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| Wendy Goodfriend's Springtime Eggs Benedict with Asparagus, Ham, and Quick Lemony Hollandaise Sauce on Meyer Lemon–Rosemary Toast, via KQED San Francisco. I've used this gag before and I'm sure I'm not the only one but what the hell. |
Shorter former New York Times columnist David Brooks, "The Benedict Option", March 14 2017:
The most important religious book of the decade is The Benedict Option by my friend Rod Dreher, which argues that we are entering a new Dark Age, as the struggle over gay rights drives Christian merchants out of business, threatens the tax exemptions and accreditations of Christian schools and colleges, and threatens to blacklist Orthodox Christians and Jews from many professions and corporations. The L.G.B.T. armies have won the culture war, and the only option for the faithful is to follow the example of St. Benedict of Nursia, who organized monastic communities around Europe as the Roman Empire collapsed in the sixth century, and withdraw from the wider society into scattered settlements in which the fires of doctrinal purity can continue to burn. But that's only because he hates the gay, unlike me. I think we should adopt Orthodox Pluralism, in which each of us surrenders to some orthodoxy that will overthrow the obsessions of the self and put one's life in contact with a transcendent ideal, while staying friendly with those who disagree with us.
I guess that's why it's the most important religious book of the decade even though the decade has almost four years to go and even though, as Brooks makes clear, it presents an absurdly false view of the current state of the world, pushes a preposterous proposal that the author obviously has no intention of carrying out, and is based on the stoking of irrational fears of our fellow human beings to arouse hatred and paranoia. It's really important because it enables Brooks to display what a wonderful person he is, with his tolerant magnanimity, being infinitely superior to Dreher but loving and respecting him all the same.
