The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Eastern Orthodoxy - The One True Church？

00:00:00.000 for the better part of 2000 years the question of who gets to interpret scripture has been the key

00:00:08.500 challenge to the church the answer to questions of faith doctrine and praxis often depend on the

00:00:15.220 interpretation and application of a particular text or passage of scripture and have historically

00:00:21.740 resulted in fierce disagreement in the face of this uncertainty a variety of new institutions

00:00:28.320 and movements often cults have sprung up in the last several hundred years claiming divine

00:00:34.500 authority to interpret the scripture either by virtue of a supposedly restored apostolic

00:00:41.620 succession or by some form of continuity within early the early church the mormon church claims

00:00:49.920 their quorum of the 12 apostles is the restored priesthood of christ on earth jehovah's witnesses

00:00:56.660 assert that first century biblical christianity was restored through the new world translation

00:01:03.100 of the bible and the watchtower and track society in philadelphia and in recent years in the west

00:01:11.020 an old authority is seen renewed interest and conversions the eastern orthodox church which

00:01:18.460 claims to be the one true church and to alone possess the authority to interpret scripture

00:01:24.680 but does their claim of direct continuity with apostolic and early church practice

00:01:31.580 hold up to scrutiny? Tune in now as we discuss.

00:01:43.580 All right, so this is what we're doing today. Before we get started, we're going to be talking

00:01:47.160 about Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Wes is going to be leading

00:01:52.680 us in this discussion. He's done a lot of research, but a couple of things that you need to be aware

00:01:56.720 of. If you are just kind of tuning into right response, this YouTube page, our ministry, and

00:02:01.340 you don't really know how things go. Well, this is how it goes. Uh, if you want the article every

00:02:06.020 single Wednesday, we live stream at 4 PM central time, a variety of topics. Uh, this will be at

00:02:11.220 least one week. It may end up being a multiple part series that we do, uh, in sequence, uh,

00:02:17.040 consecutively, or it may be something that we break up. We do EO Eastern Orthodoxy, and then

00:02:21.640 we do something else for a couple weeks and we come back to it. But it's a big conversation. And

00:02:26.000 so we're likely going to do more than one week. And this is one of the conversations that I would

00:02:30.380 say listening to the podcast is going to be incredibly helpful. But being able visually to

00:02:35.660 see the graphs, the statistics, the quotes, seeing these things in front of you in written form will

00:02:42.840 be vital for properly understanding Eastern Orthodox theology as well. So you can do that

00:02:49.900 by joining us on Patreon. All of our Patreon members get access to every single article,

00:02:55.720 every weekly article that is written preemptively to aid our discussion in our Wednesday live

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00:03:07.420 for our conversation that Wednesday, our live stream. And it's not just in bullet point form,

00:03:13.200 but Michael and Wes are alternating each week writing a 750 to 1500 word article that's

00:03:21.300 thorough with citations and quotes and those kinds of things. So if you want all of this

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00:04:10.460 covering Andrew's recent book, The Boniface Option, a nine-part series. That's what's

00:04:15.460 happening right now with Q1 of 2024 with our Friday special, 4 p.m. Central Time on Fridays.

00:04:22.240 And then next quarter, we're jumping into a 10-part series with the co-host of Haunted Cosmos. That's

00:04:28.980 Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett. We have already finished. We just recently finished the recording

00:04:34.000 for that. And now Nathan, who is our tech director, he's working with a Friday special.

00:04:39.180 We try to achieve our highest level of quality of production. And so he's working on cold opens

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00:04:51.540 multiple pieces of content. So that's kind of the layout. It's Monday, it's Wednesday and Friday.

00:04:57.380 Wednesday is a live stream with Michael and Wes, and there's an accompanying article that you can

00:05:02.440 get by joining us on patreon also by joining us on patreon last couple things is uh if you join us

00:05:07.880 at the gold member level which is just ten dollars a month uh what you'll be able to do is live stream

00:05:13.220 our upcoming conference so we have our new conference uh for 2024 uh it's happening march

00:05:18.440 1st 2nd and 3rd that's a friday through sunday so it's in less than two weeks coming up right

00:05:24.580 around the corner with doug wilson with brian sauve with ben garrett with eric khan uh with

00:05:29.760 Dusty Deavers is going to be a surprise appearance that I'm ruining the surprise. But I just talked

00:05:35.180 to him last week. I was just thinking last minute, man, we got to get Dusty here. He's doing great

00:05:39.400 work for the kingdom of God. And right wing watch is constantly clipping him out and putting it on

00:05:45.860 social media, saying we're very troubled, very concerned, which makes me think it's like the

00:05:50.640 Spider-Man meme. It's like, I already like Dusty Deavers. You don't have to sell me on it. So

00:05:55.540 anyway, so Dusty Devers is going to come. And so we're excited about that. I'm going to be

00:06:00.060 surrendering some of my speaking time to Dusty just to last minute, work him into the conference

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00:06:24.320 if you put haunted cosmos in the promo code, cause we're doing a live haunted cosmos show

00:06:29.500 at the comp. Oh, you're right. It's just haunted. So if you just put haunted, it could be all

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00:07:04.820 all become public content eventually, but it will take a while for Nathan on the backend to be able

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00:07:17.320 at different pieces of content slow dripping out one piece of content per week over the course of

00:07:22.680 the next two to three months so there's some pieces of content there will be certain lectures

00:07:27.060 from doug wilson or a panel with the haunted cosmos guys or whatever something from dusty

00:07:31.600 deavers that may not come out for 10 weeks you know it we may be all the way into you know the

00:07:37.160 month of june by the time uh we get out the last bit of the conference but if you want to be able

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00:07:47.580 it, you know, whenever at your convenience, all you have to do is join us. Again, it's patreon.com

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00:08:05.540 Then just sign up for a month, get the content, watch it, and just make sure that you apply it

00:08:10.700 and you seek to live faithfully for the glory of God, and then cancel your membership, and no harm,

00:08:15.620 no foul. So those are the things, and without further ado, Wes, kick us off. All right. So let's

00:08:21.860 start with a general overview of Christianity, kind of as it exists today in 2024. So Christianity

00:08:27.340 is the highest proportion of all religions in the world, about 30%, so 2.3, 2.6 billion out of about

00:08:34.680 8 million individuals that live on the earth. So about 30% of that 2.3, 2.6 billion number,

00:08:42.380 1.3 billion are Roman Catholics. So Roman Catholicism, just by way of kind of a high

00:08:47.740 level overview, they're distinct in that they would say the Bishop of Rome, the first among

00:08:51.460 equals, is the vicar of Christ on earth. And so they are the one true church, they possess the

00:08:56.540 authority, they possess continuity with the apostles, and the Pope is the current reigning

00:09:01.900 figure representative of christ on earth that's about 1.3 billion and they have an advantage a

00:09:07.860 distinct financial advantage because of the compounding interest uh working off of centuries

00:09:13.240 of all the indulgence money they've got i mean it's hard to line right in right it's hard to

00:09:18.180 compete with the guys that told everybody they could get their loved ones out of purgatory

00:09:21.680 for the small price every time a coin of the coffer clings sold from purgatory springs you

00:09:26.920 get that kind of cash you get purgatory cash working for you with compounding interest

00:09:30.860 goodness gracious well they also baptize infants and so you would have i would bet a lot of that

00:09:35.420 1.3 billion number that's true maybe baptizes infants potentially confirmed at 16 first communion

00:09:40.700 but have never darkened the doors of the roman catholic church since true and it's not like

00:09:44.300 any other church doesn't have this problem either right but probably a big portion of that is

00:09:47.940 nominal so that's the biggest proportion they are the biggest three billion um i don't know that i

00:09:51.920 would call them maybe these individual different churches but different traditions with under the

00:09:55.960 christian banner yeah it's roman catholicism second biggest is protestantism about 800 million

00:10:00.480 to one billion. Protestantism is different in that there's not one single ecclesiastical body

00:10:05.700 unnecessarily located in one area. There's a couple of different denominations. For the record,

00:10:09.980 there are not 9,000 Protestant churches. This is used all the time. Like, oh, how can we know

00:10:14.480 what the one true church is? There's all these different traditions. We've got to go back to

00:10:17.860 Catholicism or Orthodoxy. There are not 9,000 different churches or denominations or institutions.

00:10:22.900 There's about six different traditions, and there's some minor differences within them. So

00:10:25.940 So there's Southern Baptists and Reformed Baptists.

00:10:28.260 But we agree on 98% of the ideas, 98% of doctrine.

00:10:32.720 We just have some fences between us to allow us to work within our own convictions.

00:10:36.160 So really, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Baptists, probably Episcopalian, Methodists, and Methodists would be about the six traditions under Protestantism.

00:10:47.420 Finally, you have the Eastern Orthodox Church.

00:10:49.180 They're much smaller, so they're about 200 million worldwide.

00:10:52.260 They actually decreased in share since 1910.

00:10:54.400 So in 1910, Eastern Orthodoxy was about 20% of the known world, give or take.

00:10:59.780 That's dropped to about 9%.

00:11:01.180 Now, to be fair, to give credit where credit is due, that's on the heels of one of the most godless, atheistic regimes the world has ever known, namely communism, which happened in Russia, a predominantly Eastern Orthodox geographical area. 0.90

00:11:14.760 So we do have to acknowledge that they exterminated religion as best they could. 0.63

00:11:19.380 They killed priests. 0.96

00:11:20.500 They killed adherents.

00:11:21.300 if you demonstrated any level of public faith, anything aside from complete piety in your prayer

00:11:26.640 closet, you were sent to exile, you were sent to the gulags, and that did a number. But all said

00:11:31.240 and done, that means Eastern Orthodoxy now, about 9%, probably a little less of the religious world

00:11:36.880 as we know it. So that's kind of an overview of Christianity. Could you break down maybe a little

00:11:41.180 bit within Orthodoxy? There's Russian Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodoxy. Are they all under the same

00:11:46.360 banner? Are they separate? They're not. So they'll kind of give this impression that we are this

00:11:51.140 a unified church. So you see divisions within Protestantism. Even Catholicism has its different

00:11:55.720 sects. So they'll say, well, there's division in Protestantism, division within Catholicism,

00:11:59.880 but the Eastern Orthodox Church is its unified body. That's just not true. You have the Oriental

00:12:03.820 Orthodox, for example, that are separate. They're Maya physite. They have a different doctrine and 0.99

00:12:07.740 understanding. The person of Jesus is in relation to human nature. They're maybe 10, 20 million,

00:12:13.480 so much smaller. You have the Assyrian Church of the East. So these would be three Eastern

00:12:18.300 Orthodox, all claiming to be the one true church. Three different churches kind of under this 0.88

00:12:22.980 banner. Many other smaller ones, many other regional ones. Like you mentioned, the Greece

00:12:26.860 one. There's some like Ethiopian. I think some also in Europe. Kind of little offshoots, all

00:12:31.920 kind of claiming, well, we're the apostolic successors. We're the apostolic inheritors.

00:12:36.600 We're the one true church on earth underneath this banner of Eastern Orthodoxy. So they're 0.99

00:12:40.120 not in communion with another, somewhat fractured, but broadly speaking, Eastern Orthodox,

00:12:44.320 That's right around the 200 million.

00:12:47.500 Geographical distribution of Christianity. 0.95

00:12:49.380 I consider this a strong apologetic for the Christian faith.

00:12:52.720 So if you could pull up the first graph, Nathan, you'll actually see that most of the religions in the world that have some level of adherence, they're broadly centered on a specific geographical region. 0.93

00:13:03.620 You can see Hinduism, Buddhism, folk religions, all of them really focused.

00:13:07.260 Hinduism is super diverse, huh?

00:13:08.580 That is every clime and place, people of all nationalities.

00:13:13.640 No, these religions, they're very centered on where they started.

00:13:18.380 They kind of haven't originated from there.

00:13:20.540 You probably attribute that to they don't have a belief system that kind of coheres them across climates and across geography.

00:13:26.300 They're mostly folk religions.

00:13:27.660 They take on the idiosyncrasies, the location that they are.

00:13:31.020 But there is a religion, and it's Christianity, that's made up very broadly of a number of different continents,

00:13:37.240 a number of different countries. All different peoples are represented in Christianity. This is

00:13:41.840 Jesus's prediction. This is prophecy in John chapter 12. When I'm lifted up, I will draw all

00:13:46.440 peoples to myself. And there is a religion that is drawing all peoples across the world,

00:13:50.960 everyone who has faith in Jesus, and that's Christianity. It's not a folk religion. It's

00:13:56.540 not just a religion that kind of started in the Middle East and has stayed there.

00:13:59.780 I think of Islam, for example. It's very inaccessible to Westerners. It's very difficult

00:14:04.340 for westerners to to access it because when it's even written they say well the language

00:14:08.500 and the words of the quran i have one at home we can only give you what this would mean we can't

00:14:12.960 give you the actual word of god yep the arabic is the purest form we can't give that to you

00:14:17.560 and there's certain locales like geographic locales like you must make a um in different

00:14:23.200 world religions pilgrimage to mecca you know exactly where it's christian that's the whole

00:14:27.100 idea you read the book of hebrews in the new testament and the whole idea is um it's uh it's

00:14:32.120 not just don't go back to a salvation by works, but it's no, don't go back to the physical

00:14:38.000 geographic location of Jerusalem because it's soon to be destroyed. I believe that the author

00:14:43.680 of Hebrews, well, one, I think it was the Apostle Paul. Two, I do believe that pretty much the

00:14:48.360 entirety of the New Testament in its writing is pre-8070. I think the Apostle Paul is writing

00:14:53.740 the book of Hebrews. I think it's a little bit later, but still not as late as some guys would

00:14:58.260 dated out. And so later, meaning like AD 67, AD 68, just a few years before the destruction of

00:15:05.480 Jerusalem. So Paul is saying in the spiritual sense, don't go back to Jerusalem, AKA Judaism, 0.86

00:15:10.400 to the animal sacrificial system, to the priest and to certain washings and all these different

00:15:16.160 traditions and rituals, because that's not ultimately what pardons sin and what saves

00:15:21.960 the sinner's soul. But ultimately it's by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

00:15:26.320 So don't go back to this as a spiritual system, but trust in Christ, don't hedge your bets,

00:15:30.380 trust in Christ alone.

00:15:31.640 But then also in a literal physical geographic sense, he's saying, don't go back to Jerusalem,

00:15:36.540 but follow the words of Jesus in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, head for the hills,

00:15:40.840 run when you see the day of desolation.

00:15:42.980 God is about to judge Jerusalem for rejecting her Messiah, and this is going to happen in

00:15:49.420 real terms.

00:15:49.920 So it's not just the fires of hell that you're eternally spiritually avoiding, but literal

00:15:54.200 fire and destruction from titus sacking jerusalem and destroying the temple and that's going to

00:15:58.600 happen just you know a few short years just like the opening of the book of revelation uh the time

00:16:03.080 is soon not 2 000 years soon but actual soon and so so but the point is in all of that you see

00:16:09.280 in new testament books of the bible hebrews being um a perfect case study um you see all of a sudden

00:16:15.060 the geographic locale of the christian faith uh decentralized even the book of acts is another

00:16:21.780 great example the first 15 chapters is primarily following peter and it's primarily centered the

00:16:26.660 christian church uh the christian faith is centered in jerusalem but the second half all of a sudden

00:16:31.220 the center has moved from jerusalem to antioch and from peter to paul and then and that's all

00:16:36.340 just within a few short years that's still well within the first century and now 2 000 years later

00:16:41.120 christianity has spread over uh every corner of of the earth and and there's no impetus there's no

00:16:47.680 no text of scripture or commandment of scripture or precept uh that requires a christian uh that

00:16:53.780 in order to have access to god uh you would have to be in a certain place at a certain time there

00:16:58.420 is no pilgrimage there's no mecca there's not in any earthly literal sense i'll do you one there

00:17:03.120 uh so the tradition of going back to jerusalem to do pilgrimages um it was established later on

00:17:11.460 like three, 400 AD at the earliest.

00:17:14.640 And before that, there was nothing like that at all.

00:17:17.120 And the group that started that 1.00

00:17:19.960 was a bunch of rich, bored women 1.00

00:17:23.240 who decided I need to do something 1.00

00:17:25.940 really especially spiritual.

00:17:29.000 And their husbands kind of, okay, fine.

00:17:30.680 We'll finance a pilgrimage. 0.85

00:17:32.460 The first generation of boomers, right? 0.61

00:17:34.740 Like we're going to do a trip to the Holy Land. 0.86

00:17:37.380 It's gonna be expensive.

00:17:38.880 We're gonna, you know, other people should do it too.

00:17:40.340 get your get your seat get your ticket well that gets into exactly some of the tendencies within

00:17:45.180 eastern orthodox we can talk about the intellectual development but there's a real tendency in human

00:17:49.220 beings to latch on to a place to latch on to an aesthetic to latch on to a tradition or a way of

00:17:55.580 doing things this place this kind of building yes these uh icons must be present these you know

00:18:01.860 all right exactly and my spirituality is mediated through these i need the priest or i need this

00:18:06.340 substance or i need this or i need to go this type of church to mediate my relationship with god

00:18:10.540 but the one of the reasons christianity it's so global is it says no none of that is mediated

00:18:15.280 it's mediated through faith it's your faith in jesus that connects you to him and if you are on

00:18:20.740 just an island and you find one other believer you can actually on the lord's day be a church

00:18:25.860 you can gather together worship the resurrected christ hopefully you have some type of bread or

00:18:30.100 wine if you don't you're actually probably about to starve but you can be two people on a deserted

00:18:34.240 island in the middle of nowhere and you can worship god bread wine the word it's word centric

00:18:40.400 and it's what i hear you saying west is that christianity is global and decentralized for

00:18:45.700 the same reason that soccer is global because all you need is two trees that's actually true

00:18:50.980 and a ball no but seriously you know like like water polo is not a universally you know appraised

00:18:56.000 sport you know or the winter olympic skiing you know or whatever lacrosse uh because they're you

00:19:01.460 know it's like well yeah you you kind of have to have some money you have to have access to a pool

00:19:05.320 you have to have access to this yeah access to that do you have a ski lift you know and access

00:19:09.640 to that on a regular basis and no most of the world doesn't but uh to find two trees next to

00:19:14.480 each other to make a goal you know and uh to have a ball you know one ball you know and it's like

00:19:20.260 okay you can do this in the sudan you can do this in brazil you can do this anywhere and the only

00:19:25.080 place really you probably don't do it is in america uh because we actually do football we have

00:19:29.920 entertaining options yeah exactly we have good options instead of an excuse for getting grown

00:19:34.680 men to jog that's all soccer is it's just it's just complicated jogging okay well yeah we're

00:19:40.680 roasting it sorry all right sorry and last thing we'll say maybe before we go to the break so we

00:19:44.360 can pull up the second graph so christianity is global but despite what you may maybe see online

00:19:49.540 from your eo friends eastern orthodoxy this is a map of its distribution eastern orthodoxy is

00:19:54.460 primarily centered obviously in the east but also north in russia this is because 1054 the great

00:20:00.420 schism so rome and constantinople kind of the new rome separated so that was kind of the western

00:20:05.100 break but also you had muslims hordes invading from the south invading from the east and eastern

00:20:10.420 orthodox eastern christianity actually kind of escaped to the north moscow is sometimes called

00:20:15.060 the third rome now that's primarily where it's lived since then it's a predominantly predominantly

00:20:19.840 eastern religion i mean you can look at whole continents here since there that's exactly where

00:20:25.720 different he's a succession there's moscow and moscow uh did i say moscow uh or actually they're

00:20:32.720 both moscow huh uh they might be the russian one the russian both moscow not moscow idaho

00:20:38.540 it's not helpful moscow russia so uh eastern christianity kind of escaped to there and that's

00:20:42.540 where it's lived mostly since but if you look at this map you can see whole countries with no

00:20:48.380 meaningful presence so again parse this through the claim of the eastern orthodox church we are

00:20:52.980 the one true church we have continuity with apostolic doctrine apostolic teaching we and we

00:20:57.780 alone we and we alone yeah later on so now you would have some eastern orthodox and they would

00:21:02.500 say well other individuals can be saved outside of the church 9th to the 19th century you cannot

00:21:07.040 find any eastern council or eastern father that would teach that they would say if you affirm the

00:21:12.040 filioque for example that the spirit proceeds both from the father and the son you are damned

00:21:17.300 16th century, the Council of... 0.94

00:21:18.980 That was damnable within Eastern Orthodoxy? 0.99

00:21:20.860 You would have some fathers that would say, yes, if you affirm this, you are dark, you 0.94

00:21:24.580 are lost without light.

00:21:26.100 16th century, Council of Jerusalem, so this is 1674.

00:21:29.460 There was a priest that was preaching a little bit, might have actually been a bishop, teaching

00:21:34.020 a little bit too much Protestantism, kind of sounded like Catholicism.

00:21:37.040 They damned that as well. 0.96

00:21:38.960 So Eo damned St. Cyril? 0.72

00:21:42.420 Yes, I think it actually was. 0.97

00:21:43.760 Yeah, he actually was a fan of Calvin.

00:21:45.640 Yep. 0.99

00:21:45.860 And so he brings that over and they say, damn. 0.99

00:21:47.940 EO damned Augustine then? 0.99

00:21:49.100 St. Augustine? 0.97

00:21:49.920 Hardest hit?

00:21:50.920 Well, they don't necessarily connect the dots all the way back, but they're not fans of

00:21:55.000 Augustine either, necessarily.

00:21:57.160 And again, there are Eastern Orthodox now, which they'll probably come into this video

00:22:00.380 and say, no, no, no, you can be saved outside the church, but the Eastern Orthodox church

00:22:03.780 is the fullest expression of it.

00:22:05.580 And you can claim that.

00:22:06.340 I saw several modern, like within the last 20 years, churches doing, not during the homily, 0.70

00:22:16.300 but during the chants, they were chanting anathemas on all Protestants.

00:22:22.960 It's still, I mean, this is still a big divide.

00:22:25.200 They still, it's very exclusive.

00:22:27.300 We are the one true church and no one else is.

00:22:29.760 And if you live, I mean, my goodness, there's not a single church, it looks like, in Australia

00:22:33.920 or New Zealand, Eastern Orthodox.

00:22:35.140 well you're you're fresh out of luck i mean you can maybe read that bible but you don't have the

00:22:39.660 so you're saying from the ninth to the 19th century if we play this out like the logical

00:22:44.380 implication of that is that most of the globe is just in hell yeah exactly yeah okay and there is

00:22:53.480 no church there there's no option right you would have to i don't know immigrate or something like

00:22:57.640 that um and and i'm not sitting here saying you know eceo not the one true church reformed baptists

00:23:04.420 we are i'm not making that claim when again as we talked about earlier the true church is

00:23:08.840 individuals who have repented of sin place faith in jesus gather on the lord's day for the preaching

00:23:13.180 of the word the administration of the sacraments you could add church discipline to that and i

00:23:17.040 mean like our beliefs it's so hard to even find what the eo believes if us as baptists if you

00:23:21.720 want to know what we believe here it is concisely laid out in our confession of faith right we lay

00:23:26.080 it out with scripture we lay it out concisely we use logical rigorous reason patterns to say

00:23:31.500 this is self you know not self-contradictory this is how it all coheres and makes sense

00:23:35.540 uh but that's like there's an answer to find in the yo what do you believe like the protestant

00:23:40.000 can answer that yes even if the answer even even if one protestant on certain points would disagree

00:23:45.200 with another but there still is an answer whereas that's been my experience that you know like and

00:23:49.720 talking to some eo guys is there's just not answers it's more of like well have you ever

00:23:54.740 been to an eo service you got to be there you got to feel it you got to you got to experience you

00:24:00.140 know and um and the homilies tend to be short you know like kind of 20 minute ted talk kind of thing

00:24:05.420 you know so short on a sermon not much exposition not much explanation um but but lots of robes

00:24:12.660 lots of tassels lots of incense lots of candles lots of you know stained glass it's sensory yeah

00:24:18.080 exactly exactly i watched i watched a couple of services it was beautiful the chanting the singing

00:24:22.600 it was quite beautiful i mean it really was you can tell that they've put a lot of work over the

00:24:27.120 years into this service. And that might be somewhat of a gap in Protestantism that we've

00:24:32.080 somewhat fully neglected some of the beauty that we can adorn our church buildings and our services

00:24:38.260 with, not as distractions, not as items of worship like icons, but God is glorified when we make

00:24:43.400 things beautiful and good and right and ordered that they show in the preparation and the talent

00:24:48.860 and the time that we're offering to God as service. Some of that is, I'm not going to turn and friendly

00:24:53.360 fire on protestants the protestants could take a cue from that that we can adorn our buildings with

00:24:57.480 uh with remembrance of of heavenly things we can look forward to heavenly life and it doesn't have

00:25:03.000 to be ugly vaulted ceilings speak to it says something just speaks to the transcendence of

00:25:07.140 god uh natural light coming in speaks to uh hope and jesus who is light of the world and the

00:25:12.000 resurrection piercing through the darkness like there's you know all these uh everything is

00:25:17.040 theological um it's either bad theology or good theology but there is no neutrality there's no

00:25:21.620 no um theological uh vacuum in the world everything that we do our theology as doug has said you know

00:25:28.260 comes out of our fingertips and it comes and everything we do from our vocation to our

00:25:32.100 families and even to the way that we would design um an architect a church building so what we said

00:25:37.040 earlier about you know like well soccer all you need is two trees and a ball you know and and the

00:25:41.080 protestant christian faith all you need is a bible water and uh wine and bread uh that is um that is

00:25:47.260 objectively true but that's not to say that when we do have the resource that resources that we

00:25:52.560 shouldn't prioritize them for things that are beautiful uh the the true the good and the

00:25:57.020 beautiful all the way down to the church building and so i think protestant you're right protestants

00:26:00.820 um if if they can't afford it then stop building the amphitheater um you know like that it's just

00:26:07.360 a metal box it can get as many butts in as many seats as possible so that you can put on a concert

00:26:13.460 you know once a week uh stop doing that uh that ugly you know ugly do do a cathedral um assuming

00:26:21.100 that you can and that god provides the resources be willing to to work towards and that may be a

00:26:26.600 50-year work that's i think part of the reason protestants haven't done it is um partly because

00:26:31.360 of their eschatology believing jesus is coming back next thursday uh if we start a 50-year you

00:26:36.420 know cathedral project it'd be a waste of resources and time the cathedral the great cathedrals in

00:26:40.280 europe they took 400 years yeah those guys did not believe jesus was coming back next thursday

00:26:44.640 you don't start a 400 year project no um if if you are a dispensational pre-mill christian so i

00:26:51.560 think that's part of it is that within protestantism um i you know i think that the lion's

00:26:56.600 share of eschatology at least for the last you know 100 150 years has been this dispensational

00:27:01.320 premillennialism that jesus is coming back any second and um which no man knows the day or the

00:27:07.280 hour he could uh but but i'm not saying jesus couldn't come back tomorrow he could um but uh

00:27:14.020 a lot of protestants they're not saying that he could they're saying he will right like so i talked

00:27:18.740 to somebody today saying he was telling me his testimony a story and said yeah my dad always

00:27:22.700 told me you know growing up that uh um jesus will come back in my lifetime you know i will like like

00:27:29.120 as confident as he is about uh the gospel itself he is confident jesus will return in his lifetime

00:27:34.740 and that has been many protestants and so so yeah so we could take a page out of eo's book in that

00:27:40.120 regard but it shouldn't be as a substitute it's not uh well we don't really have uh facts and

00:27:45.240 logic um so we're gonna we're gonna do a little extra incense seven more candles and uh ornate

00:27:53.180 ornate designs yeah let's go to a break and then we'll discuss the intellectual formation of the

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00:29:02.260 meltdown. Go to the links in the show notes below. All right, so we're back. We're going

00:29:09.420 to go ahead and dive into some of the intellectual differences that actually make engaging with

00:29:14.140 Eastern Orthodox apologists difficult. So James White put his finger on this. There are Eastern

00:29:19.560 categories of thought that us as Westerners were just not familiar with. They don't make sense to

00:29:24.740 us. The Western intellectual tradition, it made use of a lot of the Roman, a lot of the Greek

00:29:29.700 philosophical. I don't want to say adapting them as if it was a bad thing, but like Augustine used

00:29:33.800 Platonic forms, Platonic thought, Thomas Aquinas adopting, of course, Aristotelian logic. Because

00:29:39.440 of the development then is the Great Schism. You have 1054. The West breaks off. That tradition, 0.97

00:29:45.020 of course, intellectually continues to develop. This is how we get the scientific method.

00:29:48.860 You have the Enlightenment, revolutions in science and in intellect and philosophy and all these

00:29:53.600 different things, that's predominantly in the West. The Eastern, just broadly speaking,

00:29:58.760 Eastern philosophy has a more mystical and experiential element to it. So you can think

00:30:04.140 of some of the early impactful philosophers, so Plato in the West, we'd have Confucius maybe in

00:30:08.920 the East where it's a little bit different. Michael, you've actually done missionary work

00:30:11.980 in the East, so you'd actually be maybe more qualified to speak just a little bit of the

00:30:16.760 different ways Eastern and Western thinkers, when it comes to different things, the way we think

00:30:21.740 about it yep uh yeah i did i served in taiwan for six years um and it is definitely true the idea of

00:30:31.300 an eastern and a western mentality on even just truth what is true what is definite what is

00:30:39.240 objective um i can't speak to particularly you know taiwan is not eastern orthodox it's

00:30:45.360 folk religion animism and buddhism but that idea of uh the eastern view on spirituality was

00:30:51.800 definitely there and one of the things that was interesting was that most people do not have a

00:30:57.540 any sort of um systematized belief like you mentioned a moment ago joel you can ask us in

00:31:07.520 the 1689 confession what do you believe well if you ask a lot of people at least in taiwan

00:31:13.340 I don't know.

00:31:13.980 I don't know what I believe.

00:31:15.260 They know what they do.

00:31:16.680 They know what their mom would have them do

00:31:18.740 and what idols they would worship to

00:31:20.200 at what times of the year

00:31:21.540 and what sacrifices and offerings they would take.

00:31:25.120 They know that, you know,

00:31:27.320 uncle so-and-so prayed to this God

00:31:29.900 and then, you know, his business did well.

00:31:32.600 And so that's just kind of what we do.

00:31:34.240 We pray to that God now.

00:31:35.740 But there's also a sense where

00:31:37.660 there's not a strict importance on logical consistency.

00:31:43.000 Like, it's not a jarring concept at all

00:31:47.340 to hold in your mind at the same time

00:31:49.220 two different ideas that we would say

00:31:51.720 are logically exclusive, mutually exclusive.

00:31:57.000 The idea of a logical base of reality

00:32:00.880 and a belief system.

00:32:02.620 One example is you can have,

00:32:04.540 you can worship one God and another God.

00:32:08.620 And when you start saying,

00:32:09.880 well, aren't these two gods seemingly

00:32:11.460 contradictory or at odds, it's like, well, they don't care. I serve this God. I worship this God

00:32:16.780 for this reason. And yeah, I go over here and I worship this other God. And, you know, this God,

00:32:22.840 I just go to when I need this. I need an A on my test or I need my family to be safe. And

00:32:26.880 even though there's this other God who's supposed to be my regional God, I don't really pay him

00:32:32.120 much service because, you know, we prefer to do this other obeisance or worship to this other

00:32:39.400 god the last thing i would say is um for eastern religion it is not taught systematically right

00:32:49.440 it's not propositional it's taught by your mother doing something all the time and then that's what

00:32:55.760 you do it's taught by um your your grandmother or your father participates in this festival

00:33:02.220 and so people would be easier it would be easier for them to say this is what we do

00:33:08.860 as our belief but to ask what do you believe what are the tenants yes of your belief no idea

00:33:15.740 no idea what does that do wes for assurance i literally was going to go to that so when it

00:33:22.240 comes to i mean this is the key question to get right but also should be at the core of your soul

00:33:27.200 how is a sinner made right with god right how is a man justified and how can he know and how can he

00:33:33.460 know so how am i made right with god objectively and how do i know that i've been made right with

00:33:37.640 god so we'll come to justification and again in the west we've we've laid out painstakingly

00:33:42.920 especially in the reformed tradition catholicism has this too so catholicism is actually closer

00:33:47.160 in some ways to protestantism right than eastern orthodoxy so catholicism has a system of grace

00:33:52.040 a thomistic one where grace is metered out this way or the other but in protestantism us as

00:33:56.140 protestants very carefully defined is justification sanctification glorification we make it extremely

00:34:02.360 clear that justification is only on the basis of faith now that justification is of course

00:34:08.600 borne out in your sanctification and your works not as the basis for why you were justified but

00:34:13.740 as evidence that you were in fact justified right we're saved by faith alone but saving faith is

00:34:18.180 never alone so it's the faith alone that saves but if it is in fact a saving faith it will always

00:34:23.680 manifest itself in good works, but it's not faith plus works equals salvation. It's faith

00:34:29.480 equals salvation plus works. Exactly. Well, I was listening to an explanation of some of this,

00:34:36.080 and they quoted a lengthy quote from Theodora, and she apparently had appeared in a vision

00:34:44.040 to some other saint, and she was explaining in this vision... On a piece of toast?

00:34:50.040 No, no, this was a dream that this guy had.

00:34:53.840 Theodora came and appeared to him, and she said that she had,

00:34:57.120 after upon death, she had ascended to heaven,

00:34:59.400 but her whole way to heaven had been plagued by devils and demons

00:35:02.400 trying to stop her progress of getting up to heaven after death.

00:35:06.560 And she said, apparently, in this vision,

00:35:09.660 that as the devils and demons were pointing out all of these sins that she had done,

00:35:15.540 The angels were flying down and pouring through her life kind of like in a file book and looking for all the good works that she had done.

00:35:24.120 And she listed off her fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays and her Lenten and the times that she spoke and didn't speak.

00:35:31.980 And she said the angels were able to find enough of the good works that she had done in service of the church that that propelled her on up into heaven.

00:35:40.760 And this is apparently, Theodora is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

00:35:48.040 And that, to me, as I was reading that quote, it seemed to remove faith entirely from it.

00:35:54.140 The faith of Theodora was only that if enough evidence of her earthly righteousness can be found, then God will allow her to come into heaven.

00:36:03.840 Right.

00:36:04.040 and the biggest concern i just want to make sure that i'm hearing your your point the biggest

00:36:08.200 concern is that they would consider a woman to be a saint well oh wait it was about faith and

00:36:14.820 words my bad i miss that i miss that yes no you're right there are women who are saints yeah um i was

00:36:20.120 gonna say oh i forgot to ask you guys what what are you giving up for lent oh my goodness i i've

00:36:26.000 decided i'm going to eat more bacon this year that's right this year i've given up lent for

00:36:30.300 Yeah, there you go.

00:36:30.940 That's perfect.

00:36:31.360 I'm giving up Lent for Lent.

00:36:32.040 What I usually do for Lent is I try to do something that I think the Pope would disapprove of.

00:36:36.600 I try to do more.

00:36:37.500 I never give anything up.

00:36:38.580 I try to do more of something.

00:36:40.120 More bacon.

00:36:40.360 After careful consideration, I've decided to become worse.

00:36:43.960 Upon reviewing all the options, I'm going to do worse.

00:36:46.680 Okay.

00:36:47.100 Back to you.

00:36:47.800 Let me read from Philippians 3.

00:36:49.000 I mean, this is the core of the gospel.

00:36:51.760 Philippians 3, verse 8.

00:36:52.780 deed account everything is lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing christ jesus my lord

00:36:57.220 for sake i have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that i may

00:37:00.560 gain christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the

00:37:06.100 law but that which comes through faith in christ the righteousness of god that depends on faith

00:37:11.460 twice there he's hammering it home the righteousness of god is dependent on one thing faith in jesus

00:37:18.480 it was funny on twitter redeemed zoomer he's been on the show before he just opened form he said uh

00:37:23.780 okay for eastern orthodox how are you saved and it was a variety of responses and some of them were

00:37:28.040 trust and faith in god he does good on on you yep he does and uh but it's a wide variety like well

00:37:33.340 saint toothbrush in the seventh century said x y and z well actually actually there was a bunch

00:37:39.980 of different things like you had to participate in this and he said okay protestants how is one

00:37:44.340 saved and the answer just little variations trust in jesus trust in jesus repent of sin faith in

00:37:50.100 jesus and that shows the clarity between these two religions and that's not to say someone like

00:37:54.880 jay dyer wouldn't have an answer well how are you justified he would get into explanations of

00:37:58.660 theosis which is participation in the divine being but it'd be really tough but it'd be much more

00:38:03.460 complex and then i would go across the stream to father josiah or something like that and he would

00:38:07.660 say well it's actually done this way and then someone brought up a good point saint gregory

00:38:11.900 Palamas. This is huge in their tradition. He's making a huge comeback. He was forgotten for

00:38:16.620 500 years, but then you would go to that person and they would say, well, it's faith and deeds

00:38:20.600 all over the place. And again, I can pick that book up and I can explain to you what myself and

00:38:26.160 every other individual, thousands of them, confess on justification. Presbyterians with

00:38:30.180 Westminster Confession of Faith can say, this is what we believe in justification, not just

00:38:34.120 salvation, like on the church, on the civil magistrate, on the last things, all of these

00:38:39.300 different things we've clearly laid out because we've done the reading we use these western

00:38:43.360 intellectual frameworks of logic of non-contradiction of applying and saying do all these things mesh up

00:38:50.200 are they consistent again and again referencing scripture so you're going to open this book and

00:38:54.740 every single tenant in it is going to have verses we believe this because this we believe this

00:39:00.500 because this bible bible bible bible and even if you disagree with it so you'll say well i'm

00:39:04.480 presbyterian disagree with this okay but they're also appealing they're going to cite bible they're

00:39:08.340 gonna cite bible yeah right real quick one thing that i find funny about um it's just since you

00:39:12.960 mentioned redeemed uh zoomer who i think is he's you know he's young and uh but but super sharp

00:39:18.420 tons of potential i like him um but i you know i i you know there's there's things i would disagree

00:39:23.640 with but uh one of his big things is trying to you know uh get protestants he's protestant you

00:39:28.280 know and he's and he holds to reform soteriology and those things but uh but he's regularly trying

00:39:32.600 to get protestants to stay in mainline denominations you know your mainline methodist

00:39:36.940 anglican you know presbyterian so like he's currently um a member in a pcus gay church you

00:39:42.720 know so pcusa you know the women pastors i'm not saying there's one in his church i don't know if

00:39:47.680 there is or not but but they have tons of female pastors gay affirming rainbow flags all that kind

00:39:52.660 of stuff uh but he's his whole strategy and and you know incentive the motive is uh we need to

00:40:00.100 recapture you know uh conservatives can't continue to just flee and and retreat we need to stand our

00:40:05.940 ground this is why we've ended up where we are and i think there's a bit of truth in that you

00:40:09.620 know uh so we need to stay and fight and not just start you know um another church and go and church

00:40:14.920 plant or join the reformed baptist meeting in a bowling alley you know and he'll give a hard time

00:40:19.160 to basically churches you know protestant churches with good doctrine he'll give a hard time to them

00:40:23.840 because of uh you know they're they don't have a nice building i mean that literally i mean he

00:40:28.500 just that's on level that's that's what he says um and then the irony though is uh you know that

00:40:33.520 he's very much against eo and saying no no no they deny the basic tenets of the faith and he's

00:40:38.460 right on that but i saw somebody comment you know they said uh he said uh this has got to be

00:40:43.400 excruciating for redeemed zoomer that his whole ministry has been stay in protestant churches

00:40:49.000 with lady pastors and rainbow flags and bad doctrine because they have nice resources in

00:40:54.520 a pretty building and then the guys that he's influencing all end up going to eo

00:40:59.840 do we not see the correlation does he not like the big bubbles on top of the building that must

00:41:04.000 be it he's like yeah this is because that is literally what it is it's like you know join

00:41:08.860 the pc usa church you know and then uh because they have a nice building we should take it back

00:41:14.340 and then you know and then everybody's like well why don't i go to the eo church that's uh its

00:41:19.020 doctrine is just as abysmal as your lady pastor's doctrine um but uh at least there they both have

00:41:24.480 bad doctrine and they both have nice buildings but at least here it's a dude and masculine yeah

00:41:29.480 I'll give credit to the Eastern Orthodox.

00:41:31.180 You're not going to find a woman priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

00:41:34.120 You're not going to find a rainbow flag.

00:41:35.780 And that's part of the appeal for young men, especially. 0.98

00:41:38.720 As people are coming back.

00:41:40.740 Yep, red pill guys are going to you.

00:41:42.860 Yep, right, exactly.

00:41:44.060 There's an appeal there because when all the, I don't want to say the foundations necessarily,

00:41:49.000 but when much of the building is being shaken,

00:41:51.360 there can be this tendency to want to run to something that stood the test of time.

00:41:54.920 And in fairness, they then look at the evangelical church down the street that meets in a school and has been going on for five minutes and is already on board with social justice.

00:42:04.260 And they say, yeah, that doesn't seem like the kind of place that's going to weather the sexual revolution.

00:42:08.260 That doesn't seem like the kind of place where I can dig in and fight for my town.

00:42:12.360 So then they go and they see a tradition like that that hasn't caved to at least some forms of modernity.

00:42:17.060 It's got a little bit of mysticism.

00:42:18.340 It's a little bit different than what we would typically experience.

00:42:21.500 And that's where some of the appeal is.

00:42:22.880 And they bring their young families in.

00:42:24.240 and then other young families come in they see young families there and they form friendships

00:42:27.620 and some of that is certainly good i would much rather uh you go to an eo church as much as it

00:42:32.840 pains me to say it uh than to be marching in a pride parade like that is better uh we could do

00:42:38.080 a lot better than that still though eo has a lot to offer though it's like male priest for the dudes

00:42:42.040 and essential oil incense for the chicks that's right you know what i mean like what's not the

00:42:46.320 like i mean they got a little bit of everything for both both genders you know i see the appeal

00:42:51.040 all right well getting into the uh the social issues so oh this is the trad church this is the

00:42:56.960 church right that's what you hear is like well i'm gonna go eo and maybe you know yeah i understand

00:43:01.620 i come from a protestant background and they deny the solas and yeah i do have some concerns with

00:43:06.500 that but i'm gonna look into it i'm gonna do the reading you know i'm gonna consider it because

00:43:09.680 here's the deal i don't know exactly what they believe on doctrine everything you've just said

00:43:13.180 because of the ambiguity and all the all the contradictions so i don't know exactly where

00:43:16.680 they're at on that but culturally they're weathering the storm so there must be something

00:43:20.720 good because culturally you know eo is not going gay affirming eo is not you know ordaining women

00:43:26.320 priests but let's get some stats yes let's pull up the first one this is from pew research it is

00:43:32.600 2015 i'll be complete disclosures 2015 a lot can change in nine years the church has been around

00:43:38.340 for a thousand years probably not that much so this is pew research um abortion should be

00:43:43.800 and 52 percent of orthodox self-professing orthodox christians would say uh legal in all

00:43:50.260 or most cases um so a little bit over over half yep yep go to the next one nathan

00:43:55.720 so now this is views about homosexuality among orthodox christians now this is in 2015 so

00:44:02.680 a berger fell probably happened just right around that time and it's only grown in popularity since

00:44:07.040 then it is under the decline thank the lord i think we'll see that trend continue to bear out

00:44:11.020 but in 2015 this is 62 percent of orthodox christians said homosexuality should be accepted

00:44:18.140 so 53 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases yes and then 62 percent said that

00:44:26.540 um that that what that 62 percent homosexuality should be accepted accepted yep wasn't the

00:44:33.560 question wasn't necessarily about legal or whatever now the pushback would be well like

00:44:37.880 we said earlier well eastern orthodox is primarily eastern so you should look to russia or you should

00:44:42.640 look to greece or some of these other nations greece last week uh became the first orthodox

00:44:46.860 country to approve same-sex marriage so things aren't holding out very well there now now the

00:44:52.320 church did put up some sort of fight but the nation's 96 orthodox 96 yep and and they lasted

00:44:58.980 it held they lasted about nine years nine more years right more years than we did yeah which

00:45:04.240 just something and maybe they put up with america what percent of america is protestant like it like

00:45:10.040 evangelical not 96 percent no no fifth so you're talking about 50 or 60 yeah i think it's so we've

00:45:15.660 got you know about half of the country um and and we folded yeah and that's sad and you know and

00:45:22.940 that's an indictment to us may god have mercy and may we repent but about half of the country

00:45:27.900 being evangelical christian and we folded like a cheap suit in 2015 but you're saying but that's

00:45:33.600 with half the country about 50 maybe a little 50 plus percent but eo in greece you're saying 96

00:45:39.760 81 to 90 of the current estimates is orthodox so close to 90 around there um and they still

00:45:47.100 went and supposedly the church protested same-sex marriage that same-sex marriage that they voted

00:45:52.180 on okay and again supposedly the church protested and maybe they are but does that mean every single

00:45:56.740 politician voted for it because they're probably members of orthodox church are they being kicked

00:46:00.060 out for their vote right i don't know i would have to guess it's a reasonable guess i'm not a prophet

00:46:05.180 or the son of a prophet i guess probably not i'm not but going to russia for example russia has one

00:46:10.800 of the worst records in the world on abortion a big part of that again is communism uh atheism

00:46:16.900 which was it's been one of the worst ideologies this world has ever seen so some of the worst

00:46:21.380 abortion rates going into the 1990s after the usr ussr fell but even still in 2014 so i think

00:46:27.500 orthodox would be about 60 of the nation only four percent of russians said abortion is

00:46:35.220 unacceptable in all cases four percent 2016 and 60 of the nation was eo roughly about now that

00:46:42.480 number has grown of them said to about 13 recently so it is on the rise opposed to abortion that are

00:46:47.860 opposed to abortion okay but in the u.s it's 40 to 50 and again we're not even a predominantly

00:46:52.200 orthodox or Roman Catholic nation would probably be at this point half and half only four percent

00:46:58.160 though in 2014 yep abortion should be illegal 2016 legal not even so eight years ago are you

00:47:05.760 gonna wow are you gonna show do you have a point in our presentation today where you're gonna show

00:47:10.660 the comparison between the graph that you just showed of those who said abortion is should be

00:47:16.840 legal in all or most cases with the eo uh do you have the uh the same the can you show a comparison

00:47:24.160 of the same thing for evangelicals or protestants or i can tell it i don't have the article right

00:47:29.760 okay it's so it's in the article so again for those who are late comers join us on patreon.com

00:47:35.980 forward slash right response ministries and and the wednesday live stream is always accompanied

00:47:39.940 with an article that has all the stats and all the the quotes and citations so so join us on

00:47:44.740 patreon become a member and you'll get the article but let's go ahead for the podcast and just say it

00:47:48.700 so views among abortion someone asked like what is the source for this eo strictly forbids

00:47:53.080 abortion and homosexuality which which very well may be true in a sense so pure research this is

00:47:59.040 a sample size of 200 orthodox christians when they were asked abortion should be xyz 52 percent said

00:48:06.920 legal in all slash most cases 45 said illegal in all slash most cases one percent said they don't

00:48:15.420 know we'll chalk that back up to the 53 up to 54 so 54 of orthodox christians they say i am orthodox

00:48:22.120 they were asked about abortion they said it should be legal in most or all cases in 2015 okay this

00:48:28.920 wasn't this wasn't yesterday same thing homosexuality even higher in 2015 62 in the

00:48:35.020 U.S. of Orthodox Christians, Pew Research Group, said it should be accepted. Homosexuality should 1.00

00:48:40.720 be accepted. Another, let's zoom in on this, I think 31% should be discouraged, and then neither,

00:48:48.820 both equally, was like 4%. So you can say, well, the church doesn't allow this, the church doesn't

00:48:53.540 allow that. Well, all that can be written down in Word, but in practice, you have many professing

00:48:59.100 Christians that affirm these things, that see no contradiction between their faith and that.

00:49:03.420 Now, to be fair, there would be many Protestants in a Methodist church or Episcopal church

00:49:08.160 who would say the same thing.

00:49:09.700 But we have a standard that says you're not a Christian and that church itself isn't even

00:49:13.700 true. 1.00

00:49:14.140 We can say that.

00:49:15.020 Well, not only that, though, what you were mentioning earlier, I remember, Wes, at some

00:49:18.360 point you shared some research with us, and the evangelical Christian in the survey results

00:49:24.640 was much lower on questions of affirming homosexuality, affirming abortion.

00:49:30.800 I mean, it was still higher than it should be, obviously, but it was like 33%, I think is what you said, of evangelicals were saying abortion should be allowed in all or most cases.

00:49:42.600 So there were some, but it was much, much lower than any other.

00:49:46.380 33%.

00:49:46.780 Yeah.

00:49:47.200 So you have the same chart here that said, and this is also, I think it's also 2015?

00:49:52.220 This would be the same study.

00:49:53.460 Same study.

00:49:54.020 Okay, same study, same year.

00:49:55.420 but for protestants it's uh uh 33 percent believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases

00:50:04.860 and then again eo is 53 54 percent so a good 20 that's what like like almost not quite twice but

00:50:14.920 a good 70 percent higher yeah or so yeah and then uh and then with uh homosexuality being accepted

00:50:20.700 for protestants um i'd have to find it it's not on that picture i wasn't able to find it for i

00:50:28.840 don't think that year okay specifically but um but still on abortion that's a comparison it's 53

00:50:33.960 saying legal in all the most cases of eo eastern orthodox guys 53 it should be legal abortion should

00:50:40.240 be legal in all or most cases 33 for protestants so the whole point though is just because that's

00:50:47.680 one of the rhetoric that i'll hear from guys especially young men who are you know entertaining

00:50:51.740 debating you know thinking or have gone eastern orthodox as they're saying well protestants

00:50:56.920 protestants are effeminate protestants are weak protestant and i mean you don't have to convince

00:51:02.460 me like i mean that's a lot to that one for sure yeah and that's a lot of what we do with right

00:51:06.640 response ministries is is uh calling our our own brothers and sisters and our own camp to repentance

00:51:14.160 and not even just within protestantism not just like pointing to some you know arminian southern

00:51:20.240 baptist ted talk seeker sensitive you know bart barber you know or something like i'm not not

00:51:26.460 just somebody like that but like regularly pointing even at each other within the reformed

00:51:30.960 tradition reformed presbyterian you know whether it be westminster or reformed uh 1689 reformed

00:51:36.340 baptists like looking at one another and saying i love you but this is wrong you need to repent

00:51:40.540 you've gotten soft on on this with the pca not the pc usa but the pca which for the most part

00:51:46.740 is conservative and is certainly reformed um when they you know when and it wasn't all of them but

00:51:52.140 when when some of them started entertaining the whole revoice kind of thing with greg johnson and

00:51:56.840 that whole thing like um we were not silent all of us were calling hey stop it stop that repent

00:52:04.260 of this and that wasn't even um affirming homosexuality in its fullness that was simply

00:52:09.640 saying that there's a place for same-sex attraction if it's not being acted upon and even then even

00:52:16.040 then these are guys in our own camp where we're drawing the line and saying that is wrong you need

00:52:20.700 to repent that's a wrong understanding of concupiscence that a doctrine of sin beginning

00:52:26.200 at the level of desire the book of james says where do quarrels come from where does it it

00:52:30.920 does it not start with your evil desires the desire itself even if not acted upon is unnatural

00:52:36.080 and against the prescribed clear revealed will of god and so the desire itself is not permissible

00:52:42.680 it is something that you need to name a sin and be actively by grace seeking to put that desire

00:52:47.760 to death that's in our own house our own camp even at the level of just same-sex attraction

00:52:52.780 much less actually acting on it um so this is not just uh oh you guys are picking on eo because eo is

00:52:59.700 um is is cleaning up shop right now and taking you know taking all your prospects you know

00:53:04.580 protestants are losing young men to eo um that is true um but one of the reasons these young men are

00:53:11.340 are giving for going to eo is that eo is based eo is masculine eo is is a trad and it's and it's a

00:53:18.520 bulwark against the cultural insanity no it's not yeah eo is soft on abortion that's the whole point

00:53:24.800 of doing these that's soft on on on uh same-sex marriage it's soft like no if you're if you're

00:53:31.580 going to eo because you think that eo is taking a stronger stand against the cultural insanity

00:53:37.380 then um you are being fooled by the smoke and mirrors literal smoke and murals and incense

00:53:42.860 and this and that um yeah that guy has a huge beard um and and a big robe and long tassels

00:53:49.460 and lots of candles um but what does he believe they make the argument too like oh we have a

00:53:56.140 continuity with the apostolic tradition well the church fathers all affirm that the continuity

00:54:00.520 in view there is not bishop to bishop to bishop or church to church to church. It's a confession

00:54:05.420 of the same faith. So when you think about, well, who is most in line with apostolic teaching,

00:54:10.000 namely scripture that we have written down in objective form, well, I would think the ones,

00:54:14.500 a church like ours that says, no, this is a sin, no abortion is wrong, no this, no that.

00:54:19.300 And we will discipline you if you engage in this.

00:54:22.880 That's true continuity with the apostolic tradition that wrote down a condemnation and

00:54:28.640 continuity of the old testament of all these things even the sbc with all its problems they

00:54:33.020 took one of the biggest churches in the whole denomination that accounts for millions of dollars

00:54:38.320 charitable giving into the sbc so i mean this was like this was a financial hit um and they voted

00:54:45.400 and it wasn't even close it was like 87 percent almost 90 percent uh voted to kick rick warner

00:54:52.140 and Saddleback out of the SBC 0.96

00:54:54.200 because of women pastors. 0.98

00:54:57.940 And I'm asking, it's a genuine question.

00:55:00.480 You've done the study for this episode

00:55:01.840 and on this topic.

00:55:02.940 Does Eastern Orthodoxy,

00:55:04.560 do they have a list of churches this year

00:55:06.800 in 2024, last year in 2023

00:55:08.620 that they've kicked out of Eastern Orthodoxy 1.00

00:55:11.340 because 53% of their members

00:55:15.180 said that it's okay to murder children in the womb?

00:55:18.060 They'll have a list for the ones 0.90

00:55:19.360 who did the wrong liturgy

00:55:20.220 that they're not in fellowship with.

00:55:21.600 and they will there's churches in america that are on the wrong list or like did it wrong and

00:55:26.140 they're disenfellowshipped but none of that and hey if you're eo and your church is full of these

00:55:30.280 people clean house send us the news article and we'll say yes and amen and we'll revise we'll do 0.98

00:55:35.560 a follow-up say hey this eo church uh is playing for keeps they run this survey again suck on 0.65

00:55:40.940 justification but you know kick them out on this like prove us wrong right it would be the challenge 0.90

00:55:45.320 we have the data we've shown it so do we have one more ad yeah let's go ahead and cut to our

00:55:49.620 last commercial for the day all right everybody's been asking can i live stream your conference and

00:55:55.780 the answer is a resounding no you will be there in person or you will not be there at all i'm just

00:56:01.920 kidding you actually can live stream the conference we're excited to announce we're making it available

00:56:06.280 to anybody and everybody who wants to watch this conference right as it's happening which is march

00:56:12.320 1st and 2nd that's a friday and saturday of 2024 what conference am i even talking about it's called

00:56:18.240 blueprints for Christendom 2.0. We've got Pastor Douglas Wilson. We've got Dr. Joe Boot. We've got

00:56:24.140 Brian Sauve. We've got Eric Kahn. And then of course, yours truly, Joel Webb. And we've got

00:56:29.060 seven primary sessions in the conference, each one being probably 50 to 60 minute long

00:56:34.900 sessions, lectures, sermons, whatever you want to call them. And then two live panels,

00:56:40.620 each being an hour and a half long. Now, one of the panels is on biblical patriarchy. We're going

00:56:45.220 to have Pastor Douglas Wilson available for that panel, and we decided to get Eric Kahn, because

00:56:50.880 Eric Kahn, biblical patriarchy, let's just be honest, it's a sensitive topic, but Eric Kahn, I think, is

00:56:56.820 known as one of the most nuanced, careful, and sensitive individuals, especially on the Twitter

00:57:01.420 streets. So we're going to have him as a part of that panel. It'll go really well. Then the second

00:57:05.480 panel is Haunted Cosmos live show. You've got Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett talking about the most

00:57:11.800 unhinged things imaginable hopefully some things that are actually truthful now there will be some

00:57:17.320 truthful things you're going to stick to scripture and when they speculate and you know they will

00:57:20.840 they'll at least let you know that it's speculation and they won't pass it off as though it's in the

00:57:25.340 infallible word of god so live stream this conference how do you do it go to patreon.com

00:57:31.000 forward slash right response ministries again that's patreon.com forward slash right response

00:57:38.680 ministries. A lot of guys charge 50 bucks, 60 bucks, 80 bucks. We are asking that you would

00:57:44.180 simply partner with us for $10 a month. And let's be real. You could do it one month,

00:57:50.220 live stream all the content, and then cancel your subscription. And if you do, no harm,

00:57:54.640 no foul. If you want to stick with us and support this ministry, what God's doing through Right

00:57:58.460 Response, then praise God. That's great. And we thank you. Either way, technically, it's only 10

00:58:03.780 bucks. All right. So landing the plane here, calling back a little bit to the introduction

00:58:09.100 over and over again, you'll hear from different sects, different traditions that some form of

00:58:15.580 authority has been lost. So they'll look at the division and Protestantism and Christianity as a

00:58:19.220 whole, and they'll make the claim that we have the restored authority. We're the ones with the

00:58:23.860 divine right to interpret scripture, to apply it. So the Mormon church, for example, Joseph Smith,

00:58:28.740 he goes out into the woods because he's torn between, do I join the Presbyterian church?

00:58:31.700 I joined the Methodist church, and he supposedly receives this vision, and the priesthood,

00:58:35.880 I remember engaging for a long time with some missionaries, and the priesthood is supposedly

00:58:39.000 restored, and now through the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, they are this living, active

00:58:43.080 body on earth that makes the judge in issues of doctrine, of practice, and all these different

00:58:47.900 things.

00:58:48.440 Same thing for Jehovah's Witnesses, the tradition in biblical Christianity was lost, and then

00:58:52.460 Charles Taze Russell with the New World Translation, the Watchtower and Tract Society, are now

00:58:56.740 a new governing body.

00:58:58.020 This is the same MO for tons of cults.

00:59:00.380 Christianity was lost. They can never tell you how. So let's say the scripture was corrupted.

00:59:03.920 The tradition was lost. It lost its way. Well, how? What parts of scripture? Well, well, well.

00:59:09.200 And then some older ones. Rome would say that scripture alone, it's not enough. We need a

00:59:15.340 living, active vicar of Christ in the Pope to help us interpret, to speak ex cathedra,

00:59:21.120 to speak infallibly, to help us walk through all these things. Same thing with EO. Well, we

00:59:26.840 have the right. I've seen friends, they've gone EO and they said like, well, Protestants say that 0.97

00:59:31.000 Scripture alone is the only authority. That's wrongly to in a second. But who gets to interpret

00:59:35.980 Scripture? Which is a valid point. You can take a look at a passage of Scripture and two people 0.95

00:59:39.720 might say, it seems from the context, it seems from the historical grammatical surroundings

00:59:45.420 that it means this. And someone else might seem this. And they disagree. And that is real. We have

00:59:49.820 to say like, who, what is kind of the final rule? Generally, Scripture interprets Scripture. But

00:59:54.480 there is a place for tradition in protestantism if i hear one more eo convert say skull sola 0.95

00:59:59.680 scriptura says that uh the bible is the only authority i'm going to drive to your house and

01:00:04.380 i'm going to play james white sermons outside of your house till you come out and you give me the

01:00:07.920 proper definition sola scriptura says that scripture is the only infallible that's right

01:00:13.060 rule of faith and practice scripture tradition matters other authorities of course there are

01:00:17.680 other authorities it's the only infallible authority and it's the highest authority that's

01:00:20.880 all Sola Scriptura means. It's the highest authority. It supersedes all other authorities,

01:00:25.460 and it's the only authority that does not err. Other authorities can be high, but not as high,

01:00:31.820 and can be incredibly accurate, but not perfectly accurate. So church history is an authority.

01:00:38.540 Confessions are an authority. Your pastor and board of elders are an authority. If you're a

01:00:44.480 Presbyterian, your Presbytery is an authority. All these things, Augustine is an authority,

01:00:49.720 But they're not infallible, and they're not the highest.

01:00:52.820 Scripture alone is not that it's the only authority,

01:00:55.820 but it's the only infallible authority, and it is the highest authority.

01:00:59.980 Exactly.

01:01:01.100 And in God's wisdom, one of the reasons I don't think he's instituted men

01:01:05.860 as a highest authority is because men are fickle, men get corrupted,

01:01:09.480 and they can be very easily swayed with the times.

01:01:11.860 The Christian man is mature.

01:01:13.560 He's grounded.

01:01:14.220 He's not tossed to and fro from every wind and wave of doctrine.

01:01:17.160 and an unchanging standard like God's word that applies to all people in all places is a much

01:01:22.280 better infallible highest authority than a council or a synod even of the most learned of men. Let

01:01:27.960 me give an example from the Eos. We mentioned this earlier, the Jerusalem Synod of 1672. So

01:01:33.600 there was a bishop, he's teaching a little too much Calvinism. They got together, they condemned it,

01:01:38.600 but they also said something else interesting. So again, this is the church that would claim 1.00

01:01:41.840 that their councils and their ecumenicism is binding, that they alone determine the proper

01:01:47.940 practice, the proper faith, the proper traditions. And what they came out with, this would be the

01:01:52.580 confession of Doethius, says this. So the question is, should the divine scriptures be read in the

01:01:58.860 vulgar tongue? This simply just means the common language, so English for us, by all Christians.

01:02:03.820 This is a council that got together, made a decision, published in 1672. Should the scriptures

01:02:08.800 be read in the common tongue no i'm quoting right here because all scripture is divinely

01:02:13.280 inspired and profitable we know necessarily so that without scripture it is impossible to be

01:02:16.920 orthodox at all nevertheless they should not be read by all but only by those who with fitting

01:02:21.940 research have inquired into the deep things of the spirit and who know in what manner the divine

01:02:26.600 scriptures ought to be searched and taught and finally read this is due for family worship

01:02:33.580 all right do you have an mdiv you don't have you don't have family worship not right now that's

01:02:39.260 the same as roman catholicism the vulgate you know that the scripture was not only was it in

01:02:43.400 latin instead of the vulgar tongue just meaning the common tongue that people could read and

01:02:46.800 understand um but the whole you know i mean it wasn't within roman catholicism it wasn't until

01:02:52.060 very recently that it even you know uh that the mass was even outside of the latin language so

01:02:57.520 you had people for centuries and centuries and centuries showing up um and not comprehending

01:03:02.800 anything and people still roman catholics today michael knolls i appreciate michael knolls for

01:03:07.120 some things you know but on the daily wire he'll say you know like uh the latin mass is so important

01:03:11.920 or like shia labeouf you know like i went to latin mass it's so important and here's what they're

01:03:16.160 saying though because they don't comprehend a single thing not a single thing so what they're

01:03:21.280 saying is um uh the chants the the bells the whistles the cathedral the way it looks the

01:03:27.540 robes the tassels the costumes i really appreciate the costumes in this play that i went and watched

01:03:32.960 it's not substance it's not content it's not precepts it's not truths and even if it were

01:03:40.540 you can't comprehend them see that the reformed view of faith we're saying faith alone is what

01:03:45.720 saves and the reformed view of what what faith is comprised of is three basic parts knowledge

01:03:51.760 assent and implicit trust knowledge assent and implicit trust faith is not merely a feeling

01:03:58.620 it's not merely um theosis with god becoming one with him and reaching a state of of um

01:04:06.940 enlightenment yeah it's no faith is um there's substance there is a substance to the things

01:04:13.260 hoped for the things not seen as hebrew says uh there's there's something that's uh that's

01:04:18.620 tangible. It can be described. It can be explained. It can be defined. So faith is knowledge,

01:04:25.400 assent and trust. Knowledge, there's actually an object. It's not just faith in my own faith. It's

01:04:31.420 not faith in faith, but it's faith in Christ. So there's an object to faith, and the knowing is

01:04:37.600 knowing the object in which I have placed my faith. So I'm knowing Jesus, certain basic truths

01:04:43.820 about Jesus, not necessarily everything that can be known about Jesus. Jesus is God. God is

01:04:48.420 infinite, but knowing the basic tenets of Christ, both his person and his work, his person and his

01:04:55.160 work, which all that Protestants would agree have been summed up for us in the scripture and then

01:05:00.480 in summary form in the Apostles' Creed and other various creeds. But I prefer the Apostles' Creed.

01:05:06.040 I think that that one is one of the most concise and one of the most helpful. So we get both the

01:05:10.760 person of the triune God and particularly the person of the second member of the Trinity,

01:05:15.940 Jesus Christ and his work, who he is and what he's done. So Jesus, who is Jesus? If you're going to

01:05:22.480 have faith, you got to have knowledge of the object of faith. You need to know who is Christ

01:05:26.340 and what has Christ done. Is he God? Yes. Is he man? Yes. Is he half God, half man? No,

01:05:32.440 fully God, fully man. These two natures, one person, two natures, these two natures are not

01:05:39.080 mixed, neither are they divorced or severed. He is the God man, fully God, fully man,

01:05:44.120 second member of the Trinity, equal in majesty and divine worship and essence, one essence in

01:05:50.940 the Godhead, three persons within the second person, two natures, full natures, fully divine,

01:05:57.460 fully human, not mixed, not severed, and that he is the second member of the Trinity in order,

01:06:03.340 but not order of divinity or worthiness of majesty. He shares an equal essence of the Father

01:06:09.920 in divinity and majesty, worthiness of worship, all these things. That's who Jesus is. Now what

01:06:15.340 has he done? What is the work of Jesus? That's the person. What is the work of Jesus? He was born of

01:06:21.260 the Virgin Mary, incarnate. He lived a sinless life, not just an absence of sin, but a full

01:06:26.120 presence of righteousness. He fulfilled all righteousness, perfect presence of obedience,

01:06:31.160 his active obedience as Owen, the reformers talked about, but then also his passive obedience. He

01:06:36.680 died and he didn't just die as a description or an example of sacrificial love a man who would

01:06:42.220 give up his life for his friends love has no one greater than this that a man gives up his life for

01:06:46.560 his friends it's not less than that that's part of it but it's more than that he died as a substitute

01:06:52.060 he didn't just die as an example of moral sacrificial love he died as payment as atonement

01:06:58.680 as a substitute behold the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world he died in the place

01:07:04.140 of sinners to pay their price for their sin against a holy God. He was raised, not just the

01:07:10.300 triumph of the human spirit, not just a metaphor, not just his soul, but he was bodily raised from

01:07:15.920 the dead on the third day. And then he ascended. He didn't just vanish. He went somewhere. He

01:07:20.940 ascended and disappeared, was hidden from the apostle's view behind the clouds, ascending

01:07:26.160 upward to a heavenly place, a real place to be seated in honor, in majesty at the right hand of

01:07:32.940 the Father, and he promises finally to return and to raise the dead, to come for judgment for both

01:07:41.280 the quick and the dead, resurrection of both the damned and the elect, to separate the sheep from

01:07:46.820 the goats. That's the work of Christ. So the person of Christ and the work of Christ. And my

01:07:51.660 point is, all of that, even more concise than I just made it, I did it maybe three minutes, but

01:07:56.480 more concise than that, in 30 seconds in the Apostles' Creed, any single Protestant Christian

01:08:01.280 and say they can read that and say i believe that that's the knowledge component of faith that's the

01:08:07.020 knowledge then the ascent means um i know that ascent goes one step further and says i know that

01:08:12.380 and i agree that it's true right i have knowledge about the prosperity gospel but i have not given

01:08:18.100 the prosperity gospel my ascent so i i can i can describe for you the tenets of the prosperity

01:08:23.580 gospel while not agreeing um and so faith is saving faith the reformed protestant view of faith

01:08:30.280 is that it's knowledge. Knowledge about what? At least the basics, the lowest common denominator,

01:08:34.920 knowledge about the person and work of Jesus. Think creed. Not even a whole confession, 0.89

01:08:39.320 but just creed. It's short. It's sweet. This is the Godhead. Particularly, this is the Son of God,

01:08:44.800 and this is what he's done for our salvation and what he promises to do.

01:08:48.520 That's the knowledge. Assent, I don't just know it. I agree with it. And then lastly, implicit

01:08:53.420 trust meaning uh i know i know it i agree with it and i'm betting the house on it i'm putting

01:09:02.180 my personal soul at stake i'm not hedging my bets this is what i'm hoping it this is what

01:09:09.720 because you can you can um you can know about a certain company and a certain stock a certain

01:09:14.720 investment opportunity and even agree with the knowledge that you know uh that it's a great

01:09:19.060 opportunity, but still not invest in it. But it's all three. It's knowledge, agreement, assent,

01:09:25.640 and implicit personal trust. And my point is, that is faith, and that can be described. I wanted to

01:09:32.540 demonstrate that just briefly for the listener to show. That's the Protestant view, and certainly

01:09:37.420 the Protestant Reformed view of salvation, that it comes by faith alone, works will accompany it,

01:09:43.600 but it is by faith alone. We are justified not by faith plus works, but by faith alone,

01:09:48.320 which will be evidenced by good works because we're born again and can cause to walk in newness

01:09:55.020 of life and live in obedience to Christ. But it's faith alone that saves. And then what is faith?

01:09:59.480 The Protestant has an answer. The Protestant can describe for you in detail with scripture

01:10:04.740 citations. This is what faith is. It's knowing. Knowing what? Jesus. What about Jesus? His person,

01:10:10.580 who he is, and his work. And it's not just knowing, it's agreeing. And lastly, it's not just agreeing,

01:10:15.540 but it's trusting it's betting the house on jesus that's saving faith and that is what's required

01:10:21.040 for justification and so i can i can not only receive salvation but i can know that i have

01:10:28.340 received that's what the different john at the end of the gospel of john says these things have

01:10:32.600 been written right if everything was written down the whole world couldn't contain the books these

01:10:35.980 are just some of the things that jesus taught and did but these things have been written for a

01:10:39.680 reason what's the reason uh these things have been written so that you might believe so that you might

01:10:44.200 belief. But then 1 John, when he writes back now in his first epistle, he says, these things have

01:10:49.640 been written so that you might know that you have believed. The Christian faith is not just

01:10:55.380 providing substance and evidence, not feelings, but substance and evidence, not just so that you

01:11:01.240 would believe, but also so that you would, in terms of epistemology, you would have a confidence

01:11:06.540 that you know you believe. So you're not just a little girl sitting on a hillside with a daisy

01:11:11.540 in the hand saying picking the petals he loves me he loves me not he loves me he loves me not

01:11:15.560 leave that for eastern orthodoxy but not the protestant faith we can lay our head on the

01:11:21.180 pillow and say i know who i belong to blessed assurance jesus is mine amen oh glory is divine

01:11:27.420 that that's and that means something and i and the robes and the tassels and the nice cathedrals

01:11:32.760 and the stained glass and the based beard um at the end of the day it doesn't matter those things

01:11:38.360 they have value. But at the end of the day, we're talking about, can I go to sleep at night and know

01:11:45.160 that I have union with Christ and that my soul is saved and that I've been justified and that

01:11:52.380 my sin has been forgiven? It matters. It's not just a trend. We don't pick a denomination

01:11:59.160 based off of trends. That's silly. I remember me and you, we were at Pride Parade, 0.92

01:12:04.960 singing songs, preaching, evangelizing. We talked to a Roman Catholic who was there

01:12:09.440 and I pressed him. I was like, all right, so I want to hear it from you. He was a teacher

01:12:13.740 at a Catholic school, so well-equipped to answer. How are you saved? When you get to the final

01:12:18.940 judgment, what are you going to bring forward? And what was he just, again and again, it's a

01:12:23.500 mystery of how we cooperate with grace. It's a mystery. It's kind of, well, no, we've had 2,000

01:12:28.740 years and 2,000 pages to get a lot of detail, like you just gave, to know what our faith is

01:12:34.380 and then to rest our head on it

01:12:36.080 and not have to punt,

01:12:38.120 not have to kind of,

01:12:39.320 well, it's a mystery of how justification

01:12:41.280 and sanctification of how it works,

01:12:43.560 synergize the mystery.

01:12:45.180 There are mysteries to be clear.

01:12:46.800 There are deep things.

01:12:47.700 There is a comment,

01:12:48.400 shallow is clear, deep is murky.

01:12:50.120 That's actually pretty profound.

01:12:51.220 There is a depth that is not altogether clear.

01:12:53.720 You get into some of the metaphysics,

01:12:55.620 I think too, of the beatific vision.

01:12:57.020 There is a depth to Protestantism,

01:12:59.460 but the essentials,

01:13:01.040 how am I saved?

01:13:02.180 How should I then live?

01:13:03.220 they're so crystal clear that i mean we teach them to children right we do that we ask them

01:13:07.540 questions they answer because they're so clear and mysticism and experientialism and all of these

01:13:13.500 different things syncretism they don't get you there they're a nice proxy for spirituality i

01:13:18.980 remember someone telling me like the most spiritual moment in my life was i was just looking out into

01:13:22.840 the desert in the middle east it was so big and vast i felt so connected with god okay that's

01:13:29.540 meaningless right like that's just that's just good feelings as you taking in beauty through

01:13:33.440 your eyes uh projecting onto it a meaning like that doesn't have substance to it don't use

01:13:38.440 proxies of beautiful buildings don't use proxies of a tradition and wow this goes back so long

01:13:43.860 uh to substitute to swap out the actual substances there well i've been i've been researching for

01:13:50.480 next week's article um which will be on witchcraft or paganism or that sort of thing and one thing

01:13:56.900 is very clear, at least in the U.S., is that in the last 10 or 15 years, more than that, but

01:14:02.080 decidedly in the last 10 or 15 years, there's been a dramatic spike in the number of people who

01:14:07.780 identify as spiritual but not religious. And I wonder, I wonder, some of the pull of

01:14:14.220 orthodoxy, people moving into the EO church, is just a similar symptom. I want something

01:14:21.800 quote-unquote spiritual not religious not um written down not systematized there's that pull

01:14:31.020 when you see an eastern orthodox service which is very spiritual which is very emotional it pulls

01:14:37.000 on those god has given us a spirit there is a sense we want spiritual connection to himself

01:14:43.940 really yeah um but some of the red pillars are moving into eo and some of the blue pillars are

01:14:51.140 just moving into wiccan or nature or and i'm not saying eo is wiccan don't don't get that wrong

01:14:58.660 but the pull of a spiritual experience i think there's some some some similarity there and some

01:15:05.560 of that is understandable because i think the world is desperate like oren mcintyre has talked

01:15:09.860 about this but uh and joe rigney has talked about this and multiple guys but um uh the world is

01:15:15.620 desperate to re-enchant itself correct the enlightenment did a real number on on the world

01:15:20.720 and uh and the chickens have been coming home to roost um over the past few decades and especially

01:15:26.220 these past few years and so i think people are realizing um you know whether it be you know

01:15:31.520 james lindsey and the new atheist you know like like what have we done now of course james lindsey

01:15:36.140 will never admit that but you know and pretty much no atheist sam harris that they're all like

01:15:40.340 what we did was good we sought you know our entire goal and we stated explicitly you know

01:15:44.840 dozens of times was to kill God. And, you know, we killed him, but we didn't want you guys to go 0.91

01:15:51.120 this far. The left left me, right? When someone like Bill Maher, just for the record, when they

01:15:55.240 say the left left me, that just shows you that Bill Maher is going to hell. Because what that

01:16:00.440 exemplifies is an absolute refusal of any personal responsibility and repentance. The dude became

01:16:05.820 famous. He was already famous, but one of the things that really shot him into the stratosphere

01:16:10.760 year was a documentary a mockumentary that he made called religious uh religiosity religiosity

01:16:16.840 religiosity where he went around in the south predominantly and made fun of blue-collar

01:16:22.020 christians and mocked them for 90 minutes about how religion ruins the world and you guys are 1.00

01:16:28.900 just stupid neanderthals you know and uh this is the problem with the world well congratulate and 1.00

01:16:33.880 now he's sitting there complaining that the left has gone too far good dude have some common sense 1.00

01:16:39.700 wake the hell up what like are you kidding me you sought out to kill the christian god 0.94

01:16:45.060 and congratulations a bunch of people left the faith we are less christian than we've ever been 0.98

01:16:51.840 in our history as the united states of america and now they they want to uh to do uh irreversible

01:16:58.400 surgeries on minors that's you did that bill maher yeah congratulations take like seriously

01:17:04.000 take some credit bro well done yeah you did that yep james lindsey did that bill maher did that

01:17:09.240 these guys that's what atheism does um and so my point though is from the enlightenment all the way

01:17:14.840 up you know to um you know the new atheist of the 90s you know and and and then what we have now

01:17:21.160 um people are finally realizing okay this was we made a deal with the devil this was a bad deal

01:17:26.160 and so i think the average person right now is desperate to be re-enchanted they realize

01:17:31.280 uh uh the science you know uh is uh that science is a cruel master uh that darwin is um is a cruel

01:17:40.000 priest uh that fauci is is not your friend and and so they're realizing um you know what maybe

01:17:46.920 the dark ages were you know with religion maybe uh maybe it wasn't quite as dark as revisionist

01:17:53.140 history has made it to be so people want to be re-enchanted uh but the problem is uh that that

01:17:58.700 facts and logic, you know, like my facts don't care about your feelings. Well, what people are

01:18:02.840 realizing is that it's also true that feelings don't often care about your facts. And they're

01:18:07.660 realizing that both are necessary. It's inescapable that, yes, we need facts and logic. We need

01:18:13.040 substance. We need truth. We need precepts. There needs to be something that can be touched and held

01:18:18.120 and felt. But we also do need enchantment. And so I think some guys coming off of just this raw,

01:18:26.000 rudimentary you know stale white room with the you know with the lab coats and the science you

01:18:32.460 know are saying like okay like give me some smoke and mirrors because this has just uh i went this

01:18:38.740 route you know placing you know all my eggs in the facts and logic basket uh but then uh depression

01:18:45.120 is through the roof suicide is through the roof this is through the roof um so give me some smoke

01:18:49.980 and mirrors give me some candles give me some incense uh but but i think that's just oscillating

01:18:54.920 back and forth between two extremes neither one is actually the truth um we don't want to abandon

01:19:02.100 science and facts and logic uh but but neither do we um neither we don't want facts and logic um but

01:19:09.160 without any enchantment without any of the miraculous because the world is not just stuff

01:19:14.520 the world there is spirit that is real um but on the other hand we don't just want um alleged

01:19:22.320 pseudo-mysticism and spirit, but without any facts and logic or substance. That is the beauty. In my

01:19:30.300 assessment, of course I'm biased, but that is the beauty of Christianity, and particularly the

01:19:35.460 Protestant Christian faith, is that the Protestant Christian faith perfectly encapsulates both

01:19:41.520 material and spiritual, that it perfectly encapsulates facts and logic and emotions

01:19:48.160 and feelings that it says here's something that can be described and defined and also here's

01:19:52.960 something uh the the love of christ that will make you weep um this that that is what we need 0.86

01:19:58.500 we don't need to ping pong back and forth between fauci and and wiccans that is that is ludicrous 0.87

01:20:06.560 what we could do instead of uh going fauci ruining the world um and and transing kids and then going 0.89

01:20:14.020 all the way over here to smoke and mirrors and incense and Wiccan and paganism, what we could 0.98

01:20:21.040 do is we could just stay on the path that built this nation in the first place, the Protestant 0.92

01:20:26.260 Christian religion. It was not Catholicism. Catholics were here, but it was not a Catholic

01:20:30.700 project. Jews were here. It was not Judaism. It was not a Jewish project. It was a pan-Protestant 0.94

01:20:38.080 project. That's what built the nation. That's what will save the nation. We could stop oscillating

01:20:43.020 between two extremes of facts and logic or baseless feelings go back to the protestant faith that's

01:20:48.700 where you find both that's where you find truth uh that is the solution anything other than that

01:20:53.360 will not work that's good so all right well we'll pick this back up is there more that we can you

01:20:58.880 think we can do a part two part three in the future there's enough probably for 50 parts but

01:21:02.780 yeah lord lord willing we'll dive back in uh with some more okay and what are appetites for next

01:21:07.580 week michael you're on on the board uh so gonna be looking at um what does it mean uh in america

01:21:15.400 that this exact topic of spirituality but particularly witchcraft and wiccan and some

01:21:22.920 of these dark druidic things are having an explosion a really steep increase the world

01:21:28.740 wants to re-enchant itself it does yep so we're gonna be diving into that we need to be re-enchanted

01:21:32.880 yep but not with druids amen all right okay so tune in next week we'll see you then

The NXR Podcast - February 21, 2024

THE LIVESTREAM - Eastern Orthodoxy - The One True Church？

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