Raymond Oliver Dreher Jr, better known as Rod Dreher, is an American author and editor.
Dreher is popular for being a senior editor and blogger at The American Conservative, a magazine published by American Ideas Institute.
He is also the author of several books. Some of them are:
- How Dante Can Save Your Life
- The Benedict Option
- Live Not by Lies
The author has written about various topics like religion, film, politics, and culture for publications like the National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, Touchstone, Los Angeles Times, and others.
He has also gained popularity as a film reviewer. He chiefly reviews for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and is the chief film critic for the New York Post. He’s had his commentaries broadcasted on the National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and appeared in such syndications as CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, Court TV, and others.
Quick Facts About Rod Dreher
| 55 |
| $1.5 Million |
| Columnist and Writer |
| American |
| Julie Harris (1997 – 2022) |
| February 14, 1967 |
| Baton Rouge, Louisiana, US |
| Louisiana State University |
| The Benedict Option (2017) |
| American Solidarity Party |
| 2002 – Present |
Did Rod Dreher Divorce With His Wife, Julie Harris Dreher?
Rod Dreher divorced Julie Harris Dreher in 2022; the couple had been married since 1997.
The couple has three children together. He publicly announced that the couple started their divorce process in April 2022. In a recent interview with Deseret News, Dreher opened up about his divorce and the marital struggles that led to the decision.
According to the article, Dreher’s marriage began to fall apart around the time he fell ill with a chronic autoimmune disease.
The three or four years he was suffering from the disease were especially difficult, and although he recovered his health, their marriage never healed.
The author further stated that the last ten years were devastatingly painful, but he couldn’t talk about it publicly.
Julie Harris Dreher filed for divorce in the spring of 2022 when Dreher was overseas in Budapest, finishing a second fellowship. Dreher has stated that he never saw it coming because the couple had never talked about or begun to discuss divorce.
However, he has since reconciled with the fact that the abrupt request for divorce only showed how broken things were, along with the fact that though the author was shocked, he wasn’t surprised.
Now that the separation process has begun, Dreher has credited his faith for keeping him sane. In the same interview, the author stated that he lives with the rock-solid conviction that God is with him, which is the only thing that helps him move forward.
Still, Dreher has stated he is ashamed of the divorce.
Rod Dreher’s Family Background
American author Rod Dreher was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on February 14, 1967.
His parents gave him his name after his father, Ray Oliver Dreher. The family raised the boy in the small town of St. Francisville, where he was part of the first graduating class at Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts in Natchitoches.
After graduating from the Louisiana School, Dreher went to study at the Louisiana State University in 1989, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism. The author began his career in the Washington Times as a television critic.
He also ended up working as chief film critic for the New York Post and editor for the National Review. He began gaining further prominence for writing an essay in 2002 that explored a subcategory of American conservatives he called granola conservatism.
Dreher called the adherents of this form of conservatism crunchy cons and traditional conservatives who believed in values like environmental conservation, the preservation of traditional family values, and frugal living.
According to the author, these people also expressed skepticism toward free-market capitalism.
He portrayed these crunchy cons as generally religious and typically traditionalist Roman Catholics, conservative Protestants, or Eastern Orthodox. Dreher cemented his thoughts when he published a book where he expanded on the themes of his “manifesto.”
He gave this book a long name: Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or At Least the Republican Party).
Rod Dreher’s Early Career
After releasing his book about Crunchy Cons, Rod Dreher released a blog of the same name.
He created this blog, entitled Crunchy Con, in 2006 and maintained it on Beliefnet, a lifestyle website.
In 2010, Dreher renamed the blog “Rod Dreher” and began shifting his focus from political to cultural topics.
He also worked as an editorial writer and The Dallas Morning News but left in late 2009 to become the publications director for the John Templeton Foundation.
This stint didn’t last too long, as he tweeted on August 20, 2011, that he had left the role to return to writing full-time.
He published another book in 2013 called The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, about his childhood in Louisiana, most importantly, his sister’s battle with cancer.
He further mined this topic in 2015 when he released a book called How Dante Can Save Your Life, a memoir about how reading Dante’s Divine Comedy helped him cope after his sister passed away.
However, during these early years, Dreher started gaining the most prominence for his blog at the American Conservative, which he started in 2008.
He is now a senior editor at the publication, and as of 2017, the blog receives more than a million page views per month.
What Is The Benedict Option?
Rod Dreher hit his stride when it comes to writing and public reach when he started writing the Benedict Option.
The Benedict Option, which he wrote from 2015 to 2021, is the idea that Christians wanting to preserve their faith should segregate themselves to some degree from a society drifting away from traditional Christian values.
According to Dreher, Christians should form intentional communities to get away from society, and they used the example of the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville. Alasdair MacIntyre’s 1981 book After Virtue inspired Dreher with the phrase “The Benedict Option.”
The phrase refers to the Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century monk.
Dreher published The Benedict Option in 2017, and it was widely reviewed in both the secular and religious press, and esteemed publications like The Washington Post and The New Yorker even did profiles on the author. The responses to the book ranged from laudatory to highly critical.
For example, David Brooks of the New York Times called it the most discussed and important religious book of the decade but also expressed concern that the separation the book spouts could lead to narrowness in thought, moral arrogance, and prejudice.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, also criticized the book for focusing on LGBT relationships and their prominence over other, perhaps more important, topics. However, in the same breath, he stated that the book is worth reading as it helps answer tough questions.
The book has inspired wide-range debate in Christian communities, especially in the United States, with various conferences being held to discuss the ideas the book espouses.
How Much Is Rod Dreher’s Net Worth?
American author Rod Dreher has a net worth of $1.5 million as of 2022 from his books and various publications.
As one of the leading authorities in modern Christian thought, at least in terms of pop culture, Dreher has amassed a large following which in turn explains his net worth.
However, the man’s career has not been without its controversies. Due to the ideas he espouses, and the backward beliefs he relishes, the man’s career has not only been rife with controversy but has been boosted by it.
Most of the controversies he has been embroiled in can be narrowed down to his views on orientation, race, immigration, and international affairs.
A great example of the first is that Dreher himself has described that he holds on to biblical Christian teachings on orientation and fervently believes that relations between people of the same orientation are not only sinful but unnatural.
In recent years, the author has been obsessed with expressing alarm at the growing visibility of people who don’t conform to the orientation binary.
However, he has come under the most fire for supporting Brett Kavanaugh during the U.S Supreme Court hearing against him.
The hearing about Kavanaugh stated that the man had assaulted Christine Blasey Ford in the early 1980s.
Dreher’s support came from the fact that he believed a man should not be judged for what he did at age 17, but the author did not take into account all the other women who accused Kavanaugh of misconduct.
As for race and immigration, Dreher wrote a controversial blog post in 2014 called Tops for Not Getting Shot by Cops in the wake of Michael Brown’s unfortunate passing. In the blog post, the author stated that Brown was a known lawbreaker who associated with other lawbreakers.
Dreher has continuously shown an anti-immigrant and prejudiced stance, especially against African-American people.
According to the author, his stance comes from what he thinks is his defense of western civilization. For example, he mocked the funeral celebrations of the African American singer Aaliyah seemingly for no reason.
He has also compared African immigration to Europe as a barbarian invasion.
Lastly, the author has been a consistent critic of Islam and its role in international affairs. After the September 11 attacks, he published numerous articles critical of Islam and is one of America’s most prominent anti-Islam authors and thinkers.
In a nutshell, Dreher is a controversial individual with thoughts and reasonings that speak loudly to a certain group of people. It only happens that these same groups of people are a hateful bunch.
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Some FAQs
Why did Rod Dreher and his wife divorce?
He has said they divorced because of irreconcilable differences
Does Rod Dreher have any children?
No, he does not have any children
What political party does Rod Dreher support?
Rod Dreher is a conservative who supports the American Solidarity Party