Can the Non-Orthodox Be Saved? A Dialogue | ft. Drs. Nathan Jacobs & Chris Firestone

Hey everybody, Nathan Jacobs with the Nathan Jacobs podcast here with you. Those of you who follow my channel regularly, you notice that we've moved to this new format, which I had promised about doing these more concise videos, things that are more in the 25 to 45 minute range. And we've been dropping those every Thursday. But as promised, I said we weren't going to completely stop doing the long form content. So here on this Tuesday, we're going to be going ahead and dropping an interview, a longer form interview. So uh those of you who have looked at past interviews, you might remember a character that I talked to named Chris Firestone, Dr. Chris Firestone.

And if you haven't heard of him or watched that old interview, which we can link to below, uh Chris is originally a former philosophy professor of mine and then churned colleague. We ended up teaching together uh after I had finished my PhD. And in addition to that, we've worked on co-authored essays. We've done co-authored books, co-edited books. And so Chris is a long-term friend, a long-term mentor, a long-term colleague uh in the area of philosophy. And uh Chris happened to be driving through Nashville. He had planned actually to come to Nashville in order to get some time with me.

He had figured out that I'm a busy guy and if you want to get an interview with me, you might have to actually just physically show up and corner me. And so Chris decided to do that. And so uh today what we're going to be looking at is we're going to be looking at one of those interviews. Now, Chris is a guy who's all about the journey. And so, what he originally wanted to interview me about was about my journey in three areas really, three areas that he watched me go through. One of those areas is, you know, my academic journey becoming a scholar. The other one is my journey in spirituality that ultimately led me to Eastern Orthodoxy.

And the third thing is he watched me on my journey as an artist and how you move from me being a fine arts painter drawer guy into being a filmmaker. And so that was Chris's original plan and that occupies the first two of the interviews that we did. The third one was kind of unexpected. Chris is a Protestant evangelical and so he wanted to have a dialogue about really the relationship between various Christian traditions and the church or at least my perspective on that sort of thing as an Eastern Orthodox Christian and what that means in terms of religious dialogue. So that ended up being the uh the third interview within this series.

So, with that, let's jump into part three of our three-part interview with Dr. Chris Firestone. I'm Nathan Jacobs, and this is the Nathan Jacobs podcast. And I'm Dr. Chris Firestone of the Firestone Files. It's coming at you right now. Enjoy. Well, good morning everybody. I don't know if it's morning for any of you who are watching this, but it is here in beautiful, sunny Nashville, Tennessee. And uh here we are deciding to work in one more podcast in the morning before you take off for the day. And I dive into other work that I have to do. So, it's been a great time.

I always knew deep down in my heart that I would have to get here if I was going to get you to uh do a podcast with me. got here a few days ago. Good instinct. Set some things up in your living room and uh it's great that you're, you know, willing to give us a little bit of time here to talk about some really important matters actually. Yeah. Well, that's a good tip. You know, it's a pro tip. Um blowing up my inbox isn't the best way to get my attention. Showing up and cornering me, you got a better shot. Maybe I shouldn't put that advice on. Yeah. Well, we've kind of known that for years.

We've talked already in in uh other conversations about the academy and things and that's always a a piece of advice to young people is to go to where the blessing is. Go to the people and see if you can uh you can meet them and uh share your story that way. But uh today we are going to be talking about something that's been on my mind for some time in my own spiritual journey really and I'm calling it the tree of theology. You may come up with a better metaphor. I've I've seen some of your podcasts in the past where you talk about analogies and some are good and some are not good. That's true. That's true.

And I know that you talk about some doctrine of the trinity and other things like that. And so are downright heretical. What I want to do is explain kind of what I mean by that and maybe get some of your feedback on on that in terms of the history of of the church, history of ideas. Okay. And uh you know where does it go right and what are the cautions regarding I'll be I'll be curious to hear this because I'm guessing this is is this an offshoot of the tree of philosophy? It is. It is. So those who've watched the Firestone Files and my introduction to philosophy material know I use the tree metaphor for philosophy. Yeah.

And um really when I use it for the for philosophy I'm talking about the key domains of philosophy like epistemology, ontology, metaphysics, logic and ethics. And I try to show that they have a kind of treelike uh relationship to each other. And I think it's heristic for students to see it that way. they can place the big questions on the tree of philosophy and understand the history of ideas in a more pictorial way.

I'm kind of a well not to your degree but I'm a kind of a pictorial thinker myself um not necessarily a practitioner but a pictorial thinker and and it helps me in that way and the tree of philosophy has been very influential to a lot of young people through the years you know I've taught it for almost 30 years now uh intro to philosophy and use that metaphor very helpful but I guess I was beginning to wonder whether or not the tree could be applied to theology okay and what I mean by that is in my own journey. I grew up in the Methodist church in downtown Chicago.

In fact, I one of the I attended what's the highest sanctuary in the world, which is on the like 25th floor of the United Methodist Church downtown on Daily Plaza. Really? They have a sanctuary all at the top of the building. Okay. Nobody uses it, but they show it on tours and things. At least they used to. And then the first floor is where the actual sanctuary is. But uh that's where I was baptized. That's where I was went through the um you know the confirmation class and all those things. And then we moved out of Chicago. I started attending a church through some high school friends, a Baptist church. And they were absolutely convinced that I needed to be baptized in believers baptism.

And um I took it to be an obligation of mine that when you're communing with a community, you actually kind of do what they want you to do. And I I did that and it was a revitalization of my own faith. Honestly, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well, it was more of a spiritual life. God seems to be asking this of me. You know, as far as I'm concerned, he baptized me a thousand times because I probably need it anyway. There there are a few cannons that prohibit that. See, this is the kind of stuff I got I got to get educated on here today.

Um, but after I was uh re recommitted my life to Christ, baptized, I got married, went on a journey, I ended up landing in the Evangelical Free Church, which I was there for a good 25 years before switching jobs and coming actually back into the Baptist church down in Hot Springs, Arkansas. But the reason I'm I I bring up the tree of philosophy or the tree of theology in this context, okay, is that I always understood my pilgrimage as being a unified thing. Mhm. It it had a beginning. My father was Catholic. I was a Methodist. My mom was a Methodist.

He he kind of he wasn't really a practicing Catholic, but he he allowed us to go forth with this and he would attend on the holidays with us. and um and and I had this journey and it was a compelling journey to me as I as I recommitted my life to Christ and so forth. But I always thought of it as being tethered to the original church to the you know I don't know the church of the New Testament you might say something along those lines and when that church developed into Catholicism in the west eastern orthodoxy in the east and so forth and then began to splinter into various you know denominations in the reformation and so forth.

I always understood myself to be a Protestant. that is there were some things historically that I thought needed to be corrected and that the Protestant way of doing that was the right way of doing it. Going back to the scriptures, uh you know um um the the idea that every priesthood of believers, everybody should know their Bible, everybody should know their faith. Um and all of that was compelling to me as a a person who wanted to know these things. Mh. And so, but I got the imp getting the impression, you know, in the evangelical world that people have forgotten the fact that they are still grafted into this church, this historic church.

And being a Protestant in principle, I'm always looking forward to the day when the church is unified. Maybe it may not be in my lifetime. It may not be in the next thousand years. But the idea is that the telos is that we're all if we're if we're in goodstead with God going to be one church someday. And so um the Protestant movement is always supposed to be at least I always thought of it as an opportunity to commune with to to to engage to look forward to the day when the church is going to be unified. But I'm not convinced that a lot of the evangelicals that I know or Protestants that I know even think that way anymore.

Well, that's somehow an isolated church. Somehow it's getting it right and everybody else getting it wrong in some way. Well, that's what I was going to ask because what you described in terms of like what Protestantism is historically is true, right? Like people like Luther had no intention of starting a new church, right? Or something like that. Um he well at first he fully believed that there's no way that the pope really understood what was happening you know in you know on the ground that he was protesting because he believed that the pope was a godly man. Uh and then of course Luther was embittered and realized he's completely complicit and then we get the Luther that every the colorful Luther that everybody knows.

But um but even then like Meenan one of his main pupils they they always wanted to find a way back. This was supposed to be a protest. We're outside of the church protesting. Get it right, repent, and we can be grafted back in. And that's one of the reasons why Meenan, I don't know if how many people know this. I think this relatively common knowledge maybe in Eastern circles, but Meenan tried to get sanctioned from the Eastern bishops. He started writing to them and being like, "Hey, look, I think maybe we agree with you guys and maybe we could just be grafted into Can you imagine? I would have been raised rather than Missouri Senate Lutheran on my mom's side.

Maybe she would have come from a long line of German Orthodox or something like that had Meen succeeded. Um, and it wasn't that I mean there were a couple of different problems if you're curious about that that we could talk about why why that fizzled and didn't didn't pan out. But it's testimony to the fact that even the that these early Protestants, early Lutheran in this case, had no intention of being like um we're just permanently starting a new church. We're just starting a new church over here, right? Or something like that. Um it was a protest against excesses, errors, whatever in the hope of a reformation internal to the church that they could then be grafted back into. And obviously uh that never happened.

I mean there were reforms that took place within the Catholic Church, but never the kind that the Protestants thought were essential because the ones that were most essential were about the gospel as far as they understood it. And that didn't happen. Um, and so I guess my I I say all that because, you know, it's interesting for me to hear you describe a a Protestant disposition because as you said, I don't know how many people in the evangelical or Protestant world still think of themselves as Protestant. They might still use the label, right? But how many of them are still thinking, "Yeah, no, we're in a protest and one day, yes, if they if they repent, you know, we'll all be one."

I mean, you obviously live in those circles more than I do. I floated in those circles obviously throughout my time at Trinity and elsewhere. I experienced the reformed world up close at Calvin, right? You know, but uh you know, I was never reformed or something like that. So, but you actually floating in those circles in a more intimate way that I think than I do, you know, not only throughout your life, but all the way up till now. I mean, how common do you think that is that there is a Protestant mind left? Or has it just become no, we're we're just all, you know, we're all different denominations and and that's all fine.

Well, that's a that's a great question because in my experience, there's a hunger for church history. Uh I taught a class on some of the saints and so forth. I said, why why are we worried about these? This is pre-reformation. This is a more a more united church. not completely obviously for historical reasons, but um and those always seem to go reasonably well. They're enlightening. They're interesting. They're stories that aren't typically known. Uh the other thing I would say is that I think that Bible believing churches think that they can by reading the Bible, by by doing due diligence there become the early church again. And so there's a leaprog over the historical developments as it were.

And there's a sense in which that you know evangelicals are by focusing on the majors are focusing on not all the disputes of history but on the essential stuff of the Bible and the gospel and so forth that um make up um the true church as they understand it. So they they I think you're right that they've lost the sort of Protestant sense to a certain degree and uh but there's still this hunger for knowing that period within the leap as you might say. Yeah. Two things. I mean one is just a bit of an aside which I I hopefully it doesn't take us too far a field but have you ever heard of the Evangelical Orthodox? Yes I have. Yeah. Okay.

Well because we I went to school with someone who became one. Do you remember Rock? Yes, I do remember. Yeah, he came back to visit Trin. He was our philosophy guy at one point. Yeah. So, um anyway, for those who don't, I mean, if you wanted to read about this, you could read the book Becoming Orthodox by Father Gilquist. So, Father Gilquist, uh was originally a campus crusade guy. And him and a bunch of campus crusade, you know, evangelicals were like, "Look, we want to get back to the early early church. do things the way they did them.

And I think in a very sort of Francis Schaefer-l like way, they just kind of presumed what a lot of evangelicals presume, which is like it's informal small groups, you know, you know, doing spiritual stuff together. None none of this formal church stuff. And uh and this these evangelicals were like, you know, and so they were trying to base it on the book of Acts. And then they started to be like, well, you know, is there any other literature on on how this grew up? And then they start reading the Apostolic Fathers and they start to incorporate basically practices they're finding from reading the church fathers and before you know it they're basically playing orthodoxy, right? And so they're like, "Well, we're still evangelicals, right?

How does the Eastern Orthodox feel about these or Christian?" Well, what happened was they eventually started to ask themselves, if we're just playing Orthodoxy, why are we outside of the Orthodox Church? And so they went actually to the hierarchs to be like, could you receive us? Now, the hierarchs, I I think the first one, maybe they went to the Greek one first. We're like, "No, you're not Orthodox. You can't can't just put on the robes and throw around some incense and call yourself Orthodox and you're Orthodox. It's not that way. It's actually a living body, which I'm sure we'll talk about in this context." Um, and so, uh, they were readily rejected. But the Anioans, Metropolitan Philip of Blessed Memory, he's reposed now.

Um but he's uh he was the one who was like, you know, I think the spirit of God is doing something here in these people. The very fact that they've sort of rediscovered orthodoxy on their own. Yes. And so he said, you know, look, we've got to clean up your liturgy and your practices. There's things that you're doing that aren't quite right. Um but we're going to fasttrack your priests into becoming real priests. We'll like shore up their education and your practices. But basically they converted a lot of those evangelical orthodox churches into a a orthodox church. So I think it was on there was one day where Metropolitan Philip received 2,000 evangelical converts at one time into the Orthodox church.

And so my church here in Franklin, Tennessee, um I'm not in Franklin, but the church is uh St. Ignatius is a former evangelical Orthodox church. um the church the church I was in in St. Athanasius you know uh back in Kentucky former evangelical orthodox church. So maybe you can explain this for me because if I'm having this question, I'm sure other people out there are. Mhm. Um what what what is that tie in that would I mean I could be an evangelical. Mhm. And I feel like I have orthodox beliefs. Um but you're saying that that's not enough. that there's something that the evangelical orthodox need to do to be grafted into the Eastern Orthodox Church that is beyond just doctrine or acceptance of doctrine.

Um why is that? Why why can't an evangelical do what they're doing, you know, and and just say, you know what, we got the best of both worlds, right? I well I think this is where um this is where this is the difference between um a sacramentalist way of looking at Christianity um which would obviously not be unique to Eastern Orthodoxy right somebody like the like the Lutheran are sacramentalists um Anglicans Catholics right a sacramentalist way of looking at Christianity and the church um as contrasted with something that has a certain either empiricist or you know like borderline gnostic and here I don't want to use that as a slur but what I mean is for the gnostics there was no material side to no organic material side to salvation right to it was about secret knowledge so it's simply about what you know right and so I think for a certain faction of protestants

their way of thinking about Christianity is it's entirely up here I believe the right things I'm saved right And there's a kind of nasticism about that where it's disembodied, it's non-sacramental, which is historically very strange. Um, and I think maybe it helps, you know, I this was the second thing that I was going to say earlier, which is part of the question that I was, you know, one of the one of the metaphors I was going to use for the question that we're talking about is, you know, it kind of reminds me of two people who are in a rocky marriage and they decide they're going to separate. Are you going to get a divorce? No, no, no. are separating. So, they move out. Yes.

And the separation is supposed to be it's supposed to be we figure out whether we can make this work, right? Right. And whether or not we got to we need to get a divorce. And at some point, you're going, you know, guys, it's been 30 years. You know, you're in your 70s. Are you sure you're not divorced? You're like, no. Well, are you are you going to do any marriage counseling? Is there any, you know, hey, look, I tell you, if one day he comes around, changes his ways, we can get this back together. But, you know, or alternatively, no, I'm just comfortable. I don't want to move back in.

And I guess the thing is like when you look at that, right, that's that's part of the question that's being asked here about does a person have the Protestant mind? Yes. Of saying like it's a separation, but we want to make this work, right? Or is it just no, we separated and we're not going to go through the paperwork of divorce, but we're comfortable with it. Well, let me let me let me jump in here and ask you this question because it I think it flows out of what you just said. What is the appropriate way for the dialogue to take place? Is it an individual journey or is it a church community journey?

I think that that's a big question for people in the evangelical world is okay, I'm I'm interested in having orthodox faith. Not sure I'm interested in the Orthodox church. Am I on an individual spiritual quest or am I, which is the more common thing, working through the elders, working through the church body, discussing these things corporately and then dialoguing in that level, in the denominational level with the Orthodox Church, or is it both and or is there some third thing I'm missing?

I well I I would say this and we should figure out which is the better one to tackle first right that that question of of whether there's an underlying connection is an important one and I think that's that's an important part of the question right where you started was really with this question of this or this felt inclination to think that as a Protestant you were part of this tree you were an outgrowth of the original church even if you know you're in a protest right right now. Um and so I guess one question is just is that true, right?

Do are are denominations or schisms or you know whatever are they are they part of the original church or are they entirely outside of the church? That's kind of one question. I think it's an important question to answer. Um and then I suppose the second question which maybe I'm answering right now which one we should tackle first. Yes. is if they are part of the original church, what does that process look like? Yes. Of of reconciliation and grafting in um I I guess I'm I'm going with the assumption that the church is an organic tree that it's a unified thing in some way.

I think that evangelicals who are let's say right thinking or at least understanding of church history have to see themselves as kind of the blossom of the tree or something or the leaves of the tree because I think in the evangelical mind there's a deep concern for evangelism there's a deep concern for the essential of the gospel whatever way we're going to understand that and that we're on the front lines of engaging culture I mean I think that that's the general feel of it and the historic church in some ways missing out on that that they're not doing that kind of work and we are and whether or not an individual sees themselves as connected to the it's it's going to vary because when you're

in the when you're in the trenches as it were you're going to have differences and certainly in evangelical churches even Baptist churches people have slightly differing views on doctrinal positions and uh but they're all seen under this big tent of being for the evangel potential for the gospel, for moving out and saving souls and um and engaging culture and all of that. And um and and so I guess I'm I'm kind of looking at it from the point of view that the right thinking type of evangelical is doing both that work, but also looking back to trying to say how do we have the dialogue that's teological in orientation that sees the church being unified in some way or another. Mhm.

Um, and so that's that's I guess that's the best way I can sort of in short order put the evangelical mind on this issue. Well, I mean, full disclosure, not that it's disclosure to you, but I'm Eastern Orthodox, right? Right. Um, and so I don't know if if it's relevant to talk about my journey, but obviously you watched me go through that spiritual journey where I was in crisis. That's why I was studying philosophy.

That's why I was studying theology and church history and all these things like that. and toying with all sorts of heretical ideas very publicly and um and eventually, you know, being like Chris, you know, in my doctoral studies, all of my philosophical heresies, being upset by the Eastern Church fathers and eventually being like, I think this is the thing that I've been looking for my whole life and going that route.

So, um I suppose it's it's probably relevant for me to speak to the question of, you know, from an orthodox perspective, right? from the perspective of me as somebody who who carries those commitments would I agree right with what you just said and let me frame this as as by way of a little bit of a a subtle sort of let's say crisis I don't want to call it a crisis but there is a certain cognitive dissonance that I think emerges for a lot of um orthodox converts and that cognitive dissonance has to do with um the conviction that the orthodox church is the true church, the preserver of the original faith. Right?

It's even said in the liturgy, we have found the you know, we have seen the true light, we have found the true faith, right? Like worshiping the undivided trinity. That's that's actually chanted in the divine liturgy. It's part of the himnity. And so a lot of uh Orthodox Christians hold to that. And um and yet there's a certain discomfort that emerges on the one hand where they're like, "But I've seen God work in other people." And so when they get pressed, you know, do you really think so and so, you know, grandma who, you know, helped raise you in the faith is, you know, is not a Christian with all the writing in it, right? And and they don't want to say no.

They don't want to say that grandma has no connection with Jesus. And yet that seems to be in conflict with um their new conviction that the Orthodox Church is the true church and the true faith. And and so there's a certain struggle there. Um, and that's sometimes sort of placated, I think, with phrases like, "We know where the church is, we don't know where it's not." And a certain agnosticism that says, "Well, you know, we believe that God's working everywhere." And so, so, but whether or not grandma was receiving the grace of the sacraments is a is a question that's beyond our knowledge. That's between her and God. And there's tends to be a certain agnosticism.

Um, but then with that, you also see it come to light in a different way. Right? So, that's that's one side of of the tension. The other side of the tension comes out oftenimes in orthodox controversies over how do you receive converts because some want to say, 'Look, we're the true church. This is the true faith. These schisms, you know, these things like that, they're not valid, right? They're they they're they've cut themselves off from the true church. And so, uh, if they if a convert wants to come to us, we can't accept a heretical baptism, right? It's not a real baptism. We got to we've got to rebaptize everybody. Not we won't even call it rebaptism. It's just baptism. they haven't been baptized, right?

And um and uh and and yet and yet a great many denominations of oh, I don't want to call them denominations, but to the Protestant mind, that's kind of how they think of him. That's not true. I should actually do a little aside on jurisdictions. Great many jurisdictions in the Orthodox Church. Um jurisdiction actually doesn't mean it's not like a denomination where you're not in communion with each other. A jurisdiction is just saying what bishop you're under. So if you're an Anoian, that's the bishop you're under. Greek Orthodox, that's the one you're under. There's a unity of the faith there. These are not denominations in the sense that we disagree.

So we've created, you know, different, you know, churches where we don't go to some it's not like that. Okay. Um but certain jurisdictions because the jurisdiction when it comes to economy judgments by the church about how we handle certain things certain jurisdictions have decided to handle converts one way and other jurisdictions another way. And so some of the jurisdictions would not say baptize you. It's kind of a federalism there. Well, no, that's actually that's the very metaphor I sometimes use, right, is that the one very important way of seeing the difference between Roman Catholicism is kind of the difference between a monarch, right, and a federal federalist system where it's like you these are all different states rights. We have a jurisdiction.

I'll handle my people, you handle yours. And if we hit something that actually sort of hits the underlying issues of the faith, then there's an ecumenical council to adjudicate this. That would be the federal side of it. But for the most part, I'll deal with my people, you deal with yours, right? And that is kind of how it how it functions. And so when it comes to an act of economy, how is the church going to handle this? The jurisdictions have a certain amount of autonomy in that in terms of the bishops deciding what's the best way to do it. And not all have have chosen the same route. So some have said, "We got to baptize you, right? Because that's not a valid baptism."

Others have said, "No, no, no, no. It is a valid baptiism, and you're not supposed to, according to canon law, rebaptize anybody. So, we're not going to baptize people." Yes. Um, unless, of course, we don't know. Like, if we don't know whether you had a valid baptism, we're like, "Chris, when were you baptiz?" Oh, I think I think my parents are dead, but I think I was baptized in the Catholic Church. I don't know. There's no paperwork. There's no nothing, right?

Like then they would do what's called a remedial baptism which is kind of like this is an interesting right where it's basically saying Lord you know if this person has been baptized and so if they haven't we baptize them in the name right and it's sort of like kicking it over to God saying God you alone know we don't we don't really know so maybe we're getting them wet or maybe you're getting baptized I don't know but um and so anyway but the reason I bring that up is because that creates a different tension in a lot of orthodox circles where people are like, "Well, wait a second.

If we just say these baptisms are valid, then what's the significance of becoming Orthodox, you've already received the grace of baptism." And so, it's interesting that you have these tensions, this inner dissonance, right, that emerges for a lot of Orthodox converts where their conviction about their journey ends up leading them to a conviction that no, this is the real thing. I'm getting something here that I didn't have before. And yet at the same time that creates this intertension of well how do we deal with people who are outside of this and too harsh of an answer makes them feel like I I'm not comfortable with saying that about the Christians that I've known.

Uh but too light of an answer that you know seems to undermine the entire journey that they went through. And so there there's a certain tension there. So with that setup I'll just say this. Um, I think there's something I wouldn't use a tree metaphor, but I think I think there is a certain metaphor similar to it that I think helps contextualize the orthodox disposition for these things. The sort of thing that balances what's happening. And so there is a um there is a metaphor that I would use that I think helps. It's not quite the tree, but it's not unrelated.

Um, that I think actually helps clarify or crystallize the Orthodox disposition at least to this question, but I think will help maybe at least bring light. Obviously, you know, you're not Orthodox, so I don't know if you're going to, you know, resonate with it or not, but we'll find out shortly. We'll find out shortly. But, um, here's here's what I would say. um this tension that's there uh is that is is that you know within the Orthodox church a lot of these jurisdictions that have decided like the one I'm in the Antiocans who have decided charismate uh people rather than baptize them uh often times this is what what happens is the dealings with the person is based on a certain proximity to the church right um so a Mormon would be dealt with differently than say a Catholic, right?

And yet they're both treated as in some ways separated from the true church. And so, so what does this look like? And why deal with people differently in this way? And I think the answer comes down to this. You know, let's imagine for a minute an organic body, right? So, if we had a a a scenario where, you know, I come in and I saw off your arm and I chuck it across the room. Uh, you know, that is still your arm. Now, David Hume would disagree, right? As an empiricist, it's not attached to you. Um, and and all of this sort of assumption that it's part of you would be based on memory.

And, you know, it's it's a bad habit of the mind, right, to associate these two things. But I'm not a human. uh and going with the sort of metaphysics that I would hold from the eastern fathers which is is of course supremely relative when we're talking about an orthodox mindset is that the subject the enduring subject underneath you know the flesh the nature all that the thing that gives you concrete reality and endures throughout time that subject uh is the thing that has all of these and in this sense provides like provides a certain type of unity where you can say that's my arm It's the reason why the body and the soul can be of different natures and yet held together.

It's not a matter of proximity or functionality. The unity of them is grounded in that they belong to that subject, right? The subject is the point of unity. And so when we chop off your arm and throw it across the room, well, it's still yours, right? Because the grounding of that arms, its very existence is you. But the severance of it from the host, right, from the the larger body has effects. It starts to die. It gets sick, right? It erodess. It's a corruption. It's not supposed to be. And I think this way of thinking provides a certain context for how the Orthodox Church thinks about the church, right? That the church is not, you know, a 501c3. The church is an organism.

That it really begins with, you know, Christ. And here one of my favorite metaphors to use is to talk about humanity as a sick and cancerous dying body. And Christ is this, you know, the the gospel according to the Eastern fathers is that Christ is the one who has incorruption and the life of God that we're supposed to have. And he invades by becoming one of the cancerous organs. And in becoming that, he drives out the corruption and heals it uh by uniting himself with it. And then what the church is is an organic spreading throughout space and time. So apostolic succession isn't about, you know, just designation. I Yeah. Yeah. I designate you to be my CEO.

It's actually a spreading of that what Lewis would call CS Lewis would call the good infection that's starting to spread throughout space and time. And so apostolic succession is Christ energizing and ordaining sacramentally, giving of the same healing and corrupt power and life to them who are then able to go out and administer sacramentally to others, baptize them, prismate them to bring them into the body, make other episcopets, right? Uh priests who are capable of of you know making more priests, right? And then you know ordaining priests and deacons and all that. And so the spread of the church isn't the spread of an LLC or a 501c3, right? It's not an incorporation through legal means or through paper or mere, you know, mental constructs.

It's an organic spreading of a certain sacramental life that's meant to dispel corruption and death. Now, when you think of it that way and you're seeing it as an organic body, Yes. Right. Which is of course, I think there was a Jewish theologian, what's his name? St. Paul uh who who maybe used one of these body metaphors at some point. Um when you think of it that way, now all of a sudden you have context for orienting the way uh the Orthodox talk about schisms, right? Because how on earth could you possibly say a Roman Catholic baptism is valid if they're schismatics, right? They broke away from us, right? They are a schism, you know, that have separated themselves. We're not in communion with them.

They've separated themselves. They they've engaged in all sorts of errors and and so on. And and yet we're going to accept their baptism as valid, right? Something like that. And I think at least looking at it and saying they're a severed limb and yeah, it's it's sick. It's it's starting. It's experienced corruption. It's something first of all, the severance is something that shouldn't take place. And second of all, yeah, there's going to inevitably be other corruptions and sickness that set in when you separate it from the host. Um, and yet and yet it still is my arm, right? It's a severed arm that's sick. Yes. And needs to be reunited and healed, but it's still my arm.

And therefore it is still part of in in a certain sense it has a certain tether to that body that the baptism it administers is still a valid baptism. But the thing is that now the person needs to be actually we need to remedy that and gra graft the person back into the the host. I mean that that severed limb is not going to come back but this person from that is willing to come back. And so how do we do that? And that's where the sacramental crism, right, which for Protestants who don't know this, right, you weren't just baptized, but you were christenated.

So that talk of the seal of the Holy Spirit and things like that was actually done with holy oil as part of the baptismal process. And you're literally sealed and anointed with oil as part of that that process. So what the Orthodox Church does is we're not going to redo your baptism because you were baptized by the severed limb, but we're going to cris you in order to remedy and graft you back into the host. And and so and yet and now this this is this is part of the thing that I'd mentioned about like, well, I said Mormons, for example, aren't going to be treated in the same way. Well, why not? Well, because Mormons were never part of that body.

They were completely out of the blue. Here we are. Right. Right. We're starting a new thing, a new revelation, a new, you know, book of the Bible. You know, that's right. Mormon in this case. And so this is not, you know, if we're going to carry the metaphor and we're going to say, well, Roman Catholicism is a severed limb and then Protestants are severed fingers, right? You know, that break off from that or whatever. Um, well, that's not true of a Mormon, right?

Right. because there isn't that sort of that that you know genetic connection there and so I the reason I think this is important is because it goes to the significance of your question right with a Protestant are they really a Protestant who is protesting something who says like look no we are still we are still organically tied to the Roman Catholic Church and we're protesting it and we're waiting for it to repent and be grafted back into it and so on. Is that really what the person is? Or are they just like, "No, I just don't think there is an organism." Or that the organism is invisible. It's purely, you know, it's a purely spiritual reality, not a physical reality.

And so, so we just start our own thing and as long as you believe in Jesus, right? Is it more of a nasticism than it is a Protestantism? Well, that I mean that's fascinating because I I do think that most sort of of the thoughtful evangelicals that I know would say, well, let's let's flip the metaphor. Let's do some something is different is going on here than just that. But I do think that the Protestant mindset needs to recognize that that that something either the tree or the body metaphor are is historically accurate.

Um and so the question then becomes are the insights like the Protestant world, the reformed, the the evangelical mindset, you know, like all the solar scriptur solar Christos, you know, this this whole notion that the true faith is bound up in the priesthood of believers that can can can read their own Bible for themselves and and go out and do and establish a church. uh you know that's a it feels like if indeed it's a severed limb that has now distanced itself. It's still part of this body and yet to the evangelical mind it can grow a whole new a whole new you know or I think they would probably say well time out we actually think that we were the body that is getting back to the original church.

Yeah. Well, there there I I just the protest is that strong, you know. Now, I I do think I see and I'm I'm just sort of, you know, this is off the cuff here. This whole thing is off the cuff, but you know, I just sort of schematizing trying to come up with uh, you know, a taxonomy here on the fly. I I do wonder if there's three different types of Protestants and you tell me if there should be expanded. Um, I think the one is a true Protestant, you know, a Lutheran who says, "No, we're Lutheran, you know, we do we are in a protest, you know, um, or maybe an Anglican who's saying the same thing. We we believe we have apostolic succession.

We're valid and so we want to be in the comm in communion with the Roman Catholics, but there are things that hinder that and, you know, so on." And in this sense, they're true Protestants. They're still in a protest, right? Um, they are they are separated. go back to the divorce metaphor, but they're like, "No, but I hope we can work it out. I hope I don't know if we ever will, but I would love to first five years still. I'd love to be able to work it out and and reconcile and move back in and and you know, all that and move forward." Uh I just don't know if it's going to happen, right? They're still in that mindset, right?

Um I think the other type of Protestant is somebody who's like you're describing and this is I think closer to say a primitive Baptist. Um and so I don't have grand experience with primitive Baptist but I do know at least one and uh he's really res resolute on the idea that like no we are not Protestants and the we are not Protestants is closer to what you just described where he's like no no no. So, um, you know, we we believe that, you know, the the true faith, you know, must have been preserved by a bunch of people who were underground and persecuted and things like that. And we're just the continuation of that true church.

And so, it's almost like you've got the visible historical church up here and then there's some underground church down here. Right now, I'm not sure historically what you'd base that conviction on, but there is a conviction that says like, look, I I think that we read the Bible, right? And uh therefore, you know, this this faith as we live it and and see it must have always been there. And we're the preservers of something that's more authentically part of the original church. And in this sense, they're not Protestants, right? They're because they they think the entire visible church was uh was an abomination to begin with or whatever it is that it still was was some sort of corruption that ought not to be.

And then I think you have a third group which just doesn't think about it or they and and not only do they not think about it, they don't want to think about it. Right. Right. To use the divorce metaphor if they are separated, you know? So, do you think you and dad are ever going to like maybe go to counseling or they're like, you know, I'm living my life. I don't really want to think about that sort of thing. I I just think it's important that I work too far. Maybe the dialogue is too thick, too um strange to them. Like it's like the distance has grown too far that we can't really open that conversation and let's just not think about it, right?

And so it becomes it's it it lacks a certain conviction of being Protestant or not being Protestant. It's just an uncomfortable question that I don't really want to deal with. And I think it's more important that we just all love Jesus and try to try to figure out how to do that. well or something like that. Um, and so I I kind of think of evangelicals or Protestants in those sort of three buckets or those sort of three three areas. I mean, is there a fourth that I'm I'm missing here? Well, I think if there is a fourth, it it probably would require us to dig into the sort of historical flow of this tree.

What would the tree actually look like? what does this body look like that separates the Mormons from the evangelicals in the great sort of organic nature either of a tree or of a body. Um, and the reason I mentioned this is because I was doing some thinking. I don't I don't know the state of Catholic Orthodox dialogue. uh you know I'm I'm if I'm guessing I would say it's probably that they both claim to be the original church of course and uh and and so there's this ongoing original church conversation of course that historically gets kind of muddled in the early church first century church and I think a lot of evangelicals think that we're trying to recover that church trying to recover the not just the ecumenical church but the original And then this is where you see the house church movement.

You see other things going on. You see sort of um the explosion of these sort of megaurches and so forth. What they're trying to do is at least they're self they're they're they're trying to get back to scriptures as foundational to this early movement. And there's an interesting alliance and I'm actually curious what you would say about this one um between them and say um Messianic Jews who would who who kind of see themselves as the original church in some way you know that hey if anybody's you know all these guys were Jewish and they're all you know early Christians and they can commune with these evangelicals who are focusing on the basics because they kind of see themselves as trying to recover the same thing.

Mhm. Um, and so maybe you could speak to this original trunk of the tree or original body of the church and how do you navigate the complexities of three distinct groups, Catholic, Orthodox, and let's just call them even early church evangelicals. Mhm. Who all claim to have kind of an an a point of orientation that everyone else should respect.

M well so let me start with actually before moving into these other examples let me start with um a schism or a divide right that actually has a plausible pathway to repair and you know maybe by starting with the question of of a possible actual an answerable question right we we we end up with a model in some ways or at least something to contrast the other the other things with Um, so there are like people like the Coptics who are Orthodox, but they're not in communion with the broader Orthodox world. And part of the question is, okay, so why is that? And this actually comes down to, believe it or not, it predates Roman Catholicism.

This is these are the you're running into people who are non-caledonians, right? And so for people who don't know about the ecumenical councils, right, there were the ecumenical councils were basically these councils. You had all sorts of councils and senids all throughout church history from the very start. First ones in the book of acts um and uh and so you have these councils and senates to adjudicate issues all the time. But very rarely because of the jurisdictional reality that I described earlier did you have an ecumenical council. normally a jurisdiction would um would oversee it. So you had bishops that were you know for all intents and purposes what would be called a metropolitan bishop you know a metropolis they were over the city.

So the jurisdictional lines were actually determined by the state lines and this actually created problems when like you had you know Cesaria and then you have Neo Cesaria and and the borders of the city changed and it's like whose jurisdiction are these guys in now right and that actually created historical problems because they just sort of deferred to the city limits right as like that's where your jurisdiction is right and um but but every now and then you would have a controversy that's spilling out so wide so farflung throughout about the empire that's like everybody's got to come to this is the federalist issue that we talked about that the whole everybody's got to get together and say what's the true faith because this is

going to rip the church apart and the first one of these was council of naan 325 AD and of course that's where we get the nyine creed or at least that's where the first draft of it emerges from and then the draft we say today as long as you don't have the filioquay in there uh then would be in across the Oh, first would be from the council of Constantinople in 381 where it's further expanded. Uh, and that's that's the one that you know endures. Now, um, now the thing is like when you're looking at those ecumenical councils, there's seven of them that take place in the first millennium before the schism, the the east west schism.

And um, and the fourth of these is Kelsidon, right? So it's Nika, Constantinople, Ephesus, Kelsida and and Nyan con and Kelsedon are probably the most well-known. Yes. Because Protestants will still talk about and here I mean like Lutheran, people who have any sort of confessional historical aspect of their faith. Um, we'll talk about nyine trinitarianism, right? And calcedonian and that carries a lot of weight in the evangelical world because all you have to do is say this is the time when the church was united, right? Now, the irony though is that Calcedon is the one that occasions the initial schisms because it wasn't universally accepted. They were non-caledonians.

Now contextually part of this was that at Ephesus the prior one the third ecumenical council was you ran into this issue that basically the heresy at odds was notorianism and this was notorious the bishop of Constantinople actually this is one of the reasons why orthodox are like man you guys are going to put all your faith in bishop some of our chief heretics are bishops like but um you're getting to why the protestants went the way they did right. So um but but so with Ntorious to sort of oversimplify his position basically he thought that that Christ being two natures human and divine must also be two persons a divine person and a human person.

And so somehow the incarnation must be a fusion of these two. Yes. And of course the church said that's not true. Scripture scripture the himnity everything speaks only of one person. The person who's with the father and then becomes the son of Mary. Right. like there's only one guy, right? The two natures, but there's only one guy who has these two natures. And um and at Ephesus, that's where notorianism is condemned. Now the worry was for the non-calcedonian churches was that they were worried that the formulation at Calcedon and probably specifically the tome of Leo which was the Roman uh which was Roman uh tome right was a little too soft on historianism that it didn't like come down hard enough.

Yes. you like that that maybe a historian could sneak through here, you know, on this one. And that was always a worry, right? One, this was part of the reason. Statement of faith, right? This is part of the reason. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you were familiar with that in the evangelical world. How can I fudge these words and sort of get to the door, right? And so the non-caledonians were like, "Look, I I think Calcedon is a little too soft on on historianism."

Now the council clearly is trying to make very clear you know Pope Leo's tome you have to read with serial of Alexandria who was the main opponent of historius because they're echoing in the in the declarations of the council specifically serialign language like recognized in two persons right like that sort of language is directly out of Sierra but the the a lot of those those eastern churches were like ah Uh, I don't know, man. I think an historian might be able to get through the cracks here, and that's no good. And so, um, a lot of these churches opposed calcedon, not because they opposed the trajectory of it. Yeah. Not because they approached the orthodox understanding of Christologology, right?

It's because they feared that the formulation wasn't firmly enough against historianism. They they smell the rat, right? Sort of thing. And so what's interesting is often times these have been accused of being monopysites which would mean that they they they think that Christ's two natures mingle together into one nature the way like human and horse mingle into centaur or something like that right remember some of your podcasts I but but the issue here is actually that they're not they're not I mean over time over time The conclusion of a great many scholars including myself I think this would be fair to say that it's the majority you know view is that that the like you know people like the Coptics and the Ethiopians are not actually like monophysites they don't actually have um a monoysite christologology their Christologology is just seraline and it's perfectly orthodox so

and part of the history is that so so the thing is They didn't like the language of Kelsidon, right? And their language that they insisted on is why they get accused of being monophysites is because it's from serial. So serial of Alexandria who's perfectly orthodox talks about the one nature of Christ, right? And now serial does that if you look at it contextually. Serial is trying to explain to the notorians, you know, like you have two natures. Your body and your soul are of a different kind and yet they're unified in one person and operate perfectly harmoniously and we can refer to the one nature of man as all of those different natures.

The nature of heart, lung, you know, soul, all of that is your nature, right? And so serial sort of analogically says and Christ has both divinity and humanity, but they operate in perfect harmony and as one person. So this is the one nature of Christ, right? He's not suggesting there's any confusion or mingling or his divinity ceases to be divinity or his humanity ceases to be humanity. That's clearly not what serial of Alexandria is saying. And so the the non-caledonian churches were doggedly serene, which means they're doggedly Orthodox, but they were doggedly that way in the sense that this is the only acceptable language.

And the fact that Calcidon is using different language is opening the door to let let some heretics in here and we can't have that. They're a little more conservative even, you might say. Yeah. I mean, you might Yeah. I mean, and and truthfully, this is where even though I accept Calcidon, I'm sympathetic to the worry because um I do think Ntoriianism is a wildeyed, you know, terrible heresy that really shouldn't be accepted. And candidly, I do think in the Latin West there were notorian sympathies. I think a lot of people within the Latin West end up unintentionally, often times just espousing a notorian view.

And um and so I think the worry that they had about some of these western Latin tendencies was actually kind of fair even though I don't think Calcidon can be accused of endorsing historianism. Now the reason I bring that up is because as I said the majority scholarly opinion based on the discussion with the non-caledonians is that theologically we're not actually not at odds. Right? Uh the problem at this point is actually logistical. You guys canonize certain people as saints who we condemned as heretics in this controversy. You've got icons of certain people that we'd say you can't have an icon of that person cuz they're a heretic, right? Well, this is the between angels and principalities, I guess.

So, actually, ironically, this is a case where it's purely logistical, right? we now have, you know, sort of different things on our calendar, different icons on our wall. How do we, you know, do that? And so there was a time in, you know, in the Antiocian jurisdiction. I don't know if this may have changed recently, but there was a time where a non-caledonian didn't even have to be Chrismated. They just had to confess the nine creed and they could commute. Interesting. And so, so the thing is, I think a lot of Orthodox recognize I don't think this is a real theological divide. This is now a practical divide.

And the question is how could we bring these things knit this part of the organism back together by solving these sort of you know these practical issues. Yes. Um but but that's one that I look at and I go I could conceive of a world in the future where those are where that men that rip is mended right now in that case to your question about is it an individual thing or a church thing that would be a church thing right these are jurisdictions that would then be you know mended re in a sense the parishioners would follow the lead% of of of this sort of dialogical unity that's right that's being presented yeah and so I think to, you know, sort of move this into then, you know, something like when you're raising like Protestants or you're raising Catholics, you know, the obviously there's always room for an individual to say,

I've been baptized Lutheran, right? Um, that's a valid baptism, but I've come to the conclusion it's a severed appendage and I would like to be grafted into the the host and so I'm going to be received into the Orthodox church. Right? There's always room for that to happen and obviously that happens a lot. I'm an example of that. I was baptized as an infant as a Lutheran, right? I wasn't baptized into the Orthodox church. I was crisismated. Um, so obviously that can happen, but the hope would be that all of the cells within the severed limb end up being grafted in because this severed limb is grafted in. Right. Right. And that would be the sort of thing you'd see with the Caledonians.

Um now I what what's interesting is I don't actually know I would have to look this up. I don't know whether or not um the evangelical orthodox were baptized and crisismated or received by crisismation. Uh given that you have this entire you know you have the entire question of you know what sort of Protestant are you? Yes. Right. Are you a Protestant or are you something else entirely? Um so that's an interesting question that I don't know the answer to. I'm sure somebody out there will put it in the comments, you know, answer answering that question.

Um but um but I do think then when it comes to this question of you know the organic return again part of the challenge here is part of the challenge is again this question of proximity right so I think there is a difference between say a Roman Catholic or a Lutheran right like if the Lutheran church decided let's say in Lutheran dialogues they decided you know But our objections to Roman Catholicism don't apply to Eastern Orthodoxy. We think we could be in communion. Meen's vision can come about and we're going to be received into this just like the evangelicals were received into this.

Since we have valid baptisms, we're going to be just crisismated and brought in and now Lutheranism is going to disappear back into the original host. I think that is a plausible scenario in terms of an outcome of dialogue. um hypothetically hypothetically um but I think there is a difference between that and you know my uncle Bob's a Christian and uh and we just decided we're going to start a Christian church right and part of the question is like you know if if you have a completely is is this more in the territory of Mormonism right where it's like okay well yeah I just believe certain things I came to believe certain things like I think of the movie the apostle right I I haven't seen it in years and years and years, but doesn't he like baptize himself and like he just decides he's got the spirit and he baptizes himself.

He goes out preaching, starts a church like that, you know, that I I just look at that and I say, "Does I don't really care what he believes. That is that is a pure narcissism. That is not actually the organic right body, you know, sort of a separation, an appendage that's being separated." Um, so again, follow up with this. however you like. But I do think right when it comes to the question of dialogue, when it comes to the question of practicality, I do think there are differences between like I said the apostle scenario where it's just a complete I'm baptized myself and whatever and a Lutheran for example. Uh what it would look like is I think the Coptics are a good example.

Now there would be a slight difference of course between the Coptics and the Lutherans. Coptics were a valid jurisdiction and so they would probably actually retain their jurisdiction. Um, and so in this sense they would be grafted into the larger host again. We would be reunited and yet they wouldn't lose their identity. Lutheran would probably lose their identity in some way in the sense that they would cease to be Lutheran. They wouldn't be Lutheran Orthodox or something like that. Um, because they would be grafted into the into the host.

And then I think the entire question of somebody who's just sort of doing their own thing created out of whole cloth is an entirely different scenario where they they need to be grafted into the host in the first place. So speaking from an orthodox perspective, that's how I would approach it. And as somebody who believes that there is an organic body passing through space and time, I actually think this is the importance of dialogue. Maybe we can talk about that. But I'll just say concisely, which is not something I often do. Uh, as you can tell, if I were initiating Lutheran Orthodox dialogues, the goal would not just be that we understand each other better, right?

The goal would be that if the conclusion is that you know your worries about you know the Roman Catholic Church and your protest and things like that don't endure in the face of you know historical Orthodox faith and you can embrace it that the Lutheran are grafted into into the host right it's and and so I I do take the position obviously as an Orthodox person that I believe there is an organic body spreading throughout space and time and I think the incorporation into that is important. Um I'm I'm not really that interested in dialogue that's just like well we just understand each other and led bygones be bygones and and it doesn't really matter, right?

Because that actually is has theological content and it's theological content I would disagree with. Well, I'm trying to sort of process all of this in a contemporary mindset, right? Having been in the evangelical church um pretty much my whole life or the Protestant transition in the evangelical church, I don't always know how to parse those out fully. But there is this sense in which, you know, going back to the Bible is a safe space that we can do Bible study. we can if you're preaching from the word, if the gospel is constantly in the preaching and in the teaching, you're in you're in good, you know, stead as it were.

And we're able to reach culture, we're able to engage uh contemporary people because they still have a modocum of Christian memory even that they're engaged in. And then what you see right my years in Deerfield, you see even in the Catholic church like Holy Cross there in Deerfield, people who go over there say, "It looks like an evangelical church in here. if they're going to reach Americans, it seems like the American church is is is there's something happening there that we're doing right that they're recognizing even um and so I guess there's this sense in which I evangelicals and and Protestants who are still grafted into the the tree or the body um look back and say the closer we get to the actual halls of power, say the pope or, you know, bishops or it feels more foreign.

It feels further away. It feels like the thing we were protesting in the beginning. It's it's more authoritarian. They seem to have all the what they take to be the truth. But we but we have the Bible and we have the gospel. we have an understanding of, you know, uh um you know, a faith um you know, grace being, you know, central to the faith and and so how do you navigate this? I mean, we're talking about thousands of years here.

Yeah. this this notion that um there is something right about what we're doing that is reforming the church through osmosis or something that's backward has a backward kind of uh upstream effect um with the concern that there is still a church out there in particularly the Catholic Church but I guess if they thought about it they might even put the Eastern Orthodox Church in the same vein even though they wouldn't know why. Um, seeing that that is worth protesting still that the further you get away from the American version of it, the evangelicalism, the what what's right about the evangelical church, the more suspect it feels because it's more foreign and more different.

Um, that's I guess I guess that's uh in my mind right now because when I when I think of orthodoxy generally, I think of yeah, I want to commune with Nathan Jigs. I want to commune with the Orthodox Church because there's something there, a way of thinking about doctrine, a way of thinking about being in the world that is a a super important resource as it were for stabilizing the faith, for answering objections of of of the pagans and other things. But at the same time, the church structure, the authority, the it's the very thing we've been protesting from the beginning that somehow the biblical faith is lost in that.

Even though right doctrine may be present, it's not permeating every believer as it would be as we demand it in formation of evangelicals. Not that they do it, but that when you become a believer, you go to Bible story, you come to know your your faith, you come to a relationship with Christ, and you grow in that faith. Um, and so I guess my question is how how do you how do you establish that dialogue or that that willingness to recognize the organic relatedness, but also the deep sense that um we're on the front lines of doing what Christ would have us do as disciples and as people in formation and so forth that are trying to to to to live godly lives, right?

But aren't really in communion with those historic church bodies anymore. So where my mind goes is actually Gregory of Nissa's uh great catechism. Okay. And in his great catechism, one of the things he talks about is that if you're dialoguing with uh you know a pagan polytheist, you have to take a very different approach than if you're dialoguing with a pagan monotheist. Right. And he's like, so with the with the polytheist, you got to start by making an argument or reasoning to a highest being. Yes. Whereas, you know, if you're already dealing with a monotheist who believes that, that work's already done. You don't even need to do it. Right?

And the reason I bring that up is because I actually see two different I I I see this I see sort of two different phases in the ways that evangelicals enter. And here I'm talking about individuals, right? So, not denominations, but individuals end up dialoguing with orthodoxy. And I've seen this countless times. I couldn't tell you how many people I've watched go through this journey. Right. Sometimes it's because a spouse is interested and they're being dragged along, so they're being forced to dialogue with it begrudgingly. Yes. Right. Sometimes it's an enthusiastic person who's like, "Man, I've been looking for something and this is really scratching that itch." Yes. Sometimes it's somebody who has no religion, right?

And they're just like they start to bump into certain videos online that make sense to them and and now they're just sort of going down this road and trying to make sense of it. But I've seen I've seen these journeys, whatever they are, you know, time and time again. And there's usually two phases to it. And the first phase is normally a phase that's going point by point through theology. Okay. So talk to me about this Mary stuff. Like I don't know, you guys are talking about this, you know, she's ever virgin. I don't know. I don't see this in the Bible. And and it is in this sense it's very much an evangelical theological dialogue just like a Calvinist and an Armenian would have.

Right? Well, what do you do with this verse? What do you do with that verse? Right? And it becomes a question of can you can you convince me that the Bible is on your side that you guys aren't contradicting the Bible. Right. Like it's and and so in that sense it's an evangelical approaching theology like an evangelical. Right. Right. They're they're asking they're asking theology questions based on the Bible and they want answers and they're not going to budge on this until they're satisfied with those answers. Right. Yes. But what'll happen for those who end up becoming orthodox is that at some point and this happened in my own journey.

They have to come to grips with the fact that one of the important questions that they have to ask theologically is whether it's true that they are the one who is in the driver's seat scrutinizing the church fathers in the church based on the reading of the Bible or whether or not they actually have to have a shift. And I sometimes have you know concisely summarize this by saying like my my journey started with understanding seeking faith. Yes. And then there was a tipping point that happened where the Eastern Fathers had persuaded me on so many topics. I was like, I still have questions, but I'm convinced you guys had the answers, right?

And so I'm going to in faith just trust on the rest of these. I'm going to keep on digging for answers, right? But I'm just going to trust you guys. And that's all of a sudden faith seeking understanding. And I think I think that's uh I don't think there is a single answer to how the dialogue begins. I think it has to begin in some ways with you know with dealing with the guards at the gate which are going to be asking theology questions. Well, what do you do about marri? Do you guys think you're saved by works?

Like what you know it's going to be the quintessential theology stuff that raises a skeptical eyebrow and says I don't know when I read the Bible I'm not sure that's what I see. So, convince me that I'm I'm seeing it wrong. And at some point, there's going to have to be a wrestling with the way in which the Orthodox Church sees that very approach in the first place because here, let me just here's a here's an analogy I sometimes use.

You may have heard it already from me, but in some ways the sort of Bible alone approach um I think with evangelicals is is an approach that brings with it such thick lenses that are inherited from modernity, that are inherited from Latin scholasticism, that are inherited from the Protestant reformation scholastic engagement, which is the Reformation and things like that. and the the way those things have been passed down and then distilled into sort of short catechism form and into bumper sticker theology I those lenses are really thick and so I think it creates almost sometimes for an evangelical when they're looking at the Bible they see this spectrum right of possible readings of a text and they're like I just don't see yours in there

right and they don't realize well that's because you've got these blinders or these lenses on we if we could rip off those lenses you'd see oh wa it's it's a whole spectrum more tools in the tool box. Yeah. And and I think to sort of capture in some ways how maybe an orthodox person would see the relationship between the church and tradition, the scriptures, um is is to use a certain certain metaphor here. Um uh which would be, you know, let's imagine that you and I start a corporation. Okay? Now, we don't expect this corporation to last for more than a couple of decades. Um, and so we don't really write corporate laws or, you know, a corporate handbook or anything like that.

We're just sort of doing this thing organically. And at some point, you and I realize, man, we've been doing this for multiple decades now. We're getting up in years. We probably should put together some of these material cuz I think this corporation's going to outlive us, right?

And so then we print out all of our different emails back and forth and we bind them and we distribute them and we're like this is this is your corporate guidelines along with obviously everything else we've told you but you know like this is this is what we do and then one day we have some guy come to us and be like so I've been reading I've been reading over the corporate handbook right and I've noticed that how we do business is this and you're like where do we say that it's like right here right right let me let me show you it's it's on chapter and verse this, right? And you're like, "Oh, no.

I see how you're reading that, but that's that's not what we mean. That's not how we do business." Like, "No, no, no. It is. Trust me, because look, I'm going to sentence diagram this for you." And you're like, "No, no, no. I look, I understand how you're reading it, but that's not how we do business." He's like, "No, but but it is. Look at me here. Let me pull out my dictionary. Give you the etmology of this word, you know, the Webster definition, whatever it is." See, and then you're like, "No, no, believe me, I understand how you're getting to that conclusion, but it's not how we do business, right? Well, then I think you you're corrupt. You've diverged from the the true business model."

And and that is in some ways the difference between how the Protestant evangelical mind approaches scripture versus the church. They definitely feel like they have some non-negotiables, some some elements in the in in the protest, as it were, that are focusing on the majors, right? And that those things kind of like create a picture and if it falls within that purview, it's thumbs up, right? And if not, then it's it's got more reform to do. Yeah. Whereas I think one of the things you see in the the in the church fathers, right? So one of the things Aronyaeus for example, so Aronyaeus is the disciple of Polycarp who is the disciple of the apostle John, right?

Arena was basically thought to be a prophet, you know, in the early church, right? Um, you know, and Aronyaeus deals a lot with the Gnostics. In fact, most of what we knew about monnosticism before we had recovered certain texts was thanks to Aranea cataloging it, you know, and um and basically Aronyaeus points out that one of the things the Gnostics do because if you're familiar with Gnostic hermeneutics, they you know they have all their different you know their hierarchy of you know different aons and whatever else and then they go into numerology see in this parable Jesus is using this number and that corresponds to this thing over here and they're doing all sorts of cryptic readings and Arnaeus offers a pretty, you know, a humorous analogy here where he's just like, you know, it's kind of like dealing with an Gnostic.

He's like, you're sitting here looking at a beautiful mosaic of Jesus. Yes. He comes in, they go, you know what? Jesus was really a dog. And he starts to move around the tiles and boom, you've got a picture of a dog. And he's like, see, Jesus is a dog. And Aronyaeus is like, "Well, it's really interesting that you can do that with the tiles, but we actually know Jesus isn't a dog." And um and the reason that's important is because in Arrena's mind, we already know what Christianity is. We taught it by the apostles. We've been doing it. We practice it. When we come to the scriptures, we come to the scriptures already knowing what Christianity is. And we bring that to the text. Yeah.

So another thing that another sort of similar story is u father Josiah Trenum you know he's a orthodox priest does a lot of videos online and I remember him talking once about a visit where he went to Thessaloni right where obviously Paul wrote letters to the Thessalonians right 1 and 2 Thessalonians and those churches are still there and they're Orthodox churches and and basically he talked about being there and you normally have a bishop's chair that represents the bishop even when he's not there. And uh and Father Josiah apparently saw the one, you know, in one of these churches like, "Is this the bishop's chair?" Right? That's where the bishop sitting like, "Oh, the bishop wouldn't sit there. Why?" Well, that's cuz that's St. Paul's chair, right?

And uh you know, he's the one who started this church really, right? you know, and and one of the things that Father Josiah pointed out, which I think is good to remember is that he said like, let's imagine, you know, that St. Paul started your church and every Sunday you go to the liturgy and and you've met him and you've heard him preach and you've had people sit around and ask him questions and he instructed you and all this sort of stuff. And then when he is martyed, you sit there and you go, "Okay, but we're now only going to do the stuff he wrote down." in his letters to us, you wouldn't do that.

You'd be like, "No, there's I have so much experience with St. Paul and what Christianity is and how I'm supposed to live it. Like, why on earth would I brack it?" And Paul himself actually says this to the Thessalonians where he says, "Abide by whatever I've told you, whether by word of mouth or by epistle." And so, and and this, I think, is critical to how the Orthodox see it. Now, the reason I bring this up is because it is a theology question to say, am I seeing the Bible right? Am I the one who reads the Bible and scrutinizes the church? Yes. Is it the the Bible versus tradition?

Um, you know, is is the church an organism that I am in some ways separated from right now? Like, all of those are important theological questions. Now, I think the reason that an evangelical can't start there is because they're still living in the evangelical mind of everything is a singular theological question. And I have certain non-negotiables that I'm not going to budge on. Yes. And so I think the reason the dialogue has to go through two different phases is because it because the the second phase is a bridge too far, right? There has to be a certain trust that's built. Yes. Before you would ever even entertain that.

Because if I'm sitting here in these initial questions and I think you're a complete and total heretic, you know, who's living out some pagan religion that has nothing to do with Christianity, why would I even listen to you or even consider these possibilities? Yes. And so I think there's an initial that initial phase is inevitable. And I think and I think that's important to recognize that in the dialogue there has to be two phases to it. Oh, that's fascinating because I think one of the things I'm learning in this conversation here is that um some of it's epistemic and and and notic in the sense that an evangelical might look at marriology and think that's kind of like Mormonism.

That's clearly that can't be part of the original church. Whereas they haven't had that first dialogue. they haven't built up the trust to see through the ages all the questions that have been raised and how they've had to be answered in real time under fire under you know in in in a real context. So I guess when I'm thinking about boiling this down, if I if I'm using the analogy of the tree of theology and you're using the analogy of the body with a severed limb, um evangelicals, I how do you how do you come down on the issue of say providence in the sense that okay, we have the church migrating through the ages, answering the difficult questions, building a a body of theological truth.

Mhm. We continue to have that in the reformation. We continue to have the providence of God working in in the tree of theology is in fact the way it's supposed to be versus I what I'm hearing from you in the other analogy is yes there's an organic relationship but there is a sever there is a conversation that needs to have an a grafting back in yeah to the body itself.

How do you how do you navigate because I do think the evangelical mind is more in the former like the tree of theology I'm talking about we are part of the blossoming of the church and that if the conversation is going to happen and unification is going to happen is probably going to be in the escaton at this point uh you know whereas I think the orthodox mind says no we're that God's still moving through the church he's primarily doing so through the original church and that there's been a a sever a lack of fellowship ship and that it that it would have to come back to to something that is more unified. So those it's kind of like two different analogies there.

I guess I do live in the former more than I do the latter. But I think I'm hearing from you in this first dialogue that you need to be open to considering this the other metaphor as a genuine uh opening of Christian doctrinal and fellowship possibilities. Yeah. Yeah.

Um and so here let me let me begin with a slight difference in mindset for a lot of evangelicals versus the orthodox right and that mindset is let's start with an initial binary that isn't quite resonant with the orthodox mind and then we can sort of expand that how that's actually indicative of a lot of things in orthodox thinking and that binary is this am I saved or am I damned right like and I would notice this when I would teach church history like when I taught at Trinity and And I'd go through like historical theology and I'd have students who start to consider Orthodox and they'd get neurotic like Dr. Jacobs like can I become Orthodox like if I wanted to become Orthodox like right now like it's an alter call, right?

And I had to break it to him. First of all, if you went to an Orthodox church right now, they wouldn't make you orthodox, right? Um if they'd make you a catacum at best and they'd probably make you an inquirer first who needs to just ask some questions and make sure you even are ready for that. Yes. And then if and then if they made you a catechum you're going to have to basically try on the faith for a good while. According to serial of Jerusalem that was typically three years. It's one of the reasons why this this feels like a practical bridge that's pretty far apart. Right. Right.

Because the evangelical wants to say believe on the name of Christ, you're in the church, brother. Yeah. No, no. I mean, theologically this is actually and again this becomes gradations within the Protestant mind. There's salvation, there's damnation. This is a line. You're on one side or the other, right? And that's the rationale of things like alter calls and if you died tonight and stood before the Lord, right? You know, that sort of thing. What are you going to say? Right? That sort of thing.

Whereas what's interesting and you see this grow up, you can see it in the New Testament era already uh since evangelicals are big on the New Testament like but like so notice early on in the book of Acts it might be you meet an Ethiopian it's like I'm convinced man what here's some water what's to prevent me from being baptized and they do it right right you get to first John all of a sudden now there's a difference between people who have been catechuman and not baptized and people who have been. Right? So notice that John actually says he talks about certain people who were among us but were never one of us. And then how does he differentiate them?

Well, you have a charismata or a charismation, an anointing of the Holy Spirit. And so now you need to endure what with you know what you've received. Well, that indicates they've already got this trial period of a catechuman who is in their midst living out the faith. Not partaking in the sacraments yet, but trying it on to say, "Do you really want to be this?" Yes. And if you do, then we'll crisate you. And now you better endure because you've partaken in the mysteries. And this is part of the wisdom that you see in Hebrews where it's warning like, look, it's better to never partake of the mysteries than to partake of them and leave.

And so you see the pastoral judgment set in between Acts and First John that says, "We've got some people who are converting enthusiastically and they don't know what they're getting into and they leave and we think we're doing violence to their soul because they're partaking of the mysteries and then abandoning it. And it would be better if they never became Christians and left than to become Christians be, you know, and then become apostates. Like that would be far worse."

And so you start to see this more organic longer term and it actually ironically in you know it starts to create a controversy because you start to have cacuman who haven't been charismated being martyed and part of the question is wait a second what's their status spiritually you know they they're martyrs which is really elevated but they they were never even baptized and crisismated right you know because they're in this three-year trial period right um but it's kind of like engagement versus marriage and things like that Now the reason I think that's important is because as you can see within orthodoxy there is this idea and we talked about this in a prior podcast right in one of the prior interviews where we were talking

about the analogy of working out and spiritual formation and the onlogical side of this because salvation of the soul is a full organic process right that is through all of these different stages and agrees. It's not as binary as an alter call, right? And and and obviously we could talk about all sorts of different doctrines, prayer for the dead, descent into Hades, all these sorts of things, but this is where it is seen. It's not seen in that simple binary way. Now, now I the reason I bring that up is because I think that applies in a variety of areas within the Orthodox Church. As I said in the metaphor, right?

Like part of the thing is to say like you can say a schism is real without saying their s val their sacraments are not valid. Like and and so you start to get again this sort of spectrum that isn't so binary. Whereas the binary sort of evangelical mind that says it's either the true church and everything else is false. Yes. Or it's not. And tell me if I'm I love all that. I mean I I helps me to understand when I see an altar call. I see a someone do an about face in their life and they become Christian. They call on the name of Christ. They change their ways. They drop their old self. They take on a new one.

Is this a a viable sort of milk versus solid food Christian transformation to an orthodox mindset? there's they can go through the evangelical church not unlike Dr. Jacobs did at one point, but as they begin to understand the fullness of the church in their faith that there's a kind of maturation towards that would fit to the tree metaphor, you know, that there is something legitimate and important going on. I see it all the time. I mean, we're baptizing people, you know, and and seeing people come to faith in Hot Springs, Arkansas through Erica Pacy's ministry all the time.

Um but then they set upon a journey of understanding their ancestry and that in their life they might find a migration that this is an entry point that they need more development, more doctrine, more fellowship, better understanding of the church universal and have a kind of formation migration if you will. Um that would lend itself would it not to that tree metaphor somewhat but the severed limb metaphor uh in a sense there's still something missing here that's vital to their right to how do you I guess I'm still you know clinging to this notion that there that this providential church growth is actually a unified church in a kind of beautifully complex historic way. Yeah.

So I I I I I think there is a satisfying answer to this and I think the fact that you've used the word several times a providence is is the right place to go with it. Right now before I do that I just want to and give a little funny aside is since you're bringing up alter calls. One of the places my mind goes to was I had an aunt who wanted you know was deeply concerned about my salvation for good reason. But uh and and you know wanted me to go to some church and they're doing the put your head head down and alter call and the guy's really trying to get more hands to go up.

I don't know if any hands were up, right? Maybe he's trying to get the first and he's like he's asking all these questions. He's like now if you if you ever do you ever look at yourself and say I you know I could be living better than I am right now. Then put your hand up right now. R's like, "Well, yeah, I mean, of course." Like, and he's like, he's like, "Then I want you to come up here." And I'm like, "Oh, come on." He's like, "No, no, no. Don't put that hand down." I'm like, "You got to be kidding me." So, I wander up there with this look on my face like, "You you're you're joking, right?"

And I get ushered off to some to be handled by some high school kid who's there to try to walk me through the Roman road. I'm like, "Look, man. you you're barking up the wrong tree, man. I just The guy asked a question that anybody should raise their hand to. And that's all I did. I got hoodwinkedked into this cuz he wouldn't let me put my hand down. Can I go now? Anyway, so that's that's my experience with alterc. But uh but a lot of people have different chances of that, but I I can I understand that. Not suggesting that's everybody's experience. I'm just saying. Anyway, that's where my mind goes when I think of alter calls.

But anyway, um, but here's where I think, so let me start with this term providence and how it's used historically. So what's interesting is when you, I mean, as you know, when you look at the prescratic era, one of the main divides is the question of do I believe the world is ordered by some sort of governing principle like a mind or love, right?

Pedicles and or not is it just random happen stance and this is one of the reasons why when I teach the history of ideas I talk about this as the providentialists versus the nonprovidentialists and these are the early views of providence where the conviction is you know you know if you're anexagoras you know I think the world is organized by mind that's the principle you know that's capital M where for him he probably used noose right so capital you know n but you still it was uh but it was still like this idea that there is a governing principle or impedeles it's love right um and so these were the providentialists now what's interesting is if you look at providentialists and I talk about this

quite a bit in my livveness book because I think it's important to understanding livveness but um provident providence historically was really seen as not only that which orders the world but in ordering the world to plants and animals and these different genera species and things like that. It also cares for the world with one intent which is to draw the thing toward proper formation.

So providence was seen as not just an organizing principle but a coaxing principle drawing you to the good and this is one of the reasons it was seen as the good because obviously being you know the nature of things uh was seen as as as the good of the thing right an eye properly formed so that it sees is the good of an eye and when it's injured so it no longer sees that's a corruption that's an evil to the eye and so the conviction that providence wills nothing but the good was a conviction that this this ordering principle is perpetually coaxing yes toward proper formation and that notion doesn't disappear in the eastern fathers and so you actually see um you know people like

John John of Damascus in his chapters on providence actually says God orders things in the best possible way such that none better could be done or he does things in the best possible way such that none better could be done now he says of course when I'm talking about this I'm talking about what God does not well we do right we do all sorts of bad stuff but I think that's critical because in the Eastern fathers there is no arbitrary choosing of God right God's like I think you're saved and you're damned or you know maybe I like you and I hate you for no particular reason right there is no you know there is no capricious side to God and for the eastern fathers

God can do nothing but will the good of a creature and so everything he's doing is aimed at the good of creatures and in this sense that's what providence is perpetually drawing things toward proper formation. Now, if you're thinking of spiritual formation and salvation in this organic way, it doesn't start at the doors of the church. Like the very fact that I had a Lutheran mother who, you know, to use Augustine of Hippos confessions, right? This name, oh Christ, I drank in with my mother's milk, right? Like the very fact that that was present, even though like Augustine, I went off on all sorts of different heroing journeys, right? You know, stealing from the peach tree. Yeah, I did a few more things than that.

But um but um as did he. But um but the thing is like that was Providence stacking the deck and coaxing me already. Right. Right. Okay, fine. You're going to go on you're going to do a bunch of acid. Right. I talked about this bad acid trip that was catalytic. I'm I'm going to let you have a bad acid trip to coax you. Right. I'm going to awaken you to some spiritual questions you should be answer asking. Yes. Right. Okay. You're in crisis now. Good. You should be in crisis and asking these questions and tenaciously pursuing those sorts of things. And all of those things are providence drawing me to that.

And this is one of the things that I think is important to understand that when you think like an orthodox person and you don't think in these binary saved, damn, where you at? Are you saved? Are you damned? But you're looking at the entire life of the person as something that is being drawn by God toward one end, which is the resurrection from the dead. Like that's the endgame. Yes. Where you're fully transformed. There's no problem at all at saying, you know, that person had never heard of Jesus. They heard of Jesus. Now, I'm not convinced they heard of an Orthodox Jesus. Not sure they heard an Orthodox gospel, but they heard something that awakened them to Jesus. Yes.

And they said, "I think there's something true here." and I'm willing to change my life based on that. That is part of that coaxing. And you don't have to deny that, right? doesn't mean that they're at the end of the journey or that it's fully, you know, it's that it's fully formed into what they really need like that they're still and that's why you can say simultaneously, oh, this person who who responded to an altic call and started changing their life and then years later started studying church history and was like, man, I think I don't I think I should become Orthodox. Both of those are valid and part of their journey toward Christ.

You can say that as an orthodox person because of that sort of organic way of looking at and providence is the right metaphor. Now I had said that that that sort of false binary is something that spreads into all places and I think it's I I think you know to use some examples evangelicals will sometimes be like well look at we came up with this ministry or we're doing this certain type of art or something and it seems really good and effective right and and that conclusion suddenly becomes and therefore there's nothing corrupt about it right like it's all good and I think within orthodoxy again similar to the way that an orthodox person can look at an altar call as a genuine step in a person's spiritual formation and salvation.

So they can look at different expressions of you know the Christian faith or ministries or things like that as God using working even amidst corrupt things. They don't have to say it's all bad. Right? The Orthodox actually have the capacity to say that and sit here and say there that part of our doctrine of providence is what Paul talks about that God synergizes all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Right? And synergy is, you know, it's it's it's two energies in a single act. So like a branding iron, right? Where it's fire and it's metal operating uh in a single act. It's synergistic.

I mean, when looking at providence, God will use whatever you give him for your salvation and the salvation of others. And what that looks like may be different if you're Pharaoh. He's going to use all that hard. He's going to use all that resistance in a different way than he would with Moses, who's a cooperative agent. But he's going to use it. He's going to find a way to use that for the one thing that he does, which is to draw all things toward the good. because you know that's what providence does.

And so I think from an orthodox perspective there's no problem in looking at that and saying look you know when you look around you're saying I think I think I'm seeing lives changing. I think I'm seeing people moving in the right direction. I don't I don't know that I like the idea of saying that there's a true church that would just invalidate all this. Right. And I think the answer is you don't have to invalidate all of it. Right. Uh was that is that what came to my mind as you were saying that would be the Orthodox can have an appreciation like the Bereans for example that there's a church out there Baptist church in the inner city is changing lives or getting that we can appreciate the fact that they are sharing the word of God.

They are they're seeing lives changed. They're they're pushing people out into out of out of the harbor into the wide and stormy ocean of a spiritual journey that they're now going on. Um, but there's also I don't know what the right word would be, a kind of sadness maybe or something that they're not actually, you know, communing with Yeah. the original church. I mean, is that is that kind of the what you're saying? Yeah.

No, I think I think I think that's true, right? that there's a recognition there that there's a simultaneous recognition of where God is at work and seeing the hand of God and things um without saying but there's something deficient here there's something grievous there's something that ought not be the case right and so and I and that's that's part of how I've tried to because a lot of people who convert to orthodoxy and I've met a lot right um they will sometimes really sort of fret about what their conversion says about certain people in their life. What does it say about my devout Baptist grandparents? Right. Right. Or something like that. Yes. And the answer is not much. Right.

Like all it says is that, you know, grandma loved Jesus as best as she understood him. Right. But you're convinced that, you know, there was still deficiencies in in in the the means by which you received Jesus. That that there could that there was something that that could have been shored up. That in an ideal world wouldn't exist. In an ideal world, the church would never have fractured and her coming to Jesus would have been coming to Jesus through the one church because there is only one church. That's the ideal. And the very fact that she, you know, came to know Jesus through a Baptist, well, glory to God that she embraced Christ as far as she understood her.

And this is something that comes through again and again in Eastern fathers and the saints of the church, which is that a person is judged according to both knowledge and understanding. This comes up a lot. Yes. Right. That moral praise and blame. Uh this happens all the time in the fathers is based on knowledge and ability. I need to know what I ought to do and have the ability to do or to not do it. And if one of those conditions is lacking, then I'm not held accountable. And so somebody like Elder Picios, for example, a very recent saint, talks about, you know, God forbid that God judges uh the son of a priest and the son of a prostitute the same way, right?

Because one has very clear advantages that make him more accountable for those advantages than the other one. And so anyway, that's a that's a very long way of saying uh I think I don't think anything about the orthodox stand actually requires somebody to cease to see the hand of God. Quite the contrary, I think a proper orthodox perspective sees the work in the hand of God in the image of God everywhere and is convinced is convinced that at every moment wherever a person is at God is proactively pursuing them and drawing them to the good. And if they see a movement in a certain direction that looks to be toward God, glory to God, that's a synergistic act.

That is them responding to the tri of God. Well, I'm uh I have to admit that, you know, in my focus, in my vocational calling, in my you know, being a philosopher, being a Christian, being a grafted into the church, you know, evangelical church broadly, I don't have the honor of and uh opportunity for these kinds of dialogues as much as I would like. Um, and I do think that they're fruitful. And I think that the more that culture pushes back on Christianity generally, the more important these conversations become because u we have more in common than not, you know, and um and so that's super cool.

I'm still, you know, you've given me a lot to think about to process on this analogy of the what I'm calling the tree of theology. Um and uh I guess I'm I'm uh open to continue conversations on this in this light. I are these unique in your experience or are they I think they are somewhat unique. So and and I think unfortunately so I would love to see more of this happen in terms of real dialogue. Um because I think first of all there has to be a certain amount of trust and mutual respect which obviously we have enough history that we can do this right. I'm not worried about hurting your feelings upsetting you.

I'm not I'm sure you're not worried about the camera on worried about but um you know like I I think I think we're in a position where we can you know go back and forth uh with mutual respect and trust and all that. I think that's important. Um but I I do think there's a couple of challenges with regard to dialogue. One is those thick lenses that I'd mentioned. And so oftentimes what you'll have and this is one of the reasons I've been doing the East West series which is in pre-production. Yeah, I'm excited. And so if you haven't already, go over to the eastwestseries.com. That's the eastwest.com and pre-order it now for the cheapest it'll ever be offered. This 25part lecture series.

Now, with that, that's yes, on the one hand for individuals for reasons that I've talked about in in the promotions of it, but it's also I would love to see at some point churches start to do things like let's have a dialogue and we're going to have people watching some of these or screen we're going to screen three of them and have a Q&A or a dialogue or something like that. Um, but we'd encourage people to actually watch it individually, the entire series or whatever it might be. I'd love to see it become a vehicle for dialogue.

And the reason is, and this goes to one of the problems that I was, you know, that I was about to mention, is that I think often times people who are sort of cradle Eastern Orthodox or they've only been trained in Eastern Orthodox, they often times aren't exposed to Western views and and the way the West thinks is completely alien to them. If you want to see an example of this, you should watch my interview with Father Joseph Lucas who is trained entirely in the Orthodox world. And he talks about encountering a street preacher for the first time. He's like, "Are you saved, brother?" You know, and all this sort of stuff.

And he talks about how like the street preacher says to him, "But are you saved from your good works?" And he's like, "What are you talking about?" Like, and that started a weekly dialogue. He's like, "Okay, I'll read your little chick tracks, but you got to read stuff I give to you, and we'll come back in dialogue." So he talks about that whole story that for him he didn't even understand the framework of the Protestant mind. On the other hand, you have people who understand the framework of the Protestant mind and when they come over to the east, they're sitting here going, "Well, here here's the taxonomy. Here are the four views of hell. These are the three views of baptism.

These are and they're just trying to figure out which one is the orthodox view." But the problem is the answer is none. Right. Like the the roots of those options go down to Latin soil. Yes. and you'd actually have to dig up the roots to begin the dialogue. And and so so I think the problem is not many people are equipped to go ahead and actually navigate both worlds and serve as a translator. It's like I understand what your concerns are. I understand where your systems come from. I understand what your framework is. Uh but I also understand what you're not seeing over here and let me translate it for you.

Now thankfully, you know, my training and my journey and my experience equips me to do that sort of thing. Yes. And that's one of the reasons why I did the east west series. I and and so so I think the thing is or doing the east west series.

I think the thing is here all this is to say there have been dialogues right you can dig up Lutheran Orthodox dialogues right but I'm not convinced that the people who were involved in those dialogues were equipped fully to understand each other and and so I think the sort of dialogue that we're having where there's some amount of clarity and understanding of the issues and there's not either on the one hand you know just a compromise to say well you know it's all you know mere Christianity isn't that great that we all just love Jesus, right? But it's actually substantatively facing down the issue that says, "What does this mean? Is there a church? Are we part of it? Are we not part of it?"

All that. I think that's increasingly rare. Well, I don't say increasingly rare. I think it's just rare. Period. Right. And I would but I would love to see that change. I would love to see it change. I'd love to see substantive Lutheran Orthodox dialogues that are really about whether or not the Lutheran should become Orthodox. Right. Uh, I'd love to, you know, I' I'd love to see those dialogues happen. Yeah. I guess, you know, what comes to my mind is that it does seem like the evangelical world needs to um, in a sense, it feels like to the evangelical mind the cost of entry is too intellectually high. That there's too much that's there.

I fear I I fear I give I give that impression sometimes with the way I approach it because I'm approaching it as a philosopher. There are simpler paths to entry listening to the Nathan Jacobs, right? And and and in the other the other way is the appreciation of what's going on in the evangelical world from the orthodox side that it to to to the person on the street to to the to the evangelist that you're talking about in that dialogue. We can see substantive improvement in people if they just hear the gospel and they believe they turn their lives around and they get baptized.

You know that that general even evangelistic story still matters and to the extent that that zero point entry can be appreciated we can come a little closer together. You know, if if the evangelical mind will just take a look at church history, take a look at the what I'm calling the tree of theology and really understand that they're Protestants and they're not meant to remain there, that they're meant to come back together ultimately. Um that these kind of dialogues can be can happen without defense mechanisms constantly popping up like I don't know what's is this guy a Mormon? No, he's Eastern Orthodox. Okay. Right.

Or is is is is this guy got any hope of getting beyond this myopic you know um sense that you know believe in the name of Christ of salvation by grace alone you know um maybe we can have these dialogues maybe we can come closer together. Yeah. You know, I I think this is where I would like to pitch kick a question over to you. And I guess it's more it's really less of a question for you and more of a question for the entire Protestant world, right? And that's one of those things of, you know, when it comes down to it, if you're going to you're saying like recognizing that you're Protestant, I think one of the prior questions is are you Protestant? Right.

And and and my inclination is to think that the reason you frame thing the way you have is because you still do have a truly Protestant disposition, right? You see it as a protest, right? But I think it's important for Protestants to ask themselves, are we Protestants anymore? Um and and the reason is, and maybe with that, maybe with that it's worth asking some follow-up questions. If the Roman Catholic Church suddenly was fine with whatever your laundry list is, right, would you become Roman Catholic or would you say, "Glory to God, they finally came around." Right? And we're going to keep doing our own thing, right? Good question. I'm not sure where people would land on that. Right.

And I think I think it's an important question because if the answer is it doesn't matter what they do, we're not coming back together, then then the separation is a divorce. Right. Right. um glad he finally got his head out of his butt, but you know, I'm not going back to that rascal like no matter what, right? Like that's, you know, that's the disposition then. And so anyway, all that's to say is that I think asking some of these questions about saying, are we Protestants? Is there anything that the Catholic Church could ever do that we would return to it? You know, would we ever abandon our our own identity to return to the host? Yes. Yes.

And of course, as an Orthodox person, I don't think returning to Catholicism is returning to the host. But, you know, it's closer, you know, but it's, you know, but it's still not there. But, but that's neither here or there, right? The question is is really for the Protestant mind. Are you a Protestant? Yes.

And I think that really matters because otherwise there is no dialogue to really be had, right? you've already resolved the most important theological question which is that there is no right church other than this invisible church that as long as a person thinks or believes the right things they're a Christian and it's all equally valid. um asking that question about Protestantism whether that's what you really are I think is is a critical question and then if the answer is yes right then I think that's where it becomes the important question of saying now let's move into a dialogue then because if you really are a Protestant then you really should recognize some sort of schism that ought not to be right and and what does

it look like to move toward remedy and I can and I can hear some of my Protestant friends, you know, hearkening back saying, "Okay, in principle, I'm on board with that. Do you acknowledge Christ as king? Do you acknowledge church authority being under his governance?" And that that um do I have to go through you to get to him? This was of course the old concern about Catholicism for Protestants that that if you have corrupt people mediating between you and God, you do you even have access to God anymore? You know, this kind of thing.

And if the answer is that we have in a sense purified the faith that we have in a sense done this introspection as a church body that can now receive a you in in dialogue and communion and conversation. um then maybe we can't maybe this dialogue is possible. And so um I you know so I guess I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's always going to be a two-way street because of the protest, right? And that but that if if we can see each other in that positive light, then maybe there is hope for this. Well, like I said, this is why I talked about two different phases of dialogue, right?

Because of course all of my uh theological alarm bells go off when you frame some of those things. Not only am I hearing a certain set of theological priors that are embedded in the language, right? I'm I'm hearing certain question begging right and here of course I'm using as you know in the proper logical sense of not raising a question it begs the question but the logical fallacy that presumes the conclusion as one of its premises right and things like that and that's where I think I I don't think there's any getting around that yes that's one of the reasons why I think it's bad to start with the the loftier harder questions about ecclesiology and really to start with these other questions that are sort of the as I I put them before like the guards at the gate.

Yes. Um but nonetheless I think I I think I would hope that you know let's say at least with regard to dialogue with the orthodox the very fact that the Orthodox view of providence is able to say what I said. Yes. And then we can begin a dialogue that starts with just like okay you've got your guard fully up you know and we start to go through your theological checklist. Yes. all knowing that at some point we're going to have to get past your checklist and get to the sort of real roots of some of the basic question assumptions that you have about Christianity itself and the church itself and things like that. But I think that's a harder place to start. Yeah.

Well, I do like the notion of the two-stage approach because yeah, you can't answer the bigger more thorny questions without really walking that initial stage. Yeah. And so that's super helpful. Well, I hope we can circle back to this as I get, you know, my head wrapped around it more as you've been you've been diving into these issues far longer than me. You've been on a spiritual journey. We talked about in other other podcasts. Yeah. Um, and I think that that story is a testimony to the kind of internal dialogue that we're all having about how to be right with God, how to be a unified church, how to, uh, approach one another in the face of a world that is increasingly antagonistic to all things Christian.

Sure. And so, um, I think this is super important. So, thank you so much. My pleasure. for uh dialoguing, sharing your home again with me here. I guess I'm going to have to come back cuz such busy guy. You found you found the right strategy to make it happen. So there you go. I love it. Um but yeah, thanks for coming out. Thanks for making the and drive and uh this is great. And I do hope that you know uh maybe often times when I talk about things like these dialogues and what I would like to see happen obviously there's a tacid plea in there to be like let's make it happen rather than just totally agree and you know I tend the audience that I have is evangelical primarily and um I'm hoping that they take this with the spirit that it's intended.

We're two 27 years we've known each other. We talked a little bit about our journey together. yours going into Eastern Orthodoxy and and and and and really migrating in the film and the art and the academic trajectory you're on and me growing in the evangelical church and in in responsibilities and and and and and really getting a sense of that church. I think it's important that guys like us do converse, share this publicly with people so that um they might have hope that these dialogues do matter and that uh they can be lifechanging and life-giving in important ways. So well that's it from the Firestone Files. I hope you guys en enjoyed this dialogue with Dr. Nathan Jacobs and I'm Nathan Jacobs and this is the Nathan Jacobs podcast.

Thanks brother for sharing everything with Thanks man. The Christian East and the Christian West share the same creed, the same scriptures and yet they are worlds apart. The differences run deeper than Mary or icons or liturgy going to the very nature of God, the hope of salvation, and even what it means to be human. They use the same words, but their meanings could not be more different. As these two worlds collide in our contemporary culture, what's needed is a translator. I spent nearly two decades studying these two traditions, devoting myself to figures like Augustine, Aquinus, and the reformers in the West, but finding myself crossing the threshold of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

And now, I'm producing a 25-part lecture series to help bridge this gap, exploring the differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. Pre-order the series now at the lowest price that will ever be offered or support my efforts by becoming a series producer at the eastwestseries.com. That's the eastwestseries.com.