The Benedict Option, summarized in the previous post, is a scary prospect.  None of us welcome bad news, especially apocalyptic forecasts.  But if you can get beyond the initial shock, there is real hope in Rod Dreher’s message.  It’s less about loss and more about continuity, about finding ways to persevere through our circumstances and live out our faith in Jesus Christ.  That’s what we’re called to do.

One of the challenges with foreboding predictions is that they cause us to forget about now and begin obsessing about a troublesome future.  We flesh out the imagined details in our minds as if doing so somehow inoculates us against the harsh world to come.  It’s worry on steroids.  It makes us less responsive to reality because we waste valuable time and energy attempting to reconcile what we thought would be occurring with what is actually occurring. By not operating in real time, we’re running an anxious step or two behind.  Worry makes us depend on ourselves, which Jesus speaks to in Matthew 6:25-34.

So, let’s talk about today instead.

Rather than rush to defeat and concede numerous opportunities to share the Gospel and prepare for the future, let’s make the most of the days and months ahead.  As we move into an era of less religious freedom and tolerance, some form of the Benedict Option will likely become a reality for true believers.

Listed below are a few things (divided over two posts) that will help us to begin building more robust communities that can eventually sustain Christians within an increasingly hostile culture:

You must be present to win.  Although God exists outside of time (which He created), we do not.  God existed in the past, He will exist in the future, but our relationship with Him (and each other) occurs in the present.  The power, grace, mercy, and salvation that define His kingdom and our lives is only accessible to us right now.  Don’t let the enemy steal today and the opportunities to continually serve our Heavenly Father.  As our cultural freedom fades, we Christians have more influence now than we will in five or ten years, so let’s make the most of it.

We determine our future.  If we continue clinging to false notions of returning to a Christian nation and pursuing political solutions to spiritual problems, we can be assured that Christianity in America will crash hard.  The alternative is to work toward a controlled descent by making an honest assessment of the situation, choosing our battles, cutting our losses, and moving boldly toward whatever future God has in store for us.  That requires faith and courage familiar to the international church but have atrophied in the American church.  We still have the muscle memory, we just need to become reacquainted with God and His power to deliver His people.

Take a grassroots approach.  Christianity’s alliance with (and reliance on) the Republican Party to advance biblical principles has reinforced our desire for top-down solutions.  Most of us, for example, would rather donate money to a national organization promising to outlaw abortion at the federal level than volunteer to work with troubled teens in a local clinic.  As Dreher points out, “Christians thought that it was sufficient to elect conservative Republicans who would appoint conservative judges, and the culture would take care of itself.  If that was ever true (I don’t think it was), it is certainly not true now.”

Cultural trends strongly suggest that the ongoing erosion of Christian values within society will continue, thereby greatly diminishing the likelihood that any significant biblically based social reforms will be enacted within our lifetimes.  Regardless of our government’s activities, our duty as Christians is to be living testaments of the Gospel to our family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers.  We need to take ownership of our communities and our congregations, and focus our efforts on the situations and people who are right in front of us while simultaneously and proactively planning for the future.

Part two will be posted next week …

Since reading about The Benedict Option, what has been stirred in your heart and mind?  What topics do you believe that we — individually or collectively — need to address to better prepare ourselves for our role in a non-Christian society?  Please enter your suggestions in the comments below.