One of the reasons I started this blog was to write about other bloggers, especially Rod Dreher. The Crunchy Con himself, the lovable, hate-able quintessence of the guy with an Internet connection whose charm is that you never know what he’s going to write about next. His conversion to Catholicism. His conversion from Catholicism to Greek Orthodoxy. Gay marriage—that’s a big N.O. Enviro-foodie advocacy—yes! His sister’s heroic struggle with cancer—very moving (really). Quantum physics and healing prayer! Christopher Hitchens and healing prayer! Doubts about Darwin—let’s voice them! Countercultural conservatism— dude! Science and religion—we can be best buds! “Trying to build a case that the global Catholic child abuse scandal was actually caused by hippies” (as the Alicublog put it)—you can’t make this stuff up.
But just as my humble blog is going online, Dreher has disappeared, leaving me with nothing. After moving from Dallas and Beliefnet to Philadelphia and the Templeton Foundation’s Big Questions Online site over the summer, the flowing faucet of Dreher started to sputter. His freewheeling ways and urge to hold forth on hot-button political and culture-war topics had already caused trouble during his final months at Beliefnet, where he proved incapable of honoring his vow to avoid politics and stick to spirituality, philosophy, and other higher things. Although at first Dreher’s new Templeton-hosted Macroculture blog simply picked up where his Dallas/Beliefnet gig left off, something happened. On August 20, Dreher posted this enigmatic message:
Folks, I'm going to suspend comments for the time being, both on this blog and all over the site, pending the outworking of some technical and editorial issues. I apologize for this, and ask for your patience.
UPDATE: I will not be blogging for now. I hope to be blogging again soon. You readers are faithful and important to me, so I ask for your patience during this down time. Please continue to enjoy other content on BQO -- but remember, we're not posting comments at the present time.
Dreher-watchers reported that some of his earlier posts had been deleted, and then, on August 23:
The debut this summer of BQO has been a "soft launch" intended to try out our ideas for the magazine, to see how they work, particularly in relationship to Sir John Templeton's ideals. We are still working on the site, and will be changing some things in response to feedback. With respect to this blog, we are reconsidering a style and format that will be more in tune with Sir John's forward-looking, positive, constructive ways to engage the Big Questions. We hope to fine-tune things to make BQO better for you, our readers. So, please be patient, and thanks for reading.
Since then—silence. Nada. A week ago, I emailed Dreher and Big Questions Online editor Gary Rosen to ask about the hiatus and the status of Macroculture, and I haven’t yet received a reply.
It’s hard not to conclude that Sir John Templeton’s ideals and Dreher’s emotive style have clashed, and that forces within Templeton who cannot stand their new guy’s Dionysian messiness have decided not to spare the Rod. The result is the silencing, voluntary or otherwise, of one of the most widely read bloggers in the country. So what if he’s a little nuts? Free Rod Dreher!
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