Thoughtful framing... thanks! Beware however that you're confounding "the Christian Church" with "the [Roman] Catholic Church", which finally broke away from the original apostolic Orthodox Church in 1054 after progressive deviation arising from the Roman patriachate's isolation in the west from the main body of the Church in the east. So for example when you write about priest celibacy, that's only a Roman church innovation (note Apostle Peter was married) that was never adopted by the Orthodox Church as a whole.
Still digesting this. I’m curious about whether you think any of Christianity’s beliefs are sincere — the way you’ve framed them all as marketing devices is clever and not altogether wrong, but downplays the possibility that there’s real truth there, except for your last line. Maybe Christianity really does aim to treat others with kindness, including women and those of different ethnicities; maybe it does reverence life in and out of the womb, whether or not those beliefs are fully held and practiced by all its adherents.
Also, one quick correction: the Jewish Feast of Passover didn’t “become” Easter. According to the Bible, Jesus was crucified and rose again just before Passover (the Romans came to break the legs of the other two men crucified with Jesus, “since that Sabbath was a high day” — they didn’t want suffering displayed publicly on their feast.)
There’s symbolism there as well, because Jesus’ voluntary death redeemed Christians from death in the same way the original Passover lamb redeemed the Jews from death; they were to smear the lamb’s blood over their doorway so that the angel of death wouldn’t come and claim their firstborn during the final plague brought by Moses in Egypt. Eastern Christianity still calls Easter by its original name, Pascha, which is a Greek translation of the word Passover.
My goal for the article is not to say whether they´re sincere or not, but rather to unveil the underlying mechanics, which are shockingly aligned with growth optimization.
If you ask my personal opinion is that, yes, a lot of it is sincere. Based on historical evidence, it's pretty clear Jesus was a formidable character who truly believed what he said. He just stumbled upon a piece of software that was extremely viral—BECAUSE it was good. People are in general attracted to good, plus it created a strong community that would then help each other more. He converted a zero-sum game into an accretive game. Maybe I should make that more explicit in the article.
Then, the article highlights how many of the changes happened later on, by the Apostles or others. It seems to me like the apostles added a lot of good in the doctrine (eg, we're all the same, as opposed to just Jews being special). But also, literally everything they did was pro-virality. So it sounds like they were adept at finding what was both good and right. In software development, we call that product-led growth: When you design products so that they embed the growth inside.
It sounds to me like, the further we go from Jesus, the more the Church designed for growth as opposed to "what's right".
We also call Easter "Pascua" in (Catholic) Spanish!
I'm not sure why you say Passover didn't become Easter, when it sounds like the examples you share seem to me like they strengthen that it did?
Thank you for the reply. The classical philosophers also made much of truth, beauty and goodness: one leads to the other, so it makes sense that a new religion could have hit on something right, and it would resonate with people and generate more “business” in that direction.
Passover and Easter are both springtime holidays, but Easter is a seasonal celebration of fertility where Passover is a religious celebration of redemption from death. Christian Pascha takes elements from both, but is primarily religious. As you point out, there is a strong tradition of Christianity “baptizing” pagan traditions, such as eggs (dyed red, for the blood of Christ.) I guess holidays are complicated, in more ways than one!
I'm currently working on a series about how the Catholic Church became one of history's great organizational reinventions.
What's fascinating is that your article explains how Christianity spread. The chapter I'm researching starts much later, when the Catholic Church itself is forced to reinvent after the Reformation.
By then, Christianity had already gone viral.
The Catholic Church, however, had just lost roughly 40% of its followers. Luther and the printing press exposed how fragmented and inconsistent the institution had become.
What followed was remarkable. A generation later, after rethinking everything from priest training and governance to doctrine, marriage law and sacred art, the Catholic Church had transformed itself into a far more scalable organization. Just as European powers started expanding across the globe, the Church was suddenly capable of operating on a global level too.
In a way, Christianity's first growth story is about spreading an idea.
The Catholic Church's second growth story is about rebuilding an institution as scalable infrastructure.
Very interesting article for its attention to the mechanism of the spread of the Gospel. Certainly nits to pick but generally they don’t detract from the thesis.
Christianity is dated to Genesis 3:15 when Messiah is promised. Jesus, the Christ was born “in the fullness of time,” a concept very much worth contemplating. God was preparing both the physical and philosophical geography to receive His Son and to accept His work and teaching. As others have noted, Providence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
According to this tradition of social law that was in effect during the time of Jesus, which hand and which side of the face were struck to punish someone carried symbolic meaning that revealed one’s social status. This makes it significant which side of the face—the “right” or the “left”—is struck, whether the person striking uses their “right” or “left” hand, and even which side of the hand is used. For a person of higher status to punish someone of lower status, they must strike the person’s right cheek with the back of their right hand. If the victim, having been struck on the right cheek, turns the other cheek—the left—to be struck again, this would give rise to a significant issue of social justice. This is because, in order to strike the left cheek, the striker must use either the back of their left hand or the palm of their right hand. In Jewish social tradition, the left hand is used only for purification from impurity and can never be used to strike another person. In this case, it would be possible to strike the right cheek with the palm of the right hand rather than the back of the hand. However, striking with the palm of the right hand is a form of punishment reserved only for people of the same social status. In other words, striking a person of lower status with the palm of the right hand—rather than the back of the hand—implies that one is on the same level as that person in terms of status. Thus, turning the left cheek toward the one who strikes the right cheek would expose the striker to this contradictory situation. Essentially, striking the cheek with the back of the hand involves not just a physical blow but also an insult and humiliation. The purpose here is not to injure or cause pain, but to humiliate and belittle the person. Under normal circumstances, a person cannot inflict this form of violence on someone of equal social standing; otherwise, they would be forced to pay a very high fine. For example, according to the Jewish oral legal text, the Mishnah, if a person strikes someone of the same status, the penalty is 200 zuz; if they strike the same person with the back of the hand, the penalty is doubled to 400 zuz.³ This is because striking with the back of the hand is used to admonish and punish those whom the person considers to be of lower status. Masters did this to their slaves, husbands to their wives, parents to their children, and the Romans to the Jews. Here, a kind of rule of inequality applies between those who are not equal in status.
Great article. I would also like to know; who are the apostles and "who" decided which gospels to use for the New Testament. Hope to find the answers here. Still reading.
This is an excellent and exciting essay about how Christianity became what it is. Of course, if you truly are a Christian, there's something else at work as well. I am, in a mystical way, sincerely and literally. Nevertheless, I think all of Tomas Pueyo's observations and the way he presents them here (and this is always so with him, but this is a subject I enjoyed even more than most) are excellent, informative, and often enlightening. This is how it worked, in general how such developments happen. He's teased out the determinative mechanics. Thanks. I recommend reading the whole essay.
The Torah said from the beginning, from the promise that the serpent would be crushed by the woman's seed, and the blessing of Abraham ( that was supposed to bless all the nations) all the way to the prophets that the Messiah would turn all the nations towards God. The fact that Jesus said he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel speaks about the scope of his earthly ministry, not the scope of his eternal ministry. He himself minister Ed to the gentiles several times. He was just to focus on the posterity of Jacob ( who had the original mission of spreading the name of God but failed) before moving on to the nations. Remember his ministry was only 3 years long. So this is not a good understanding of the Bible's teaching.
I think there's overwhelming evidence that Jesus catered to the Jews, even if sometimes he strayed from that (the centurion's servant, the Canaanite's daughter). Even these illustrate Jesus's positions. Asked ChatGPT: In Gospel of Matthew 15:21–28 and Gospel of Mark 7:24–30, a Gentile woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter. At first he refuses:
"It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
The "children" are Israel; the "dogs" are Gentiles.
Then he grants the wish.
Even today, you can see that Jews don't really proselytize, and it's a pretty closed religion.
So you can say there are openings in the Old Testament, and even more in the New, towards opening up Christinanity to others, but you can't say unviersalism comes from Jesus.
Thoughtful framing... thanks! Beware however that you're confounding "the Christian Church" with "the [Roman] Catholic Church", which finally broke away from the original apostolic Orthodox Church in 1054 after progressive deviation arising from the Roman patriachate's isolation in the west from the main body of the Church in the east. So for example when you write about priest celibacy, that's only a Roman church innovation (note Apostle Peter was married) that was never adopted by the Orthodox Church as a whole.
Yes, this is because for the first 1000 years, it was the same, and by that time most of these mechanics were done!
Still digesting this. I’m curious about whether you think any of Christianity’s beliefs are sincere — the way you’ve framed them all as marketing devices is clever and not altogether wrong, but downplays the possibility that there’s real truth there, except for your last line. Maybe Christianity really does aim to treat others with kindness, including women and those of different ethnicities; maybe it does reverence life in and out of the womb, whether or not those beliefs are fully held and practiced by all its adherents.
Also, one quick correction: the Jewish Feast of Passover didn’t “become” Easter. According to the Bible, Jesus was crucified and rose again just before Passover (the Romans came to break the legs of the other two men crucified with Jesus, “since that Sabbath was a high day” — they didn’t want suffering displayed publicly on their feast.)
There’s symbolism there as well, because Jesus’ voluntary death redeemed Christians from death in the same way the original Passover lamb redeemed the Jews from death; they were to smear the lamb’s blood over their doorway so that the angel of death wouldn’t come and claim their firstborn during the final plague brought by Moses in Egypt. Eastern Christianity still calls Easter by its original name, Pascha, which is a Greek translation of the word Passover.
My goal for the article is not to say whether they´re sincere or not, but rather to unveil the underlying mechanics, which are shockingly aligned with growth optimization.
If you ask my personal opinion is that, yes, a lot of it is sincere. Based on historical evidence, it's pretty clear Jesus was a formidable character who truly believed what he said. He just stumbled upon a piece of software that was extremely viral—BECAUSE it was good. People are in general attracted to good, plus it created a strong community that would then help each other more. He converted a zero-sum game into an accretive game. Maybe I should make that more explicit in the article.
Then, the article highlights how many of the changes happened later on, by the Apostles or others. It seems to me like the apostles added a lot of good in the doctrine (eg, we're all the same, as opposed to just Jews being special). But also, literally everything they did was pro-virality. So it sounds like they were adept at finding what was both good and right. In software development, we call that product-led growth: When you design products so that they embed the growth inside.
It sounds to me like, the further we go from Jesus, the more the Church designed for growth as opposed to "what's right".
We also call Easter "Pascua" in (Catholic) Spanish!
I'm not sure why you say Passover didn't become Easter, when it sounds like the examples you share seem to me like they strengthen that it did?
Thank you for the reply. The classical philosophers also made much of truth, beauty and goodness: one leads to the other, so it makes sense that a new religion could have hit on something right, and it would resonate with people and generate more “business” in that direction.
Passover and Easter are both springtime holidays, but Easter is a seasonal celebration of fertility where Passover is a religious celebration of redemption from death. Christian Pascha takes elements from both, but is primarily religious. As you point out, there is a strong tradition of Christianity “baptizing” pagan traditions, such as eggs (dyed red, for the blood of Christ.) I guess holidays are complicated, in more ways than one!
Bravo 👏
Good read.
I'm currently working on a series about how the Catholic Church became one of history's great organizational reinventions.
What's fascinating is that your article explains how Christianity spread. The chapter I'm researching starts much later, when the Catholic Church itself is forced to reinvent after the Reformation.
By then, Christianity had already gone viral.
The Catholic Church, however, had just lost roughly 40% of its followers. Luther and the printing press exposed how fragmented and inconsistent the institution had become.
What followed was remarkable. A generation later, after rethinking everything from priest training and governance to doctrine, marriage law and sacred art, the Catholic Church had transformed itself into a far more scalable organization. Just as European powers started expanding across the globe, the Church was suddenly capable of operating on a global level too.
In a way, Christianity's first growth story is about spreading an idea.
The Catholic Church's second growth story is about rebuilding an institution as scalable infrastructure.
I'm quite sure you'll enjoy the read https://petervw.substack.com/p/strategy-emerges-through-elimination
Very interesting article for its attention to the mechanism of the spread of the Gospel. Certainly nits to pick but generally they don’t detract from the thesis.
Christianity is dated to Genesis 3:15 when Messiah is promised. Jesus, the Christ was born “in the fullness of time,” a concept very much worth contemplating. God was preparing both the physical and philosophical geography to receive His Son and to accept His work and teaching. As others have noted, Providence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
According to this tradition of social law that was in effect during the time of Jesus, which hand and which side of the face were struck to punish someone carried symbolic meaning that revealed one’s social status. This makes it significant which side of the face—the “right” or the “left”—is struck, whether the person striking uses their “right” or “left” hand, and even which side of the hand is used. For a person of higher status to punish someone of lower status, they must strike the person’s right cheek with the back of their right hand. If the victim, having been struck on the right cheek, turns the other cheek—the left—to be struck again, this would give rise to a significant issue of social justice. This is because, in order to strike the left cheek, the striker must use either the back of their left hand or the palm of their right hand. In Jewish social tradition, the left hand is used only for purification from impurity and can never be used to strike another person. In this case, it would be possible to strike the right cheek with the palm of the right hand rather than the back of the hand. However, striking with the palm of the right hand is a form of punishment reserved only for people of the same social status. In other words, striking a person of lower status with the palm of the right hand—rather than the back of the hand—implies that one is on the same level as that person in terms of status. Thus, turning the left cheek toward the one who strikes the right cheek would expose the striker to this contradictory situation. Essentially, striking the cheek with the back of the hand involves not just a physical blow but also an insult and humiliation. The purpose here is not to injure or cause pain, but to humiliate and belittle the person. Under normal circumstances, a person cannot inflict this form of violence on someone of equal social standing; otherwise, they would be forced to pay a very high fine. For example, according to the Jewish oral legal text, the Mishnah, if a person strikes someone of the same status, the penalty is 200 zuz; if they strike the same person with the back of the hand, the penalty is doubled to 400 zuz.³ This is because striking with the back of the hand is used to admonish and punish those whom the person considers to be of lower status. Masters did this to their slaves, husbands to their wives, parents to their children, and the Romans to the Jews. Here, a kind of rule of inequality applies between those who are not equal in status.
Great article. I would also like to know; who are the apostles and "who" decided which gospels to use for the New Testament. Hope to find the answers here. Still reading.
This is an excellent and exciting essay about how Christianity became what it is. Of course, if you truly are a Christian, there's something else at work as well. I am, in a mystical way, sincerely and literally. Nevertheless, I think all of Tomas Pueyo's observations and the way he presents them here (and this is always so with him, but this is a subject I enjoyed even more than most) are excellent, informative, and often enlightening. This is how it worked, in general how such developments happen. He's teased out the determinative mechanics. Thanks. I recommend reading the whole essay.
The Torah said from the beginning, from the promise that the serpent would be crushed by the woman's seed, and the blessing of Abraham ( that was supposed to bless all the nations) all the way to the prophets that the Messiah would turn all the nations towards God. The fact that Jesus said he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel speaks about the scope of his earthly ministry, not the scope of his eternal ministry. He himself minister Ed to the gentiles several times. He was just to focus on the posterity of Jacob ( who had the original mission of spreading the name of God but failed) before moving on to the nations. Remember his ministry was only 3 years long. So this is not a good understanding of the Bible's teaching.
Thanks!
I think there's overwhelming evidence that Jesus catered to the Jews, even if sometimes he strayed from that (the centurion's servant, the Canaanite's daughter). Even these illustrate Jesus's positions. Asked ChatGPT: In Gospel of Matthew 15:21–28 and Gospel of Mark 7:24–30, a Gentile woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter. At first he refuses:
"It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
The "children" are Israel; the "dogs" are Gentiles.
Then he grants the wish.
Even today, you can see that Jews don't really proselytize, and it's a pretty closed religion.
So you can say there are openings in the Old Testament, and even more in the New, towards opening up Christinanity to others, but you can't say unviersalism comes from Jesus.