I swear, you might be the only Catholic in the entire country who is (1) charismatic enough to be worth listening to, (2) understands the fundamental importance of vibes, and (3) is capable of teaching how to use vibes in a systematic way to create belonging.
Thanks for this article Marcellino! Enjoyed reading your thoughts on the struggles of Christianity in the modern world.
I was particularly struck by your claim that Christianity must be exclusive or risk becoming irrelevant. I always find it quite amusing that it is people who don’t really have any connection to the Church, who blame the Church’s problems on being overly exclusive (exclusive claims on truth, exclusive towards homosexuals, exclusively ordaining men, etc.). In other words, they want the Church not to offend them, but would never show up on Sunday regardless.
I think this raises a real question though - is there a way that an intolerant organisation (one that makes exclusive truth claims) can form a civilisation? (viz., the Mechan quote: "Involuntary organizations ought to be tolerant, but voluntary organizations, so far as the fundamental purpose of their existence is concerned, must be intolerant or else cease to exist.") That is to say, can we in fact build up a Christian culture, or does it have to remain a voluntary organisation? I’m inclined prima facie to agree with Paul Kingsnorth et al. that Christian civilisation is oxymoronic. The Church does best when it’s a hated minority (blessed are you, when they revile you for my name’s sake).
But, at a certain point, the Church stopped being a voluntary organisation and started including essentially everyone (the occasional atheist intellectual or Jewish suburb being the exceptions that prove the norm). Somehow this succeeded for about a thousand years (if we ignore the splits between Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism - and those were usually societal, rather than individual). Christendom only really collapsed in the last half of the 20th century.
If Christendom was an involuntary organisation, how did it manage to have such a long and successful run?
For want of a more complicated answer, I will refer you to Matthew 28:18-20 "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." I think the success of the last 1,000 years of Christianity in spite of the sinful humans leading it, can be laid at the feet of those same sinful Christians, under the grace and mercy of the Holy Spirit, doing their best to obey Jesus's commandment here.
Love this question. Would love an answer from Marcellino on this, but in my mind, exclusive orgs within Christendom were the cause or renewal and revival. These used to be holy orders where these tribal dynamics survived and thrived, and you could likely explain the growth and survival of Christendom almost completely from that alone. The infighting between Charasmatic, Byzantine, and Latin Mass sects shows that tribal identities inside the faith all assist in each others growth by forcing new layers of exclusivity at a higher resolution then just Christianity.
This isn’t even accounting for the way it grafted into ethnic identities, which to some extent were tribal before the 20th century.
Because it was a voluntary & deeply hierarchical organization - on the axes of faith as shown by works. Your line (fuzzy boundary, really) on where people fade in & out of active faith is wrong. The social effects of Christianity are driven primarily by the men standard deviations above the average.
Kingsnorth, like all of the pacifists, can't answer the simple question: "what happens the person being murdered is the girl next door?" He can't distinguish between the personal & the corporate. Ergo, Kingsnorth advocates for a limp freefall into the corporate persecution of Christians, while saying none of the Christian truths which would cause him personal hardship.
Doug Wilson up in Idaho has been leaning into everything you're addressing here for the last 20+ years. And he's using Canon Press and YouTube to draw in the Zoomer crowd. By the way, the Christian apologist R. J. Rushdoony (a rock-ribbed Calvinist as well, so there's that) was calling all of this in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, much to the consternation of the Billy Graham, Mainline Protestant crowd.
But the "secret sauce" for the future of the Christian faith lies where it has always lain: in community.
A church community needs to be exactly that: a COMMUNITY.
Famillies need to come together through church and bond as a community.
Young people need to grow up in the nurturing embrace of that church community.
And that community needs to confront the many competing messages that are disrupting all communities today.
We do well to understand what community is, and what community is not. Community is where people know one another, where lives are shared, where triumphs are celebrated together and defeats are mourned together.
The church must be more than a once-a-week ritual. The church must strive to be the foundation of community, and of a community in Christ.
Churches in the past were a cornerstone of community. The churches in the future that are a cornerstone of community are the churches that will endure.
There is nothing here that speaks on the love of God; only the pride of man which is why we see women screaming their testimonies of abuse at the hands of the Church everyday. You’ve said nothing new or insightful or Biblical. It’s just the unloving noise of a gong.
Jesus said to make disciples. There is no strategy for making disciples other than introducing them to Christ. Making it jnto a club, exclusive or otherwise is nonsense. Making your club more exclusive is just attracting the self righteous. Count me out.
This is insightful. I wish I had known more about this in my earlier years, but I didn't have that background, so I'll have to re-read this a few times to understand it all.
Taylor Swift is a topic I recently had to delve into because my kids listen to her and I only now understand how subversive her lyrics have become.
Thanks for this article. I did not know the Superbowl had happened until the actual day it happened -- that is what comes of not owning a TV. The "He Gets Us" ad appears to be made of AI-generated images. Did you notice it? Lazy, unoriginal, and cheap.
Unfortunately, the "He Saves Us" ad wasn't much better, as all it did was boast about having recruited some B list celebrities, addicts, and gay people. I'm certainly happy for them and I sincerely hope they find a relationship with the Divine through Christianity despite my own journey to connection via polytheism. Nevertheless, why do I highly doubt they had to prove themselves before being accepted into the Christian ranks? Christianity is not in a good position at the moment; bragging about recent converts smacks of desperation and desperation is always an effective repellent. I was just as atheist as Josh Timonen once and though he gets more publicity for becoming a believer in God than I ever will, I believe my own solitary path to be as valid as his. This is what Christianity is up against in the Age of Aquarius -- there is no one true way. It's not just that God and the gods are coming back. It's that we've finally decided to stop being deaf, dumb, and blind in the face of what they have to say.
I agree with much of this analysis, so it is unfortunate you put this sentence at the beginning:
"Higher birthrates reflect who truly lives their faith, ensuring its sustainability over generations."
The monastic life was one of the pillars of traditional Christianity forever and many of the most influential early Christians eschewed marriage and procreation. Christianity did not sweep over the Roman Empire and the near East because they were out reproducing the pagans, at least not in the first 300 years. Even today, converts tend to better represent the tribal vigor you're talking about than cradles.
I am talking about our time more than anything. The spirit of our age is anti family formation.
But there is also ample research that shows that birth rates are a primary driver of a religions growth over time. I'll see what I can dig out to send that will show you this.
There's several overlapping errors in your post. A lot of it flat categories: only seeing the borders on the map, & not the terrain.
Converts show tribal zeal in part because they have to proclaim their allegiance, they're new to the tribe. On the flip side, many of the people in these denominations aren't really part of the tribe at all. The category of "belonging" or "exemplifying" membership isn't flat.
And how do you suggest we sustain a tribe which foregoes the basic acts of replenishment, given by God? If we abandon the Dominion Mandate, the easiest of God's commands, how can we follow the harder ones? Who wants to join a suicidal tribe anyways? The Christians who converted the East most assuredly did not have birthrate problems.
You citation of the most influential Christian men eschewing marriage is another flattening. Just because many great men are gifted with celibacy, or failed to be married, does not mean that any man who fails to marry is a great man. The country of childlessness is notable mountain ranges sticking out of a foul swamp.
Monks: yes, birthrate measuring stick applies to them. Nothing about sitting in a monastery contributes to greater faith in-and-of-itself, although many monks developed great faith. Sitting in a monastery does server you from the natural order of life, when the vast majority of monks should have lived the natural order. You don't have to agree with Luther's treatment for my other points to be true, though.
The relevant thrust of Luther's here is the chastity of the monks was a bug, not a feature. Part Luther's argument could be summarized: 1) most men cannot shut off sexual desire, 2) men sworn to celibacy have only sinful outlets for sexual desire, & 3) it is wrong to place yourself in a bind which forces you to sin. Ergo, the structurally chaste monastic structure was wrong. It placed men with sexual desire into a bind where they could only sin with it.
This is a place where Protestants & Catholics will, most likely, have to agree to disagree. I'm not saying (some) monastic orders didn't do much good, I'm saying the monasticism itself was not a universal good, particularly the celibacy. This includes for the monks themselves.
This is relevant because DiBaggio is asserting the chastity was a feature, & therefore birthrates cannot be used as measuring stick without some fancy footwork. It is wrong to over-complicate straightforward truths, therefore I must touch on the subject. I clearly threw this football too lightly, I had to throw it.
Taylor Swift part was spot on. Of course Beyoncé is woke she’s a Black Queen. That’s whatever. Taylor Swift (and Caitlin Clark, Dixie Chicks, even someone like Springsteen) are actual traitors and sell outs and wear skin suits and try and create more sell outs which is highly offensive. I disagree about the second half though. Surely the tribe part matters but Christianity is peak rationality so it shouldn’t be pitted against it. I think rationality is a huge problem for men right now because men are the leaders of Christianity and without reason they simply won’t have courage to fight the Leviathan
I swear, you might be the only Catholic in the entire country who is (1) charismatic enough to be worth listening to, (2) understands the fundamental importance of vibes, and (3) is capable of teaching how to use vibes in a systematic way to create belonging.
Thank you. That means a lot.
This endorsement made me instantly subscribe. Can’t wait to read more @Marcellino D'Ambrosio
Thanks for this article Marcellino! Enjoyed reading your thoughts on the struggles of Christianity in the modern world.
I was particularly struck by your claim that Christianity must be exclusive or risk becoming irrelevant. I always find it quite amusing that it is people who don’t really have any connection to the Church, who blame the Church’s problems on being overly exclusive (exclusive claims on truth, exclusive towards homosexuals, exclusively ordaining men, etc.). In other words, they want the Church not to offend them, but would never show up on Sunday regardless.
I think this raises a real question though - is there a way that an intolerant organisation (one that makes exclusive truth claims) can form a civilisation? (viz., the Mechan quote: "Involuntary organizations ought to be tolerant, but voluntary organizations, so far as the fundamental purpose of their existence is concerned, must be intolerant or else cease to exist.") That is to say, can we in fact build up a Christian culture, or does it have to remain a voluntary organisation? I’m inclined prima facie to agree with Paul Kingsnorth et al. that Christian civilisation is oxymoronic. The Church does best when it’s a hated minority (blessed are you, when they revile you for my name’s sake).
But, at a certain point, the Church stopped being a voluntary organisation and started including essentially everyone (the occasional atheist intellectual or Jewish suburb being the exceptions that prove the norm). Somehow this succeeded for about a thousand years (if we ignore the splits between Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism - and those were usually societal, rather than individual). Christendom only really collapsed in the last half of the 20th century.
If Christendom was an involuntary organisation, how did it manage to have such a long and successful run?
For want of a more complicated answer, I will refer you to Matthew 28:18-20 "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." I think the success of the last 1,000 years of Christianity in spite of the sinful humans leading it, can be laid at the feet of those same sinful Christians, under the grace and mercy of the Holy Spirit, doing their best to obey Jesus's commandment here.
Love this question. Would love an answer from Marcellino on this, but in my mind, exclusive orgs within Christendom were the cause or renewal and revival. These used to be holy orders where these tribal dynamics survived and thrived, and you could likely explain the growth and survival of Christendom almost completely from that alone. The infighting between Charasmatic, Byzantine, and Latin Mass sects shows that tribal identities inside the faith all assist in each others growth by forcing new layers of exclusivity at a higher resolution then just Christianity.
This isn’t even accounting for the way it grafted into ethnic identities, which to some extent were tribal before the 20th century.
Because it was a voluntary & deeply hierarchical organization - on the axes of faith as shown by works. Your line (fuzzy boundary, really) on where people fade in & out of active faith is wrong. The social effects of Christianity are driven primarily by the men standard deviations above the average.
Kingsnorth, like all of the pacifists, can't answer the simple question: "what happens the person being murdered is the girl next door?" He can't distinguish between the personal & the corporate. Ergo, Kingsnorth advocates for a limp freefall into the corporate persecution of Christians, while saying none of the Christian truths which would cause him personal hardship.
Yes he gets us the problem is we don't get him.
This is incredible. Well done brother and looking forward to part 3.
Thanks man
Spot on about identity, tribalism, and faith etc.
Doug Wilson up in Idaho has been leaning into everything you're addressing here for the last 20+ years. And he's using Canon Press and YouTube to draw in the Zoomer crowd. By the way, the Christian apologist R. J. Rushdoony (a rock-ribbed Calvinist as well, so there's that) was calling all of this in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, much to the consternation of the Billy Graham, Mainline Protestant crowd.
Truly outstanding analysis.
Your tribal initiation graphic bears some resemblance to John Ransom’s ideas on Code.
Link?
I’ve got the book in my office at work. I’ll send it in a few days.
Sweet Jesus!
I loved this incredibly long article about my faith in Him! 🙏🙏🙏
Christianity is a faith. Neither more nor less
But the "secret sauce" for the future of the Christian faith lies where it has always lain: in community.
A church community needs to be exactly that: a COMMUNITY.
Famillies need to come together through church and bond as a community.
Young people need to grow up in the nurturing embrace of that church community.
And that community needs to confront the many competing messages that are disrupting all communities today.
We do well to understand what community is, and what community is not. Community is where people know one another, where lives are shared, where triumphs are celebrated together and defeats are mourned together.
The church must be more than a once-a-week ritual. The church must strive to be the foundation of community, and of a community in Christ.
Churches in the past were a cornerstone of community. The churches in the future that are a cornerstone of community are the churches that will endure.
There is nothing here that speaks on the love of God; only the pride of man which is why we see women screaming their testimonies of abuse at the hands of the Church everyday. You’ve said nothing new or insightful or Biblical. It’s just the unloving noise of a gong.
Jesus said to make disciples. There is no strategy for making disciples other than introducing them to Christ. Making it jnto a club, exclusive or otherwise is nonsense. Making your club more exclusive is just attracting the self righteous. Count me out.
This is insightful. I wish I had known more about this in my earlier years, but I didn't have that background, so I'll have to re-read this a few times to understand it all.
Taylor Swift is a topic I recently had to delve into because my kids listen to her and I only now understand how subversive her lyrics have become.
Thanks for this article. I did not know the Superbowl had happened until the actual day it happened -- that is what comes of not owning a TV. The "He Gets Us" ad appears to be made of AI-generated images. Did you notice it? Lazy, unoriginal, and cheap.
Unfortunately, the "He Saves Us" ad wasn't much better, as all it did was boast about having recruited some B list celebrities, addicts, and gay people. I'm certainly happy for them and I sincerely hope they find a relationship with the Divine through Christianity despite my own journey to connection via polytheism. Nevertheless, why do I highly doubt they had to prove themselves before being accepted into the Christian ranks? Christianity is not in a good position at the moment; bragging about recent converts smacks of desperation and desperation is always an effective repellent. I was just as atheist as Josh Timonen once and though he gets more publicity for becoming a believer in God than I ever will, I believe my own solitary path to be as valid as his. This is what Christianity is up against in the Age of Aquarius -- there is no one true way. It's not just that God and the gods are coming back. It's that we've finally decided to stop being deaf, dumb, and blind in the face of what they have to say.
I agree with much of this analysis, so it is unfortunate you put this sentence at the beginning:
"Higher birthrates reflect who truly lives their faith, ensuring its sustainability over generations."
The monastic life was one of the pillars of traditional Christianity forever and many of the most influential early Christians eschewed marriage and procreation. Christianity did not sweep over the Roman Empire and the near East because they were out reproducing the pagans, at least not in the first 300 years. Even today, converts tend to better represent the tribal vigor you're talking about than cradles.
I am talking about our time more than anything. The spirit of our age is anti family formation.
But there is also ample research that shows that birth rates are a primary driver of a religions growth over time. I'll see what I can dig out to send that will show you this.
There's several overlapping errors in your post. A lot of it flat categories: only seeing the borders on the map, & not the terrain.
Converts show tribal zeal in part because they have to proclaim their allegiance, they're new to the tribe. On the flip side, many of the people in these denominations aren't really part of the tribe at all. The category of "belonging" or "exemplifying" membership isn't flat.
And how do you suggest we sustain a tribe which foregoes the basic acts of replenishment, given by God? If we abandon the Dominion Mandate, the easiest of God's commands, how can we follow the harder ones? Who wants to join a suicidal tribe anyways? The Christians who converted the East most assuredly did not have birthrate problems.
You citation of the most influential Christian men eschewing marriage is another flattening. Just because many great men are gifted with celibacy, or failed to be married, does not mean that any man who fails to marry is a great man. The country of childlessness is notable mountain ranges sticking out of a foul swamp.
Monks: yes, birthrate measuring stick applies to them. Nothing about sitting in a monastery contributes to greater faith in-and-of-itself, although many monks developed great faith. Sitting in a monastery does server you from the natural order of life, when the vast majority of monks should have lived the natural order. You don't have to agree with Luther's treatment for my other points to be true, though.
Good thoughts. Monastic life and celibacy played an important role in the development of Christianity.
But these roles had a purpose.
Their ministry was, in large part, to the laity.
Monasteries provided stability and necessary communal services during the dying Roman Empire.
Celibate priests were able to dedicate their lives to the service of the laity.
These are important roles in the body, but very few are meant to walk these vocations out.
The relevant thrust of Luther's here is the chastity of the monks was a bug, not a feature. Part Luther's argument could be summarized: 1) most men cannot shut off sexual desire, 2) men sworn to celibacy have only sinful outlets for sexual desire, & 3) it is wrong to place yourself in a bind which forces you to sin. Ergo, the structurally chaste monastic structure was wrong. It placed men with sexual desire into a bind where they could only sin with it.
This is a place where Protestants & Catholics will, most likely, have to agree to disagree. I'm not saying (some) monastic orders didn't do much good, I'm saying the monasticism itself was not a universal good, particularly the celibacy. This includes for the monks themselves.
This is relevant because DiBaggio is asserting the chastity was a feature, & therefore birthrates cannot be used as measuring stick without some fancy footwork. It is wrong to over-complicate straightforward truths, therefore I must touch on the subject. I clearly threw this football too lightly, I had to throw it.
Sure. I do disagree on the finer points Luther was making but it's a relatively minor disagreement all things considered.
I think there is a place for celibacy, but I agree that it was far over stressed in Church history.
I'm going to ignore this ridiculous strawman, but only because it's Great Lent.
Taylor Swift part was spot on. Of course Beyoncé is woke she’s a Black Queen. That’s whatever. Taylor Swift (and Caitlin Clark, Dixie Chicks, even someone like Springsteen) are actual traitors and sell outs and wear skin suits and try and create more sell outs which is highly offensive. I disagree about the second half though. Surely the tribe part matters but Christianity is peak rationality so it shouldn’t be pitted against it. I think rationality is a huge problem for men right now because men are the leaders of Christianity and without reason they simply won’t have courage to fight the Leviathan
I don't mean that rationality isn't important, or that experience and charity aren't important.
All of them are important.
But the most important part is life on life discipleship.
I've been involved in church work for a decade and I've never seen initiatives aimed at rationality even be marginally effective.
The truth is that the average person is simply not high IQ enough to do much intellectual faith formation.
Catholicism lasted through hundreds of years of illiteracy for this reason. It prioritized art, beauty, and tribal identity over rationality.