Wary of Modern Society, Some Christians Choose a Life Apart
Longing to lead more religious lives—and wary of the wider culture—a growing number of traditional Christians are creating their own small communities
.. “Our goal in moving here was to form our children’s conscience and intellect in a particular way, without society taking that authority from us,”
.. In many ways, Clear Creek resembles the U.S. of a past era. Women wear long skirts and cover their heads during Mass—a practice most Catholics have abandoned since the reforms of Vatican II more than a half-century ago. Young men often ask permission from the fathers of women whom they want to court.
.. “There was just too much promiscuity; it’s permeated the whole society,” said Mr. Schmidgall, 25. “Maybe you teach them one thing at home, but you walk down the street and there’s signs with some provocative image or a woman.”
.. “We’re living in a post-Christian world,” Mr. Dreher said. “There needs to be some conscious separation from the mainstream to be able to hold on to the Christian faith.”
.. Many Christians, however, resist the idea of such stark separation, seeing it as an abandonment of their religious mission. “We have a mandate to spread the gospel,”
.. The families in Clear Creek see themselves as fundamentally different from breakaway religious groups like the Amish. There is no ban on technology or suspicion of outsiders.
.. “We wanted our children to grow up in a community of people that really value family, and value the Catholic faith and tradition,”
.. Life here, Mr. Pudewa said, isn’t “about running away from something. It’s about running to something.” To “inculcate wisdom and virtue in children,” he added, “you surround them with goodness and beauty.”
.. Separated from the wider world, she said, the church pastor became “spiritually abusive.” Women were treated like possessions, and gay people were demonized.
“We didn’t call it the Benedict Option—the phrase we used was ‘doctrine of separation,’ ” said Ms. Field, who left that church while in college. “But it was the same thing. This has been done.”