What are we to make of the Benedict Option proposed by Rod Dreher? Some years ago I wrote a book which examined, among other things, a similar idea from an American academic called Hugo Tristam Englehardt, who advocated the foundation of what he called “moral exclaves”. I was not convinced by Englehardt, whose books I have read, and I am not convinced by what I read of Dreher now.
I have not read Dreher's book, but he has summarised his thesis in various places, including here. The idea is not a total withdrawal, but rather a "strategic retreat" from the world, a sort of reculer pour mieux sauter, a withdrawal in order to regroup: "Take one step back to prepare ourselves to take three steps forward." But even that seems unlikely to have appealed to, say, St Augustine, who provides us with an excellent counter-argument in The City of God (Book XIX, chapter 17):
