00:06:30.380a little bit tongue in cheek, a little bit serious.
00:06:32.360But we really do want to exercise some humility.
00:06:35.320We don't want to just make this about how we think
00:06:38.600Eastern Orthodoxy is off on the doctrinal merits,
00:06:42.640but we want to talk about some of the cultural aspects.
00:06:45.040We want to talk about even politically,
00:06:46.380the voting patterns, these kinds of things. And then most importantly, we want to talk about
00:06:51.400masculinity. That's just a constant theme over the last few years. Praise God, I think providentially
00:06:56.360so, that the church and Christians, whether they be Protestant or Eastern Orthodox or Roman
00:07:02.340Catholic, in all three of these major spheres of Christianity, there's been a rise, a massive
00:07:09.840increase of people realizing the need for a biblical, robust masculinity. We realize that
00:07:16.180the church across the board is lacking greatly in masculinity, which gives rise to guys like
00:07:23.380Andrew Tate, who we'll probably talk about a little bit later this week. Michael's preparing
00:07:28.080an episode for that, that we're going to do our best to address Andrew Tate and all those kinds
00:07:33.500of things on Wednesday. So I'm going to hand it over to Wes to kick us off a little bit and outline
00:07:37.740this particular episode. Yeah, absolutely. When the rubber meets the road, it's oftentimes a lot
00:07:44.800different than you imagine it to be. So imagine that you're training for apologetics, and you go
00:07:48.900out in the street, and you actually engage with people. And you've read Van Til's Defense of the
00:07:52.940Faith. You've read Bonson. You've read Rush Dooney, By What Standard. And you have an idea of what
00:07:57.260apologetics and everything looks like. And then you go out, and you actually interact with people,
00:08:01.980and you realize once you get there that it never goes the way you intended to go. It never falls
00:08:06.720along the lines that you thought it would. Every question, denomination, baptism, this, that, or
00:08:12.420the other, they have their academic, intellectual questions, problems, debates, where pages,
00:08:19.060thousands upon pages in books have been spilled trying to solve them. But then there's practically
00:08:23.560just on the ground what actually happens and how people are convinced. It's very easy to think.
00:08:29.560It's the arguments. It's the syllogisms. It's the logic and the reason that if you take someone and
00:08:34.180you lay it out for them and you really just answer every objection, then they'll be convinced.
00:08:39.120And I would say for many years that I thought that. That's how if you have a disagreement with
00:08:42.760your spouse or like for, well, maybe not your children when they're young, but when they get
00:08:46.060older, you reason with them and even other adults that you sit down and you hammer it out and you
00:08:50.640go to the text, you go back and forth. And when you do that, the best argument will win. The
00:08:55.880problem is that's not just the case. People don't typically arrive at the positions they hold,
00:08:59.700not always, but the average person, even the average man does not typically arrive at the
00:09:04.160positions he holds because of that intellectual rigor, but he arrives them because of emotional
00:09:10.000reasons. He has friends and family that take a certain view. He goes to a church that teaches
00:09:15.000something like this. He's surrounded by this influence at work. The reason we come to a lot
00:09:19.500of our decisions, again, are not that hard, intellectually rigorous work of parsing throughout
00:09:24.800all of it, studying all of that. We do it because, well, you go to a church that's Calvinist.
00:09:30.540Like, when I first became a Calvinist, why was that?
00:09:33.380Well, I had a pastor that taught Calvinism from the pulpit, and I was surrounded by Calvinists.
00:09:36.880Now, on the back end, I have a fully orbed defense of Calvinism, and I fully believe that it's true.
00:09:41.080But the reason it changed, and it happened to change within a couple years of starting to attend a Reformed church versus an evangelical kind of Arminian church,
00:09:49.660well, what was it? Did I come into better arguments?
00:09:51.960Some, sure, but I was also just surrounded by those kinds of people.
00:09:55.620And so when it comes to the Eastern Church, so many Americans are so sick of modernity.
00:18:27.160And as we're thinking about Protestantism in the West, in America, there is a sense
00:18:32.280where we want when people to think of Christianity, we want them to think, yeah, that's the sort
00:18:37.440of lifestyle that I'm not saying I'm aware that no one seeks God, right?
00:18:43.200But as far as what people think about when they think of Protestantism in America, we
00:18:48.540want them to think of us as those are the fighters, those are the muscular, that's the
00:18:52.980kind of rigorous tradition that I want to be part of.
00:18:55.500And there is a sense where whoever wins that image debate or war doesn't necessarily win the doctrinal argument, but it does kind of win the cultural Christianity war.
00:19:11.220What will be the expression of Christianity in a nation or in a tradition based on what that version of Christianity is doing with itself in the public eye?
00:19:23.460right yeah and i think you know part of my argument and i understand it's not it's not a
00:19:28.800doctrinal argument i never really claimed that it was um but that war for who's going to get the
00:19:35.400visible who's going to win the day for being uh the visible sign of christianity in this nation
00:19:44.060in these united states of america um it will never be eastern orthodoxy right it won't because it's
00:19:51.740not america right and it never will be it simply won't uh we are not eastern mystics um america's
00:19:59.460just that's just not what we are uh catholicism could win i hope it doesn't um i think that
00:20:05.960america i don't think i know america its tradition its history its roots its origin
00:20:10.980is protestant overwhelmingly protestant now in terms of which protestant denomination i don't
00:20:17.640particularly care um i don't i think that you know you can have a pan that's what stephen wolf
00:20:22.220is always talking about that america is a pan protestant nation and the christian nationalism
00:20:26.920that he espouses would be a pan protestant project and so in these united states it would be
00:20:32.740um it would be you know distinctly christian um a little less distinctly protestant but still you
00:20:40.920would have that protestant feel um and then that's at the federal level and then at the state level
00:20:45.860you could and you know in theory you could have state churches but you wouldn't have a federal
00:20:50.100church because you know if at the federal level you had the national church was whatever anglican
00:20:56.260and then mississippi is you know baptist well that would that would conflict um so you wouldn't
00:21:02.820have a national church you could theoretically have state churches but they would be within
00:21:06.700that pan-protestant movement you'd have a lot of presbyterian states you know and baptist churches
00:21:40.860that's even broader than protestant uh like adopting a preamble to the constitution that
00:21:46.460would be like the nicene creed or the apostles creed or something like that that's uh distinctly
00:21:51.200christian and so um but the point is that that that works um in american context and um and one
00:21:59.960you know this is one of the things that we could get in maybe get into a little bit later on but
00:22:04.220um the protestant faith that particular tradition within christianity um i think has the necessary
00:22:13.560ingredients the working parts uh that makes it far more conducive to being a universal lowercase
00:22:21.020c catholic faith um whereas uh eastern orthodoxy as like a geographic and physical locale even you
00:22:31.400know roman catholicism certainly i mean it's roman um it has a locale yeah a specific locale
00:22:37.620uh and there are certain things that don't translate like within roman catholicism you
00:22:42.480know the latin right there's a language that's baked into the equation with it whereas within
00:22:47.180protestantism um you don't have to be english speaking you don't have to be latin speaking
00:22:52.680you don't like i mean there are certain things that would help when you're trying to read you
00:22:56.960know older protestants and some of their writings but none of it is um a necessary ingredient and
00:23:03.120so you could keep you know so protestants argue about you know the substance of worship versus
00:23:07.400the elements of worship so the substance of worship that would be set and defined by scripture
00:23:12.820all right so all over the world you would have churches that you know that publicly preach the
00:23:18.120word pray the word sing the word in spiritual songs and hymns and psalms and publicly see
00:23:24.820s-e-e-i-n-g seeing the word in the only two images prescribed to us by the lord jesus himself
00:23:31.360being the lord's supper and baptism so you would have the substance of worship across the board
00:23:37.020but the elements of worship would shift in terms of where church meets what building you know what
00:23:42.220the building looks like the architecture the music whether or not there are candles or you
00:23:47.200know whether or not there's some form of incense you know whether or not the music is loud or if
00:23:53.480soft or you know instruments only yeah or instruments in addition to singing or singing
00:23:58.280only acapella um all those different you know uh elements of worship um could be at some level you
00:24:05.000know within theory an argument from permissibility they could be interchangeable but the substance
00:24:09.560of worship would remain whereas eastern orthodoxy it's not just doctrine um but but it asserts as
00:24:16.920substance of worship what we would categorize as elements of worship so that if it's wholly
00:24:22.520incompatible with the nation with its traditions with its its entire world view its its way of
00:24:27.880thinking its traditions um well tough luck right so you're western and you care about you know
00:24:34.680cognitive substance right linear thinking linear thinking right so when you think about meditating
00:24:40.760when you read you know david you know meditating on thy word day and night for you christian
00:24:46.280meditation is meditating on god's word that is to fill the mind with god's thoughts with substance
00:24:53.560namely the substance of scripture itself and beginning to think about the scripture what it
00:24:58.200means and how it applies so christian meditation for somebody who's western is going to be thinking
00:25:06.600in those terms i'm going to meditate on god's word day and night that means i'm going to be
00:25:10.120thinking about thy law his law word filling my mind not emptying the mind but i'm filling the
00:25:16.860mind feasting the mind on the word of god thinking about its meaning interpretation and how it works
00:25:24.200its application um eastern orthodoxy that's something that is it's that's again it has a
00:25:31.940physical locale it's it's limited it's not going to work across the board because when they think
00:25:38.260of meditation even there are forms of prayer within eastern orthodoxy centered prayer these
00:25:43.220kinds of things where um it very much is the goal is not to feast the mind on the substance of god's
00:25:48.740word but rather to uh empty the mind and you might even take a phrase uh if you're learning
00:25:54.620for the first time like a seven syllable phrase and you would repeat that phrase again and again
00:26:00.820and again and again um and you could argue the counter would be well we're meditating on that
00:26:05.960phrase no the point is to say the phrase ad nauseum to where uh the mind doesn't focus in
00:26:11.640on the phrase but the phrase is used as as a as an anchor to help the mind not get focused on
00:26:17.860anything so the mind doesn't get distracted by any substantive thought whatsoever the phrase
00:26:23.380becomes an incantation to to blur the mind out and to just to veg out and from this state of
00:26:30.660emptiness in Eastern concept, the goal is to experience oneness with God. Whereas in a Western
00:26:37.740frame, it's not experiencing God so much as it is knowing God. I want to know God. And so those
00:26:46.240are things that are culturally centered. They're bound in place. They're bound in time. They're
00:26:52.260bound with particular nations, particular cultures. And it makes it very difficult. Whereas
00:26:57.540the protestant faith i think is it's more translatable you can have a ugandan church
00:27:03.760that still maintains some ugandan cultural aspects in the elements of worship while still being
00:27:10.020uniquely christian and protestant with the substance of worship and you wouldn't expect
00:27:14.720you know christian protestant churches in uganda to look exactly like a church in kentucky and and
00:27:22.400and that would be okay um and still be biblically faithful and so in terms of winning out who's you
00:27:29.800know who's going to win the day um well in terms of the world i don't know we'll we'll see what
00:27:35.040happens but in terms of these united states protestants built this country and i think by
00:27:42.620god's grace protestants will keep this country and i do think that um five years of being on the rise
00:27:51.820because of covid and blm and effeminacy and all these kinds of things i get it i get it makes a
00:27:57.820lot of sense protestants have been sitting on their hands protestants have um massively and
00:28:03.420utterly failed and so i get it um but long run not just a five-year timeline but looking at a 50-year
00:28:09.980timeline um i don't i don't think it's going to happen and if it did happen um if eastern orthodoxy
00:28:18.460won the day uh then you you can't have both you would lose america yeah so you you eastern
00:28:25.840orthodoxy can uh if eastern orthodoxy wins america loses uh you have you have no more america you
00:28:34.040and different nation yeah and that would have to do like not only with the culture and um the
00:28:40.580aesthetics and all these things but i i absolutely think it would play into immigration we've talked
00:28:45.060about this before, we won't get into it today, but you look at voting patterns, evangelicals,0.80
00:28:49.420despite how fake and gay evangelicals are, I pick on evangelicals more than anybody else because I0.96
00:28:55.940am one. So I understand the problems. And yet still, despite how bad evangelicals have been1.00
00:29:01.780as of recent, it's not even close in terms of voting against abortion, voting for Republican
00:29:09.340leaders voting against immigration vote you know all those evangelicals are far more conservative
00:29:18.340politically conservative than eastern orthodoxy yep so all right let's go to our first commercial
00:29:23.400break and then we're going to bring chase onto the show all right the clock is running out you
00:29:29.240need to go and register now for our christ is king how to defeat trash world conference it's
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00:29:42.020Saturday. And by God's grace, we're able to provide for you an all-star lineup. We've got Steve Dace,
00:29:48.600Calvin Robinson, Oren McIntyre, Dr. Stephen Wolf, Eric Kahn, David Reese, Andrew Isker, John Harris,
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00:30:18.540okay all right welcome pastor chase davis thanks for coming on the show can you hear me
00:30:24.780i believe i believe we've got nathan working on the tech side of things there he is pastor
00:30:33.480chase davis thanks for coming on the show can you hear me we have video he looks wonderful
00:30:40.880it looks like he can hear us we don't hear him but we do not hear him not quite
00:30:45.320can you hear me now we can we've got him perfect great awesome thanks for coming on
00:30:51.780absolutely glad to be here uh tell our listeners just real quick where do you pastor i'm a pastor
00:30:58.640of the well church in boulder colorado a church we planted back in 2011 and we are still here
00:31:03.320great great all right so we're talking about eastern orthodoxy chase uh give you a little
00:31:09.980bit of context we've talked about this before and we've dealt with it from the doctrinal side of
00:31:14.720things um and and we're just we're trying to exercise a little bit of humility in this episode
00:31:21.980and just admitting up front that a lot of protestant apologetics uh are falling flat it's just
00:31:29.180it's not it's not working um and so we're trying to deal with some of the other things some of the
00:31:34.340cultural aspects i i had a tweet you know part of why we're talking about is i had a tweet that got
00:31:38.860you know a decent amount of attention uh last week where i said you know aside from the
00:31:44.820scriptural arguments that would be first for me i'm a christian first um but second and it's a
00:31:50.300fairly close second i would not go eastern orthodoxy uh into eastern orthodoxy simply
00:31:56.680on the basis of the fact that i'm an american what do you think yeah i mean i've made that
00:32:03.080argument i think it's a compelling argument uh the eastern orthodox tradition is foreign
00:32:09.620to the american experience it's it's a foreign religion now one could argue that protestant
00:32:18.060christianity was also foreign at one point to different contexts same thing with roman
00:32:23.040catholicism was foreign the church was foreign to different contexts at different times but in terms
00:32:28.020of the American experience, Protestantism is where it's at. And so the idea that, you know,
00:32:34.280you could go to an Eastern Orthodox Church, and, you know, it's a new thing. I don't know what
00:32:42.280God's plan for the future is for America, but I don't foresee it being Eastern Orthodoxy. I1.00
00:32:48.000foresee it being Protestant Christianity, because it has been, provided, you know, certain things
00:32:54.140happen. But yeah, even we can go so far as to say the way of doing theology in the Eastern
00:33:02.160Orthodox tradition cultivates a way of doing theology and intellectual discourse in a way
00:33:11.240that's so incongruent with the Western tradition that it's almost hard to even have theological0.94
00:33:16.920discussions, because when they're talking about growing in Christlikeness, there's a whole other
00:33:22.760way that they're approaching spirituality and our knowledge of God. Now, they may have some
00:33:28.420insights to offer us there. We may be able to learn some things and exchange ideas in that way.
00:33:33.260But I think if we just view it as like a denominational switch, like it's just another
00:33:37.700option out there, I think that's a grave mistake. Chase, you've, well, earlier we rooted it into
00:33:46.000masculinity. So young men, they're done with. They're done with being weak. They're done with
00:33:51.560being talked down to. They're done with feminism. And so they look for masculine options for church,0.99
00:33:56.460for life, for all of these different things. And that's bringing them, in some cases, to the
00:34:00.220Eastern Orthodox Church. You have, I would say, the priestly class in the Eastern Orthodox Church
00:34:05.000on the whole, on average, beats out the evangelical. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on,0.93
00:34:10.780I think you're a pretty masculine guy. You do a lot of outdoorsy stuff. You probably could bench
00:34:15.680more than me if I had to guess. How do you feel like being in your church there in Boulder,
00:34:20.340having been there for a while, having interacted with a younger, kind of millennial crowd,
00:34:25.300how is masculinity, as men are looking for different things, do you see that actually
00:34:29.280attracting men in, that men come in and they say, man, there's families, the worship, the
00:34:34.200atmosphere, it's reverent, it's somber, it's strong, it's composed. Do you see that playing
00:34:39.500an impact, at least where you're ministering specifically? Yeah, I see a lot of young men
00:34:43.720who are kind of fed up with the kind of lukewarm spirituality that they've been offered, the kind
00:34:49.840of feminized spirituality they've been offered, where the expectation is you go into a dark room
00:34:53.700and cry to Jesus and sing songs to your boyfriend in the sky. They're fairly disinterested in that.
00:34:59.340Men, especially as they reach middle age, they start having kids with their wife,
00:35:06.560that doesn't really do what it used to do for them when they were a young kid,
00:35:11.620when they were confused. And so people are naturally attracted to that. And that's what
00:35:16.580what I've tried to emphasize is what we can learn to this so-called, I mean, so far I haven't seen
00:35:23.680numbers associated with this draw to Eastern Orthodoxy, this masculine draw. So apparently
00:35:31.320there is a draw, but we don't know how many it is. But I have seen for my entire Christian life,
00:35:36.380Christians drawn away from Protestantism into Roman Catholicism, now Eastern Orthodoxy as well.
00:35:42.960And it comes down to an approach to their own faith, the way they carry the Christian faith, such that they're very disinterested in kind of like bending over backwards to please you, whereas most kind of non-denominational churches, their temperament towards either newcomers or whoever is still rooted in a very much like seeker-sensitive evangelistic mindset.
00:36:07.560and of course we want more people to know Jesus and we want to share the gospel with them
00:36:12.760but even the way we welcome people to the church or we try to explain our traditions to other
00:36:17.960people we view most evangelicals view anything that would turn off a lost person as a problem
00:36:24.860whereas in eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism more high church protestant traditions
00:36:29.680they're very unconcerned this is just the way it is this is how we do things you're welcome to come
00:36:35.300you're welcome to go there's kind of like this well i view it as kind of a more masculine
00:36:39.540presence about it where it's less anxious it's more settled and how it presents its tradition
00:36:45.820it it really doesn't care if you understand what's being taught or why different things
00:36:50.820are happening during the liturgy there's not like a worship pastor explaining everything
00:36:55.040to newcomers every week it's like this is just how we do things here and we love you we're glad
00:37:00.020you're here and um you're welcome to stay and learn more so i think that's the difference there0.88
00:37:05.320it's so funny with the seeker sensitive they think i'm going to bend over backwards i'm going
00:37:09.760to have graders and welcome cards and connect cards i'm going to have a gift basket and i think
00:37:14.420like that's what people want people want brian suveys talked about this a thick culture like
00:37:19.360it actually belonged to it like it takes effort you've been there for six months you're still
00:37:23.640struggling to sing parts in the psalms you know like you've got a workout group and they invited
00:37:27.820you at 6 a.m. You couldn't walk for the next four days after. People want to belong to something.
00:37:32.460They don't want to be just catered to. They don't want something that's surface level that they can
00:37:36.460get the full experience of in two weeks. I watched, I think it's Father Josiah, and I want to say he's
00:37:41.140out in California. He said, you come to an Orthodox church, you're going to be expected to fast.
00:37:45.320Man, men love that. Men love to be challenged. That's not like a spiritual church thing.
00:37:49.840That's just in general. Men want to be long. They want to be challenged. They want to have1.00
00:37:53.520something where it's not just, again, two, three weeks in, you've exhausted it. This is as far as
00:37:59.280we're going to push you. The rest, you can take it from there. Yeah. Yeah. Men need to be challenged
00:38:04.380with rigor. They need to be, you know, loaded up with certain expectations to grow because men want
00:38:11.740to grow. All people want to grow, but men especially, they want to see a challenge in
00:38:15.360front of them. And unfortunately, many evangelical churches today, they put a big emphasis on
00:38:21.260belonging and inclusivity and all these kinds of things. When in fact, what people need is,
00:38:29.280yes, the confrontation of their sin and the welcome good news of the gospel,
00:38:34.100but even more so the spiritual disciplines that come with our faith, being encouraged to walk in
00:38:39.680righteousness and put sin to death and practical application of how to do that. And you see some
00:38:44.220churches try to do this with marriage classes and that kind of thing. But in general, the kind of
00:38:49.040longstanding traditions, whether Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, they have a long, they have
00:38:54.520a pattern of the man they are trying to shape, and they have practices that they will instantiate
00:39:00.600and expect of you if you join. And I think most evangelicals, they hear that as either legalism
00:39:06.240or scary or putting too much on people or all sorts of different words you'll hear.
00:39:11.640Though one of the worst things that you could say in an evangelical church today
00:43:18.520And I think that's, to me, that says something.
00:43:21.760And that makes a statement about what is the particular appeal.
00:43:25.580I don't think it's just the superior arguments from tradition.
00:43:29.020I think it's the superior, and I'm fine calling it the superior aesthetics and the superior feel and culture to the vast majority of evangelical Protestants, which is feminine, light in the loafers, a guy who has a plexiglass pulpit,
00:43:47.980um you know and he's pacing back and forth between two ferns and he's not going to preach he's just
00:43:54.500going to share you know like that's gay i think people leave protestant churches not because the0.95
00:43:59.460doctrine's bad but because protestant churches are gay i think that's it what do you think chase0.93
00:44:04.620yeah i think there's a lot there because it's interesting we live in such a sentimental age0.88
00:44:10.740people are drawn more to beauty and aesthetics more than they let on most people like to think
00:44:17.100they're rational creatures that make decisions because they made a good argument. And most often
00:44:21.320case, we will do things and then justify our behavior and find rational arguments that justify
00:44:27.140what we've done. But in the same way, we're drawn to beauty, we're drawn to these aesthetics.
00:44:32.800And so there's actually a really interesting parallel between why people are drawn to the,
00:44:38.820if we want to call it the secret sensitive church, where it's heavy base, dark, and it gets the
00:44:44.480feelings going. You know, there's a similar reason people are drawn then to Eastern Orthodoxy. It's
00:44:49.600also if there's feelings there, there's something there. One thing I would emphasize, like you
00:44:54.000talked about with the transcendence, is that most evangelical churches, they're very high on
00:44:58.440eminence, the eminence of God. God is near to us. God is close to us. God condescended to us in the
00:45:04.660God-man, Jesus Christ. And so Jesus is your friend. All these are very heavily emphasized.
00:45:10.540And then when people start wanting to grow and they want to know more about God, they often come up short because they keep hearing the same thing.
00:45:19.420Well, God's not that different than you.
00:45:21.180Whereas when we emphasize the transcendence, we should have both.
00:45:23.760But when we emphasize the transcendence, like the more high church tradition, like the Eastern Orthodox tradition, there's a sense that God is other, that we're encountering something that's different.
00:45:32.800And I think in an age where people are, they're over a life where I come home, I order Grubhub, I turn on a screen, and that's supposed to be a good life.
00:45:49.540And if Protestant churches, if that's all they essentially offer is kind of a buffet of spirituality where there's not a lot of accountability, not a lot of seriousness about our traditions and our faith and our practices, they're going to look elsewhere.
00:46:03.880And when they look elsewhere, they see a tradition that's very much where God is other, where sometimes you may not even speak the same language as the songs we're singing,
00:46:17.740where these are these icons going around and there's this sense of transcendence there
00:46:22.580uh that is oftentimes lacking now you could try to manufacture that in the mega church world where
00:46:28.860you've got manufactured transcendence oh we've got fog machines we've you know i've heard of
00:46:34.060this uh this crazy idea where at some one church they had like gold dust falling from the ceiling
00:46:39.420uh because they put it but they put it like in the air vents yeah yeah right yeah but they're
00:46:46.160They're trying to manufacture this transcendence, and people are looking in our age for that connection.
00:47:01.240It offers no connection for a future vision.0.96
00:47:05.100It is just eat, have sex, die, have pleasure, avoid pain.
00:47:11.220People are like, no, there's got to be more to life than this.
00:47:13.080And so they're looking for churches that are going to speak to that, that are going to take themselves seriously, that aren't just going to constantly condescend to whoever's most offended or anything like that, but they're going to stand up straight and have a sense of propriety about themselves on Sunday.
00:47:30.180That's one emphasis I've tried to make in our church about dress, and I'm definitely not legalistic by any means on this matter, but I myself have tried to dress more appropriately, more befitting, as a minister should wear, as a Baptist minister could be on a Sunday, to where there is a sense of this isn't just a campus ministry where we're all best buds.
00:47:50.660And hear me clearly, this is coming from a guy who, when we planted, I would preach in
00:47:54.940chacos and wear a V-neck and all this kind of stuff.
00:53:42.280I would say the same could be said of someone who wants to join the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
00:53:47.240You really don't have to understand everything.
00:53:50.000You just have to like submit to tradition. And in that way, I think it's meeting a certain felt need that people have today, where they're having to make decisions left and right. And they're experiencing what some call decision fatigue, where they're, you know, you look at, you move to a new city, and you have to pick an evangelical church, and you've got non-denominus, non-denominat, all this kind of stuff.
00:54:12.860And not only that, not only for your spiritual life, but food and everything is so easily accessible.
00:54:18.840And I think with the simplicity offered in embracing a tradition in which you really don't have, there's not a lot of decisions to make.
00:54:26.500There's not a lot of initiative to take.
00:54:28.600It's just kind of like, well, this is what we do.
00:54:31.300There's something freeing, and that's not necessarily good, but there can be something freeing to somebody who's looking for that transcendent experience with God because they're exhausted by modern life.0.99
00:54:42.860they're exhausted by kind of this global homo uh kind of like materialistic worldview of0.99
00:54:49.320commodification of everything commercialization of everything and you'll see the same thing0.99
00:54:53.260happen in protestant churches where spirituality becomes not this is how we do things here this is
00:54:58.140our tradition it's we have a buffet of 50 ministry options depending on whatever your felt need is
00:55:03.560we just want you to belong here which one do you want oh we don't have one for you well let's start
00:55:08.220of mountain biking ministry just for you. You know, you can feel special here. Whereas in Eastern
00:55:13.380Orthodox Church, you don't get a lot of that. And so it is kind of a, it's a different kind of
00:55:17.360simplicity. While it's very complicated, like we've already highlighted, if you go to an Eastern
00:55:21.240Orthodox worship service, incredibly complicated stuff. At the same time, it can be freeing for
00:55:26.680somebody who is looking for that kind of like, man, I'm just tired. I'm tired of trying to make
00:55:31.420a bunch of decisions right yeah if we go ahead west you go first and then i'll i have a couple
00:55:38.160questions mine is the sum up question of what should protestant churches practically do to kind
00:55:43.060of capture back some of that so why don't you go ahead and then we'll maybe wrap up for that
00:55:46.900yeah let's do that in the third segment chase do you have time we're going to go to a commercial
00:55:51.000break here in about five minutes and then come back and we'd love to keep you for another 20 or
00:55:56.180so to maybe take some questions from our audience okay um so my question is just briefly because
00:56:01.960we've done this in the past this is not the point of this episode but i'd love to hear from you um
00:56:07.080just for a moment on doctrine are there any um what would be the doctrinal red flags
00:56:12.820what would be the things that you're like oh that's doctrinally i don't like that one
00:56:18.340yeah i i kind of looked into it a little bit in seminary i took some classes that dealt with
00:56:24.160Eastern Orthodoxy, but since I spoke about it on my own podcast and we're speaking about it today,
00:56:28.300I've looked into it a little bit more deeply on the stuff I already knew. And I think doctrinally,
00:56:32.840my big thing is like the way it shapes you as a human, the way it shapes you and treats you as
00:56:37.960a person is very different than Protestantism. And even the apprehension of God, how we understand
00:56:44.620who God to be. For example, in salvation, you know, in the Protestant tradition, we have faith
00:56:49.840alone. You put your faith in Jesus Christ, you repent of your sins, you become a new creation.
00:56:54.160and you become a Christian. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, it's going to be in the
00:56:58.580church. That's where you find salvation. We can find this in the Protestant tradition,
00:57:04.420but not in the same way. And that's the danger doctrinally with a lot of this,
00:57:07.960is we're using similar words, but we're saying very different things. So you'll hear John Calvin
00:57:13.080and others in the Protestant tradition talking about the church being the mother. There's no
00:57:17.160salvation outside the church, but they mean it in a different way than the Eastern Orthodox,
00:57:21.180where truly, like, they don't, it's not that they don't care about justification by faith,
00:57:27.740they don't even, like, that's not even on their radar as far as a doctrinal concern,
00:57:32.520if that makes sense, like, just because of the way their doctrine and theology has developed
00:57:36.760over time. So for a Protestant who's clear on Christ's penal substitutionary death and
00:57:44.180justification in Christ, to then switch to Eastern Orthodoxy, that's like, it's a different
00:57:51.020rule book. It's a different language completely theologically. We have more in common with Roman
00:57:57.760Catholics, you might have already highlighted this, than Eastern Orthodox in terms of our
00:58:01.840Western tradition. Of course, one of the great theological controversies was about the filioque
00:58:09.160or filioque um and and and you'll see in their own tradition there there is some kind of back
00:58:14.300and forth on what it meant was it just semantics you know was it a big issue um but i think one of
00:58:20.840the things that that really strikes me in eastern orthodoxy is the iconography the kind of veneration
00:58:29.360of they don't as far as they say they don't worship these icons even though to protestants
00:58:34.060we would say, that's what it seems like to me, they venerate these icons. But even like how
00:58:40.660they understand hell, for example, whereas Protestants have a tradition of thinking of
00:58:45.780heaven and hell as realms and even places, hell in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and heaven in
00:58:51.720the Eastern Orthodox tradition isn't necessarily a realm or a place. Hell is an absence of God's
00:58:56.440grace, and it's a state of being almost. And it gets into kind of the experiential aspect
00:59:02.360of Eastern Orthodox and kind of the mystical components. And that cultivates humans that
00:59:09.180are trained to perceive the world in a way that's just utterly different. And so there are just
00:59:15.180really, on all sorts of doctrinal matters, such severe differences. Not that they, I'm not
00:59:22.700necessarily claiming that those who are Eastern Orthodox are outside the faith, but they're just
00:59:27.480very different, and I think it's very, you know, we should be very cautious about assuming
00:59:33.400too charitably that we're saying the same thing when we're not actually saying the same thing.
00:59:38.780You know, they have an experience of God where theosis is a big deal, and becoming like God is
00:59:43.500a big deal, but even when we say that, we're meaning becoming more Christ-like, more human,
00:59:48.340in a sense. We should live into our full humanity, and they mean something very different than that.
00:59:53.320And so those are some of the doctrinal things that I've noticed, that there's just a totally different language that they're using.
00:59:59.240Right. Penal substitutionary atonement is also a big one.
01:00:02.820So I do think that Protestants, we would do well to add as a supplement, not as a substitute, so not to replace, but to add to penal substitution.0.93
01:00:13.900I believe penal substitutionary atonement, the idea that Christ, our sin, was imputed to him.
01:00:21.140He who knew no sin became sin on our account so that we might be reconciled to God.
01:00:27.140And it's not only that, he also lived.
01:00:28.780I believe like John Owen, the purity, you know, it's the act of obedience of Christ
01:00:32.920in addition to the passive obedience of Christ.
01:00:35.680So he lived in our place as our substitute, fulfilling all righteousness.
01:00:40.260And most importantly, he died in our place.
01:00:43.880Our sin imputed to him so that his righteousness might be imputed to us by faith.
01:00:50.520and so um that i i would go so far as to say that penal substitutionary atonement is um it is the
01:00:59.800gospel it is the gospel and justification by faith is a linchpin or the heart of the gospel
01:01:05.940that said though i think you can hold to that as protestant and you would do well i think that as
01:01:11.720protestants we can learn this so not as a replacement not as a substitute but a supplement
01:01:17.480In addition, I think we can look at some other atonement models as well.
01:01:23.780So penal substitutionary atonement, yes and amen a thousand times.
01:01:26.920In addition to that, Christus Victor, ransom atonement.
01:01:30.360There are other modes of the atonements that I think are all true.
01:01:34.940I don't think it's a, you can only pick one and therefore the others are false.
01:01:39.740I think there's a triage there of saying, you know, one is perhaps more important than
01:01:45.780the others or more integral to the gospel and justification than the others but um but that
01:01:51.960doesn't mean that um that only one can be true and the others are contradictory christus victor
01:01:57.500does not on its face it depends on you know what exact you know espousing of christus christus
01:02:04.240victor you might particularly get into but on its face christus victor does not contradict with
01:02:08.940penal substitutionary atonement you can hold both of them that in the cross and the life death and
01:02:13.740burial and resurrection particularly of jesus christ uh that he actually uh he emerged victorious
01:02:19.980that he conquered uh spiritual powers that were living in a whole new world that he held uh
01:02:25.420spirits to public shame that that there's uh that something changed in in this victorious
01:02:31.260christ you can hold to those elements and still hold to penal substitutionary atonement because
01:02:36.380it's addressing two different doctrinal issues um but in my reading um from eastern orthodoxy
01:02:44.780their perspective penal substitutionary atonement is kind of like what you were saying with
01:02:48.760justification by faith chase but uh penal substitutionary atonement is no it's just
01:02:53.640not talked about it's just silent um it's it's only christus victor um and so that and i the
01:03:00.700idea even of jesus died on the cross for sin he and and how he did that particularly he took my
01:03:09.040sin and on the cross took the wrath of god that was merited by my sin that i deserved and he took
01:03:16.900it for me and so that the the wrath of god this cup of the white hot wrath of god was poured out
01:03:23.340on christ to the point of every drop to where it was empty so there is no wrath that remains
01:03:29.560towards god's elect because jesus drank that cup in full um that's that doctrine not just
01:03:37.860justification by faith but penal substitutionary atonement that that model of the atonement
01:03:42.820seems to be virtually absent from eastern orthodoxy yeah so i yeah all right we should
01:03:50.220stop with a doctrine we can come back let's take some questions from the chat you guys do me a
01:03:54.420favor if you're listening live go ahead and type in questions now you guys got lots of you're
01:03:58.860interacting with each other. That's awesome. But if you write something in and add a question mark,
01:04:04.060put it in question form so we know it's for us, then we will come back and we'll address it right
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01:05:47.980all right we are back okay do we still have pastor chase with us we go great ladies here okay uh let's
01:05:57.340get some questions from the chat what do we got let's start with a super chat first i saw that
01:06:01.800the other paul is a good dude we know him um super chat 20 what a baller here we go
01:06:08.160here in the sydney anglican diocese a reform movement over the past uh 40 years has gutted
01:06:17.020our tradition to be gospel-centered and bridge with the culture. The 2024 Synod revealed that
01:06:26.120attendance is at record lows. That's not a question. He just wants it to get out there.
01:06:30.500There you go. We did a whole episode on different churches, be it in the Anglican tradition or
01:06:34.620others, as they compromised on women pastors, for instance. They almost always marked the start of
01:06:40.760the decline. The second you embrace them, you could count on it. You're going to see your
01:06:44.540attendance drop. You're going to see buildings lost. That is the pattern. Right. Okay, another
01:06:49.840question. There's a question. Chase, we talked a little bit about America. We are a Protestant
01:06:54.820nation. By God's grace, we will always be so. But Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, you say we
01:07:00.700achieve Christian nationalism, and in our conception of ourselves, we are pan-Protestant.
01:07:05.280Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox. What happens to those churches? They wouldn't enjoy, they wouldn't
01:07:09.660be state churches, they wouldn't certainly be federal churches, but they would still be what
01:07:14.380we would call christian churches here in the united states underneath a protestant milieu
01:07:20.240what do you make of that yeah so if we have uh you know emperor uh baron come to power and call
01:07:27.700a council and uh you know we have many different protestants come to this council and we argue for
01:07:34.220what are we going to do with different uh things like this i think there's a way to have carve
01:07:39.940vouts for whether eastern orthodox or roman catholicism uh there's no doubt that roman
01:07:45.860catholicism in the country is a very powerful movement has been especially politically for a
01:07:50.120long time and i think living in kind of a utopic uh lacking prudence vision of you know making
01:07:58.520nations christian and understanding how they're how they're going to become christian and not
01:08:02.940really appreciating like hey like there's prudence involved with what people are able to bear and
01:08:08.200what people are currently citizens and have been citizens for a long time um there's certain
01:08:13.360prudential measures that should be put in place and so there there can be opportunities for carve
01:08:17.400outs there can be opportunities for that there can be opportunities for how we involve them
01:08:21.360i think you know like for example at the inauguration coming up uh it was released
01:08:27.060that like an imam is going to be speaking um at the inauguration which is very disappointing to
01:08:32.360Uh, we don't want that. Um, and yet that is, that is reflective of kind of the general, uh, kind of conservative movement today that such a thing would happen. And so there would be ways that there would be exclusion from like public celebration of, of certain, uh, you know, faith, all that kind of stuff.
01:08:52.980But there could be opportunities for partnership, have conciliatory relationships, all that kind of thing.
01:08:59.620So we need not think of it too rigidly, but we can think of it creatively and with a bunch of prudence as well.
01:10:01.400Yeah, I would want to meet with them, especially if they're a member of my church, particularly.
01:10:06.840But just generally, if they were a Protestant Christian, Evangelical Christian, was thinking
01:10:10.980of doing that, I would want to have a lot of discussions around why, you know, what
01:10:15.800What is the draw? You know, a question I always ask when I'm pastoring is, what do you want? What are you after? Jesus asks this question frequently to people, and you can hear them out, you know, you know, and then you can talk about, right, so how do you perceive Eastern Orthodoxy to be meeting that for you?
01:10:35.600And why have you prioritized, like, getting that need met as the most important thing for you and your current, either current family or future family? Why do you view that as the most important thing? And then, of course, eventually, I would want to get into the doctrinal distinctions and divisions and help that person go like, hey, like, these are clear differences.
01:10:58.060and so for me when I approach situations like this I want to meet with them hopefully in person
01:11:05.240and then just talk through the issues it's not complicated but I would be emphasizing look part
01:11:11.900of the reason I am Protestant is because of my parents and my grandparents that came before me
01:11:16.140who were also Protestant and so in keeping the Protestant tradition going it's not just because
01:11:22.320I believe it's true which I do the more I study it the more I love it the more I love God
01:11:25.680And it's also because it's a way of honoring my forefathers who came before me.
01:11:30.760And so what would that be saying to others?
01:11:32.760And so one of the things you encounter in Eastern Orthodoxy, at least from what I understand,
01:11:38.100the tradition, and the tradition is big in Eastern Orthodoxy.
01:11:41.620The tradition says that people outside of Eastern Orthodoxy are not Christian.
01:11:45.120And so what would you be saying by switching to Eastern Orthodoxy of other brothers of me?
01:11:49.520What would you be saying of other people?
01:11:51.080these are things you would want to take into account
01:35:51.600You know, and so, yeah. So anyway, so I would like to see Protestants be a little bit more1.00
01:35:58.160charitable towards Catholics, but while still understanding the distinctives, the irreplaceable
01:36:03.480distinctives of Protestant doctrine, and knowing that, yes, it absolutely matters, and we're not
01:36:08.320going to compromise on that. But recognizing that those particulars, doctrinal particulars,
01:36:14.580I think most of them exist, are more etched in stone at the higher echelons of leadership within
01:36:20.160Catholicism and not necessarily parishioners. And then God's larger plan, I really do think
01:36:26.280redemption and restoration and repentance is far more likely, if I had to bet, than utter removal.
01:36:33.440And then I think, you know, I'd have a similar position towards Eastern Orthodoxy, and yet at the same time, and this would be something that would probably get clipped out of context, I'm not going either direction, but if I had two options and only two options afforded to me, I would become a Roman Catholic every day of the week and twice on Sunday before becoming Eastern Orthodox.
01:36:57.100same i don't i don't know how any any western protestant could argue otherwise like i mean
01:37:04.340to me that is just so abundantly clear um just simply the culture and the practices like i would
01:37:10.860have to um i would have there would be no more joel left in the equation like i would have to lose
01:37:17.900utterly lose every component about me i don't know i don't even know how to do that it like it makes
01:37:24.060it feels so foreign to like i'm going to uh i'm going to just empty my mind and i'm going to
01:37:31.280you know i i just i'm not um i'm an american gosh darn it so anyways and roman catholicism
01:37:41.780particularly here in america is even yeah you know even closer because it has been you know
01:37:46.460and same for eo they've had a prostan influence you go to ukraine or romania look a lot different
01:37:52.620a lot different. Right. Chase, so what do you think about that? In terms of Roman Catholicism,
01:37:59.380invisible, visible church being a uniquely Protestant scheme that Rome doesn't have,
01:38:04.180that Eastern Orthodoxy doesn't have. And then what do you think as a pastor, a Protestant pastor,
01:38:09.360do you think Rome will eventually come back into the fold? Or do you think it's just,
01:38:13.340we're just waiting for it to all be burnt up? What do you think?
01:38:17.240Yeah, I think the graphic is really helpful. Actually, I wish I could have that graphic. I
01:38:20.160I teach that at our church, that distinction that we have as Protestants.
01:38:25.040And I think it's an important distinction to make, you know, like you said.
01:38:28.760And I think a lot of even Christians, Protestant Christians are confused on this in terms of how we talk about, you know, belonging to a local church and what it means to be saved by Jesus.0.94
01:38:39.580I'm less positive on the Roman Catholics coming back.
01:38:43.620I did want to, it's an interesting thing, Joel, that I thought I'd ask since we're on the air.
01:38:52.040You know, I sympathize with treating Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, and I think it's part of our tradition and also part of my temperament and yours, to be somewhat charitable, I might say, with these people.
01:39:07.220Like you highlighted this Roman Catholic grandmother who loves Jesus, and there's still hope for them.
01:39:14.520Part of the tension I feel in my mind, maybe you don't feel this tension, but part of the tension I feel in my mind is we look at evangelicals that have compromised with women pastors, with all this kind of stuff, just giving themselves over to celebrating gay marriage, whatever it might be.
01:39:30.960And we do judge them very harshly, right?0.59
01:39:33.260We do almost, I wouldn't say anathematize, but to use a word, there's a sense of like, they're outside the fold.0.99
01:39:40.500And yet there does seem to be a proclivity, at least in my mind, to give deference a little bit more so to the Catholics.
01:39:47.920And that's why I'm less like when I hear guys not dumping on, but, you know, like attacking the Roman Catholic Church and all that kind of stuff.
01:39:57.480That is more part of our heritage to do that, like was highlighted, where it's like we had wars with Catholics.0.66
01:40:05.520And there's a reason all the Reformers spoke of the Pope being the Antichrist.
01:40:09.600And so there is a legitimacy to that critique, whereas these people that are evangelical ministers in America, Protestant ministers, who are deeply compromised, should we not extend a similar charity in their direction that we are also extending to kind of Roman Catholics and the hope there?