#147 - Father Luke Dysinger OSB - The Last Time Western Civilisation Collapsed One Institution Accidentally Saved Everything

Father Luke Dysinger is a Benedictine monk of Saint Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California. He trained as a physician, practised family medicine, and at the age of 27 walked away from it all because he fell in love with a way of life centred on prayer. He has lived in the monastery ever since. He studied at the Benedictine House of Studies at Oxford, holds a doctorate in patristic theology, and is now a professor of theology and a bioethicist. In this conversation we think out loud about: Why a trained physician walked away from medicine to become a monk The three Benedictine vows - stability, obedience, and conversion of life - and why they produce institutional coherence that no modern organisation can replicate How the monasteries saved Western civilisation by accident — not by copying manuscripts but by praying them What England lost when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries — and what survived in Evensong Why secular institutions trying to save civilisation without prayer will always feel hollow The Benedict Option — can families and communities outside the monastery build something that lasts? The foundational question monastic prayer forces you to answer: do you believe you are loved by God? What a young man who knows something has gone deeply wrong should do with his life. Related: - Pierre d’Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk - The Base — They Were Trained By The Best In British Theatre: https://youtu.be/sNQ6ank7quI] - Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0 Watch The Call of England: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ Register your interest for the Albion Institute: https://albioninstitute.org Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam.  ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.