Grunow masterfully applies Girardian theory to the digital age, exposing how social media has industrialized the ancient, violent ritual of collective persecution. It is a profound diagnosis of a world where tribal unity is increasingly bought at the price of a designated victim.
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We Are Living in an Antichrist Moment | Ep. 25 with Fr. Steve GrunowAdded:
We're surrounded by influencers who are influencing the world for ill.
>> I think it's a satanic danger. It's it's like it's precisely the type of thing the devil wants. We're all in danger in the social media environment of becoming a scapegoat.
>> What kind of scapegoats are we seeing emerge right now?
>> What social media can do is we can have a new victim every day. It's rapid tribe formation.
>> Exactly. I also think it's an antichrist movement. When you try to wield dark spiritual forces, the dark spiritual forces wield you back. There are two kingdoms. One is the kingdom of Christ and one is the kingdom of the devil. You have to choose right now.
>> Only violence is going to bring about the premisy of one of our sets of theological ideas over the other. And man, I just think that to choose that kind of violence, it's to be choose to be saved by the wrong blood.
>> Oh, that's good.
>> Father Steve Gruno, thank you for being on the program.
>> Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. You've spent the last 25 years along with Bishop Baron building what many people consider to be the pre-minent Catholic media company in the country, maybe in the world. I'm curious after spending so much time uh in in this line, do you still believe that media is an effective tool for evangelizing?
I do believe it is effective for evangelizing, but it is easily co-opted by dark spiritual powers and the dark powers of human nature. And so there's it's always been kind of a razor's edge of how does this serve the missionary mandate of Christ and then how does it kind of get twisted and become serving some other kind of agenda or power. M >> do you feel like there are challenges that are unique to new media to digital media that didn't exist even 25 years ago when you were getting started?
>> Oh, absolutely. I don't think that we knew what we were dealing with >> uh when it all started. And I think a there was a lot of kind of optimism that was unrealistic.
Um there was a kind of suddenly we were dishonest I think about how human nature was going to play its role. But as a spiritual person, it's not just human nature that's playing playing a role.
there's there's other kind of darker natures that play a role in in social particularly in social media and um or in new media that I don't think we're we were attending to at the beginning but now it's it's become I think we're at a kind of inflection point or even a crisis point when we realize right now that the impact of human nature and then darker kind of spiritual natures is is a real force in the new media. How do you discern between those two natures? And I might add a third which is the nature of the technology itself, the nature of the algorithm when you're facing these sorts of challenges both in your role as a builder of a media company, but also in your day job of being a Catholic priest.
How do you you where does human nature end and spiritual nature begin? Where does the the problem of the algorithm uh end and the and the problem of the spirit begin? I guess I look at the algorithms as the condition for their possibility is human nature.
>> It's like there's there wasn't going to be any algorithms unless there were human beings behind it to begin with. So we might set something in motion algorithmically that gets out of our control. Uh but there's always was a human power behind it. Human powers interact with spiritual powers. Um good and and bad. I believe that as as a Christian and and as a result of that, you've got a dynamism there between the influence of human nature on algorithmic potential potentialities, but you've also got spiritual powers at play that can easily manipulate those systems for lack of a better word and it's probably the best word demonic ends. And the one I really the one scholar or you know brilliant mind I look at to understand the real dark power that has emerged in particularly social media is Rene Gerard >> with his understanding of the proclivity the kind of tendency of human beings towards scapegoating violence that is at a time of crisis in order to restore social order or to acrue some benefit to the social order itself we will assign somebody to be blamed and then form a mob and either cast them out or destroy them. But that is deep in human nature.
And I think that you really really see it manifesting itself in social media in a brilliant kind of new form. And it's its brilliance is that we can evade responsibility from being part of the mob. Uh algorithmically you can do that.
the anonymity of the uh of the internet protects you and also you can create pseudo or fake mobs that can can be extremely destructive. But what Gerard identified and he called it Satan. He called that tendency in human nature.
That's the Satan. That's the Satan accusation, expulsion, destruction. Um that's that power. And it's it's I think it was latent in the early algorithms, but now it's it's obvious. It's it's become blatant. Well, we can form mobs now in ways that don't require geography, right? I mean, to to form a mob in the past and and it's not as though we haven't and mobs haven't done enormous damage in the past. They that's been a problem throughout all of human history. But you at least had to get everybody together in one place in order to do it.
>> Yeah. And now the mob is geographically disambiguated and people are able to you know people who never will actually meet in person will never actually have any responsibility or accountability to one another uh in the real world and in fact in some cases may not even actually be humans >> right >> are able to come together and form the kind of social pressures that mobs >> perform. Where do you see that happening the most in the kind of the current moment in this country in this culture in terms of social media? Where is it happening?
>> Yeah. Or or what is the scapegoat? What what kind of scapegoats are we seeing emerge right now?
>> Well, you know, choose one. Basically, it's dealer's choice in terms of who the mob wants to choose at any particular moment. It's just that we're all in danger in the social media media environment of becoming a scapegoat.
>> Yeah. Um and uh so that's also this has kind of escalated this the scapegoating dynamic into a new form because smaller community, smaller mob, it was usually kind of a a caricature, a type.
>> Yeah.
>> Um and then that zero in on that somebody who appears different, the outsider, something like that. But I and now it's just like as I said, it's Steeler's choice. I don't know. I don't know who's g I don't know who it's going to be next, but it's gonna be someone.
>> It's going to be someone and somebody will be assigned that role and and they choose it.
>> It's rapid tribe formation.
>> Exactly. Exactly. And it's a rapid social cohesion around a scapegoated victim. M >> uh somebody who's going to bear responsibility for the crisis in the culture or the crisis in the group and then in their expulsion or in their destruction um uh they're going to be there's going to be a sweet blessed relief that comes over us that they're finally gone >> and then we'll immediately form into a new tribe and go scapegoat someone else.
>> That's the escalation of of the scapegoating what drug called the scapegoating mechanism. It's just like it's almost like you get a buzz from the relief that comes from it. and and he said primitive religion saw that as the gift of the gods that the sacrifice was accepted because the disorder or the disarray of of the the civilization of the society oh it's been it's been taken care of this was they the gods accepted our scapegoated sacrifice order has been restored but what they discovered is there's constant need for sacrifices constant need for victims victim after victim after victim in order to keep this thing going um and man what social media can do is we can have a new victim every day and have the the catharsis of the of of of the social order being restored every single day. So that's I think the danger and I and again I I think it's a satanic danger. It's it's like it's precisely the type of thing the devil wants and it conforms with the spiritual characteristics of the evil one that our spiritual traditions identify. accusation, the assigning of of a of a victim, expulsion, destruction.
There it is. There it is. And yet you've built word on fire over the last 25 years. You've you've spent your entire professional life at ground zero in the emergence of this, you know, new media form. How do you leverage that for the good? See at the beginning I looked at this as as technology akin to the Roman roads. So when Paul went out with the gospel that was facilitated by the fact that there was a technological innovation in the Roman Empire. Well there actually two one was the roads and then the ability of those roads to be communication devices. So people and goods could move but information >> and and the thing is so thus we have Paul's letters going to all these different places. I don't think at times Christians and others appreciate what an innovation that was.
>> Yeah.
>> That that ability to communicate that way to these distant areas, but also for him to move and the gospel moved with him and then the faith was propagated.
And that's the way I looked at it. I was like, "Wow." And it's like, we're not going to be constrained. This can go all over the world. We go all over world with the gospel. But it's like my naivity was, you think the devil wasn't looking? Do you think he wasn't seeing the same thing?
>> And and his religion, this satanic scapegoating religion, propagated itself just along with the gospel. And at times it's become the big bigger religion.
Yeah. One of my observations is that the damages that uh accompany every technological advancement tend to be front-loaded.
>> And so the printing press comes along, you get 30 years of sectarian violence in Europe, right? We put God's word in the vernacular. People read it for the first time and their takeaway uh isn't salvation in Christ. Their takeaway is let's kill each other.
>> Right >> now, you know, several centuries on, I'm fairly bullish, and I imagine you are too, fairly bullish on the printing press. Like, you know, once you once you sort of weather those horrible front-loaded consequences, you get to the point where there's a lot of good that emerges out of those same technological advances. is part of the mission of Word on Fire as that mission has I'm sure evolved over time uh to sort of seed the good in the hope that it bears bears fruit beyond whenever it is that we socially evolve to be able to endure those front-loaded negative >> concepts. I think it's parabolic for me.
It's like it's the it's the sewer. It's a parable of the sewer. So, we're we're we're casting out these seeds of the gospel into the culture, even into the church itself. And what's going to grow?
I don't know. I don't know. I know that if I start pulling up at the plants, I'm going to kill them. So, I've got to give I've got to give God his own time and have trust in the efficacy of his grace to work in people's lives. And that has happened. You know, I I don't want to I don't want to just stay on the like the catastrophic side of it. There have been spiritual fruits of conversion of repentance of of renewed lives that I have seen concretely all over the world as as a result of the work of Bishop Baron's apostlate.
There is that other side and you know and the thing is that you could look at that and say okay let's do a costbenefit analysis. You utilize this technology it it can go wrong. You could create a Frankenstein and who's going to just run a muck. But there's a satanic temptation in that too, which is just do nothing.
>> Yeah.
>> Just do nothing. Just keep it peace.
Keep your peaceful. Keep it the way it was. Keep it quiet. Don't risk anything.
Don't go out. Just stay at home. Mind your own business. Let God just take care of it in his own way. uh who do you think you are anyway to be kind of proposing anything innovative or new?
Those are all I think devilish temptations.
>> Yeah.
>> And it's it's just like you've got to kind of be centered yourself spiritually in order to enter that space where you're going to accept the Lord's challenge and go, "Yeah, a big risk is coming and there's going to be a I'm going to have a battle on my hands." Um, and there's going to be a battle, you know, not only be as I said earlier, not against human natures, but of also spiritual natures. But this is what the Lord wants because he he said, "Go out with the gospel." He said, "Take this out in go to all the nations. Preach to all the nations." Well, you think all the nations are going to like this? You know, of course they're not. But you're to do it. And so I I look at it that way at this point, but I'm much more attuned to the fact that I'm beginning to think that the church's exorcisms rituals are dated. They they were created for preodern situations where techn technological in innovation was much lower. And now we've got higher technological innovation and we haven't really come to terms with how do you cast out evil spirits from that. So, it's like we have to I think we have some catchup to do in terms of what this technology intends and what it can actually do that's negative that's even satanic.
Well, the the things that man makes it strikes me uh contain and and in some ways amplify all of our virtues and all of our flaws.
>> Yeah.
>> But unlike man, they aren't redeemed.
And so, you know, man as a creature is deeply flawed and contains great virtue and great opportunity for virtue. We have the benefit of now being indwelled by the Holy Spirit in Christ. We're we're made new creations. We're redeemed from the worst possibilities.
>> Yeah.
>> Toward the better possibilities, but the things that we make don't have that don't have that benefit. And so, in a in a funny way, you know, I'm I'm fascinated by this idea that we play a co-creative role with God. that the part of God most identified with man is also the part by through whom all things were made and apart from whom nothing was made. In other words, that the part of God that he most identifies with man is the creative part. That before sin even enters the world, he gives man a co-creative function to name the animals, to shepherd, >> to have children, >> to have children, to be fruitful and multiply. These are uh I think even if you bring that into the modern sort of like quantum scientific concept, you know, we we begin to perceive even on a scientific level that even through observation just our existence may be continuing to create >> to continuing the creation that God himself uh initiated. And so obviously my background is similar to yours and that we've both created media companies uh that have gone on to do quite well and we've both played at this intersection of new media and technology and mission. you know, my mission was political whereas yours is uh theological.
But we've I suspect that we both are motivated in many ways by the the sort of idea of continuing to to help expand, you know, the gospel throughout creation, which is itself a creative act. I do wonder though when we talk about new media as a tool, when we talk about, you know, social media as the roads and yes, the roads were used to promagate the gospel as well as as all kinds of evil. I do wonder though if we're in some ways uh treating ourselves as though we are um only passive participants in something when in reality we have innovated in the space both you and I and and others who do what we do. We didn't just show up and Caesar had built some roads. We've helped to build the roads. Yeah, we've I imagine you have an entire team dedicated to figuring out at any given time which way uh the algorithms are moving, how how you can best, you know, create content that will best be carried along on those uh by those winds, how you can turn sales in such a way that it might pull the winds in in directions that they're not ordinarily blowing. And in that way, we've we've given tools to the enemy as well that the enemy didn't already have.
>> Of course. Of course. And and that's h in the spiritual exercise of St. Ignatius when you're starting those spiritual exercises and usually it involves a like a month-long retreat.
And at the very beginning, you're faced with a conscious and deliberate decision that you have to make in order to advance in the the spiritual exercises.
And that is there's two kingdoms and there's two banners. One is the kingdom of Christ and one is the kingdom of the devil. You have to choose right now.
There has to be utter clarity of which banner >> you're under, which king you're following. And that is the challenge of the work that Word on Fire is doing. It's like which king are we actually serving in this?
which banner are we actually under in this? And it's it's for me it's this intense dayby-day examination of conscience >> with all the deliberate decisions, many of which are businessoriented, of trying to discern, wait a minute, is this the right banner?
>> Yeah.
>> Um and sometimes I get it wrong. Uh but that's that's human finitude. That's that's human sinfulness. Um that's what I have to repent about.
You know, this was a this is a while ago when when we we began to see the kind of demonic potentiality happening in the in in the social media space. Bishop Baron came to me. He's like, "What's this all about?" like the way these these people are acting and and how they're leveraging religion and our religion for for like like nefarious or malicious purposes.
And I said with a smile on my face, but it kind of he kind of listened to it, you know, took it in a different way. I said, "Well, you started it." And I didn't mean he started the bad thing. I meant that as soon as we made our first YouTube video and set along this past path, other people were watching and when they saw what in the worldly terms would be understood as success.
Wow. Wow. And even even out the the best intentions of wanting to serve Christ and wanting to serve the church, they set on the same path.
Um, and so it's it was that was my insight, you know, it's just like, well, you know, we kind of started this thing.
>> It's Michael Kane's Alfred talking to Batman and the Dark Knight about the Joker. Like, if you decided to change what the rules were. Yeah.
>> So, of course, the bad guys, we're also going to change what their rules are.
>> Right.
>> You know, one of my favorite passages of scripture is it's for freedom that Christ has made us free.
And I find that to be the most liberating passage in the text uh as a as an entrepreneur, as a as a creative because what it tells me is the the freedom to be right, which is certainly the ultimate freedom that we have in Christ. You know, when we were under the law, we were powerless in regard to righteousness. Now that we've been freed from the law uh in faith, we can be joined to the righteousness of God in Christ. And so of course it's the it the first freedom that we have in Christ is the freedom to be righteous.
But the word freedom isn't accidental.
Accompanying the freedom to be righteous is the freedom to fail. It's the freedom you you also have now salvation from the failure.
>> And to me that means that you have the opportunity to take risk. Mhm.
>> You you talked about this a minute ago and it really resonated with me that there is a temptation for Christians to remove themselves entirely from the world or to attempt to. You can't actually do it. Mhm.
>> It's a it's a flawed premise, but there's an attempt to sit out the great conversations of our time or to sit out the great struggles of our time to say, well, I'm going to focus on the kingdom, which as a sort of abstract concept, and not focus on the actual events of the world because necessarily to engage with the challenges of the world is to fail.
>> You know, you have you've chosen the wrong banner. There have been times when you wrongly ordered the priorities. You know that the you you know that there you premise and it's my premise too is that uh if I were to use my own words to repeat what you said is that when rightly when our priorities are rightly ordered the business priority is an incredibly important priority.
>> Without it your mission can't succeed.
You have to be not only making social media content, marketing social media content, the social media content you make has to be great. It has to be effective. It has to be um timely in the sense that you know there's moments on the internet where long form content works. There's moments in the internet where only short form content works. You have to be where the thing is working in order for your mission to be successful which is to promagate the gospel by way of >> of media and technology. And so the business priority is not uh in opposition to your missional priority.
It's of urgent importance to your missional priority. But if it ever becomes the preeminent priority, then necessarily by definition, the mission becomes subordinate to the business. And the second you do that, you're flying the wrong banner.
>> Right?
>> But because you have freedom in Christ, you can you can set out onto that road at all >> in the first place. You can take the risk in the first place knowing that you will occasionally choose.
>> And it's devilish not to. And it's >> it's not that that's that's like >> that's the worst like the worst kind of spiritual disposition. That's that's you're succumbing to satanic temptation as I said earlier, you know, just do nothing.
>> Yeah.
>> Just do nothing or stay out of it, man.
And then what? And then what? Consider the implications of that. So to the extent that that you and I and and Bishop Baron to an even greater degree, to a much greater degree, we we choose to engage in the battle of truth, the battle of ideas, the the challenges of our time. We we choose to engage with the tools of our time, which are necessarily, you know, if you'd been born 500 years ago, you would have been, you know, print printing texts and printing the gospel.
But we're engaging with the tools that have been given to us right now. We see that those tools are also used as tools for evil. What responsibility do we have on a practical level not only for our own missions but as participants in this medium uh to change the medium itself to to try to evolve the medium itself to a place where it's you know where it weights more in favor of the good than it does of or or is my premise wrong? Is that sort of hubristic of me to even >> No. Uh because I think that there we're given marching orders in the gospel. And when when Christ reveals himself in his in his public mission, it's it's as if God has now arrived in the world to seize back territory that has that has been surrendered to evil.
>> And and his mission is about seizing back territory. And the territory is not just the geographical location. It's it's human souls. Like that's the ultimate territory that that's at stake.
And you look at his mission as he cures the sick as he casts out evil spirits.
Those are all territory seizing thing.
Even as he appoints disciples, as he's doing these things and sends them out, he's he's sending out others who can do the same thing.
That's integral to Christian mission.
That you're in a world that is enemy occupied.
It's enemy occupied territory. and and you're sent out to kind of take things back. I I think that and that and that there's a kind of back and forth that's happening throughout historical circumstances.
And so what we're what has to be part of what we're doing is these tools, these devices, these algorithms, um they can be intended for good or for evil. They can tend towards evil, but they don't have to tend that way.
If we do nothing about our own responsibility to at times seize it back from the dark powers or seize it back from the worst elements of the human natures, we're not through on our mission because certainly our mission isn't looking like Christ's mission who's is placing himself intentionally in these very difficult circumstances ultimately that looks like the cross >> and and what is that but this seizing back of of territory from the evil one.
Well, that's our mission, too. And so, if if we're given kind of guardianship or custodial authority over the world that is coming to us from Christ to make the world more Christlike, it's like, well, you you better get ready.
>> Yeah.
>> Because you're going to win some of these these battles and you're going to lose some of them, but you just can't stop. And maybe that's why, you know, some Christians kind of despair it. It's that you you you're not being told that in your time and your life there's going to be perfect resolution of this.
You just have to sign up and you have to get in there and you have to fight.
And and and it might seem to people, well, this is trivial. Fighting over algorithmic potentialities. This is nuts.
But then I just think that that's just a a narrowing of the mind, of the imagination, of a sense of reality. No, no, no, no. This is important because it's meant to serve higher purposes.
It's meant to serve a more transcendental purpose. It's meant to lead to human flourishing.
If we don't stand in the way of oppositional forces that don't want those things, who else will?
>> Yeah. You know, this is something that that I appreciate about Catholicism as a as a Protestant is that there's so much history, you know, there because Catholicism has weathered so many centuries, it has a better sense generally, I find, or Catholics have a better sense generally, I find, of that very premise you just suggested, that we that we are creatures in time and of time.
uh we're neither at the beginning of the story nor likely at the end of the story. I mean I I suppose we don't know the answer to that fully, but at either in either instance the the story is not ours to complete, it's God's to complete, >> right?
>> And so, you know, it I think there is a kind of evangelical temptation because evangelicalism, American evangelicalism is a very modern construct. Um, and so there's this kind of obsession with the end, you know, that we're that we're going to have a victory, that we're going to achieve it or it will be achieved in our lifetime, that we'll live to see the resolution of all of it.
And it it strikes me that part of the wisdom of Catholicism is to say, "No, we're going to deal with the problems of our time." And more than likely that's just going to be another moment that people look back on and see that you know the struggle continues in every lifetime in every generation. Yeah.
>> And ultimately history is gods to >> unfold and resolve.
>> When Catholicism was building the great temples of Europe in the 13th century or in the in the medieval period and they're raising up these great Gothic and Romanesque masterpieces there that are not finished in a single lifetime. M >> um it I think there's a a shaping of consciousness in that type of endeavor.
It's like we're positioned in a particular moment to accomplish certain things and then we pass it off and then we let go of it.
>> Yeah.
>> And and that's the way the church is moving through historical realities. I think that in terms of of Catholicism, but also the ancient churches of the east, the Orthodox churches, is history is is both a benefit because you gain wisdom from it and that you you kind of understand yourself and the human condition better because you have all these reference points and that those are good things. You see it in the saints and there's al lots of scoundrels, too. But you you got to put it all together and then you then you have wisdom. But it's also a burden because you kind of know things are are likely not going to work out all the time on your terms for what you think the greatest good's going to be.
>> Um and you're going to have to kind of let go of that egoism that sees kind of your passage through history as this absolute sense of control. Like it's it's just not. And so for like and like I you know use the reference of a cathedral it's not it's like if if if you have a Christian movement like evangelicalism is just hundred years old that seems like a big span of time 100 years but in relationship to from the apostolic period from now it's like for Catholics and Orthodox it's like that's a fraction of the time that we've had on this in this kind of historical theater and it just gives you a perspective and I think I mentioned mentioned to you earlier today. When we're at our best, the Catholic and Orthodox churches offered to the younger Christian movements a a a conscience, >> a sense of conscience, uh an ordering of the conscience to be able to look at things kind of not through unrealities because the people who put up these huge temples to God in these cathedrals that are going to take hundreds of years, you know, you can't accomplish that. It's not the same type of reference of value as it is to put up a strip mall.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is is is goes up quickly and disappears almost as as fast. Uh so that that's the perspective that the the more ancient churches can offer that I think it's a value. It's a value to us all. Certainly you've because of the kind of work that you do uh in two regards. one because you've spent your career as um sort of the man behind the man in the sense that you've helped build the the apostlate on behalf of Bishop Baron, but then also because you are a public figure in your own right because you've not only been a a backward fa or a behind thes scenes CEO, but you've >> you're an on camera guy. You appear in the content produced by Word on Fire. Um because you've also raised up in that work other people who've become public figures by way of the media that you've created over time through word on fire.
You've you've had access to this idea of influence >> and the corros the corrosive effect that influence has on the influencer. I won't ask you to badmouth your boss and I think very highly from afar of Bishop Baron but uh what I know about Bishop Baron not knowing him on a personal level is like I know he has bad attitudes. I know that he has selfish tendencies. I know that he uh you know he's human.
>> He's a human being. And so all the things that are common all all the flaws that are common to us all are common to him. And you add to that the position that he holds and the the corruption that that that kind of um you know we talked before the show started I think wealth, power, fame and pleasure.
>> Yeah.
>> You know he's certainly attained to a level of of influence and a level of fame that um does have a corrosive component to it. And so have you in your own right and so have many of the people who who you've raised up. So have I. So I'm I'm not saying this as an outside critic. I'm saying someone with firsthand experience both in helping you seeing my my own profile and and position in the world increase through media helping other people who've become incredibly prominent in media uh on their journeys as you've built Word on Fire. Has that been a open conversation that you've had with Bishop Baron and with the influencers whom you've helped to establish and and with yourself? Is this something that you guys were conscious of from the onset and built uh and built guard rails against? Is it something that has surprised you in your own life and caught you unawares? How how I ultimately the question is how have you dealt with this in a way to not let it overwhelm you as it's overwhelmed so many people who've >> Yeah. started down this kind of path in the past.
>> You know, um, Bishop Erin is a human being. So, he has he has he has all the the great qualities of humanity, has all the weak qualities of humanity. But one of the things that helped him is that he didn't start this his his public ministerial work in media until he was older. Mhm.
>> And so that he had time to be in a sense challenged, seasoned, uh um he had time to fail, to succeed, to all all these types of things. So that there was a sense of character and a sense of self that had developed and and Colonel George, which was who was uh Bishop Baron's mentor, was very clear on that, like you're at the right time of life to do this. Like any any time earlier, it wouldn't have been right. And in terms of of of myself, it's the same thing.
It's just like I I didn't come into this, you know, just right out of the seminary type of thing that there was time and and I spent a lot of time kind of finding my way and coming face to face with my shortcomings and weaknesses. So that once you're in the thick of that, you draw upon the reserves of it. It's just like you've got you've got that banked.
>> Yeah. And so that you can kind of kind of negotiate with these realities, those temptations of wealth, pleasure, power, and honors because you know those things aren't evil things. Those are things that become evil because of human inclinations. Um so as you alluded, if you're going to do missionary work, you got to have resources. They've got to come from somewhere, >> right? Um, and whether you're going to make them yourselves by sending setting up some type of retail platform or somebody's going to give you money, you're going to be tempted in terms of of that those resources of am I going to spend this rightly and things like and you're going to have to set up systems in in place that are going to kind of hem in the batter elements of of human nature across the board. In terms of my own like public nature of this, I oftentimes tell people that be because I'm not I'm not the public facing personality of of Word on Fire. I say if you think of Word on Fire is a horse. A horse has a front end and a back end.
And Bishop Baron's the front end and I'm the back end. And the thing is, but if you don't have a front and a back end of a horse, the horse can't move. It can't run. And so that a lot of people don't pay attention to the horse's ass and they pay attention to the front of the horse, but it's it's needed to work. So there's been a kind of symmetry in our contributions to Word on Fire.
>> But I would imagine that for you personally, it's an interesting tension because while you've been the horse's ass, >> um, >> you were the god king. I'm the horse's ass.
>> Lower case. Lower case.
Well, while you've been in that role, sort of subordinate to Bishop Baron, not only in in the nature of the role, but also in the the sort of honors and uh fame that accompany the role.
Nevertheless, after 25 years on, you've developed your own brand as well. And so, I'd imagine there's a there's a tension. You know, the the ego can be challenged by being in a subordinate position, but then the ego is also gratified as your own position has raised. And and I think ego is like one of the great even ego isn't evil. We're motivated in many times by ego in ways that are that put us on paths that we need to be.
>> Michelangelo had an ego.
>> Michelangelo had an ego. Nevertheless, ego is one of the things that can pull us down very dark paths. Sure.
>> If we're not careful both both in seeing our ego be subordinated and in seeing our ego be elevated. Both sides of that are >> present challenges. And so you you've wrestled, I would imagine, with both ends of >> Oh, sure. and and I have more of um entrepreneurial temperament. I and I have a a CEO temperament >> which makes me less conflict averse.
>> Mhm.
>> And if if where my ego is going to assert itself, it's going to be there.
Um because where my ego is going to assert itself is and where I've been restrained or had to restrain myself is, oh, you want to fight? Well, we can have a fight. Uh but if if I had gone down that dark road, it would have been utterly destructive.
>> Yeah.
>> Do you give advice to other >> people seeking influence on how to navigate these challenges when they present themselves?
>> When it's priests, I usually I usually tell them they're too young.
>> Yeah.
>> I say you you've got to give yourself time. And and it's just like and also um this isn't faith-based entertainment.
Like this is evangelical mission. And if you I said you can succeed and you get lots of views for faith-based entertainment, but that's not evangelization >> that that there there's a distinction.
So the goal is not to become an influencer personality. The goal is to become a missionary. The goal is to become an evangelist. And those are different. I think at times we're we're off the rails because the the the faith-based entertainer or or the the the faith-based celebrity path seems a little bit more lucrative and easier to manage because the demand is far less in terms of the ego.
>> Yeah.
>> Um and I I also think that that's probably one of our problems. And it's not just in the Catholic space. It's it's I think it's throughout the Christian um social media space.
Well, I agree with this that we're surrounded by influencers who are influencing the world for ill. And quite often, it's not because their mission is to do harm. It's because they've misordered those priorities we were talking about earlier. Business priority or ego priority have become the dominant priorities. And therefore the mission actually becomes the tool for the advancement of the other two. And so you see influencers who end up you know uh espousing some of the ugliest ideas that exist in the world because they get clicks because they get fame because they get money. And I I've said before that the problem with trying to wield cynicism for personal gain is that spiritual forces are not wielded. They are the wielders.
you if you make I've seen people wield anti-semitism who are not themselves anti-semmites but they see that anti-semitism is in vogue on the internet u and in service of their own ego in service of their own bottom line they begin to wield anti-mitism as a cynical move but the but the problem is they always end up being anti-semites not because anti-semitism motivated them down the path but because when you try to wield dark spiritual forces the dark spiritual forces has willed you back.
>> All these I will give to you if you bend down and serve me. If you look at the temptations to Jesus, >> I mean, we kind of I think it often times we Christians, we hear that story and it's like, wow, Jesus had a tough time, you know, you know, with that. The story is meant to be told for us, >> right?
>> Every single one of those temptations, those satanic temptations, we're meant to see those are the things he's tempting us with and we give into them.
tempted as we are tempted.
>> Yeah. And the things what's extraordinary about it and what what and the story is is is is making us come to terms with how different he is. He doesn't give in.
But when we face those things as our point of reference that story, does they even come to mind? It's like, wait a minute, who am I really engaged with here?
>> It's not just my ego at that point. It's a dark spiritual power. And if you give into those things, he is the master of your life. and the things you think you're going to benefit from it, he will use the very things that he gives to you to destroy you. And he'll laugh laugh all the way at you for ex for receiving it. And you think that that's been happening throughout all of human history, different forms. Uh is it happening online in the social media space? Damn right it is.
>> Damn right it is. And it's damnable.
Um, I just think at times, Jeremy, that we have at times a very, very limited understanding of how dark spiritual powers engage the world and engage human beings. And we've kind of created like a Hollywood version of it that this is what possession looks like. Like, and it's and it's it's kind of like all these weird behaviors of crawling on the ceiling and and all this type of stuff. I'm not dismissing that that the devil could affect those types of things, but that's not how he acts most, you know, and that's not what possession really kind of looks like just simply like that. It looks like I give into him and then suddenly he's in charge and I think I'm making the decisions, but he's already made them for me. Because that initial time when I just said, "How about I just lie online?
How about I just lie about something and I'll just follow through with it." And look at look what I'm getting. I'm getting a benefit. I'm getting a benefit. It's just like once you did that, you didn't just give into yourself. You gave into you gave into the devil.
>> And it it is just going to play itself out on that trajectory.
Do you think when you look at the current state of political and social discourse in this country online, social media primarily?
Do you think that Catholicism has a unique weakness in its immune system that makes it difficult for the church to deal with ascendant influencers doing evil in the name of the church?
>> Yes. And and I'm gonna I'll I'll give you an insight of why I think the church has become weakened in that regard. that since even before the the late60s and the cultural revolution of the late 60s even before that the church has been in a civil war and it's kind of the the the kind of it's a division in the church between Catholics who construe their faith as moving leftward in a politically progressive direction or a culturally progressive direction and others who view it moving into a oftenimes radicalized traditional traditional direction and that civil war has been going on for at least 60 years at least.
I could probably chart it back even farther than that. But that that constant state of warfare of civil war in the church has weakened the church.
>> It's weakened its ability to do its mission. It has it has created an innovated an innervating spirituality in which we're not you don't see saints emerging >> um as as it was in previous centuries.
We're not creating things the way that the Catholic faith created things historically because our energies are are in this fight. And where it's become really really bad right now is that the people who are positioned in as on on the sides in the civil war are now war profiteeers.
They profit from it. And therefore they're not going to let go of it.
They're not going to let go of that division. And they're they're not just in the Catholic influencer space.
They're in the Catholic media space.
They're in our parishes. They're they're in the hierarchy. It's just like that civil war is not being allowed to be resolved.
Um, and you know, I I think that St. John Paul II for his part, Pope Benedict for his part, and subsequent pops are been trying to deal with this thing, but it's it's kind of intractable at this point. And part of the reason it's intractable is what I said. You can profit from it. And they do. and and and they they get a life out of it. They get energy out of it. Um they can they can form spheres of influence around certain influencers and they can leverage that civil war to whatever nefarious ends they have. Um but that's why I think the church is particularly weak right now.
And as I said to you, it's not just in the social media space, it's across the board. And until the ca Catholic Church kind of deals with that internal issue, um we're just not going to be able to do, I think, with what the Lord wants us to do. Um particularly when you've got a continual battle going on uh between temporal powers and spiritual powers. And the church has historically, whether people like it or not, has been in the thick of that.
Um, and it's been at its best when it hasn't been so divided against itself.
But in as much as as we are, well, we don't have a lot of power to deal with this. And and I would extend this to the relationship of Catholics and evangelicals, which for many years, particularly from the time of John Paul II, it was something I think that was a really positive development that Catholics and evangelicals were were were in dialogue with one another. there were common we had we had common understandings of of certain things.
We're able to work together towards common ends. I think that's being threatened right now.
>> And it's by the same people who who who want the civil war in the Catholic Church to continue. It's the same type of attitude. It's like let's revive all the types of arguments um that were characterized uh uh by um Christian leaders during the wars of religion. really we're going to do that right now? It it's like you're turning you're turning the entire project over to the worst forms of of secularism and they'll destroy us. They've proved to have that power. Um because you know I look at it I look at the cultural Marxism that has kind of is now captivating an ever younger generation and I'm thinking are we going to be missing an action? And and I look at my own church and I'm saying we can't fight this alone if we don't have allies.
>> Yeah.
>> And and that's to my friends in the evangelical movements. That's that's been my message to them is that you can't fight this alone. And if you think that the battle is somewhere else, you think the battle is in in us kind trying to just lose ourselves in the reformation controversies. Not that that shouldn't be part of our dialogue, but we can't be all about that. It's just like if you think that's what we're going to do, you're going to go down, too.
>> I I don't know if I I think I got off on a tangent there, but >> No, it's a good tangent. America is exceptional in the sense Well, America is exceptional in the way that we use it colloquially that America has accomplished ex extraordinary things. We use exceptional to mean extraordinary.
And it's true that America has essentially invented the modern world.
The system that was put in place in this country empowered growth and innovation technological and economic in ways that had not been unleashed previously uh in human history. But American exceptionalism in its more traditional uh application means that America was an exception that we were the only nation that had been founded in the way in which we were founded. that we weren't uh we weren't primarily not we weren't at all but we weren't primarily a place and a people in the same way that Britain might be or that France might be um because we were a settler project a European settler project um in a in a distant land but that we were a place and a people yes but with a particular set of ideas and that we would organize around those ideas and those ideas are what allowed a person in the Pacific Northwest of Germanic des or Dutch descent probably more likely and a person in South Florida of Spanish extraction um and a person you know a a wasp up in New England to all be Americans when in any normal point in history there'd be entire nations with completely separate languages completely separate ethnicities completely separate traditions >> you Europe and America are roughly similar in size and yet Europe is dozens of countries and America is a place because it organized around these ideas which made it exceptional. One of the things in addition to all that economic progress, in addition to all that technological progress being unleashed by the American exception, uh is a kind of ecumenical spirit wherein you know your church in particular has a very bad history with the Jews in Europe and yet in America Jews and Catholics because they were both minority religious traditions on one hand uh and because they were both concerned with justice uh found themselves during the civil rights era for example being real allies to one another in many of those important struggles struggles that were happening in the country that was that's as exceptional as America becoming an economic superpower in less than 150 years and similarly Catholics and Protestants in this country particularly I think because of the sort of unifying uh evil of Ro of Roie Wade uh and and the abortion industry in this country found their way together in opposition to that great evil in a way that we had not really seen Catholics and and Protestants in Europe come together and find common cause and work toward common ends. And I think that's part of what's been historically beautiful about this country. And I I'm concerned as you are.
I'm concerned that as we stop thinking about America as what is exceptional about America and only start trying to force America to be perceived the way every other nation has ever been perceived that we're we're losing all of the benefits that that that exception put in motion in particular in particular around this sort of ecumenical and listen as you say the reformation arguments are important arguments you and I disagree about many important theological uh issues and in the right environment those are great. We should have an argument. I'll I'll pour some whiskey and we can have some great arguments about those things. And I don't and I don't even mean that in the sense of like those are just things to argue about when you're having whiskey. No, they're they're deeply important, >> right, >> issues. Of course, they are deeply important issues. Um, but the only people, it strikes me that the only people who would want us to be enemies on the basis of those issues are the people who believe that if they apply enough violence, one of our sides will win.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz only violence is going to bring about the premisy of one of our sets of theological ideas over the other. Uh, and man, I just think that to choose that kind of violence, to participate in violence when violence is thrust upon you, that's one set of that's one set of facts. To choose that kind of violence in an in a country with the kind of ecumenical history that this country has, >> it's to be choosed to be saved by the wrong blood.
>> Oh, that's good. We, our Christian faith came to us in a violent act of bloodletting and torture and violence that God took upon himself >> so as we would choose that blood. We choose that blood and that would be for the restoration of the human race and of the the the drawing together of all things in Christ Jesus. That's the blood.
But we Christians falter when we say this this revolutionary blood will save us. This war will save us. And it's where you know you talk about the American American experience.
Uh yes all that's true but at our very beginning we began in blood. We began in blood and it can't that blood's not going to save us.
It forged us as a nation, but that's not what's going to save the nation um any more than the blood that was was shed at the French Revolution.
>> That's not going to save. And and and the bloodshed that characterized Europe in the 20th century, which was a choice. It was the choosing salvific blood um other than other than Christ. And it look at Christianity in Europe right now. it's become in in many ways it's incapable of an evangelical act.
So it it's like we're we we are faced even as Americans particularly as as Christians in in America um and it's part of this great kind of social experiment um that has has brought wonders into this world politically, culturally, economically, technologically. He's like, "We we can't choose the wrong blood." And that's that's that's the way I look at it. And and that and you know, people ask me at times like, "Why a word on why word on fire? Why?" And I like because Jesus Christ matters and if we lose sight of him, the whole project is going to come apart. Um I remember uh I was talking to this was many many years ago.
Uh my niece had all these religious questions and things like that. Uh and finally it got to the conversation. I said I want you to try to imagine a culture that has never heard the parable of the prodigal son. I want you to try to imagine a culture that has never heard of the biatitudes.
I want you to imagine a culture that has never heard the passion narrative of St. John or St. Matthew or St. Mark or St. Luke. I said those things disappear and you think what you value most in life in this world that they're going to remain intact. It's like they're dependent upon those things.
>> That's right. And the thing is that as Christians, we are the bearers of those realities into whatever culture form we find ourselves. And when we falter, and we're seeing this in the West right now, when we falter in that, look what happens.
>> Because I am now living in a culture that does not know the parable of the prodigal son and does not know the passion narratives. And look at it. Look at the look at the dark kind of things that are happening. And it's like, is it any wonder? And that's where it strikes me. Yeah. That that's why there's a word on fire. That's why there's a word on fire. Word on fire has taken an interesting approach to its evangelism in that you seem less focused on ideas and more focused on actions and actors. Um, which isn't to say that you're not focused on ideas, but it seems to me in sampling your >> say my boss is focused on ideas all the time, you know, >> but it it seems that you have this like you I I've I've seen it referred to as like pivotal players view >> Yeah.
>> of evangelism. Um, I find that interesting in in a couple of ways. one, we we talked a little bit at breakfast about how neither of us while while we both appreciate apologetics, neither one of us is really called to that.
>> Yeah.
>> It's not our it's not our preference.
We're entrepreneurial. We're storytellers.
But I think you you see it in the in the work that you're doing as well that you're you're communicating Christ and his gospel through how it has how it has impacted the world and people and manifested itself in the world by way of people.
>> Yeah.
>> I think that's really interesting as you talk about this culture now because it is true. I've actually never heard anyone say it and it kind of made my blood run cold because as soon as you said it, I realized it was true. You know, we live in a country where for most of my life I've been able to say to my agnostic and atheist friends, you're the great beneficiaries of a Christian culture.
And now you look up and for the first time that probably is not wholly true.
You know, it's not just that people don't know the parable of the prodigal son. They don't know uh about Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence. that we've lost connection with any of the stories that made us a culture and that unified us including the stories that are >> that are that communicate truth but are not themselves factual Tom Sawyer as well as the stories that are true and therefore are factual like the story of the gosp the sunundry stories that make up the narrative of the gospel to think that we live in a culture that doesn't have even a cultural understanding of Christ and the history of the church and the history of the apostles and the parables and I mean it's incred it's terrifying on the one hand but then it makes me it makes me even sitting here appreciate the work of word on fire more that you are telling those stories you're personifying the effect of the gospel in the people who have who have promulgated it across time I wonder if >> yeah you know the thing >> it's not a question exactly it's more observation >> um there's a way of looking at looking at But when when wordify was at its beginning, uh, Bishop Baron and I would have these strategic meetings of how how how we can do this and and and one is one of the things he came up was lead with the beautiful >> because the truth often kind of can just generate into arguments and it becomes off-putting. Goodness I can can kind of move into moralizing and people people find that off-putting. We've got to find a route of access that people will respond to. So let's go for the beautiful. And so what characterized his first long- form documentary was let's try to make this thing as beautiful as possible. So let's go to all these beautiful places and things like that and lure people in through that. The second documentary series was like the the Christian way is a beautiful way of life and when you see it manifested at its fever pitch which is using the life of a saint um you you see something that's really beautiful. strange, odd, but yet beautiful. What's shifted in the past few years is with the um rise of postmodernism and critical theory is kind of acting as a juggernaut moving through our culture is truth is rejected.
There's no good goodness. There's no good good or evil. These are just kind of culturally determinative decisions that are imposed by people for reasons of power and things like that. But the the most horrifying thing that I've seen is now the transcendental, the beautiful is being rejected. It's been attacked and it's been attacked in historical forms. That's why we're tearing down statues and throwing paint on on on great works of art and things like that where you see that and and the culture just doesn't know what to do about it.
Like who would do this? But then it's the human person itself. The beauty of the human person is then being attacked.
I I want before before we go any further, I want you to tell me what beauty is in the way that you're using it because >> beauty itself is such a politically charged idea right now.
>> What when Catholics speak of the true, the beautiful, and the good. I I I I'll make it not even necessarily Catholic.
When when people hold up the the virtue of beauty today, they are very often referring to a very specific aesthetic from a very specific moment in time.
>> Okay. Yeah.
>> And I worry, well, I might even agree with them that that aesthetic is preferable to other aesthetics. I worry that it's actually obfuscating what beauty even is in the first place.
>> Like you're talking about like a nostalgic historicism. So, we look at a past a past form.
>> Well, that past form could be beautiful.
I think that there's something there's something I would Let me try to get at this and I hope I don't lose my train of thought. Bishop Baron's smarter than me.
So, I like you got the wrong guy to be working on this.
>> I'll probably understand your answer though.
>> God works in this world through secondary causes. He works in this world through secondary causes. his his interventions that at times in in in Revelation are direct but for the most part it's it's through a decision through this person through this sequence of events through this he he makes this these he chooses a secondary cause that indicates to me that in the greater metaphysics of creation there is an there is a reality of participation in the divine life by degrees by providential circumstances is by you know decisions that God has for ordained or chosen that he is communicating himself and therefore it's like we can look at the creation itself and we it evokes God we can the intelligibility of the world which in its and in its precisions and its sequences and things even if you break it down to the the subatomic levels it's beautiful it's beautiful that's a participation and something of the creator The transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty. Those are attributes of God.
God is the truth itself. He's goodness itself. He's the beautiful itself. So there it is. There there is. But it participate. All of creation participates in that. So that when the we say something is beautiful or something is true or something is good, it's a resonance with the creative will of God.
Um, in terms of the beautiful, I would say it's the luminosity of God's very being.
Thomas Aquinus has the attributes of the beautiful. I'm not going to go into that. My boss is the Aquinus scholar, not me. But it's the luminosity of of the divine life and it it it appears and then you you're like, "Oh, God." And that can be a sunset. It can be the pieta.
It it it can be your newborn child, but that's the beautiful and and we so we've culturally we've seen it in certain things. And my reference point before of where I'm concerned is we started to destroy those things.
>> Yeah.
It it's like there's there's there's like we got to this work of literature, destroy it, distort it, change it, take this out, do this a painting, uh tear it down, put it away, deface it.
It's like, okay, what's the real rebellion here? What's the real postmodern rebellion that's going on?
It isn't just about against cultural forms that could be easily replaced by another cultural form. It's against God.
It's against God. Let's tear away all these routes of access. Let's tear at the fabric of the participation metaphysic and then we can set the agenda.
Then we're finally free.
And >> I I just think it's dangerous. And and it's one of the things that were, you know, word on fire that I've had deeper conversations about. We employed a particular evangelical strategy was to lead with beauty. I didn't expect 25 years ago that people would start tearing down and destroying beautiful things.
You know, when you when you say that that first documentary, it was so important to you to go to beautiful places, >> beautiful cinematography, imbue the the work itself with beauty.
It strikes me that perhaps that is part of what beauty is, that beauty is in part intention.
>> Yeah. you know, when I spent several months in in Budapest uh in 2023 making a film and one of Victor Orban's great projects in Budapest was to take all the sort of brutalist Soviet architecture and reface it with more traditional Hungarian um facades, you know. And I will say if we were to call that rebutification of Hungary, I would certainly accept that framework.
>> Budapest today is you 50% of it's quite beautiful and 50% of it still very reflective of the Soviet brutalist sensibility. But to the extent that they've gone through this enormous project of refacing these buildings, it's made for one of the most beautiful parts of modern Europe. You know, it's it's on it it's tracking to be a Vienna.
It's tracking to be >> sure >> and that is uplifting. And when you walk the streets of Budapest today, you feel your spirit rise in response to the aesthetic beauty that's all around you.
And when you see the Soviet hotel or whatever that's still on the waterfront, it does not lift up your your spirit in that way. I hear political commentators, Tucker Carlson in particular, but certainly not exclusively, talk about how American glass buildings are deliberately built to crush our spirits.
And and I push back against that by saying, well, no, the truth is the Empire State Building is aesthetically beautiful, right? uh by a kind of American deco kind of uh perspective.
But if you work inside it, it's very dark. It's very claustrophobic. Whereas a modern skyscraper, you know, the the World Trade Tower, because of that giant glass and metal framework that makes it, light pours into it from all sides. And so walking down the street, one raises your spirit, but being inside of it, it's the other one that actually gives you something closer to an experience that you would want. You you want to be in the place where light comes in and where there's a view of the world around you and not just feel like you're you're working in a closet. And so in that when I say there's a a political game being played with the idea of aesthetic beauty, that's part of what I mean that we're we're taking things from one small vantage and ascribing to them enormous motives that probably don't exist. But I wonder if in reality beauty is in the ambition and uh risk-taking and spiritual harmonizing of the builder. In other words, I wonder if if what ultimately determines the beauty of something is whether or not the person set out to make something beautiful.
That when you when when Michelangelo first cut into the marble.
He was cutting into the marble to find the thing that God had put in there that that reflected back the beauty of >> of God. And when it's probably even possible that there are people out there who splash paint onto canvas in that same pursuit and while I may not appreciate the aesthetic choice, it it is nevertheless beautiful. And there may be someone else standing right next to that person who splashes paint onto a canvas. And while aesthetically they I can't I'm not discerning enough to distinguish between the two. One of them is approaching beauty and the other one is rejecting >> getting back to my earlier image. Which banner are you following? So in in the human project itself, which banner are you under? So we we're we're going to create things for wheel or for woe or for good or for for human excellence.
It's like what where's this where's this thing coming from? Um, and if if your first principle in your your creation of anything and and it can be a work of art, it could be your business, it could be is God and that's what's ordering you and that's the first principle. Well, the outcome is going to be very very different if it's something else.
>> Yeah. And I think that sometimes people will look at the kind of the monumental cities that that we build and they see monstrosity because they're wondering what the first principle is in that.
It's like what is that supposed to communicate now that it's like this the Tower of Babel? Like this is your way of of of storming heaven. Like what is this now? Now, it might not that might not be the intention of the architect or or of of the ethos or whatever it is, but people are interpreting it that that way because some people look at St. Peter's Basilica and they then they say that's evil. Look at the name of the pope on the on the top of the thing. That's wrong. You know, that's not you know, I would say you're missing the point of it. The first principle of that was not a human arrandisement. It was something else. Was there human grandiosity involved? Of course. But >> ego is always involved in the create creative endeavor. You wouldn't do anything.
>> Um but I I guess >> people are also reacting maybe to the culture that they're observing too.
>> I that's true. And I think that there's a there's a that's there's a symptom of retreat which is nostalgia.
It's just like so, so we look at these, you know, we look at these European cities that were built in another time and they're they kind of came out of very very different circumstances and we we imagine ourselves what it would be like to live there and sit at the cafe and things like that, not thinking about that, you know, these were all so created by frail, finite and sinful people and that with mixed motives. Um, and so what your your nostalgia, if you're going to try to transplant that into a different set of uh historical circumstances, you're going to bring all the sin with you.
So, and so I I just think that's that's that's when nostalgia becomes pathological. Um, nostalgia can be good.
You know, you want to remember your grandma and your and you want to remember things in history that that were good or edifying, but you we don't live in the past.
>> We carry the past within us, but we don't live in it. And also, there is a kind of for, you know, this is going to sound weird. There's a kind of post-modern sensibility in trying to create a a faximile of reality.
And so it's like we're not g everything becomes a simulation of a simulation of a simulation and you're getting farther and farther and farther away from reality. And if all we're doing is imitating past forms, we are in the post-modern mind space.
>> Yeah.
>> It's just like, you know, it's like you you'll enjoy Las Vegas because there's a there's a copy of the Eiffel Tower there. It's just like that's that's kind of what you're you're you're actually asking for. Um, to me it's get back to the first principle. Let the artist, the architect, whoever it is, get back to the first principle. If it's God, let's see where it goes.
>> Yeah.
>> But if you're in rebellion against God, uh, I'm worried about that.
I I think that you just hit on what a what a profound concept, the the simulation of the simulation of the simulation. and the Las Vegas has an Eiffel Tower and Las Vegas has an Empire State Building and Las Vegas has a pyramid of Giza.
>> Um, >> a classical building or Caesar's Palace or whatever.
>> But the you can say that those are sort of grotesque uh reflections of the reality sort of deliberately grotesque because of the nature of Vegas. But I do think there is something else at play which is if you rob a thing of its substance you can only reflect back its superficial qualities.
>> And so that ends up being true of nostalgia. It it ends up being true of great men. I I knew a great pastor, one of the great pastors of of the last hundred years. uh I had some acquaintance with and I watched as the people around him tried to emulate the qualities that made him unique and the problem is I didn't like any of those people because in their effort to to emulate his unique qualities which were very much on display they were outward facing they had failed to emulate the actual thing about him that was unique which was internal which was his >> relationship with God.
>> And so as a result, this particular pastor was famous for being um a great debater and like a nononsense, you know, he's the guy who you would want to go on CNN and debate three other people and man, he would he would bring it. And we all get to vicariously live through the fact that he fought, right?
He did this great. But of course, if you emulate that, you just become a bully.
Yep.
>> If you don't have the substance of the thing that was internally true, >> we got a lot of Catholic versions of that.
>> Like somebody wants to be the next Fton Sheen. Archbishop Fultton Sheen was one of the greatest evangelists of of the 20th century and a pioneer in media and they they want to they're they're going to set up their platform and they're going to do it. And it's like they're cruel.
>> Yeah.
that it's like you you're you're trying to you're you're not getting what made him possible.
You you're doing something else that but and getting back to our influencer question, it's kind of like people saying that they're Catholic and then doing reprehensible things. And by reprehensible things, I don't mean like great like it's scandal in its own way, but not the traditional forms of scandal because I just look at some again some Catholic influencers and all I hear from them is calumny and detraction and rash judgment, which for any confessor, anyone when priests are trained to kind of hear confessions, those are things that are identified as serious, if not grave sins.
like souls shattering sense and the glib way that those are employed for personal gain to attack others things like that without any sense of consequence but they're also the same influencers who are constantly harping on the judgment of God.
>> Yeah.
>> And it's like what are you missing here?
What are you missing here? And it and it's like in service of the mission. You can commit grave or serious sin and then hold people to a standard of the judgment of God that you yourself are exempt from. It's it's it's insane. And I'll say this and it's probably going to be controversial, but I I've been a priest for nearly 30 years and I've been Catholic my whole life. And I have never experienced the calumny and cruelty from a evangelical from a Mormon from a Buddhist from from a Jew that I have experienced from my own co-religionists from Catholics.
>> Yeah. And it's like what's going on here, you know, and I, you know, I searched at times I would search the scriptures to like help me with this thing, Lord. And it's like, what did you expect?
What did you expect?
>> What they did to me, they're going to do they're going to do to you. But the thing is, I don't think though that that's kind of just like a fatalism. I think it's a failing. It's a it's a failing in our own religion and our own you know Christian sensibility that there is no real corrective that's happening and in fact the behaviors are being rewarded and and what's what I then look at it's like who would take the Catholic Church seriously if they were to see what this person is doing to another human being or what this person is doing to the culture.
culture or to see like the Catholic Church would be a place that you'd find a spiritual home in when it seems like the condition for the possibility of being a member is to be cruel. Um, and you know, I'm speaking just from my own perspective of faith. I'm not going to speak for other other Christians, which I'm sure the problem is there, too. Um, but it beds me. It it it it it it tears at my soul to to see and hear that and how it is oftentimes unanswered. It's kind of allowed to propagate and it's justified. There is no question that humans are humans and humans in every tradition you you are going to find horrible behavior among humans of every tradition. But I I will also say that in this exact moment in which we're operating, there does seem to be a a version of this that is particular in this moment to Catholic Twitter or Catholic YouTube or Catholic, you know, >> Catholic the Catholic presence in social media. And uh that which is not to say that there aren't horrible Protestant voices operating in these spaces. And I mean probably there are no horrible Mormon voices. They're so much nicer than those are. But uh I'm not taking a tribal position that my side's got this thing down. Not at all. I just think there is an actual observable phenomenon taking place right now that is Catholic in um it's Catholic in self-identification if not in character. I would say it's not Catholic in actual character, but it's Catholic in self-identification.
And to my question earlier about the immune system of of the church and I thought your answer about the sort of political division within Catholicism in the 20th century being at very much at the heart of it. You know, my observation from the outside is also I would add to what you said that um the nature of Catholicism because it is centralized and hierarchial um because it is sacramental meaning that Catholicism is very much practical. It's very much, you know, to be Catholic is to do Catholic, >> right?
>> In in a way that is not true. You know, first of all, Protestantism obviously isn't monolithic in any way. One of the >> one of the, >> you know, common complaints about Protestantism is, well, there's 5,000 Protestant denominations. Fair enough.
But that also means that there isn't a thing called Protestantism.
Protestantism is a broad category of identities. It's not itself an identity.
It's not a structure. Whereas Catholicism is a structure. And because of that pro of Protestantism is if someone were to engage in some of the horrible behavior that we see among influencers online, I normally name names by being respectful to my guest.
uh many other people who identify as Protestant would repudiate that including people of prominence within churches. You know, top pastors and top evangelicals would would repudiate those people and wouldn't have any problem doing it because now, as I often say whenever I talk about this, you're very unlikely to go into a Catholic church and see a water slide leading to the baptismal font. you're very unlikely.
The next cult leader who has people drink a bunch of Kool-Aid and die almost certainly won't be Catholic. So, we've all got >> I hope not.
>> We've all got our problems, you know, and we all have weaknesses in the there are weaknesses in both versions of of how you structure this. But because Catholicism is centralized and it is hierarchial and because it is sacramental, I do think that it's very difficult for prominent Catholic voices, authorit let me not say prominent, authoritative Catholic voices to repudiate that behavior publicly when they see it. Because if the person is baptized and if the person uh takes the Eucharist and if the person um in other words is Catholic, it actually takes a much more specific set of failings before they can be repudiated by authoritative. Now that's that's an outside perspective.
>> It's an outside perspect and it's and I think you're on to something with this.
What what I would I would kind of enhance your understanding a little bit to say that Catholicism puts a stress on externalized forms of religiosity that are signs of kind of interior grace and spiritual disposition. So that you're baptized with water in this ritual.
You're anointed with this and accompanied by and it happens publicly and there's there's these rituals and they're all accompanied by a lot of a lot of to-do, you know. So, you can invest yourself in that aspect of Catholicism and appear to have integrated in your life the deepest principles of the faith and not do it.
But if you appear to embody the physical attributes, the like the form of it, you get credit.
>> Yeah. And and to me it's like, okay, that's where we have the same spiritual malady that afflicted pharisa at the time of of Christ. It's like you can appear to be righteous and you can get some measure of traction and authority out of out of appearing to be righteous, but what's inside?
>> Yeah. And what I I think is a where social media has exacerbated this problem, it has allowed a kind of Catholic laring liveaction roleplay where you can you can have an whole Instagram channel in which you're you're doing these Catholic things and you're showing but there's no substance of conversion or repentance that's on display there and it it makes it kind of much easier or that's the external sign of of a repentant dis disposition but you can't see what's interior to the person. So because of those external forms of religiosity having high value in the Catholic faith, people can fall into this pherisem and they can leverage it. And it's like it's not like the social media period is the first time this has happened. This has been happening for quite some time and it happens to all sorts of Christians. But >> yes, >> in in terms of Catholicism, that's one of the the dynamics at play here. It's why the crisis is king controversy was in many ways like a uh grotescery.
Is that a real word? It was a grotesque form. It was the Las Vegas uh Eiffel Tower of of like uh Christian proclamations because the the shape of it is exactly correct. Christ is king is yet yes and amen. Full stuff.
solemn solemn feast day in the Catholic Church. The feast of Christ, the somnity of Christ the King, acknowledging his his headship of all creation. And no Christian of any uh no Christian of any uh I I don't want to use denomination because I know that that's that'll get me in trouble with my Catholic friends if I call Catholicism a denomination. No Christian of any Christian tradition that any of us in regular life engage in would disagree with the statement that Christ is king would not.
If Christ is king is connected to as we've all seen it. I'm sorry if you say you haven't seen it. You're not operating in good faith. We've all seen it online. Christ is king. You Jew. If you once you connect those two things either explicitly, as is often the case, or implicitly, as is even more often the case, you are presenting a you're you're the Las Vegas Catholic creed. You're you're a you're a grotesque form of the Catholic creed.
What you're saying has the right shape.
What you're saying is true that it actually makes it worse that it's true that Christ is king. I mean, there's an entire commandment about not carrying forth the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
There's a reason there's a commandment for it. It must be possible to do so.
>> Tribalism online to bring us all the way back to the very beginning of the conversation. The sort of rapid onset tribalism that happens where we form instantly into tribes that we didn't even know we belong to until the scapegoat moment occurs.
>> Uhhuh. has ripped apart as you indicated the maybe not ripped apart but is ripping us under the relationship between evangelicals and protest and and Catholics in this country um is ripping apart the relationship between Christians and Jews in this country >> um those exact same pressures make because we're all more tribal and we actually are more all all under attack and our enemies do rapidly form into groups against us or our opponents maybe enemies is too strong a word although they tribalism makes us enemies it forces us in the position of enemies makes it to where it's very difficult to have an actual conversation about the Christ is king phenomenon with people because they will they will say immediately you can't tell me that I can't say Christ is king of course not I wouldn't want to you can't tell me it's anti-semitic to say Christ is king well that's a more nuanced question >> certainly it can be anti-semitic it isn't anti-semitic because the phrase is anti-semitic it's anti-semitic If you're wielding it for the purposes of anti-semitism, it's a tool. If you if you wield truth as a cudel, then it's no longer serving the value of truth. It's serving the value of >> hit over the head with a crucifix, but it ain't evangelization at that point.
>> That's right. God is great. But if I'm ever on a like if I'm on a uh a bus in um Israel and I hear someone shout it in Arabic, my first thought isn't going to be to say amen. I first thought it's going to be to hit the deck.
>> They're saying something that's true.
God is great.
>> But as soon as you tie it to this particular use case that we're all very familiar with.
>> Yeah.
>> Now you're beating somebody with with a crucifix.
>> It's getting back to also our postmodern dilemma. It's the simulation of something.
>> Yes. It's so that what is meant by Christ the king is discerned spiritually through how Christ fulfills the messianic prophecies and the very strange ways he does it which ends up with the his kingship being revealed and his crucifixion and then ultimately ratified in his ascension into heaven.
It's just like that's Christ as king.
Now I as I move in degrees away from that and and in Christian history, this hasn't been the first time we we've wrestled with this like oh but you know like our our sovereign of our particular tribe he's kind of like Christ the king you know so there's there's that and then move and move and move until you get to you said a tribal distinction.
Yeah. And it's just like what is the relationship between that statement and what I described as the revelation of Christ's universal and sovereign kingship over all creation. Can is that the assoc is that what you're saying?
You know, this is how he fulfills the messianic pro prophecies. This is how he displays his kingship and and I take it further and and the the the service. He he places himself beneath his disciples in service by washing their feet. He goes to the cross. He accepts torture and death on the cross. He rises on the third day and is ratified as the universal savior and lord in his ascension from heaven. Is that what you mean?
>> Amen.
>> Like I'm all in if that's what you mean.
But if if you're any degree of separation away from that, it's like I I don't know what you're talking about.
>> And God isn't fooled. He sees the heart of a man. The internal the internal can't be measured by me. And and thank God I can't measure the but God can measure the internal. And so you don't want me to say Christ is king because it upsets Jews.
>> No, I don't I don't care. The gospel upsets Jews and you have an obligation to proclaim the gospel. The gospel upsets not just the Jews. The gospel upsets all those who don't accept the truth of the gospel. The it's a sword. You know, salvation is in Christ alone by faith. I mean, we we draw near to Christ in faith. The faith of Christ saves us. Not our safe like not our faith. Even faith, he's the author and perfector of Christ is the alpha and the omega. Our only hope is in Christ. If you say that in a room full of people, those who believe it will say amen. those who don't believe it will be offended. That's not my my point isn't the effect of the words. My point is the intention of the wielding of the words because of what it reveals about the wielder making people uncomfortable with proclamations of truth. That's not that's neither good nor bad. It can be good and it can be bad. And if you're wielding it for one, >> probably it's going to lend tend toward that. And if you wield it for the other, it's going to be the other.
>> Yeah. You know, in the in the the ancient churches, in the Catholic church and the Orthodic churches, we had these men and women who went off on their own into these and it became they were hermits and then there were monasteries.
And what was that all about? And one way to look at it is that they they were they were learning Christian mastery of their interior in their their interiority, of their passions, of their desires. They they were going off in a place and they were going to I'm going to deal with me because I want to follow Jesus. I want to be his disciple, but there's a lot in in the human experience in the human heart. You have to contend with.
>> Yeah.
>> And so and it and and those who would were accorded kind of ultimately the title saint or spiritual master, it was recognized that they had they had they had dealt with it. They dealt with it.
and and those are the people that the church the churches should look to to illuminate the meaning of these things and how to use these things rather than but now you know any anybody can put up a shingle online put a rel religious designation on that uh uh shingle and and present themselves as a spiritual master and an expert and so that's that's kind of one of the dark I think sides of the the social media space. It is now from you talked earlier about the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
One of the things that you know Bishop and I have talked about have talked about is Bishop Baron and myself have talked about is when are the bishops going to wield their authority over social media? Like bishops in the Catholics have territorial authority.
So, so it's like in his particular dascese, Bishop H, Bishop Baron has a certain measure of authority over the people there, over the priests there, etc. And I'm like, you're you're a social media influencer and you're you're you're online and you're saying all these things and you're you're causing trouble or or whatever. Or even if you're just want to represent the faith, when does your bishop get involved?
>> Yeah.
>> And and say to you, you're out of bounds. Because believe you me, it happens to priests. It doesn't happen to lay people, at least as far as I know.
Um, and it's just like, did it did it historically?
>> Yes. But usually usually it was because of of some political struggle, you know, it was a it was something like that. But for the most part, it's the clergy who have borne the brunt of of episcopal authority when there's a problem.
because like I can't just go online and mouth off without a bishop being able to say I don't want you to do that and then I have to make a decision. Am I am I going to be obedient to that or not? And it's it's a life-changing decision.
But it it hasn't happened to the ley and it and I would say it's not a free speech issue like you have you have a right to go online call yourself a Catholic and things but in terms of the structure of the church you're under the authority of a bishop whether you're a priest or a lay person and and the thing is that and he has spiritual authority and he's the chief catechist the chief liturgist. He he makes those determinations. It's a great deal of of authority given to the bishop. And he's not there to reinvent things, but he is there to establish order so that the Christian community doesn't destroy itself in conflict.
We haven't really seen much >> of of an individual bishop and it would have to be dascese by dascese by dascese. There's there's no one except the pope would have a universal authority and it would be unmanageable for the pope to be making these types of declarations. But the individual bishop is you're in a dascese, you're online, you're doing all these things. Why aren't you answerable to that person?
And why isn't the bishop doing anything?
That to me is is a frustration and it's an open question. Are there conversations happening among American bishops for how to meet this moment?
>> I you know I think that Bishop Baron has tried to introduce them because he the Catholic Church is a gerontocracy too.
That's another thing. So it's usually one or two generations behind what's actually happening culturally, politically, etc. And in a sense that stabilizes the church because it slows us down. But it also becomes problematic because what happens when you're supposed to meet the moment and something needs to happen and people just don't really understand what's going on or they have a they have a vague sense of it but they're preoccupied with other things that they think are important because generationally they're 25 or 30 years back. So that that would be an insight and it's not an excuse. It's it's just an insight by the nature of the of having an institutionalheavy organization like Catholicism does.
>> There's a kind of revival happening among Catholics right now. I think >> like the the largest uh conversions in two decades or something happening right now. The largest number of conversions in the last two decades particularly among young men. We're still experiencing attrition, but the the general attrition >> general attrition is still significant, but the we had a we had a a large amount of of of converts coming into the church.
>> I I have a a a few questions around that. One of them is to what do you uh attribute that increase among that cohort? at at at any rate >> I think it's reaction to the cultural revolution that began about 2016 >> and if you look at there's a lot of stats on it a lot of young men are coming in which Catholicism has generally been more female oriented >> in terms of you know practice and and participation and things like that but this is we're seeing something different that's happening and I I think that um part of it is a response particularly by young men to a culture that was which was being disrespectful for them and saying giving them a lot more nos than yeses and they found something that was stabilizing and vivifying in the kind the the heft of like the Catholic tradition.
>> Yeah.
>> What about it gives you hope and what about it gives you pause? What's the what's the best possible outcome and what's the worst possible outcome? You remember in Acts of the Apostles when Paul has this conversion experience and it's really extraordinary and they basically he goes away for a period of time.
>> Yeah.
>> I think that that's that should be kind of built into and not just when Catholics or someone comes to the Catholic faith but the Christian faith.
We should we should allow that seed of repentance and conversion to grow and and give them some space. I I don't think it's nice to hear that. It's very edifying to hear the testimony of people who come into the church and their stories, but after that you you got to give them time to mature in in in the Catholic faith because you get kind of the bird's eyee view when you come in and then there's the lived reality of it and you it's like Paul, he had to figure things out.
Um, and like one of the things that would concerns me about it is that this robust kind of religiosity that emerges in the convert goes public too quickly when it it needs it needs some time.
>> Yeah. The zeal of the of the convert is always a challenge. And there's a reason we have a term fighting age men. Yeah.
>> Young young men are capable of well they're capable of great acts. They're capable of great acts for the good and great acts for evil. If you combine the zeal of the new convert with with the kind of rambunctiousness of of the young man and the the desire to act, uh I I one can imagine that that it could be a bad a bad mix. And I've never really >> I'd rather have people coming into the Catholic Church than having a a a cultural fight club going on. Well, yeah, because I I I do think that we're at that cross crossroads, you know, remember that that novel or that film Fight Club, of course.
>> And I I saw that movie and I was like, this is prophecy. Like, not only is this stating the truth of the culture as it is right now, it's it's saying like, you know, you create these conditions and here's the possibility. It's like you're going to create the conditions with possibility of mayhem of project mayhem all around you because you're not integrating males into the society in a way that they can actually be males or actually be human. And the things that's really really dangerous. It's dangerous when it happens to women, but it's also d particularly dangerous when it happens to men because the masculine energies have a tendency to create mayhem if they're not ordered. So if if it's a choice between the cultural fight club, which could break out at any moment given the cultural revolution of 2016, and I do think it was intended to incite that so that people could leverage that reaction to their political winds, um I'd rather have people going into the churches, be it the Catholic Church, be it the evangelical church, because there is at least structures that can order those energies towards the good.
>> Yeah. I saw a Um, I wish that I had written this down because it I I can't cite it exactly, but I saw uh a survey that had been done that said of young men who entered the priesthood in the 1960s and who now of course are in authority and you know large swallows of the church.
>> Something like 70% of them leaned politically left.
>> Yeah. and that of those entering the priesthood in the last decade, greater than 90% of them lean to the right.
>> Yeah, it's it's an interesting dynamic in the Catholic Church. And I would say that this kind of progressivism which was in influenced by political progressivism got into the Catholic Church because of our concerns about um um social justice. Okay. And uh and so that kind of enters in, but it it became unmed from a supernatural purpose and mission. And so that generation proved incapable of replacing itself. And it's one of their big frustrations is they've seen the younger men come in and they're all about a supernatural mission and purpose >> and and they're they're they're not like they're they they're absenting themselves from social concerns. It's their orientation of their life isn't towards a politically progressive framework. It's it's towards the gospel and it's towards these the supernatural realities that that shore up people's spiritual lives and things like that. And so it's as I said, it's interesting to see this dynamic as they they thought they were going to pass the baton to a generation like themselves and that is not what the Lord raised up. Yeah.
>> Um, and my thing about it is what kind of soured me on the on the progressive kind of uh version of of Christianity was particularly in terms of Catholicism is like I'm going to make this radical commitment. I'm going to say I'm not going to have a wife. I'm not going to have children. I'm not going to have a family for that. It's like I could just go become a social worker if that's if that's my ultimate concern. I don't need to be doing this. So, it's just without the supernatural orientation, it just raises a lot of issues with why would you embrace the gospels commands with any sense of urgency because it it's basically just subsumed into government social service programs.
Once those things are in place, there's no need for the church. Um, but it seems to me that's really part of the plan.
It's it's the completion of the revolutionary fervor of 1789. It's just like no throne, no altar. And and that means, you know, you get rid of the kind of political forms of the monarchy and the aristocracy and those older forms which were informed by Christianity, but then you get rid of Christianity itself.
And what you do, how you do that is you reduce Christianity first to ethics and then it it becomes a particular ethic that does not require the church. I've always believed that the the nature of the political left and I don't just mean political left in politics. I more mean the the meaning in electoral politics. I more mean um the the movement in the left to build structures in the world. Uh some of some by electoral politics and some by other means. It exists to bring about all of the promises of Christ apart from Christ.
>> Yeah. It's Fer Connor's um what was that? Wise blood. Her short story of the >> I don't know it. Oh, it's this this guy who decides he's gonna he's he's now founding a new church. It's the church without Christ.
And then the the the the irony of the story is he has to basically become Christ in order for this thing to even exist. So by the end of the story, and I'm giving the plot away, he's in this radicalized aestheticism in which he's basically making himself into a sacrifice so that he can be the Christ for the Christless church.
So it's it's it's really good. But when you said that, it's like, yeah, that that's it. No, anytime one of my ideas can be compared to Flenry Oconor, I'll take it. Uh but you know, in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek.
The left wants to do away with any sort of distinctions between peoples. There's neither uh male nor female. Obviously, they want to obliterate the line between >> Yeah.
>> Uh between the genders, you know, in in Christ, we don't there aren't those who want and those who there there aren't the halves and the have nots in Christ.
That's we are provided our sustenance in Christ, you know. And I think I think that they just looked at sort of all of the promises that might be found in Christ eventually and said, "Well, what if we could have the promise and not have the Christ?"
>> Right? I think that that's precisely the game.
>> And at the end of the day, only force makes that possible.
>> I just think of leftism as as um it's Christian esquetology realized in political and social forms.
>> So, so it's like it's the kingdom of God.
>> Um and so the thing is that how how are you going to have the kingdom of God?
Well, we're going to make it happen. And and so what would be kind of the utopian ideal of of the kingdom of God realized in a finite temporal form? That's that's that's that's progressivism.
>> Yeah.
>> In its worst kind of ideological form, but it's it's an esqueological movement.
And there's no God in it. It's all directed by human effort and and human kind of hubris, I'd say. But that's that's what it is. We don't need Christ.
We don't need the church. We can re we can we can do this.
>> Um and then just the body count begins.
Yeah. As because it demands sacrifices.
>> Yeah. It's it either demands the one or it demands all >> all. Right. And then we're back to the earlier part of our conversation. It's just the scapegoating mechanism just revived.
>> So you you don't you don't have the the ancient gods. You have these new gods which are these secularized simulations of the old gods but nevertheless that's what they are and they demand sacrifices from us. There's so much I still want to talk about. We've already gone we've had such a nice and long conversation but uh I'm so interested to talk to you about uh uh a kind of Catholic anthropology and how you know how that impacts a world of transhumanism, transgenderism and transhumanism. uh how we how those of us who've made our bones in uh social media look to future technologies like AI.
>> Yeah.
>> Um whatever whatever AI is because it's certainly not what the people the godless people uh >> Uhhuh.
>> who don't understand that God made the world for man uh and that God is also uh uh revealed in man and walked as man.
Uh they think that there's a future that isn't about man, which I think is hilarious. And I'm like I'm glad that they're the ones making computers because if you if you and I made computers, they wouldn't work.
>> They would not.
>> So I'm glad that those guys make the computers. But I do think it's funny that all the worst uh all the sort of worst um catastrophizing about AI >> requires you to set aside the premise that God is real and that Christ is real and that man is even real. But obviously an I think there's a a conversation there and I'd love your insight into it and I and I've wanted to ask you about your time as a bodybuilder and not only as a bodybuilder >> but as a but >> that's got me in so much trouble.
>> Well, this is what's interesting to me.
You've actually kind of become uh you've kind of become a figure in certain not gym bro but like workout media which I think must be must give you really unique insights into evangelism on the one hand. Oh, some of my my most profound acts of evangelization, experience of evangelization have happened in gyms.
Like I have and it's it's what's uncanny to me. It's it's outside of church. Like church has never been as active for me evangel evangelically than the gym.
>> It's crazy. It's crazy. But, you know, I only get get crap about the bodybuilding thing from my co-religionists. I move outside of the church and people think it's this is kind of really interesting and and they give me a lot of grace for it. But in the church, geez, I so much trouble and I, you know, and I was talking to one of my friends about it once and he because I was kind of down about it. He goes, "Yeah, but you know what? They they're really mad at you were pretty good at it.
>> Yeah. The worst the worst way to make friends is to succeed at anything.
>> Exactly.
>> Exactly. So it's all envy. But there is so much interesting about it because you know I think that there's a a kind of perception partic from from without certainly of the priesthood as being you know really about a sort of aestheticism or you know a kind of in a way that would make it seem a bit inongruous to have uh >> I don't think so I mean to to have it.
How do you integrate aestheticism in your life in a way that's practical and concrete and creative rather than destructive? That's been the challenge of the spiritual masters for centuries.
Like it's just like when when when I was bodybuilding, I didn't cease to be a Christian, you know, that that I took these these it was in a sense me taking these principles of aseticism in a particular direction. I I saw this as about a lot of spiritual realities and contending with a lot of spiritual realities. Um I didn't just see I and I saw it as the discipline of a sport. In a lot of sports that's what you that's what the athlete finds out.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know if you ever noticed but there seems to be like a prepoundonderance of of religious people or Christians who are involved in the athletic endeavors.
>> Yeah. It's it's amazing when you enter that world like how many they're deeply religious and and spiritually accomplished people.
>> I support a coach who's in Fellowship of Christian Athletes and he he helps young men through sport.
>> Yeah.
>> Find Christ.
>> Yeah. Because I think that there's an aeticism to that and where there's aeticism, there's an opening up to the transcendent.
And so like once you awaken that in somebody it it ultimately has to kind of find a god directedness or it just it just becomes poison.
>> Yeah. Yeah, there's like a Jim bro nihilism >> out there that is is certainly not the thing that we would want >> young men to move toward but but that can't mean and doesn't as you observe doesn't mean that mastery of the of mastery of the man mastery of the body is a negative >> I I think you have to give men that possibility in our culture or or we get sick >> that it it's not so much you know when that that phrase I I just hate the toxic mas masculinity.
>> Yeah.
>> That's not it's not the toxicity. It's it's it's sick that men become sick if they're their god-given mascul masculine possibilities are thwarted and and they're you know who was really good at at this much better than it was Camille Paglia.
>> Do you remember Camille?
>> She wrote this book I think it was called Sexual Persona or something. was all about these the dynamism between men, women, culture, all these types of things. And it's wild in its in its range and and some of the things she's saying are just it's like explosions are happening. But she that's that to me was another kind of culturally prophetic text. It was like looking at that and and she was onto this current cultural crisis decades ago.
>> Yes.
>> She she read through like if you do this, you're going to end up at this point. And we got there and we got there really fast. But if if you don't if you don't have a way for men to be men and women to be women and in a way that they're not antagonizing one another, um the the culture is going to come apart.
Here's here's something I want to say. I know we've been talking a long time here. I I mentioned the re the cultural revolution of 2016 and there's a lot of kind of Marxism in that. There's a lot of postmodernism in that. But I also think it's an antichrist movement.
>> And there's a lot of false prophecy in that particular movement that caused a great deal of trouble for us. And this kind of concept that that arose there of wokeism, I saw it as kind of that's the false prophet. Um that's like a false prophet type. And it was a a miracular presence in the culture because it was calling out to us and saying these things with threats and things like that. And it was sitting on like the Oracle of Deli on a tripod and one of the legs of it was racialism. So you want to destroy society? Let's get all the races and ethnic groups to hate one another. Let's let's just convince them that by our nature we should be hating one another.
And the the only way towards peace is for us to pass through a crucible of all all of us hating one another. So you got that one leg on the right but and then you had the the the kind of the sec sectoral libertinism or the the the queer identity stuff which was making us question the nature of reality itself.
So you want to want to cause a culture to go into crisis, question reality like like what's real anymore? We don't know.
and then and then convince us we just make it real or not. So, we're just we're a drift trying to make our way through this. And the the the third part of it was stow a lot of conflict between men and women. Uh call it feminism, call it whatever you want it, but it was like we're going to just have men and women hate one another. So, and that false prophecy was going out in every single direction from 2016 even and it's still happening. Um, and I think it destabilized this culture like you wouldn't believe.
Um, and a lot of things that are happening right now are reactions to that those false prophecies going out.
>> Now, I I'm reading it spiritually and I and I I fully intend to because I do think that we're in the midst of a kind of Antichrist moment. There's the false prophet and then there's the Antichrist.
know what what form that Antichrist takes. I don't know. I don't know. But I I do think that that's where we're at.
And we should be honest about it as Christians. And that's also why I think a lot of these superficial things that we're fighting about, they're almost like like they're demonically induced.
Um and they're distractions from from the the bigger issues. And it's proved to be extremely effective because even if the things that we're arguing about are important and true, it doesn't mean that the argument is urgent or essential.
>> Yeah.
>> It's very hard to have discernment when you're when deeply held beliefs are being challenged to step back and say, well, one is am I being challenged in good faith?
>> Yeah. Can anything constructive come out of engaging in in this conversation in this setting at this moment? If the answer to to that is no, then why do it?
>> Yeah. Uh if if the answer is yes, okay, now move on to question two, which is are my actual long-term spiritual objectives, moral missional objectives, uh being advanced or are they being degraded by this argument, by this conversation? And I don't think that that I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush to say in this moment in time, let's not have these convers not at all. this. What does this moment in time mean? I'm saying that just because someone says something about whatever point of conflict there is between between you and I. It's funny to even name one of them almost like forces us to address it. I don't want to address it in this setting, but you know, if somebody wants to bring up the distinctions between the way you view Marian doctrine and the way I view Marian doctrine, um, we would both say that it's an important issue.
>> Yeah. I'm not saying that in the year of our Lord 2026 we shouldn't engage in that. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Father Steve and Jeremy Boring shouldn't engage in it. No, we probably should. And I'm saying that in in the incredible specifics of the moment that we're actually in. What conversation are we having? What kind of company are we in when we're having it?
Are we both operating out of good faith when we have it? I mean, all of that matters. And if not, then you're actually making enemies out of friends instead of >> exchanging ideas toward a better understanding or a a drawing nearer to truth and goodness and beauty.
>> Yeah.
>> But that's hard to do because we're tribal and we instantly form into these new tribes now. And >> Yeah. And and who whose purposes does that does that serve?
>> And and and you can talk about the various political kind of factions um international factions and things like that that they them being behind it. But I I'm I'm supposed to be att tuned to the spiritual realities, the supernatural realities. And I just when I say Antichrist moment, it's just like, well, Satan, the accuser, the alabus, the scatterer, the divider. It's like if there's ever a moment when it just seems there's something demonic that is seizing the ethos of the day and we're not spiritually attuned enough to see it because we're distracted by temporary realities that are beneath that. Now, having said all that, I think it's also that there needs to be a kind of greater sophistication in the Christian mind and heart in regards to the evil one.
that in a sense we've got we've got too low level of an understanding that has been greatly influenced by popular culture and Hollywood narratives and we stick there and we miss the devil that's right in front of us culturally.
>> Yeah. And and the thing is that instead of going to the Hollywood narratives and getting concerned about that, take seriously the way that the spiritual tradition and the scriptures identify the person and the activity of the evil one as accuser and divider.
And what's his ultimate aim in that?
It's so that God will look at the human creation and seeing it see it as pointless and without redemption.
And the thing is that God's never going to be convinced of that, but we'll convince ourselves of that. So what what opens up in an antichrist moment is a prevailing sense of nihilism.
>> Nihilism and despair, >> right? And the thing is that that's that's the antichrist moment. And and it and it doesn't just come from squawking and squabbbling online. That's all influenced by spiritual powers, temporal powers, but also spiritual powers. But there's a greater power at work that has been trying to subvert creation from the very beginning. And and he's doing a really good job. And in our text technologically oriented environment right now, oh wow, he's got some great tools. and we're not thinking that he's involved at all. And if we are thinking he's involved, we've got an inferior understanding of what his power, how his power works and how his influence, what his influence looks like. So >> yeah, >> when I talk about the false prophet and I talk about the antichrist, that's what I mean by it. But I want to add one more thing to that because I don't want to I don't want to contribute to the nihilism and this the despair. final book of our scriptures is the book of Revelation.
And I know a lot of people will read the book of Revelation and they'll they'll project it as a period in time when when all things will come to consummation of Christ. And there's these symbolic representations of various catastrophes that will precede it and then we can maybe even predict some things through that. I kind of having read the book of Revelation now for a very long time, I really think that what's being presented there is that's a God's eye view of human history itself.
all of human history from beginning to end. It's a God's eye view and that it's how we we see things from the ground up and we see our our wars and our sins and all these types of things. How does it look like from God's perspective and he sees the realities of the coherence of the spiritual and the temporal of of the devil and humanity and things like he sees all that things and it looks like this fantastic fantastic beasts and things like that. It's all true because it's from his perspective.
But that's not the point of the story.
The point of the story is the end, which is the triumph of the lamb and the vindication of the martyrs.
Um that the last thing standing is the church.
And I I I I don't think that that book was given to us to be frightened about the end of history. I think it was given to us to give God's vantage point of history and that whatever's going on right now, whatever we're going through right now, we're moving towards the triumph of the lamb.
>> Um, and the solution to the current cultural predicaments is the same solution that has been running as a great current throughout our history for 2,000 years. And that's the lamb that was once slain.
And that's, you know, that's my perspective on on this this current moment from social media to the church to everything that we've talked about.
That's the way I look at it. And I may not see the end, you know, in history of of uh at least in my temporal form um of that triumph, but one day I will see it. Um and so will all of us. And that should give us kind of some hope >> and should edify in this current moment to just keep soldiering on. Um it's a fight. It it really is. And if you look at the Christian life any other way, I don't think you get it right. Um the interior struggles, the external struggles, it's a fight, but it's a it's a fight that's worth having. The only proper orientation between man and God is humil the proper orientation of man toward God is humility.
>> Oh yeah.
>> And this is why the the things that we might argue about as important. You should you should believe what you should what you believe. I had a band director used to say if you make a mistake I want to hear it. You should play with conviction. should be willing to to stand up for the things that you believe and but you should also recognize that you're just going to be wrong about a lot of it anyway.
>> Yeah.
>> And that at the end of the day, like if I if I get to heaven and uh God speaks Latin, I'm going to thank him for his forgiveness because I'm not Catholic. Uh I'm going to thank him for what that forgiveness cost him in order to to afford me my mistake. Yeah.
>> Among my myriad other >> uh great mistakes. And um I don't want I love to argue about theology. We haven't done any of it today at breakfast or here. I love it. It's like like pastime number five. We should get together and argue about theology.
I just never want to change the orientation between where between me and God to one where uh I'm trying to win arguments or trying to be proven right. I I don't need to be proven right. I need I need Christ to be right. want to win arguments. I I want to be participate in Christ's salvific work.
>> Well, that brings me to the question that >> Christ wants wants us to participate in his salvific uh activity. He wants us to act in such a way that souls are saved.
That's what I want to participate in.
>> Well, this is the question I ask every person.
>> Yeah.
uh who's been on the show. You have supported the work of a great man of our time and Bishop Baron for 25 years. You in in a project that was in many ways put in motion by one of the great popes uh you know of of the century, Pope John Paul II. Um, you've built one of the most important and successful media companies uh of our time. You've evangelized. You've been a priest.
You've uh reached people in in quirky and fun ways through your bodybuilding life, your work in bodybuilding. You have an artistic and aesthetic vision that we haven't really even gotten a chance to talk about here, but that flows into the work that you do.
What do you hope to be remembered for?
That I was faithful. That I was faithful to the Lord because that was the reason for everything.
>> Well, then if you wouldn't mind doing me a favor.
>> Okay.
>> In lie of a final question.
>> Mhm.
>> We've talked so much today about the mission and about the lamb and about the antichrist.
We've alluded to scripture non-stop throughout the conversation and we've referred to the gospel probably two or three dozen times.
Typically, when you do media, you're talking to people who know the gospel and you're enriching their understanding of it through the product that you create. But probably more so than your average appearance, this audience is not exclusively comprised of people who even know what on earth is this gospel that we're talking about. And so to close the show, I was wondering if you would just tell us what is this gospel that we're talking about. God became human in Jesus Christ so that every living soul could share in his own divine life.
That gift is available and it is given to us as a grace that is wholly undeserved but nevertheless given. And in your acceptance of that grace and your acceptance of that gift, not only does your life change but the world changes.
>> Thank you, Father Steve. Thank you.
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