was writing that i have the moral authority to appropriate the experiences historically at the church in my own cause. Somebody who grew up in the deep south as a white man, the black church had to do with lynching, fire bombings, terrorism in a condition that is completely on note to the broader church in america 2017. I did not feel right in comparing the experience of the black church to what we are dealing with today historically. But let me say that it is my hope that if the benedict option concept catches on that there will be black writers who arrived and can talk about the moral authority and experience about what the black church has to teach the broader church about the benedict option. I hope you write that book. Similarly, the the benedict option is not a 20point program. It is an orientation towards our history as christians in the future and becomes developed, it will look different for roman catholics and eastern orthodox, then evangelicals. My friend jake matter is in the audience tonight. One of the mars evangelical books out there and he has been in my judgment the explainer for the benedict option among evangelicals. If it takes off, somebody needs to give this man about contract because he knows how to make this live in an evangelical idiom. This is going to require all of us to come together in the church. Faithful christians to work across denominational lines. Not that if there is denominational distinct days, but an accumulation of the trenches as i believe chuck colson sat in which we know what we are facing and we want to help each other be more faithful right here, right now. I appreciate what you have to say about the important conversation. Thats what i want to start on a conversation. I dont have all the answers. I need to learn from the black church myself. I need to learn from rubbing catholic friends come them are deeply from own orthodox tradition and evangelical friends because we are all in this together. Thats what ive been absolutely convinced that. We are all in this together. The stronger the centuries as you said, the more daring our outreach can be. That is such a beautiful encapsulation of the benedict option. Frederica santorini, founder of the tippy lusty community in italy, the catholic community, i asked her about this. What you say to people who said you all are withdrawing because they live in normal apartments. But they come together in community and their center for prayer, for the mass, for sports, communal gardening, common meals at least once a week. So what you say to people who say you are withdrawing from the outward community . She said thats not true. We do engage the community in acts of charity and other things, but we and our children can more confidently and meaningfully gauge the world because we know who we are. This is about strategic withdrawal from the world for the sake of serving the world as a dentate christians. You and your community have a gift to share with the whole church and i hope and pray, our friend peter will write a book about the router hops and benedict option. Im advocating for everybodys books, but these are books i want to read that the whole church needs to know. I know i come he spoke of the joy of following jesus and thats what attracts people. This is ultimately the only eyewitness we will have to the world today. My old friend Pope Benedict the 16th and on a couple of vacation the greatest arguments the church has for its self are not in syllogisms, propositions, but the beauty of producers and this saves it produces. In other words, beauty and goodness. These are things that can speak to the heart of a world that has grown indifferent to reason, rational argument. When youre confronted as i was as a 7yearold wandering into the cathedral in france and suddenly being cracked over the head by the immensity of god. Of god bearing the cathedral of stone and glass and awareness can i get a lot out of their christian, if i walked out of there knowing there is something greater than myself and i had been in his presence and that cathedral. That kind of thing that will keep speak to the people appeared for the presence of men and women who did everything sacrificially choose their support, therefore to serve the lord. These are the doors through which people can walk that will eventually get to the shoot that is jesus christ. If youre not joyful, youre not doing it right. I thank you are reminding us that that. [applause] well, so many rich things in this conversation so far and we take an evening to pursue any one of them. We are getting down to time and we only have a few more minutes together. I wanted to the spirit of the conversation rock was mentioning , get a chance to each of you on the panel to direct one question and in the spirit of the discipline would restrict ourselves to one minute response just to throw a few things out there we can argue about afterwards because we need to continue these conversations. That is what this evening is all about. This is totally unfair, but we are going to do it anyway. Ross, would your son to throw out there just to start this off . Theres 91 minute reply to this question so i suppose its an unfair question, but i think it is worth one of the objections that you raised two rods argument is not about sort of politics and engagements on, that the problem of community, the problem that these Building Blocks we talk about can turn toxic in their ways and actually true of individual families, but it can be true of churches, communities and so on as well. I just wondering again about the benedict option how we think about sort of its dark side, the sort of cold tape overly cloistered sort of hermetically sealed side. Maybe this is a question for rod because im not precisely this way, but you know, rod was living the benedict option before he wrote the benedict option. This inspiring story of the man who went back to louisiana, back to his hometown in family common back to the national Orthodox Church and those of us who read his blog religiously as it were her know that both of those projects in different ways fell on hard times. I guess my question for you is how does your room next. But sort of struggling difficulty and communal life in foreign how you think about urging the benedict option on the struggling rest of us . Thank you or that one minute. Last nights i think we have to be very, very important not to expect more out of community than it can deliver. The last utopia we had ended when i do many for thrown out at the garden and we have to be extremely careful not to idolize community. How dante can save your life coming out on paperback plus that youll see that i have become the lord broke me in a profound way, allowed me to break out my own idol worship of feeling and community so i could react more humbly and be healed of a lot of disorders in my own heart. I was also somebody who is related high school, living in a small, wonderful town. Im always instinctively afraid of the mob because of that. That said, the downsides of community do not obviate the good side, the sites of it in their need for it. We have to be realistic and careful about the abuse of authority. In the book trade for, i put some quotes in that of the young for my catholic woman who is an atheist now. She said when she and her siblings were younger than their parents with them off to live in a rural part of the country and every militant catholics who are rating the three days of dark as a side purity everywhere and demons behind everything. Everyone of those kids and i got out of the house through their faith away. The woman told me, just make sure your readers know that you can take this too far and destroy everything you want to protect. This council is wise to any of us who went on to take the benedict option. So close to a minute, rod. [laughter] mykola. I am just interested in the tension between just take one step in if you dont take all of that, which is a folder again are as interested insert abroad addressing not tension, is a sort of is there hope that people take this as far as they feel willing to take it or do you think that the value increases as people take on the holistic sort of vision of the rule . I think thats a great point. As someone whos had a pretty rock the spiritual path, ive come to appreciate how fragile we really are and how fragile it is, how are atheist in my desk to some very dark places that may not survive. Weve got to keep in mind that we are in a pilgrimage that we will grow stronger as we continue on in life through repentance, through prayer, fasting from attending the liturgy and through serving the lord and serving others. If i thought that you had to do return a try, i would find that relate discouraging. I have founded my own christian walk as i have been led into deeper repentance and deeper prayer, i have found it easier to do certain things that i once thought impossible as a christian. My priest in st. Francis, father Matthew Herrington when i was suffering at the pit of my despair and physical sickness from the anxiety, he gave me a very strict prayer rule that committed me to an hour day of contemplative prayer. It wouldve been easier to lock up the mountain because my mind is so busy and racing. But i did it out of obedience. I found it so hard to do. After two or three months of real struggle with this, i began to notice my heart growing more still. I believe the holy spirit used that stillness to establish a beachside in my heart that led to my alternate healing. It had to start doing one hurricane, committing to an hour a day of doing the jesus prayer an hour a day. I found not to be the greatest challenge i could possibly do at that time in my own weakness and now it seems pretty easy to me that there is her spiritual challenges because as benedictines teach us, conversion of life as a lifelong thing. Requires your whole life. So i understand the christianity of the Global Village and about the state of christianity in the west, but im still struggling with what seems to me to be a tone that doesnt reflect sensitivity to that in the book. Im also concerned because the United States right now continues to be really regionally segregated. Especially in the north east and south. In addition to that, the current segregation and massive move into a community thats more locally based, how do we guard against increasing the lack of understanding of other cultures in particular on the racial front, how do we avoid actually reinforcing segregation . Thank you for that. Im really inspired by the work of my friend, russell moore, the Southern Baptist leader on racial reconciliation. This is important work. This is gospel work on something that ought to concern us all. One thing that i would say though is this is a problem we ran into in my own hometown within one of the protestant churches they are. They have the new minister come in a white church who pushed them all and said youve got to be integrated. Weve got to invite africanamericans to church with us. And his intentions were just. But at the same time he did not recognize the africanamericans in our small southern town had history going back to the slave days. The black church has its own traditions and as a black friend of mine said it of mine sent a link to the white church one time. Youll never get me back in there. Its not a racial thing. This is not how he had been raised to worship. Much more pentecostal of the way he was worshiping. Thats okay, but that doesnt give us an excuse to stand aside and never fellowship with each other across racial lines. An enormous problem for the jv vance is the hillbilly ecology has awakened a lot of us who live in middleclass bubbles to the problems of class and how little many of the southeast in the way church had to say to our brothers and sisters were workingclass or poor and struggling with robbins that we can scarcely conceive of and dont turn to the church for help. This is going to be an enormous area of creativity to be the creative minority. Weve got to figure out how to reach out to the working class and the poor, but at the same time, the journey of 1000 miles starts with the first to. If we think we have to have the whole thing plotted out so we can include every Single Person before we take the first step in the benedict option, we will never get started. People talk to me about Christian Schools which a champion in the book, said assistant homeschooling something only for the middleclass. It might be right now because often you have to have one parent at home to do the homeschooling or maybe you need income higher income to afford a Classical Christian School. That doesnt mean we shouldnt try these things. Churches need to redirect their ties and efforts towards expanding the opportunity of Classical Christian School in an and homeschooling to the children of the poor and workingclass. Weve. Weve got to start somewhere and we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for right now as ross was writing about in his column the other day about the benedict option. You know, i agree very much with you that we are all feature and i took one step at a time and sort of stumbled around for years and were led into community. I would be very interested in your comments on how the gospel calls us to give up everything for jesus. And how that plays into our very middleclass american culture. Not everybody is middleclass obviously. How does that play in . Thats a question that has to always be at the forefront of our minds. As an orthodox christian, we are now in a land, which means no meat, no dairy. When you first start out in orthodoxy and you take on the fast and thats part the churchs tradition for many centuries, it seems terrible. How can i do without meat for 40 days . How can i do without dairy . You do it because thats what we do. We obey the whole community is doing it. Once you learn, once you get used to the fasting that if we dont deny ourselves small things, will find impossible to deny ourselves the larger things. Im not saying that fasting the month her and went days and fridays are the same thing as sacrificing your life for christ, which we are all ultimately called to do. But it has to start somewhere. I talk in the book about asceticism that the entire church needs to relearn. Im a very comfortable person. Id love to eat and i love to drink as everybody can see. I lead a very comfortable middleclass existence. It is hard for me to learn to die to myself, but i know especially i have so much to repent of. If we in the church, the broader church will return to asceticism, look and see what we do in the Eastern Orthodox Church and how the practices can be a top day for the entire church, the practice of fasting which our lord gave and the early church did an entire church did for many centuries. This can be a good first step in treating ourselves to subject everything to the lord. As i said in the talk, we have to ask ourselves, how did chaddock reshot have the courage to stand there and say you can take everything, even our life that we will not abandon the board. This is one where the history of the church and the history of the markers from the persecuted church on the link to the current history being made every day in the middle east and asia and elsewhere, that has something to say to us. One of the disciplines have done with my children is freed them from the writings and interviews the father george kaohsiung. He was an orthodox priest imprisoned for many years by the remaining communist of the gulags and along with others, catholics, protestants was one of the man who was tortured by the communist. They were made to suffer unspeakable torture for christ. Other kaohsiung came out of the prison in america intact about this before his death. I read stories that he tells about keeping the faith under torture and everything to my children at age appropriate bubbles. I tell them, this man live today. My dear friend fredricka matthews green as an orthodox come a priest wife today in baltimore. Those are spiritual father. And i tell my kids, this is how close it is. You know ms. Fredricka. The swiss are spiritual father. This meant that this within living memory. If he could do this, how did you find the love to do this to suffer and not give up the gospel under conditions we cant imagine. Thats what we have to learn. We can imagine what life elsewhere. What theyve done for most of the history of the church. By telling these stories, dish up and by instituting practices start out simple yet increase committees cannot prepare ourselves, plow the land for the seeds of the gospel, the true gospel of giving up everything for christ. Amen. [applause] said thank you, rod here tonight to to be the panel. Thanks to all of you whove come to join us. Those in true orthodox fashion had been standing. Its been wonderful to spend this time together. They spend their days and weeks to come. May we all in the words of hebrews to love and good deeds. Thank you for joining us. Thanks the panel and rod once more. [applause] [inaudible conversations]