Rod Dreher's Blog

It’s autumn! Glorious! My favorite season. It’s a time of pensiveness, of listening to cello music, of looking forward to the joy of Christmas. And tweed! The great Martin Shaw took me to a small shop in Dublin a couple of years ago, telling me that this is where Seamus Heaney bought his tweeds. I bought the Donegal tweed jacket you see in the photo above — the kind of jacket you could never wear in Louisiana, owing to its subtropical climate — and it has become my favorite article of clothing. ...

Grant Currier, right, raised Evangelical in America, during his chrismation ritual into Orthodoxy at the Russian cathedral in Budapest, Nov 2024

Here’s a really excellent, thorough, and fair New York Times story about the astonishing number of young Americans — especially men — coming into the Orthodox Church. Ruth Graham is the author, and hats off to her. I’ve used on of my gift articles to unlock it for you. Excerpts:

Something is changing in an otherwise quiet corner of Christianity in the Uni...

An American friend went shopping at Target with her kid for school supplies yesterday. She sent me this pic, with the comment, “Goodbye middle class. It’s been fun”. My jaw dropped: $26 for a packet of colored markers?! What the hell?! I keep saying here that every time I go back from Hungary to the US to visit, I’m shocked by the cost of living. But something about this just dropped my jaw. Colored markers!

Aaron Renn is always worth reading, but his latest Substack, a compilation of articles ab...

Last night I sat just behind Michael Walsh as he played a recital of the works of Franz Liszt (1811-1886), with a brief appearance on the program by Richard Wagner. He is known here in Budapest as Liszt Ferenc — he was Hungarian by nationality.

Walsh is an accomplished author, journalist (many years with Time magazine), and a gifted musician. I’d met Michael before, on one of his forays to Budapest with his wife Kate, and knew of his considerable reputation as a writer. But I didn’t know a thi...

Pastor Andrew Isker, from 'What Is Christian Nationalism?’

Take a look at this trailer for an upcoming (January) documentary exploring “Christian Nationalism” as defined by a particular group of hard-right men — all Calvinists, I think, but correct me if I’m wrong — inspired by the work of Stephen Wolfe. Wolfe calls for a “measured theocratic Caesarism” to govern America, and promotes ethnic consciousness. He has denied promoting a theology and anthropology of racial separation (“kinism”), but hi...

Bataclan pre-concert crowd, Nov 13, 2015. Soon, many will be shot dead

Ten years ago this week, Islamic terrorists went on a rampage in France, slaughtering 132 people in a single night. Ninety of the dead were concertgoers at the Bataclan, a concert venue and nightclub. Here’s what happened that night at the Bataclan, via Wikipedia:

Three dark-clad gunmen armed with three different types of assault rifles (Zastava M70, Norinco Type 56-1, and an AKKS-47 rifle) had been waiting in a black rental ca...

VP JD Vance at US Marine Corps Ball

I make my debut as a contributing writer to The Free Press today with this piece arguing that J.D. Vance is the only figure in this country who can keep the racist, Nazi-positive Groyper movement from taking over the Right. Excerpt:

No reasonable person thinks Donald Trump, with his Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, is an antisemite. But it’s also true that Trump, a 79-year-old lame duck, is in no position to stem the rising tide of Jew-hatred and ...

Nathan Pinkoski, lecturing at ISI on Renaud Camus

Yesterday C.G. Long tweeted an “Open Letter” from two former ISI presidents (including himself), who smeared Patrick Deneen and ISI president Johnny Burtka for supposedly betraying conservatism. Today it’s my turn (with others) to receive the Long lash:

Long, obviously a knothead, has not the faintest clue what Renaud Camus teaches, else he would know exactly why ISI held a panel discussion on his work. Here’s an introduction to Camus written in Co...

Let me start by pointing out that even though I find it unpleasant to watch the Right tearing itself up over this anti-Semitism fight, it is an important and necessary one — and one that the Left pointedly is not having among itself. There are some voices on the Right who believe that we conservatives should simply shut up about our internal differences, and focus on the Left. I strongly disagree. If “fighting the Left” means that we have to absorb Jew hatred and race hatred more generally into ...

(L to R) Gladden Pappin, Balazs Orban, VP J.D. Vance, PM Viktor Orban, Area Man

I don’t know what you did on Friday night, but I spent about 90 minutes in the vice president’s study with him and the men you see above, talking geopolitics, Hungary, and the survival of Christianity in Europe, among other things. Of course I can’t be indiscreet about the discussion, but it was rich and vigorous. I’m really glad that JD got to experience the actual, living Viktor Orban in person, and to see for himse...