Presented at the 2017 National Conference in Austin, TX.

How do Christians flourish in the wasteland? For centuries, monasteries were the memory keepers of Christendom. Proponents of the Benedict Option remember how ancient Christians cultivated deep faith and rich culture in the face of hostility, and we continue to debate what that means for us today. In this talk, we will explore connections between cultural memory and monastic practices through the lens of the masterful twentieth-century novel Brideshead Revisited .