The Benedict Option

The Benedict Option PDF Author: Rod Dreher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735213305
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David Brooks In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo–Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have bought a brief reprieve from the state’s assault, but it will not stop the West’s slide into decadence and dissolution. Rod Dreher argues that the way forward is actu­ally the way back—all the way to St. Benedict of Nur­sia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome’s fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages, and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization. Today, a new form of barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture. The Benedict Option is both manifesto and rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be conquered, must learn how to fight on culture war battlefields like none the West has seen for fifteen hundred years. It's for all mere Chris­tians—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—who can read the signs of the times. Neither false optimism nor fatalistic despair will do. Only faith, hope, and love, embodied in a renewed church, can sustain believers in the dark age that has overtaken us. These are the days for building strong arks for the long journey across a sea of night.

The Benedict Option

The Benedict Option PDF Author: Rod Dreher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735213305
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book

Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David Brooks In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo–Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have bought a brief reprieve from the state’s assault, but it will not stop the West’s slide into decadence and dissolution. Rod Dreher argues that the way forward is actu­ally the way back—all the way to St. Benedict of Nur­sia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome’s fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages, and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization. Today, a new form of barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture. The Benedict Option is both manifesto and rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be conquered, must learn how to fight on culture war battlefields like none the West has seen for fifteen hundred years. It's for all mere Chris­tians—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—who can read the signs of the times. Neither false optimism nor fatalistic despair will do. Only faith, hope, and love, embodied in a renewed church, can sustain believers in the dark age that has overtaken us. These are the days for building strong arks for the long journey across a sea of night.

Building the Benedict Option

Building the Benedict Option PDF Author: Leah Libresco
Publisher: Ignatius Press
ISBN: 1642290432
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Building the Benedict Option is a combination spiritual memoir and practical handbook for Christians who want to build communities of prayer, socialization, and evangelization in the places where they live and work. Beginning when the author was a new convert, she desired more communal prayer and fellowship than weekly Mass could provide. She surveyed her friends--busy, young, urban professionals like herself--and created unique enriching or supportive experiences that matched their desires and schedules. The result was a less lonely and more boisterous spiritual and social life. No Catholic Martha Stewart, Libresco is frank about how she plans events that allow her to feed thirty people on a Friday night without feeling exhausted. She is honest about the obstacles to prayer and the challenge to make it inviting and unobtrusive. Above all, she communicates the joy she has experienced since discovering ways to open her home (even when it was only a small studio apartment). The reader will close this book with four or five ideas for events to try over the next few weeks, along with the tools to make them fruitful. From film nights to picnics in the park to resume-writing evenings, there are plenty of ideas to choose from and loads of encouragement to make more room in one's life for others.

Benedictine Options

Benedictine Options PDF Author: Patrick Henry
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 081466685X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
You want insights for living? Look to people whose understandings have been practiced for fifteen hundred years. Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his twin sister, established a flexible pattern that has adopted, adapted, challenged—and outlived—myriad cultures. Their sons and daughters today, who devote their time and talents to the “school for the Lord’s service” launched by the Rule of Benedict, demonstrate a whole range of options that are accessible to anyone. It is a mistake to think that “forsaking the world” is the Benedictine option. Options (plural) are, instead, “for the sake of the world.”

Live Not by Lies

Live Not by Lies PDF Author: Rod Dreher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593541804
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling author of The Benedict Option draws on the wisdom of Christian survivors of Soviet persecution to warn American Christians of approaching dangers. For years, émigrés from the former Soviet bloc have been telling Rod Dreher they see telltale signs of "soft" totalitarianism cropping up in America--something more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to "safety". Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves our country especially vulnerable to demagogic manipulation. In Live Not By Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm sounded by the brave men and women who fought totalitarianism. He explains how the totalitarianism facing us today is based less on overt violence and more on psychological manipulation. He tells the stories of modern-day dissidents--clergy, laity, martyrs, and confessors from the Soviet Union and the captive nations of Europe--who offer practical advice for how to identify and resist totalitarianism in our time. Following the model offered by a prophetic World War II-era pastor who prepared believers in his Eastern European to endure the coming of communism, Live Not By Lies teaches American Christians a method for resistance: • SEE: Acknowledge the reality of the situation. • JUDGE: Assess reality in the light of what we as Christians know to be true. • ACT: Take action to protect truth. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can't happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not By Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming PDF Author: Rod Dreher
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1455521906
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
THE LITTLE WAY OF RUTHIE LEMING follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations-Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting. As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."

The Beer Option

The Beer Option PDF Author: R. Jared Staudt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621384151
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The Beer Option proposes a renewal of Catholic culture by attending to the small things of life and ordering them toward the glory of God and the good of the community. It offers a tour through Catholic history and Benedictine spirituality, illustrating how beer fits within a robustly Catholic culture.

Disarming Beauty

Disarming Beauty PDF Author: Julián Carrón
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268102007
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In 2005, Father Julián Carrón became the leader of the global ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation, following the death of the movement's founder, Father Luigi Giussani. Disarming Beauty is the English translation of an engaging and thought-provoking collection of essays by one of the principal Catholic leaders and intellectuals in the world today. Adapted from talks given by Fr. Carrón, these essays have been thoroughly reworked by the author to offer an organic presentation of a decade-long journey. They present the content of his elaboration of the gospel message in light of the tradition of Fr. Giussani, the teachings of the popes, and the urgent needs of contemporary people. Carrón offers a broad diagnosis of challenges in society and then introduces their implications in contexts such as families, schools, workplaces, and political communities. In a dialogue with his listeners, he inspires and encourages them to lay out a new path for the Catholic church and the world. Throughout his essays, Carrón addresses the most pressing questions facing theologians today and provides insights that will interest everyone, from the most devout to the firm nonbeliever. Grappling with the interaction of Christian faith and modern culture, Carrón treats in very real and concrete ways what is essential to maintaining and developing Christian faith, and he invites an ongoing conversation about the meaning of faith, truth, and freedom.

The Apostles' Creed

The Apostles' Creed PDF Author: R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0718099184
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
I believe. These two words are among the most explosive words any human can utter. The Apostles' Creed has shaped and guided Christian faith for almost two thousand years. Shared by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions, it is perhaps the most compelling statement of Christian doctrine the world has ever known. But do we know what it really means—and how it applies to us today? In The Apostles' Creed, renowned theologian and pastor R. Albert Mohler Jr. works line-by-line and phrase-by-phrase through each section of the Creed, revealing the rich truths it contains, including: the profound mystery of the Trinity the miracle of the Incarnation the world-shaking truth of the resurrection the hope of Christ's return the theological heritage contained in this ancient statement The Apostles’ Creed is an often-overlooked treasure that contains the power to shape us for vibrant and steadfast living today, equipping believers to live faithfully in a post-Christian culture.

The Marian Option

The Marian Option PDF Author: Gress Carrie
Publisher: Tan Books
ISBN: 9781505109108
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This enthralling chronicle of Mary's intercession makes clear that Christ's mother is indeed the most powerful woman in the world, and the answer for how we can save the world and bring us back into her Son's heart. Not only is she keenly interested in assisting Christians, she has the ability to do so, even in the face of the gravest odds. We just have to ask. The Marian Option will leave you with a new perspective on the Blessed Mother and a renewed hope in the future of the Church and the world.

Arriving at Amen

Arriving at Amen PDF Author: Leah Libresco
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 1594715882
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
In 2012, media outlets from CNN to EWTN announced that Leah Libresco, a gifted young intellectual, columnist, and prolific blogger on the Atheist channel on Patheos, was converting to Catholicism. In Arriving at Amen, Libresco uses the rigorous rationality that defined her Atheism to tell the story behind that very personal journey and to describe the seven forms of Catholic prayer that guided her to embrace a joyful life of faith. As a Yale graduate, Libresco launched her writing career by blogging about science, literature, mathematics, and morality from a distinctively secular perspective. Over time, encounters with friends and associates caused her to concede the reasonableness of belief in God in theory, though not yet in practice. In Arriving at Amen, Libresco uniquely describes the second part of her spiritual journey, in which she encountered God through seven classic Catholic forms of prayer—Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, examen, intercessory prayer, the Rosary, confession, and the Mass. Examining each practice through the intellectual lens of literature, math, and art, Libresco reveals unexpected glimpses of beauty and truth in the Catholic Church that will be appreciated by the curious and convinced alike.