12 February 2017. The Church Is NOT Rightwing… Konvertsy Rants to the Contrary Notwithstanding

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Rod Dreher (and those of his ideological deformation) claim that the Church and the rightwing are soulmates… natural allies. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Look at the above image and be enlightened. The Church does NOT endorse, teach, or bless the evil spouted by Anglosphere “conservatives”. In particular, it condemns the Free Market that’s at the very centre of “conservative” “thought”. You may follow Archbishop Iakovos Koukouzis or you may follow Pat Buchanan, the author of the racist “Southern Strategy” and the arranger of Reagan’s visit to Bitburg (with its SS graves). Rod Dreher follows Pat Buchanan (and takes Buchanan’s money)… I follow Archbishop Iakovos.

Whom do you follow? You can’t follow both… they’re incompatible. Choose wisely…

BMD

28 November 2016. How Should Christians Respond to the Likes of Rod Dreher?

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I and a friend had a colloquy about Dreher. Basically, my attitude is, “If they don’t like our Church, why are they in it?” All of my friends in Russia are lefties… mostly, working-class commies who go to Church. The Party and Church made up way back in the 90s… Dreher won’t admit that, but only God can change Dreher’s mind… we can’t. He’s not alone, sadly enough. I’m surprised he hasn’t joined forces with that turd Matthew Heimbach. However, let him be. He’s lost in irrelevance, as far as Church matters go. As long as he posts no heresy, we should ignore him and his rants from now on. He shot his credibility during the brouhaha over Paffhausen’s “resignation”. If you want to talk about Paffso’s removal, if the Centre were behind him, he’d still be Metropolitan, and he isn’t. Note how they give Mollard things that they never gave Paffso.

There comes a time when you simply have to leave ranters be and let them maunder on. We all do have better things to do with our God-given time… if it comes down to our Holy Patriarch or Rod Dreher, there’s no contest. Leave him be… no good will come of any intervention or reply. It’s time to let this one go… it’s in God’s hands now.

BMD

4 September 2016. Dreher Planning New Book on “Benedict Option”… Continues to Drink from Heterodox not Orthodox Sources

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Rod Dreher is writing a book on his vacuous “Benedict Option”. I posted this as a comment on a blogpost about that:

“Benedict Option” shows Dreher’s ignorance of and lack of contact with the real Orthodox tradition. For instance, Patriarch Kirill sent birthday greetings to Comrade Fidel… NOT Trump or Pence or Franklin Graham (I’m talking official greetings posted on patriarchia.ru). His Holiness calls Free Market Crapitalism a fraud in public utterances (again, posted on the MP official website). Lastly, His Holiness attacks the Creationism so prevalent in the rightwing circles that Dreher frequents, “It’d be naïve to read the book of Genesis as a textbook on anthropogenesis (human origin)” (talk to scientists posted on 1 August). In short, Orthodox Christians need no reference to Benny Ratz (or to St Benedict, a rather WESTERN figure)… our own leaders and saints are so much better than they ever were! We’re not even talking our historical leaders such as Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky or Archbishop Antony Bartoshevich (the first was the founder of the ROCOR… I met the second, the “Conscience of the ROCOR”). Until he drinks from Orthodox, not from heterodox, sources, he’s an ignorant and marginal figure in Orthodox circles (he does claim to be Orthodox, after all). BTW… here’s an image of HH with his good friend, Comrade Fidel. Marxism and Christianity are soulmates… get with the programme. After all, GREED, not homosexality or abortion, is the root of all evil according to the Apostle…

Rod Dreher is ignorant, unfocused, and out of touch with actual lived Orthodoxy. “Benedict Option”… that proves to all (including the slow learners) that Dreher doesn’t have an Orthodox bone in his body or an iota of Orthodoxy in his soul. Let’s leave it at that…

BMD

18 August 2015. “National Review” Carried Review of Dreher’s Screed on Dante… Is Drerod Getting Ready to Stab Pat Buchanan in the Back?

This is my reaction to Dreher and his bathos… especially, about his sister… cancer IS a tragedy (no one knows that better than I do, as I buried a dear friend far too soon), but he uses it as a shield to deflect criticism, which is beneath the salt.

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His Holiness doesn’t associate with rightwing filth like Rod Dreher… he associates with LEFTIES like Comrade Zyuganov… that’s a scream… HH is the head of our Church, and Dreher has to smile at the fact that our First Hierarch REJECTS his deranged “conservative” social vision (HH just sent birthday greetings to his personal friend Commandante Fidel).

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In February, Dreher penned a book about Dante. No… he’s not a literary scholar nor is he a historian… he’s just an opinionated journalist. Yes, book reviews do come out, usually at the time of release. This one had two… a pre-release in February and a formal rollout in April. I looked online for the National Review print edition’s book review that just ran, well, it isn’t there. This new review by Ian Tuttle is rather glowing, more so than the review that ran in April in the online edition. Hmm… does this mean that Dreher, an opportunistic Bedouin par excellence, is getting ready to jump yet again?

Firstly, let’s not forget what he’s done… he was in Brooklyn, working for the National Review, then, he jumped to Dallas, to work for a newspaper… he wasn’t happy there, either, so, he jumped to the District to work at a Hard Right stink-tank (whose leading light is a nutter who believes that there’s a giant supercomputer just jam-packed with all the juicy titbits about you and me). That bed didn’t fit either… so, he jumped back home to Louisiana, and went to work for the American Conservative, a marginal rag with only a paid circulation of 8,000. Now, with Tuttle’s review, one can’t help but think… Dreher’s jumped three times already, post-National Review, is he going to rejoin his former employer (probably, for filthy lucre’s sake, as a paid circulation of only 8,000 can’t bring in much gelt)?

By the way… Dreher’s vaunted “Benedict Option” isn’t even a figment of the imagination… it doesn’t go bump in the night. By electing Francisco Bergoglio, the Church of Rome decisively rejected Benny Ratz’s political platform. In fact, as far as social teaching goes… the RCs and the Church are ON THE SAME PAGE. BOTH reject the anti-statist pro-oligarch solutions that Dreher advocates (for that is what they are… he wants a non-existent state with no social protections or safety net). Here’s what our Church believes and what the RCs believe… IT UTTERLY REJECTS DREHER’S HARD RIGHTWING FANTASIES. Read ‘em and heed ‘em:

A restructuring of our economic and social system is needed because there shouldn’t be this absolutising, this idolatry of private property, which, frankly, is a form of paganism. The Christian can’t accept private property as an absolute.

Blessed Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez

An economic system built only on the striving for profit, on indifference to the fate of people, on disregard for moral norms, lacks stability; it can collapse at any moment, burying the fate of people under its rubble.

His Holiness Kirill Gundyaev

Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias

KPRF members, like all honest people in our country, which are an absolute majority in Russia, marshal our forces so that our beloved homeland can pass through our current difficulties with decent dignity. Let the great values and aspirations of labour, justice, equality, brotherhood, and truth, things that are bedrock to the timeless Christian faith and the communist ideal alike, triumph in our lives. I greet all the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church, indeed, all Orthodox Christians, in the light of the Risen Christ, I wish you spiritual vigour and physical strength. I believe that we can revive and raise up all the Russias if we act as one!

G A Zyuganov

First Secretary of the KPRF and Leader of the KPRF faction in the RF Gosduma

I wrote this on the topic… I still stand by it… here’s part of it…

As for me, if I thought that these people incarnated Christianity, I’d leave, with no regrets. Their writings and actions say that religion is nothing but a grand and glorious mindfuck… then, you die, for good and all. Don’t stoop to their level. There are no easy answers… there are no pat solutions… there’s no unbreakable and inflexible Law of God. Christ asks all of us… “Who do YOU say I am?” Don’t be quick to answer that. I’m 61… I’m still working on it…

There be counterfeits in circulation. Bite the coin before accepting it…

Rod Dreher is getting ready to move again, I think… some “localist” isn’t he? I’m much more that than he is… the only way that I’ll leave the Northeast is to go to Heaven, and that’s that…

BMD