At First Things, a journal of religion and public life, philosophy professor Phillip Cary asks whether now might be the time for evangelical Protestants to call a timeout for a while. “The evangelical team is playing defense, and they have a major theological weakness. They’ve adopted a version of the liberal Protestant turn to experience … This theology will hardly help them resist a culture that is all about celebrating the desires we find within us.” Cary teaches at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, where Shane Claiborne studied.

This call for societal withdrawal marks a new turn for American evangelical Christianity, which for several decades had been mostly aligned with the political right. Increasing support for gay marriage, the declining rates of marriage, and the rise of the “nones,” all seem to indicate waning evangelical influence on American culture. In the fight-or-flight response to feeling threatened, more and more Christians are taking (or at least talking about) the road out of Rome. They want to regroup, immerse themselves in communities that share their values, develop more robust theology, and emerge, in a sense, stronger than before.

In this way, the Benedict Option could be just the thing evangelicals need. With their public influence waning, withdrawing from the political conversation, at least in part, and adopting a strategy of re-entrenchment could help both fortify Christianity and engage the public. Certainly, things are starting to look bleak for evangelicals who remain in the public square. Recent efforts to defund Planned Parenthood via a Senate vote failed, and some evangelical leaders are disavowing the culture wars altogether.