Welcome to Mortification of Spin, a casual conversation about things that count with Carl Truman, Todd Pruitt, and Amy Bird.

Mortification of Spin is a weekly podcast from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Today we're joined by Rod Dreher to talk about the Benedict option.

Is he implying that we should all be hermits like St. Benedict,

or are there other ways we can create positive societal change? Let's find out what Rod and the

gang have to say. Well, welcome to Mortification of Spin, the weekly podcast where we try to have a casual conversation about things that count.

Very privileged this week to have a special guest.

As a card-carrying Calvinist, I was assumed that I was a pretty cynical, pessimistic kind of guy

when it came to things happening in the wider culture. But I have to take my hat off to our

guest today. When I discovered his column on the American Conservative, I realized not only

here is somebody with a similar take to myself, but actually a much bleaker, more

sophisticated, much bleaker take on the world than I have. So it's a great pleasure to have

the journalist, pundit, writer, Rod Dreher with us today. Welcome to the show, Rod.

Well, it's great to be here, Carl.

I should tell your listeners that

I'm from South Louisiana.

So we have a habit

here, a cultural habit. Whenever the hurricane is

coming, you get out the gumbo

pop, you ice down beer, and you

call all your friends and neighbors to come over

and let's have a

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