Rod Dreher | |
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.jpg) Dreher in 2018 | |
| Born | Ray Oliver Dreher Jr. (1967-02-14)February 14, 1967 (age 58) Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Education | Louisiana State University (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Columnist, writer |
| Notable work | The Benedict Option (2017) |
| Political party | American Solidarity Party |
| Spouse | |
Ray Oliver Dreher Jr.[a] (born February 14, 1967), known asRod Dreher,[1] is an American conservative writer and editor living inHungary.[2] He was a columnist withThe American Conservative for 12 years, ending in March 2023, and remains an editor-at-large there.[3] He is also author of several books, includingHow Dante Can Save Your Life,The Benedict Option, andLive Not by Lies. He has written about religion, politics, film, and culture inNational Review andNational Review Online,The Weekly Standard,The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
He was a film reviewer for theSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel and chief film critic for theNew York Post. His commentaries have been broadcast onNational Public Radio'sAll Things Considered, and he has appeared onCNN,Fox News,MSNBC,Court TV, and other television networks.[4]
Dreher was born on February 14, 1967, inBaton Rouge,Louisiana.[5] He was named after his father, Ray Oliver Dreher, a local landowner and parish sanitation official.[6]
Dreher was raised in the small town ofSt. Francisville, theparish seat ofWest Feliciana Parish north of Baton Rouge.[7] He attended theLouisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts inNatchitoches, where he was part of the school's first graduating class in 1985.[8] In 1989 he graduated with aBachelor of Arts degree in journalism fromLouisiana State University.[9]
Dreher began his career as a television critic forThe Washington Times, and later worked as chief film critic for theNew York Post and editor forNational Review.[7] In 2002, Dreher wrote an essay that explored a subcategory of American conservatism he defined as "granola conservatism", whose adherents he called "crunchy cons".[10] He defined these people astraditionalist conservatives who believed in environmental conservation, frugal living, and the preservation of traditional family values, while also expressing skepticism toward aspects offree-market capitalism. He portrayed "crunchy cons" as generally religious (typically traditionalistRoman Catholics, conservativeProtestants, orEastern Orthodox). Four years later, Dreher published a book expanding on 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).[11]
From 2006, Dreher maintained aBeliefnet blog called "Crunchy Con"; the blog was renamed "Rod Dreher" in 2010, with a shift in focus from political to cultural topics.[12][13] During this time, Dreher worked as an editorial writer and columnist forThe Dallas Morning News, which he left in late 2009 to become the publications director for theJohn Templeton Foundation.[14] On August 20, 2011, Dreher announced on Twitter that he was leaving the Templeton Foundation in order to return to full-time writing.[15] In 2013, Dreher published a book titledThe Little Way of Ruthie Leming, about his childhood in Louisiana and his sister's battle with cancer.[16] In 2015, Dreher publishedHow Dante Can Save Your Life, a memoir about how readingDante'sDivine Comedy helped him after his sister's death.[17] Dreher began writing a blog for theAmerican Conservative in 2008;[18] in 2017, the blog received on average more than a million page views per month.[19]
In March 2023, funding for Dreher's blog atThe American Conservative was withdrawn. According toVanity Fair the departure was prompted by a withdrawal of support for Dreher by philanthropistHoward Ahmanson Jr. who, perVanity Fair, single-handedly funded Dreher's salary at the website in an unusual arrangement that also allowed Dreher to publish without an editor.[20] Ahmanson had become dissatisfied with the tone of Dreher's posts, calling them "too weird", citing as the prime example a post where Dreher reminisced about a Black elementary-school classmate of his who had an unusual-looking uncircumcised penis that Dreher described as a "primitive root wiener". Dreher said he intends to continue blogging and may also contribute toThe American Conservative with editorial oversight.[20]
From 2015 to 2021 Dreher wrote about what he calls the "Benedict Option", the idea that Christians who want to preserve their faith should segregate themselves to some degree from "post-Obergefell" society, which he sees as drifting further away from "traditional Christian values" (particularly those regarding sex, marriage, and gender).[21][22] Dreher says that Christians should try to formintentional communities, such as theBruderhof Communities[23][24] or theSchool for Conversion.[25][26][27] The phrase "Benedict Option" was inspired byAlasdair MacIntyre's 1981 bookAfter Virtue, and refers to the sixth-century monkBenedict of Nursia. Dreher's book on the subject,The Benedict Option, was published bySentinel in 2017.[19][7]
Reviews ofThe Benedict Option ranged from laudatory to highly critical.David Brooks ofThe New York Times called it "the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade"[7] while also expressing concern that "by retreating to neat homogeneous monocultures, most separatists will end up . . . fostering narrowness, prejudice and moral arrogance."[28]Rowan Williams, the formerArchbishop of Canterbury, wrote that the prominence the book gives to "same-sex relations", as opposed to "poverty, racism and war", "reinforces the common perception that the only ethical issues that interest traditional Christians are those involving sexual matters." Nonetheless, Williams suggested, "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."[29]Russell D. Moore, the Editor-in-Chief atChristianity Today, called Dreher's book "brilliant, prophetic, and wise".[30] Alan Levinovitz, a religious scholar atJames Madison University, called it "spiritual pornography," the soul of which "is not love of God; it is bitter loathing of those who do not share it."[31] Supreme Court JusticeSamuel Alito citedThe Benedict Option in a court ruling in favor of the freedom of hiring by two religious schools on July 8, 2020.[32]
Various conferences and symposia have discussed the Benedict Option as an idea,[33][34][35][36] as have Christian theologians and commentators. The Reformedphilosophical theologianJames K. A. Smith, for instance, has written a number of critical responses to the idea,[37][38][39][40] including one in which he argues that the world Dreher laments the loss of "tends to be white. And what seems to be lost is a certain default power and privilege."[38][41] Dreher has repeatedly called these charges "motivated reasoning" on his blog.[42][43][44][45] The "Christian Socialist" writerElizabeth Bruenig has argued that Dreher's strategy of "withdrawing from conventional politics is difficult to parse with Christ's command that we love our neighbors".[46] The Christian literary scholarAlan Jacobs has responded to these and other criticisms ofThe Benedict Option.[47][48][49] The writer Leah Libresco has published a guide to the practical aspects of building "BenOp communities".[50]
Dreher's experience as a 2021 fellow at Hungary'sDanube Institute and his observation ofViktor Orbán's government persuaded him that Christian conservatives could in fact still win and wield substantial political power. "Orbán was so unafraid, so unapologetic about using his political power to push back on the liberal élites in business and media and culture," Dreher toldThe New Yorker's Andrew Marantz in 2022. "It was so inspiring: this is what a vigorous conservative government can do if it's serious about stemming this horrible global tide of wokeness." Dreher also argued that the U.S. Republican Party needs "a leader with Orbán's vision—someone who can build on what Trumpism accomplished, without the egomania and inattention to policy, and who is not afraid to step on the liberals' toes."[51]
Dreher holds to what he describes as biblical Christian teaching on sexuality and gender, including on the sinfulness of same-sex sexual relations and the naturalness of male–female difference.[52][7] Some writers have praised Dreher's insights into the fundamental nature of the social changes caused by thesexual revolution,[53][54] but others have argued that Dreher has not sufficiently grappled with the problem of how conservative Christians should live alongside gay people,[52][55][56] and have criticized the language Dreher has used to describe them.[57][58] Dreher has published numerous articles expressing alarm at the growing visibility of transgender people in American society, which he sees as part of a "technology-driven revolution in our view of personhood."[7][59][60] He has been described inThe Guardian as "a man who appears to view fomenting transgender panic more as a vocation than a job."[59]
In September 2018, duringBrett Kavanaugh's U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Dreher sided with those conservatives who minimized the importance of an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh when he was 17. Drehertweeted: "I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53 year old judge."[61][62][63][64]
In a 2014 blog post titled "Tips for Not Getting Shot by Cops,"[65] Dreher wrote thatMichael Brown was shot by police in part because Brown was a "lawbreaker" who "hung out with lawbreakers," although "None of this means that Wilson was justified in using deadly force against Brown" and "it doesn't mean that there aren't big problems with policing in Ferguson."[66][67][68]
Dreher is a critic of large-scale immigration to the U.S. and Europe; he has defended the concept ofWestern civilization and condemnedidentity politics associated with race.[18][69][70][60] In 2001, Dreher published an article mocking the funeral celebrations of the African-American singerAaliyah, and subsequently reported receiving threatening phone calls from people with "black accents". (Dreher later expressed regret for his comments on the funeral.)[70][18] In June 2018, Dreher compared African immigration to Europe to a "barbarian invasion".[71] After theChristchurch mosque shootings of March 2019, Dreher strongly condemned the shooter's actions and aspects of his ideology, but also said the shooter had "legitimate, realistic concerns" about "declining numbers of ethnic Europeans" in Western countries; as a result of these comments, multiple scholars criticized theUniversity of Wollongong's Ramsay Center for Western Civilization for inviting Dreher as a speaker.[72][73][74][75][76] Dreher has said that his concerns about immigration stem from sympathy for the less well-off, whom he argues are most adversely affected by it, and by a desire to preserve Western cultural traditions.[77]
In January 2018, Dreher attracted criticism for his qualified defense ofDonald Trump's comments regarding "shithole countries" (he defended the content of the comments while criticizing their vulgarity), and in particular, for his suggestion that readers would object tosection 8 housing being built in their neighborhoods because "you don't want the destructive culture of the poor imported into your neighborhood."[18][78][79] In response to those remarks, Sarah Jones ofThe New Republic said Dreher had a "race problem."[18] Her article also referred to Dreher's comments onJean Raspail's 1973 novelThe Camp of the Saints. Dreher has strongly criticized the novel's use of derogatory language to describe non-Westerners and called the book bad, both aesthetically and morally. But he has also referred to the "valuable" and "prophetic" lessons that can be drawn from the work, including from Raspail's argument, which Dreher presents as potentially correct, that "the only way to defend Western civilization from these invaders [non-Western immigrants] is to be willing to shed their blood." He has also drawn parallels between the migrant crisis the book describes and contemporary immigration to Europe and the United States. Dreher replied to Jones by calling her a "social justice warrior" and "propagandist."[18][80][81][82][83] Dreher's comments on section 8 housing were defended by the columnist Damon Linker, who wrote: "Every time a wealthy liberal enclave takes aNIMBY position on affordable housing, it shows he [Dreher] has a point about the need for greater honesty on these issues".[84]
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Dreher has been a consistent critic of the role ofIslam in international affairs, but has shifted in his view of the efficacy of foreign military interventions. After theSeptember 11 attacks, he published numerous articles critical of Islam,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91] including one in which he praised the anti-Islamic[92] Italian writerOriana Fallaci's anti-Islamic[93] bookThe Rage and the Pride as containing "much truth" to "shock awake a noble civilization hypnotized by multiculturalist mumbo-jumbo"; he also noted that the book contained a "few ugly parts".[87][85][94] In 2002, Dreher described the assassinated Dutch politicianPim Fortuyn as a "martyr in the war on political correctness."[88][95] Dreher supported theIraq War in 2003, but later came to believe that the invasion was a mistake;[96][97] he now supports anon-interventionist foreign policy.[98] He was critical of President Donald Trump's decision to ordermissile strikes in Syria in April 2017.[98][99]
Dreher has expressed support for variousconservative andneo-nationalist governments and parties in Europe. He has praised the FrenchFront National politicianMarion Maréchal.[100][101] He has written that althoughFrancisco Franco and his regime were not "without sin", he is "glad that Franco won" theSpanish Civil War, due to theRed Terror carried out by theSecond Spanish Republic.[102] In 2020, Dreher attended a conference of nationalist politicians and thinkers in Rome that included Orbán, Maréchal, andGiorgia Meloni.[103][104][105][106]
Dreher has written supportively of the government ofHungary's Prime MinisterViktor Orbán,[107][108][109] whom Dreher first met at a religious-liberty conference inBudapest in 2019.[110] In 2021, Dreher was given a paid fellowship by theDanube Institute, a conservative think tank based in Budapest and funded by Orbán's government.[107] While many international observers believe that Orbán's premiership has eroded democracy, human rights, an independent judiciary, press freedom, and the rule of law in Hungary,[111][112][113][114][115] Dreher commented, "I was there about ten days before I realized that eighty, ninety per cent of the American narrative about the country just isn't true."[110] Observing Orbán's government, Dreher found "so inspiring ... what a vigorous conservative government can do if it's serious about stemming this horrible global tide of wokeness."[51] Dreher identified as instructive for U.S. conservatives Orbán's belief "in national sovereignty, not globalism. He's not opposed to transnational alliances and organizations, but he believes that it's important for people to keep and defend their own traditions and ways of life. That entails controlling immigration."[116] Of Orbán's anti-LGBT+ policies,[117][118] Dreher said, "We are living, right now, through an ongoing societal catastrophe with gender confusion and transgenderism. Viktor Orbán wants to save his nation from this ideological toxin and does not hesitate to use the power of the state to do so, even if it might violate the spirit of liberalism."[119] Orbán famously asserted in a 2014 speech that "The new state that we are building in Hungary is an illiberal state."[120][121] Comparing dynamics in Hungary to those in America, Dreher said, "We all seem to be barreling towards a future that is not liberal and democratic but is going to be either left illiberalism, or right illiberalism. If that's true, then I know which side I'm on: the side that isn't going to persecute me and my people."[110]
Dreher has played a key role in encouraging the American conservative movement to engage with Hungary and look toward Orbán's political strategy and governance as a model. In April 2021, Dreher invitedTucker Carlson, whom Dreher calls "the most important conservative figure in America," to visit Hungary.[122] After Carlson replied that he was already considering a visit but that the trip had become entangled in red tape, Dreher personally spoke to Hungarian government ministers and one of Orbán's closest advisers to assure them that "Tucker was somebody who could be trusted."[51] Carlson subsequently spent a week in Hungary taping episodes of his Fox News seriesTucker Carlson Tonight, during which Carlson conducted a one-on-one interview with Orbán and praised him as the only elected leader on Earth who "publicly identifies as a Western-style conservative."[110][51][107] Subsequently, theAmerican Conservative Union hosted its first conference in Europe, CPAC Hungary, in Budapest in May, 2022, with Dreher in attendance.[51][107]
Dreher has said that the U.S. Republican Party needs "a leader with Orbán's vision",[51] and has written favorably about American candidates and elected officials whose words and actions echo Orbán's.[123] Dreher spoke with Andrew Marantz ofThe New Yorker, and was quoted in Marantz's 2022 article: "Seeing whatJ. D. Vance is saying, and whatRon DeSantis is actually doing in Florida, the concept of American Orbánism starts to make sense. I don't want to overstate what they'll be able to accomplish, given the constitutional impediments and all, but DeSantis is already using the power of the state to push back againstwoke capitalism, against the crazy gender stuff."[51] By contrast, Dreher's close friend[124][123] and sometime-conservative writerAndrew Sullivan has spoken critically of U.S. conservatives' admiration for Orbán: "If these people think the extreme left is hijacking American society in dangerous ways, then, yes, I agree. ... But to go from that to 'Let's embrace this authoritarian leader in this backwater European country, and maybe try out a version of that model with our own charismatic leader back home'—I mean, that leap is just weird, and frankly stupid."[51]
In 2008, 2012 and 2016, Dreher declined to endorse a candidate for president.[125][126]
In the2015 and2019 Louisiana gubernatorial elections, Dreher voted for DemocratJohn Bel Edwards, citing his views on abortion, guns, and economics.[127]
On November 1, 2020, Dreher recommended that "unsafe state readers" of his blog vote forDonald Trump, while noting that he planned to vote for theAmerican Solidarity Party because his state is already "safely in Trump's hands."[128] In October 2020, Dreher tweeted that the American Solidarity Party enabled him, for the first time, to vote "for a party [he] actually [believes] in."[129] He also later said onMSNBC'sMorning Joe that he is a supporter of the American Solidarity Party,[130] and on the same day published an article endorsingBrian T. Carroll of the American Solidarity Party.[131] In 2024, Dreher told a Hungarian news outlet he voted for Trump in 2020 and intends to again in 2024.[132]
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Dreher has been associated with a recent political movement that has been alternatively labelled "postliberalism," "anti-liberalism," "national conservatism," or "thenew nationalism."[133][134][135][136][137][138] The movement has been defined in connection with a manifesto titled "Against the Dead Consensus," published inFirst Things in March 2019, which Dreher was a signatory to, and which argues that the "pre-Trump conservative consensus failed to retard, much less reverse, the eclipse of permanent truths, family stability, [and] communal solidarity," and "too often bowed to a poisonous and censoriousmulticulturalism"; the manifesto argues for a conservatism of national, communal, and familial solidarity.[139][140] Critics of the movement have compared its proponents to the intellectual defenders offascism in the 1930s,[138][136] while those sympathetic to the movement have argued that "there is nothing shameful about love of one's own, the impulse that links individual self-regard and love of family to affection for one's own neighborhood, town or city, state, and political community as a whole (the nation)."[141][142]
In the early 2010s, Dreher involved himself in a controversy surroundingMetropolitan Jonah, then serving as the primate of theOrthodox Church in America (OCA), who had encountered resistance in his attempts to involve the OCA more heavily in political issues, such asabortion andgay marriage.[143][144][145][146][147] Dreher started an anonymous website called OCA Truth, which published alleged private information about an opponent in the controversy.[148] Dreher's connection with the website was exposed when emails connected to the website were leaked.[143][147][149][150] Dreher later described his involvement in the affair as "foolish".[151]
In May 2017, Dreher published, without context, remarks of ProfessorTommy Curry ofTexas A&M University, quoting a single sentence from the remarks misleadingly to suggest that Curry had incited violence against white people.[152][70][153][154][155][156][157] Curry was subsequently subjected to a wave of racist abuse and intimidation.[152][70][154] Dreher said that he did not seek comment from Curry prior to publishing his blog post, and Curry received the support of his faculty colleagues and university president.[152][70][154][158]
In January 2020, Dreher was named in a lawsuit brought by the parents of Kayla Kenney, a 15-year-old girl whose privateInstagram images he posted to his blog allegedly without parental permission, and against whom he made allegations of sexual harassment, based on anonymous sources, that are denied by the girl and her family. The lawsuit accuses Dreher ofdefamation,intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.[159][160][161][162]
Dreher married Julie Harris Dreher in 1997. Dreher announced publicly through his blog the couple had begun the divorce process in April 2022.[163][164] The couple had three children together. Dreher lived inEast Baton Rouge Parish,Louisiana.[19] Raised aMethodist, he left organized religion before converting toRoman Catholicism in 1993 at the age of 26,[165][7][166] and subsequently wrote widely in the Catholic press.[citation needed] Covering the Catholic Church'ssex abuse scandal, starting in 2001, led him to question his Catholicism, and on October 12, 2006, he announced his conversion toEastern Orthodoxy.[7][167] 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," known as the "Lavender Mafia."[168][169]
In 2022, following his separation from his wife, Dreher moved toBudapest,Hungary, where he lives in what he has described as a self-imposed "exile".[2]
Dreher wrote thatFBI documents uncovered in 2022 named his father Ray Dreher as a leader (Exalted Cyclops) of theKu Klux Klan, a revelation which Dreher described as "proof of a terrible story that I had long suspected was true, but hoped against hope was not."[170] Ray Dreher Sr. and his brother, Murphy Dreher Jr., were close to local U.S. Representative and noted KlansmanJohn Rarick; all three men belonged to the same Masonic lodge.[171]
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An influential and prolific blogger for the American Conservative — he averages 1.3 million monthly page views on his blog.
Post-Obergefell, Christians who hold to the biblical teaching about sex and marriage have the same status in culture, and increasingly in law, as racists.
