The problem with this book and his earlier one, Crunchy Cons, is that his solutions have nothing at all to do with the causes of the illnesses he associates with modern Western culture. The first chapter of the Benedict Option laments the moral decline of the US as evidenced in the endorsement of homosexual marriage and the full hug of transgenderism. The second chapter traces the origins of these problems to the following:
Fourteenth century: The defeat of metaphysical realism by nominalism in medieval theological debates removed the linchpin linking the transcendent and the material worlds...
Fifteenth century: The Renaissance dawned with a new, optimist outlook on human potential and began shifting the West’s vision and social imagination from God to man...
Sixteenth century: The Reformation broke the religious unity of Europe...
Seventeenth century: ...The Scientific Revolution struck the final blow to the organic medieval model of the cosmos, replacing it with a vision of the universe as a machine...
Eighteenth century: The Enlightenment attempted to create a philosophical framework for living in and governing society absent religious reference...
Nineteen century: The success of the Industrial Revolution pulverized the agrarian way of life, uprooted the masses from rural areas, and brought them into the cities...
Twentieth century: The horrors of the two world wars severely damaged faith in the gods of reason and progress and in the God of Christianity...
