What Do Orthodox Christians Actually Believe?

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So. So is Ortho Bros considered a
derogatory term? You and Sam have your situation.
What was your impression of the debate you had with him as a
debate partner on Valuetainment?And then when do you think that
devolved to what ended up evolving to what you get into?
We don't make judgements about individuals and like, I don't

(00:20):
know your destiny, I don't know the work of God's spirit in your
heart. I do believe that like the thief
on the cross. And I tried to bring some, you
know, philosophical internal critiques to the to the table
and I think it was a blowout. If you go to the fresh and fit
channel you can see 40,000 ish comments. 98% is on lost.
Some of the folks that I see that are coming towards Eastern

(00:41):
Orthodoxy seem to have a crippling fear and anxiety
around their own salvation. The argument that you're making
violates the very thing that youjust said would relativize the
positions. The argument that I'm making
right now. Your argument is no different
than anyone else's argument you're citing.
You're saying I have this position, they have that
position, you have your position.
Yeah, of course, but that has nothing to do with.

(01:02):
Ruslan Jay is in his stunner shades.
I'm going full Jim Jones becauseI thought I thought we were
going to the Mahdi. So I was going to do that cult
vibe and I I will talk the rest of this in the Osho voice.
Cult leaders also have like a booger whistle.
If you know, it's like Osho, he's like.
OK, so, so so is Ortho Bros considered a derogatory term?

(01:28):
The only time, the first time I heard it was at Jonathan Pejo's
conference last year, the first one he did.
And so I was like, that's interesting because it because
it it articulated from my vantage point, a group.
There's I have two very polar opposite experience with recent
orthodox. Some of them are the sweetest
kindness, friendliest folks I'veever met.

(01:49):
And I would say, I would say meeting you in person is, is
like that, like you're very kind.
We I think we had a great time hanging out.
And then there's like the onlineaspect of it and, and what they
remind me of, and I don't want to hyper generalize, but it
reminded me of the young restless and reform movement
that was like, we would put themin the cage stage.
Like you're just like, you just became a Calvinist.
Like let's just put you in a cage so you don't hurt anybody.

(02:12):
And it's like it's one of those two.
So like every person I've met, whether it's father Josiah,
whether it's Jonathan Pescio, whether it's Neil from Derpore
Robbins, whether it's even father Harris who, who's AI
would, I don't know if it's a appropriate, say a bit more
radical. He seems a bit more like
dogmatic in some of his positions are totally different

(02:32):
than some of the community and the chatter online, right?
Like even in you saying, Hey, you're coming on my podcast and
people were like, better, bettertell him, you know, and I'm
like, hold up, like what? What the the the contrast?
Right, I'm going to sing the Anathema.
Yeah, yeah, right. Anathema.
Is it really a song for the anathemas?
OK, we'll get to the another one.
So anyway, derogatory term, are you kind of coined and viewed as

(02:55):
the guy who kind of built this orthobros community or is it,
was it already there and you just kind of spoke?
To a well, it was a it was a joke that followed again, a nice
made and then for whatever reason, I think then people
started saying, oh, I'm an orthobro.
And then the people who wrote hit pieces use it as a
derogatory term. So.
So initially there's a joke and then they.
And then appropriated and then, but I would say like, yeah, I

(03:17):
think you've got a a full spectrum of like people who
aren't Orthodox who just put up profiles.
I mean, I've even caught people who we know are not Orthodox
creating profiles to create nonsense that happens.
I will say your guy's cross is definitely the coolest aesthetic
cross. I mean, anybody can create a
Twitter profile and say I'm Orthodox.

(03:38):
And by the way, I'm ready to go kill people, right?
And I'm just like. I haven't seen that.
I haven't seen that, sort of. Stuff.
There was a duty to do that. Yeah.
Anyway, I also think, like you said, if you know, when you're
like 18 to 25, you're really searching and you're very
idealistic. You're very zealous.
I was that way when I was in my 20s.
I was a cage. I should have been caged

(04:01):
Calvinist, right? You were a Calvinist before the
young restless Reformed things, right?
Yeah, it was a couple years before.
But I'm just saying like I had. Do you?
Remember that era though, like as you were I guess Catholic or
wherever you were at. Do you remember how like
scorching hot like the John Piper?
Paul I was really into. I was really into both of those.
Yeah, so, but I'm saying like 20, not 22,006 to 2010 eleven is

(04:23):
like keep Calvinism. Well, I moved past those guys
before that time, but I was really into John Piper and Paul
Washer back in the late 90s and early 2000s.
They they made me Calvinist. You were early on that.
OK OK, so anyway Ortho Bros. Yeah, I mean, it's, I think
you're going to have a lot of young people searching who are
zealous and who immediately wantto start debating.

(04:45):
And this is something that FDA, Fodigan and ISIS tried to like
warn about. And in fact, he does an Orthodox
conference in the last two conferences he's done in Montana
were geared towards trying to calm dudes down.
That's good. And because people don't
understand that, like, because you see me or anybody else doing
a debate, like they think, oh, Igot to go to debate.

(05:07):
Like the orthodoxy is about debating, not necessarily,
right? Like you have to go through the
process of like changing. It has to change you, right?
And I'm not saying it's perfectly changed me, but not
everybody has the skill set or the call to, to do debates.
It takes a certain temperament and sometimes I lose my temper.
If you're, if you do this for 20years plus, I've done debates

(05:29):
since I was, I don't know, 2025 years, you're going to have
times where you lose your temperand it's going to be hard.
So it's not for everybody. But I think a lot of young
people, you know, they just sortof assume that I got to do what
he's doing and that's not necessarily the case.
And then I think you've got people who are serious and who
do convert. And I think there's also a

(05:51):
contingent of people who are just not happy with the idea of
debating at all. They think that debate is bad.
If you debate, it's bad. And so they'll just sort of lump
everybody who debates into a category of bad people, right?
That's not fair either. No, I mean Paul goes out and
debates, you know, so. Acts haven't seen.
Yeah, Paul Nathan, it's one of my favorite chapters.

(06:12):
So would you say the the currentyou've talked about losing your
temper. Is that something you go to
confession for or is that just something you personally?
Yeah, no, I mean, I've had to confess that probably 10 * 10
times in 10 years or seven years, 10 years.
Would you say the general debateculture online is a net positive
or a net negative? Because I get AI get a lot of
this asked in our Patreon community of like, hey, what do

(06:33):
you think of this? And we'll get to the Sam Shamoon
and all that. Like I think that's way out
there, right? But net positive.
What do you make of just a overall debate scene?
I would guess that from my perspective, and like when we go
to our live events and I would say in the last five to seven

(06:55):
years, we've probably met a few 1000 people in person just from
traveling coast to coast many times and going to various
churches and whatnot. I would say it's overall in that
positive because we've met so many people who've said I came
out of atheism, I came out of Islam, I came out of, you know,
all these things to Christ because of a debate.
And, and you're seeing these people in church now.

(07:18):
Yeah, that's that. I would say that's good.
I mean, one of the things that Ido appreciate about Orthodoxy is
that there seems to be an emphasis on the practice of the
faith, right? Which I think faith should be
something that we work out, right?
We work out what God has worked in.
And so I do appreciate that. And that's my conversation with
Jonathan and, and Neil are always like, yeah, there's a
there's a, there's an emphasis on practice.
That's not just a propositional.Agreement it.

(07:39):
Can't just be online, it can't just be an agreement to set
facts, because then that's just Gnosticism, you know, it's just
knowledge and information, you know, And so I think that's
that's cool. So you say Senate positive now?
Can I add one point to that? The other thing, too is like, I
come out of academic philosophy.So when I was in college, like
you're expected to debate. I think maybe a lot of

(08:01):
universities have moved away from this, but like back in the
2000s when I was in undergrad, like we had debate club school
and when I was a sophomore, I did a public debate with one of
my professors. Like it was just.
Sophomore in high school or college?
College. Wow, I debated my philosophy of
science professor as a atheist. How'd that go?
Well, I did tag and I think he lost.
So I mean, I don't think any atheist who doesn't know tag

(08:23):
right is going to do very well against the presuppositional
argument. But so I, I'm just saying I come
out of the milieu of it's expected that you debate if
you're a philosophy student. And I mean, I think in my, in my
university, it was one of our like, you know, they have like
those corny tag lines like achieving excellence, analyzing

(08:44):
ideas. You know, we're going to produce
the perfect student in this person who can critically think.
Well, I come out of the ethos ofcritically thinking and the
expectation of you got to defendyour ideas.
That's what academia was about. For example, even still, if you
do a master's thesis or a PhD, you have to defend your thesis.
That's a degree of debating and apologetic.

(09:06):
So you know, when Socrates goes out in the Apology, he's doing
an apologia. He's questioning people's
paradigms and assumptions. That's the essence of
philosophy, even back to Plato and Socrates.
So that's also, I think an element of this that I think a
lot of people are not. I don't mean this in an arrogant
way, but a lot of people are noteducated about what philosophy

(09:27):
is and what it is to question paradigms and to critically
think. And so they just assume that
that's arguing. You just want to argue.
A debate is not arguing. And that's why we do formal and
informal debates. So I let people call in, ask
whatever questions they want, have whatever kind of informal
debate they want. But I also do formal academic.

(09:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. That's good.
I, I'm with you. I think I mean, one of my
favorite classes that I've takenwas logic and reasoning class,
you know, and philosophy and philosophy of religion and how
do you come to what your epistemology is like?
How do you come to conclusions of truth?
I think that stuff is good and Ithink it's good for us to
critically think about these things and how do how do we come

(10:11):
to these conclusions? You know, so I think that's a
listening to your stuff. It seems like there's always
you're even in your debates thatare informal, you're still
reminding people and infusing people of those elements of
philosophy, which I think is helpful.
You are presuppositional in yourapologetics.
Is there a reason why? Or do you just not like the

(10:34):
classical apologetics approach? Or is it because you're so
connected to philosophy and logic and reason that you you
don't use the classical apologetics lane?
Or so you just you just that's just not your.
Will I just think that that they're not the best arguments?
So I do agree with vanilla, who made a really good argument that
you could take all the classicalarguments and make a

(10:56):
transitional version of those. So you can make a transitional
argument for telos, Telos you can make a transitional argument
for causation or cosmol the cosmological argument.
So I just think it's a superior argument also.
Resurrection could you For the classical resurrection, the
resurrection happened because the New Testaments reliable New
Testaments reliable, you know, like that.

(11:16):
I would, yeah. I would actually argue a a
transcendental version of that too, yeah.
I'll be honest, like I wasn't the biggest presuppositional guy
because I would always hear likekind of fundamentalist type
Christians use it. And then I started hearing you
and Andrew use it, and I was like, and then Jordan Peterson
is very much so. He's pretty close to that.
Yeah, presupposition. And I'm like, OK, I, I

(11:37):
appreciate it more. Hearing you guys use it, well,
one thing I would say too is like presuppositionalism is not
against evidence. A lot of people have this
assumption that oh, if you are apresupp guy, you don't do
evidences. It's rather that we're opposed
to evidentialism, as if that's like a superior epistemic
approach. We absolutely believe in

(11:59):
evidences. You have to use evidences.
For example, somebody comes along and says there's no
historical evidence for the person of Christ.
In that case, it would I would be absolutely going to
historical evidences because I want to disprove that.
But I think the strength of TAG is that I want to come along
also with a nuclear level argument to undercut that
person's entire paradigm, to give them no room to even make

(12:21):
an argument. I think that's just a stronger
approach. I agree and I think it exhausts
people like I know destiny is like was like, Hey, you're not
one of those presuppositional guys.
When we were on no jumper and I was like, I'm not going I'm not
going to do that with you. Like we could just talk just the
the basics of. He I would.
He wouldn't debate me on that. I want to.
We tried for years and destiny would not.
He doesn't want to. Explicitly says he will not do

(12:42):
that. He would only debate me on
politics and I'm not really interested in politics.
So, yeah, he wouldn't even, he didn't even want to engage with
anyone. That was presupposition.
Yeah, exactly. Which is interesting.
Your conversation with Myth Vision.
I don't know if you remember that that randomly came up in my
thing and that was one of those same thing, like you kind of
chopped the legs from underneathhim with the presuppositional
portrait. Like how do you even come to

(13:03):
know anything? We did the same with Matt
Delaney, with Stefan Molyneux. It was all the same type of
stuff. I'm sure there's been other
atheists, but yeah, I think it'sjust a really strong argument
for atheists. You can in an indirect
roundabout way work with Unitarian Muslim type positions,
but it's it's harder to get to that end goal.

(13:24):
So I think with Muslims and and other theistic positions, it's
better to just kind of go for the internal contradictions like
Islamic dilemma, that kind of stuff.
But yeah, I just think tag is a superior philosophical
argumentation and I come out of philosophic background so.
Yeah, you talk about debating Muslims.
I, I, I love you and Sam Shamoondebating on value tainment for

(13:47):
the Christian position. I was like, y'all coming
together, the Catholic and the ortho Orthodox together united.
And they even try to throw out some bait to try to get you guys
to kind of turn on each other a couple times.
And you guys didn't take the bait.
Thought it was a great debate. I thought it was.
I thought it was fantastic. And then you and Sam have your

(14:10):
situation. What was your impression of the
debate you had with him as a debate partner on Valuetainment?
And then when do you think that devolved to what ended up
evolving to what you would get into?
Yeah. So I mean, we have been on
pretty good terms for five yearsish.
Six years, I mean. Wasn't that kind of flirting
with Thor's The Dark Sea? A bit, yeah.

(14:32):
And then I think it decided to go the, you know, the papal
route, so. And this thing is like,
generally like, I just want people to go to high church.
I just want people to go to Apostolic Succession church, you
know, which is, which is really interesting because I, I don't
think it works that way. But I don't you could enlighten
me. No, I mean, yeah, we just did a
stream with my buddy Kai from Orthodox Shahada critiquing that

(14:53):
position of the idea of a sort of a generic Apostolic
Christianity, which, yeah, yeah,it doesn't really make sense.
I mean, but the, the, that debate happened because they
were really looking for on freshand fit.
They wanted like a high profile Muslim Christian debate.
It was fresh and fit. My bad.
Yeah, I know I said value tame but.
I mean, I just want to give, youknow, because I appreciate Myron

(15:13):
setting that up. That was cool him to do that.
And they were like, you know, wewant really kind of aggressive
debaters because we're going to put aggressive Muslims on and it
was going to be Daniel Hakikachuand Jake and Jake cancelled for
whatever reason because he didn't want to do it.
But so then they brought in Ijaz, who's I don't think a very
good debater, but I was happy tolike do the, you know, step back

(15:39):
because Shimon definitely knows Islam very well and he knows the
hadith, you know, infinitely better than I do and all that.
So yeah, I thought it was a perfect team up for that
situation. And I tried to bring some, you
know, philosophical internal critiques to the to the table.
And I think it was a blowout because if you go, and I mean,
it's had multiple millions of views across the platforms.

(16:01):
If you go to the fresh and fit channel, you can see 40,000 ish
comments 98% Islam lost. So optics were pretty bad for
for Muslims. So I mean that was last that was
I think the biggest debate of last year, except for what's up
Billy Carson, like those are thetwo biggest debates last year in
terms of views. So it was it was providentially

(16:22):
great. And then, you know, you've got
Sam moving continually in the last couple years in the
direction of Papism. And, you know, my buddies and I,
we obviously didn't want that him to go in that direction.
So we, we're, we're having this kind of backdoor DM conversation
for a long time. With with him, directly with him
or chatting directly behind the scenes.
OK. And the weird part was that

(16:44):
we've been talking about settingup a debate on his channel about
orthodoxy. Papism, right?
You and him one-on-one or. Or with a panel we're discussing
all possible options. Like we were even talking about
doing presentations. Just not even a debate like I do
a because we've done that in thepast.
For example, we had a, a disputewith vocab Malone some years

(17:06):
ago. So Sam invited me and FDA to
come on and do a presentation and then separate vocab Malone
do a presentation. That way nobody's getting mad,
you know, and you can hear both sides.
So we, we discussed that as a possibility.
We discussed a panel round table.
But anyway, Long story short, inthe context of this, I just sent

(17:27):
him Adm saying, hey, it was a very cordial.
Do you want to set up a debate on Trinity and and the essence
energy distinction? Because I think it's really
important contrasting to the Roman Catholic position, the
Orthodox view of the energies. And he just flipped out.
It was like. How that was just a one thing.
How dare you text me while I'm streaming because you're, you're

(17:48):
working for the double. It's like what?
Like totally cool for six years and then it's like one tweet or
one text. There was nothing else behind
that, no. In fact, they even said in the
next message like, hey man, there's no reason to get upset.
Let's set up a timed response. That way nobody gets angry.
And it just flipped out even like it went even crazier.
So at that point I was like, OK,something, something else is

(18:11):
going on. So I just removed myself from
that situation. Essence energies distinction.
I don't. I don't want to get super in the
weeds on it, but it seems like Catholics take a more God's
simplistic and that his parts are him.
God's love is God, God's power is God.
And you guys have a, a fair to say, a bit of a distinction
between God's essence and his energies.

(18:33):
And that's the foundational disagreement.
So he had the reason that came up was.
That he like, mocked the energies thing a bit, right?
After the after the the thing, but like he was presenting a
differing views of the Trinity from Protestant, Remy, Catholic,
Orthodox people. And that's what prompted me to
message him and say, in our view, there's not just a

(18:56):
filioque and non filioque model.There's also the question of the
energies that we believe is directly connected to the father
as the sole cause of the monarchia in the Godhead.
So monarchical trinitarianism, which Doctor Beau Branson is a
really good. Yeah.
And we think that like that doesn't stand alone.
It also kind of necessarily connects to the doctrine of the

(19:19):
energies because the energies have the same movement as the
persons in the triad. Interesting.
Anyway, so yeah, I included in the the offer like why don't we
discuss Trinity Filioque and energies?
And I think because he doesn't really know about that at all.
He's new to a lot of these topics.
It was easier for him to just sort of flip out, poison the

(19:40):
well, spoil the possibility of having that debate.
Yeah, he, he had, he had crashedout on me the week before that.
He had crashed down on somebody else the week before that.
And I was privately talking to him, like trying to get him to
walk off certain ledges because it was like a consistent.
That's my experience. Of like, hey man, like.
I'm not trying to attack you. Like if my if, if my audience

(20:05):
asks what do I think about this thing that happened, I'm going
to talk about it. If you don't want me talking
about it, I won't ever talk about you again.
I won't put you in a thumbnail. I won't do any of that sort of
stuff. And then he's like, no, no, no,
it's all good. It's all good, brother.
Thank you for reaching out. And we had a really good
conversation. And then it just, it just
completely went and left. It's like bipolar, like it's
like. Yeah, there's something going on
there. The stuff that he said, though,
seems to have crossed some lines.

(20:26):
I've never seen him cross beforewhere he started talking about
your wife. He started, I mean, he really
jumped out the window and said some wild stuff that I, I, I
just had never, I've never like,I know there's, there's stuff
that's just off limits, you know?
And how did you process that? And that point where you just
kind of like, oh, this is something else.
He's having a mental health episode and I just need to leave

(20:49):
him alone. Was that kind of your
temperament? More or less?
Yeah. And I don't mean that in a
mocking way. I think actually there is some
kind of like a probably a bipolar thing going on.
And I know he said I had a toughtime with his situation, which I
don't talk about people's personal drama usually.
I don't know about what's going on with him.
But I think that sometimes people have kind of like what we
talked about earlier with Alex, like there might be something

(21:10):
going on personally and then that affects sort of the
Internet optics and how they're operating on the Internet.
So I mean that would be my guess, but I don't know.
Yeah, in that I, I defended you because I, because redeem
Zoomer, I think responded to something.
I I defended you and I said, hey, like Jay has been nothing
but kind in our interactions privately and publicly.

(21:31):
And I think like Sam's crossed the line and then people started
replying to me and they're like,what?
Jay is not always the kindness and he's not always the nicest.
And there was a thing about something about Coptic
Christians, and you were mockingCoptic Christians that were
martyred. I didn't mock anything.
I questioned the legitimacy of the video because mainstream

(21:52):
news articles said that the the the videos are questionable.
So all I did was repeat what wasin the news, and I didn't say
for sure that nobody had. I just said we don't know on the
basis of just this piece of evidence.
So I've always thought like, there's something wrong with
being skeptical about authoritative claims and
sources. And if you look at where those
videos come out of, there are dubious sources, but I don't

(22:15):
know. So people assume that.
Well, I'm saying for sure that nobody's ever been martyred,
nobody's ever been killed. No, I was just taking a
skeptical attitude. And I still take skeptical
attitudes to when I see an immediate, fluid situation where
something's developing, just happening, I'm not going to
immediately buy into it. I'm going to wait and see.

(22:36):
And I've always had that attitude.
Got it. So from so from our vantage
point, from my vantage .1 of thethings that we hold, I guess in
pretty high regard, fruit of theSpirit, right, kindness,
gentleness. Jesus says that the world will
know that you are my disciples about how you love one another
and treat one another right. And so some of the critique

(22:58):
about you is that you're not always the most kind, you're not
always the most gentle, you're not always the most loving.
I understand as a content creator, you're on stream 8
hours a day. We've talked about some of the
stuff privately, which we don't need to get into in terms of
like some weird kind of death threats and that sort of stuff
that comes up for creators. And you've so I'd hear, hey,
man, like I've had to go to confession for my, for losing my

(23:19):
temper. Do you think that that's a,
that's a fair critique of Jay Dyer?
Jay Dyer isn't the most kind. He's not the most gentle.
And is that kind of why you're like, hey, like I'm not a
Eastern Orthodox poster child online.
Like, I'm a guy who's into a variety of things, and Eastern
Orthodoxy is one of them. I think in the realm of debate,
you're going to have situations that get heated and yeah, I've

(23:40):
lost my temper. I don't know, like, but if you
think about in terms of eight years of online debating, and
most of those are like 3-4, fivehour discussions.
And if you've got like a handfulof instances out of hundreds,
maybe thousands of hours, I don't see that as like the end
of the world. It's like you're, you're

(24:02):
ignoring the 95% of the time where we're having Portugal
conversations, interactions, Q&A.
Another, another thing too, is like, if you've done debates for
many, many years, you can a lot of times pretty quickly since
when somebody's debating a good faith or whether they're
trolling. And if you open it up to the
public for hours a week, which is what we do, I mean, you're

(24:25):
going to have a lot of people who come in bad faith trolling.
They immediately start talking about your wife.
They start talking about your, you know, what did you do 10
years ago when you said this? Yeah, it's like, that's evidence
is a bad faith. And so usually I'm pretty
heavy-handed about just booting or moving on.
So a lot of people take that as he's so mean.
He just boots people. If you're not a serious debater

(24:46):
for open forum, like it's just wasting everybody's time.
So that's going on. You've got people who don't
understand that even in classical pedagogy, debate,
rhetoric is part of it. So making jokes, making jabs,
that's part of rhetoric and debate.
It doesn't mean that your whole shtick or debate is rhetoric and

(25:07):
jabs, or else it will be evidentthat you don't have any
substance to the argument, right?
But if you go watch a classical debate like Hitchens on the
Oxford Union, you'll see him doing a presentation and every
four or five minutes throwing ina joke, a jab moment.
My opponent, of course, he's never studied this, so he
wouldn't know. But these are little jabs that
are just, it's just rhetoric that's part of the debate.

(25:28):
But a lot of people don't know that.
And so they'll they'll latch onto something like that or, but
I also have a side of me that's not the debate world, which is
comedy, impressions, skits. We've been doing that for years.
And so I might make fun of somebody like Lofton or somebody
like that. And then that scene is, oh,
that's so mean. That's so mean.

(25:48):
But then everybody else makes jokes.
It's like what? Would what would you say the
line is? Is the line at like calling
somebody an idiot like I've I've, I've seen people send me?
Clips, I don't even think that'slike, I mean, if Proverbs says
you can identify a fool, I don'tsee why it's it's not.
Jesus says not to call a person a fool without reason.
But I mean, how could I, if Proverbs tell me to avoid the
fool, How could I avoid the foolif I don't identify the fool?

(26:11):
But no, I think, you know, if you look at Jesus's like even
the way Jesus approaches debates, he talks about the
Pharisees as Vipers. He talks about Herod being a
fox, which is derogatory term, but it's not the majority,
right. So I would say, you know what's
Paul said, let your let your speech be grace, sprinkle with
salt. So yeah, if there's sometimes

(26:32):
there's some salt, but it's not the IT doesn't dominate.
Do you think it's because they're remote that the
conversations are remote, that that's why it's hard?
Like I'd I'd avoid anything remote virtual because I know
myself and I know I'm way more likely to get nasty or to get
combative online online then if like me and you are having a

(26:53):
steak and hanging out the night before and then we're having a
conversation. There is definitely a veil of
nastiness that can't like because of the Internet.
There's a veil and people can get nasty definitely in a way
that they wouldn't in person forsure.
That definitely happens. But also like the when we did
the live debate in Nashville, wehad that three-way debate with

(27:15):
me, Catholic and a Protestant. It was still heated and
aggressive and there was jabs. There was jokes on all sides.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be heated, but
it might not get out of hand in person for sure.
Yeah. I mean, you're pretty buffed,
dude. You probably, you probably beat
me up pretty, pretty good. So I don't know if I want to
like. I don't know about that.

(27:36):
Let me see how I'm going to hear.
Yeah. So I think, I think for me, some
of the debate stuff is interesting.
It's definitely great entertainment, I will say.
That let me add to that. Like in the formal debates, I
can only think of maybe one or two of maybe 25 formal debates
where I called somebody dumb or an idiot.
Have you ever called anyone's mother a whore?

(27:57):
To your credit, no, you that oneis.
You've never called anyone's mother a whore.
I mean, in the informal debates,like I take the attitude and I
tell people like you're you're not here as the expert debater.
You're here as the noob calling in and you're going to be held
to the standard that anyone elsewould be held to because I've

(28:18):
been debating for 25 years. You're not going to like yeah,
so that it's a different I remote as operandi then when
it's a formal debate with moderator in time situation.
And if you go watch any of the Muslim debates except for maybe
Sneako and Muslim Lantern, I think I called him an idiot once
in that debate. But all the other ones are
pretty like they're heated, but I don't think there's any

(28:39):
violations of. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
I think. I think the yeah, I just, I've
just made it a point to stay away from anything remote.
And anytime I break that rule, any time I break that rule, I
end up crashing out. And I like, I like stupid in my
in my experience, I just had Alex O'Connor call in remotely
and I was not pumped with how I you know, I just yeah, versus

(29:02):
like y'all had a debate ish. It was about the Isaiah word for
word debacle with Wes Huff. And he was really like, but it
technically wasn't word for word.
And I'm like Alex, but 95% to 99% word for word, you know,
nearly word for word is might aswell be word for word.
If a couple is 95% full, it's full to me like we're, we're
arguing semantics. I, I just didn't like how I, how

(29:25):
I represented myself and how I represented my faith.
And then in that, by the grace of God, he came to our summit,
our first summit. And I felt like we hit it off
and I think it was hopefully, you know, some redemptive
qualities on, on my part in that.
And then when we made the last video response to him
conversation with Ray, I just tried to give, gave him a heads

(29:45):
up and like, hey, man, we're going to have some fun with this
intro. Like there's going to be some
jokes and that sort of stuff, you know, But yeah, I just, I
just never had a great contentious conversation
virtually. That's that's gone over well.
And I've just tried to avoid avoid it like the plague because
the last thing I want to do is make what I'm representing look
bad, you know? So one of the things I did
appreciate you about about you is when we had our disagreement,

(30:08):
the disagreement initially was about, I think I reacted to a
Gavin Ortland video about why I'm a Protestant.
I think in there probably said some stuff wrong about the
council's you made a response video.
And then somewhere in there we talked and we agreed that we'll
have you on. We'll have an in person
conversation and then someone was feeding you information that

(30:31):
I kept talking about you and then I was like, no, Jay, I like
when we talk. I haven't mentioned you since I
haven't said anything about you.Actually, anytime we talk about
you now, it's usually pretty funny because we're always
referencing the middle class appeal.
So whatever we're talking about you, it's always positive.
And in that I sent you the time stamp and I and I showed to you
like, hey, this was from and to your credit, you were like very
gracious and you apologize publicly and I was like, man,

(30:54):
like that. I wasn't expecting you to do
that. Like you're lore on the Internet
was not what it was. And the way you carried yourself
in our disagreement and the way you, you, you handle yourself.
And I really appreciated that. And I was like, I think Jay is,
is a good faith guy. Like I think we can disagree,
but he's a good faith guy. And so our disagreement

(31:14):
initially, you know way more about church history than I do.
And you know way about way more about the creeds and all that
stuff than I do. I think the, the, the what I was
trying to say in that initial video, and that was gosh, it's
over a year ago was in that second council and you could,
you could refresh me is the wordanathema?
The second I see a council seemsto be cutting off anyone that

(31:37):
doesn't what's, what's the word venerate icons as anathema, not
as in you're just outside of thechurch.
You are now outside of salvationthat you're no longer saved.
And I, and I think that that's apretty harsh stance.
And I think that that depending on which Orthodox person I'm

(31:58):
talking to, it's always kind of getting different answers,
right. So if I father Hares will more
or less kind of like, hey, like,I don't know if you're in like,
I don't think you're in, right. And then I talked to other guys
and they hit me with the we knowwhere God's spirit is.
We don't know where God's Spiritisn't, you know.
And so from your vantage point, that word anathema in that
second council about icons, which by the way, I love your

(32:21):
guys's icons. I think you guys crush it with
art. Although this paggio.
Thing Yeah, I got it. Yeah, that's Jonathan Pejo.
Like I love, I love the art. I love the the icons like I love
it. I've gone to Eastern Orthodox.
What was the last thing I went to?
It was one of your guys's the best Vespers.
Is that what it's called? Yeah, the Vespers.
So I, I love it all. I am just in a spot where like I

(32:42):
I couldn't, I I can't and probably couldn't bring myself
to bow or kiss icons. But I don't mind if you're
saying, hey, we're not buying. It's not idol worship.
I I get the argument this is transcendent, this is windows
into Heaven, but that that line of anathema sounds like if
you're not within orthodoxy, you're you are not saved is that

(33:06):
your position is at the accurateposition is at the historical
position. I would agree with at least what
I've not heard the interview of other hears, but the way that
you stated what his position was, I would probably agree with
that. Like we don't make judgments
about individuals and like I don't know your destiny.
I don't know the work of God's Spirit in your heart.
I do believe that like the thiefon the cross, God has the

(33:28):
ability through extra normative means to join anybody to the
mystical body in the ways that he sees fit.
And you know, Paul says that it's not our position to judge
those that are without. We judge those that are within.
1st Corinthians 5, yeah, yeah. So we don't usually take the
attitude of like individual. And I think that if you look at
the way that the icon Council speaks of it and the way that

(33:48):
even Roman Catholics kind of have the same attitude where
they'll say, for example, we condemn this proposition.
Like the medieval papal teachinghad this tendency to say, if you
believe this, this is a condemned proposition.
But also in Orthodox theology, the idea of heresy, it's not
just being wrong, it's also a person that is obstinate and
willful. So we don't Willy nilly call

(34:10):
everyone a heretic. Like my Baptist grandmother
isn't necessarily a heretic because she's wrong.
Heresy has to do with willful and knowing obstinacy against
what we believe is the true position.
Is that why you guys may call a Gavin Ortland a Herod?
Sake. I would say so, yeah.
You you would say so, OK, in your framework, would you say

(34:33):
your Baptist grandmother's goingto hell?
No, I don't, but I'm saying I don't know on.
An individual level you don't know but but but in a technical
hit church a. Person is like an obstinate,
like promoter and teacher. It's like that.
In that situation, yes, they would be committing what we
would say is a sin that cuts a person.
Off. And so is everyone who's

(34:53):
committing said sin condemned eternally.
Or you're saying we don't know on an individual level, but
well, from our theology, from our vantage?
Point like we can't judge that person because God's the
ultimate judge, but our positionis more like it's a warning of
it's a it's a chastisement, right?
And like the anathema pronouncements themselves.

(35:15):
Are you going to sing that Anathema song?
Oh no, they're more. They're chastisements like
warnings. OK, so even the church can't
like damn a person. We can just say if you follow
and take that position, it can lead to shipwreck and you're
outside. But there's always it, it, but

(35:37):
it's, it's in it's it. Can lead to shipwreck.
It's intended to be remedial, iswhat I'm trying to say.
Remedial. The anathema is intended to be
remedial in the sense of it's a medicine.
It's a chastisement to call you back.
But it's it's not like. OK, well, what if I'm not in?
Like, what if I am not in? What if I've never been Eastern
Orthodox? I grew up Oriental Orthodox.

(35:57):
I don't know how much you know about my back.
Yeah, So I've, I've never been in.
So my anathema. Again, like, yeah, like the
position that you hold is anathema, but I can't judge the
state of your soul because I don't know the state of your
soul. I don't know your destiny.
I don't. God's not giving me that
assessment. But if I perpetuate on in the in

(36:18):
the trajectory that I'm in rightnow and I don't become Eastern
Orthodox before the end of my life, or I think this is a
nuance and you can correct me ifI'm wrong because I don't want
to misrepresent you're saying, or there isn't some sort of
mystical working that kind of graphs me into being Orthodox
without officially being Orthodox.
Can I be Orthodox without take being a catacumin?

(36:39):
Again, like the thief on the cross, he wasn't like instructed
in all the theology, but he had a genuine repentance and a
genuine joining to the body of Christ.
So it's not so much like that you have to have this vast
theological knowledge. It's rather an attitude of
humility and repentance that thethief on the cross had.

(37:00):
So, so that and for us salvation, as I'm sure you know,
it's not like just a one point thing.
It's like there was salvation, it is ongoing and there's an
eschatological salvation. So it's 3 senses to that.
OK, so is this similar to like voice of reason, you familiar
voice of reason? It's just an impression.

(37:22):
He has the best voice, voice of reason.
Never. He said something along the
lines of anyone who rejects the dogmas of the church is
rejecting Christ himself. He said something like that.
And then those Marian dogmas would fall into that.
And so I hit him up and I said, hey, man.
Like, I really struggle with their later Marian document.
Like, I don't have a problem with people calling Mary the

(37:43):
mother of God. But like the later stuff, right?
Which was you, You, you. You probably knows better.
Like Immaculate Conception and assumption etcetera.
The the assumption like the stuff that they made. 1800s,
yeah. Was it later like 1950 or 19?
1800s Well, there is a Immaculate Conception, and then
there is a I think you're right that.
There's later Marian dogmas. I think someone will correct me

(38:04):
in the chat for that. Anyway, I just said, hey, man,
like I, I, I, I struggle to get behind these.
Are you saying that I'm outside of the church?
And he gave me the gosh, what isthe language?
It's like the willful consent, like you have to willfully
consent to rejecting dogmas you know are.
True. That's what I'm saying, that
that's what a heretic is. It's a willful obstinacy against

(38:25):
knowing the truth. OK, that's fair.
But then if I'm a Protestant andI'm willfully not trying to
reject God, I don't hate God. I love, I love Jesus.
And with the information that I have, I'm doing my very best to
source through this stuff. I'm very my best to to reason to
to look at the the information that's in front of me to come to

(38:46):
reasonable conclusions with whatI see in scriptures.
What did that categorically not put me in?
Someone that is willfully rebelling against God.
I I don't know the state of your.
That's what I'm saying. We don't know.
I don't know the state of your soul.
OK, no, that's fair. That's fair.
I mean, it's a similar argument I get from the Catholics.
Yeah, Yeah. I think we would agree with that
basic idea. And at that point, like, all I

(39:08):
can do is say, you know, we would implore you to be
Orthodox. And so, so from your vantage
point, you would you would be willing to plant the flag firmly
in that salvation does not existoutside of the Eastern Orthodox
Church. Correct.
And that the only if anyone is saved, it's not because they're

(39:28):
a Protestant or a Catholic or whatever, it's because.
There's a mystical salvation. God in some way united them,
like the thief on the cross to the Mystical Body which is the
Orthodox Church. What if all Protestants and all
Catholics are secretly united tothe Mystical Body of Christ and
we just don't know it? I don't it doesn't make sense
it. Doesn't make sense.
I'm just throwing it out there, you know, I'm just listen, man,
I. Because you're out.
You're looking looking for like a categorical all and I'm saying

(39:52):
that on a case by case basis it's between.
Possible individually, but it's.Between that person and God.
And from our vantage point, that's why an anathema is just
like in the Roman Catholic papalposition where they condemn A
proposition like the anathema isagainst, like they didn't say
like list every layman who's a part of like an iconoclast
church. They say if you believe this
anathema. What happened to those

(40:13):
iconoclast churches? Did they all just die or did
they go on? Did they?
They're like what? What?
So after Nicaea 2 there in 787, there was about a almost 100
year period where you had the dominance of the iconoclast and
then there was what's called Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843.
It was at the Second Nicaea Council, or.
No. OK, Nicaea 2 is 787 OK, right.

(40:35):
So it says that the iconodual position is the right position.
OK, but the iconoclast in the iconoclast emperors kept going,
kept going and they like shut down and got rid of the icons in
843, almost 100 year, maybe 75 years later, right, 5075 years
later that you have what's called the triumph of Orthodoxy

(40:56):
Council. It's a local Byzantine Synod.
But that's the Synod that's considered to be the
reaffirmation and the the restoration of the icons.
That's where the anathema service comes out of and what's
called the Synodicon of Orthodoxy, which has this long.
It's a service that's done in the Orthodox churches.
That's the one where you actually it, it actually sings

(41:18):
out and it's it's a liturgical celebration mentioning all these
various heretics and the the victory of the church over Arias
and Nestorias. And it even mentions Platonism.
It mentions Aristotle, it mentions origin.
They. Were covering all their bases
with that one. So that Iconoclast church, those
folks that were against the icons for that 100 years, what

(41:39):
happens to those? Well, it's even prior to that.
Yeah. What happens to those folks?
Like did they cease being a church?
Did they just kind of write off into nothingness?
Like what? What happens I mean?
They ended up dying out. They ended.
Up, dying out. OK.
So to me and to my knowledge, I'm not aware of like after 843
like any, I mean there could have been some groups that

(41:59):
lingered, but. They were.
Were they? Like completely against any
images. No, in fact, they believe that
the only legitimate images were if I'm going from memory of the
cross and the Eucharist. Oh, OK.
They were pretty much against art, though generally it sounds
like they were against all formsof art and depictions.
The basis for their argumentation was Neoplatonism

(42:20):
and the arguments the origin made.
Got it. Oh, they were originist and
Neoplatonic. Got it.
So in terms of. By the way, one interesting side
note on that is that the majority of the people promoting
iconoclasm were the normative bishops that the the some of the

(42:42):
prominent patriarchates and the emperor and the restoration of
icons came about from the laity and the monastics.
That is interesting that that itwas a it was a lay movement.
Interesting. OK, so.
It wasn't all bishops that were iconoclast, right?
But it was large. The Iconoclast was dominated by
the Emperor and the Iconoclast bishops and patriarchs.

(43:03):
Got it. OK, that's interesting.
So that's someone that's lookingfrom the outside in, right?
I grow up Oriental Orthodox, I become a Protestant later.
I love Jesus. I'm in a church.
I, I, I leave my family, all the, all those sorts of things.
And someone's looking at what isthe one true church, right?
You believe the Eastern Orthodoxis the one true church now?
Are you Russian Orthodox? That's in a rogue court church.

(43:27):
I was I came in under Antiochansand. 2017 but they're all
unified as as one. During communion, yeah.
And then I became I went to start going to Rogue Court
Church where I found Masters or Father in 2018. 2018 OK, So is
this some disagreement between the Russian Orthodox and the
others over the Ukraine thing oris that?
Yeah. So the EP, which is the page

(43:47):
where Constantinople is still inthe status of not being in
communion with the MP and I forget which, it kind of
fluctuates as to what the other patriarch it's status is because
for example, Jerusalem at one point was pro MP and then I
think they switched due to US pressure from the State
Department to pro EP. Interesting.

(44:10):
So yeah, but but a little side note, this has happened in
future before. It's not like a yeah.
Yeah, so, so earlier you were saying how you you would
categorize a Gavin Ortland as a heretic.
Yeah, James White. Yeah.
James White, Pretty much all Protestant teachers, it sounds
like. So then how do you feel about

(44:31):
Gavin being a father? Josiah's conference in October.
They're like a marriage conference.
I don't, I mean, like, I'm not going to judge like having a
conference is like, I mean, I'm here talking to you and we
disagree theologically. I mean, I don't know that you're
heretic because I don't I've notheard a lot of your opinions or
views or I don't know whether you're obstinate or not.
I think it because it's a case by case basis.

(44:53):
It takes time to see and to knowlike what that person's
positions are, how much do they know?
That's why I don't, we don't throw the term heretic out Willy
nilly like, oh, everyone's a heretic because it's a case by
case basis. But there is a distinction
between that and what's called the public profession.
So that's why again, just like the the Roman Catholics did

(45:16):
this, the Orthodox Church also says if you believe this
position anathema. So it's condemning the
proposition because we don't know every individual person's
level of knowledge and status and and culpability, right?
So not everybody's equally culpable, is what I'm trying to
say. But from your vantage point,
someone that's a heretic showingup to an Eastern Orthodox
conference is not a big deal. I, I only ask because like in my

(45:39):
circles in, in Protestant, and if you're doing anything with
charismatics, like they're all, everyone's a heretic that that's
flinted around all the time. And so I end up having friends
from these different pockets. And then it's like the guilty by
association fallacy, like, oh, you're friends with this person,
therefore you're endorsing everything.
I got to leave. So to maybe to answer that

(46:01):
question very easily. So the way that this is
governing the Orthodox world, it's kind of similar to the
Roman Catholic world, but we have different Canon law, OK.
And so in the Orthodox world, Church law or Canon law
delineates the boundaries for what you can do or how far you

(46:21):
could go with somebody heterodox.
Having conferences, writing a book, this kind of stuff,
presenting papers at an academicconference.
Is is nobody cares about that. The canons define that.
I can't go to your church service and worship.
Could you just come to my churchservice?

(46:42):
If I had permission for my spiritual father, for example,
let's say you had a creationist come and do a lecture, and we
believe in creationism, right? I could probably do that.
I just can't engage in public liturgical worship with you or
at your church. But you could come to our
church. You could come to worship at our
church or participate or visit or whatever.

(47:03):
That happens all the time. And do you guys view Canon law
as infallible? No, it's just the normative
governing principles of Church law that bishops apply to sit to
case by case. So and it's called economia,
right? The case by case basis.
And can different bishops supplydifferent Canon laws?
Yes, because everybody's case isdifferent, like, for example,

(47:23):
reception of converts, right? A person who, for example, was
say baptized as a Armenian Orthodox or a Coptic or
something like that, like many bishops, would not to the
baptism because they had a Trinitarian baptism and so they
might be received by chrismationor just abduration of error or
whatever. I've heard that was a a

(47:43):
distinguishment between some folks that were baptized as
Protestants don't need to get rebaptized.
Other folks that do get baptizeddo need to get re baptized.
So it's like a like a local regional Bishop that gets
inside. Case by case, yes.
So the and the order of the highest authority is a Bishop.
And so how? Many bishops are there.
In the world. Yeah, like, like we're talking

(48:04):
about thousands, 10s of thousands, thousands, OK,
thousands of bishops, and they're over different regions.
They have a jurisdiction. They have a jurisdiction, but I
mean, is it like there's a Bishop of California?
So he overseas all the the priests in California.
And the US is different because US is a unique place where you
have so many people coming from other countries that you have

(48:26):
overlapping jurisdictions, whichhas never really happened
because usually in church history you have, for example,
if Russia sends out missionaries, that becomes a
jurisdictional territory of the Russian Orthodox Church.
But in America, you have this melting pot and so many
expatriates that you can be in New York and you have like 20
overlapping, you know, groups. And yeah, it's.

(48:47):
So it's very confusing in America.
But back to the question of Canon law.
For example, in the Six Ecumenical Council, there's
canons that talk about certain Aryan groups.
Their baptism was not even considered a baptism because it
was Unitarian. Because they were Aryans.
And like that, let the Saddleback guy baptizing

(49:07):
yourself. We wouldn't recognize that as a
baptism. So there has to be delineations
and like case by case stuff. Got you.
That makes sense. I, I, we had Gavin at my summit,
and Eastern Orthodox friend of mine didn't want to attend
because they couldn't get clearance from their spiritual
father. But then once Father Josiah came

(49:29):
and Deacon Christopher came, Deacon Christopher's our legal
local Eastern Orthodox guy. And if Father Josiah came down,
then it was almost like, well, if there's someone higher than
me that is willing to come to anevent, I probably could.
Or I could come to the next one.Because there seems to be, I
guess, an authority that kind of, you know, I don't say,
endorses Gavin, but is willing to collaborate with Gavin

(49:49):
Orland, who I know within some Eastern Orthodox circles.
You guys really don't like GavinOrland?
I don't personally have an issuewith him.
The arguments I've heard of not not to be very convincing.
Have you read his book? No, no, OK.
OK, so it sounds like you hold on you you hold to like
salvation does not exist outsidethe Eastern Orthodox Church, but

(50:10):
it is possible that someone can have a mystical.
God can join people. Too, God can join people on the
cross like the people on the cross.
So then if someone is looking atwhich church to join, there's 8
churches that all claim Apostolic succession and to be
the one true church right? I can't name them all off the
top, but I know Oriental Orthodox, right?

(50:32):
So on and so forth. So they all claim to be the one
true church, they all have Apostolic succession, but
they're not all in communion within with each other.
How does someone decipher what is the one in true church if
salvation only exists in one true church?
Yeah, I mean, this is a case where evidences and history are
necessary. It's not going to be something a

(50:55):
priori or self-evident. You would have to get into the
history of the Church. There's just really no other way
around it. So I think one thing that Roman
Catholicism tries to do is answer that question you just
asked by putting forward the idea of a of a Pope as the easy
solution. Yeah, we got it.
We got a Pope. We got the problem solved,
right? But then if you're in the Roman

(51:16):
Catholic world for a while, as Iwas for many years, you, you
begin to realize that that wasn't as easily answered as I
thought because, well, now wait a minute, Don't we have to also
interpret the Pope's writings? And there's all these tiers of
status of, well, this is magisterial and this is, you
know, ordinary magisterium. And this is ordinary but not
magisterium. So there's all these tears and

(51:36):
it, it becomes a very laborious exercise when you have 10,000
pages of like papal stuff and councils to sift through versus
what the car salesman approach to Roman Catholicism in the pop
apologetics world sells. So anyway, I lived that
throughout my 20s and and that'sa different issue, but I think

(51:59):
the easiest way to answer the question you're asking is to
look at the the 7/8 ecumenical councils of the first
Millennium. Do you hold to 7:00 or 8:00?
Well, the reason I say 7/8 is that the first seven are
strictly theological, and they're the ones that most
people in the Roman Catholic andProtestant world will talk about
the Ecumenical councils. But no, we believe in nine, if

(52:19):
you count the Palomite synods. And the reason the Palomite
synods are they've been receivedthrough the whole Orthodox
canonical world as authoritative, even though they
weren't ecumenical in the sense of like all of the bishops and
all the provinces or whatever. It was just a, they were
Byzantine synods to the bit to discuss the theology of Saint
Gregory Palamas versus the RomanCatholic Filioque was position.

(52:42):
So for the, for us, those Palamite synods just count as
the 9th ecumenical Council. But we also have pan Orthodox
synods and, and things that we also consider normative, even if
they're not quote infallible. For us, it's like, it's like
your local Bishop isn't infallible, but he's a normative
authority. Yeah, you're right.

(53:03):
Same way that probably a Protestant would consider like a
minister, right? He has a normative authority,
but he's not necessarily infallible.
Yeah, yeah. We believe in authority outside
of Scripture. We just don't believe in any
infallible understanding of Scripture, which you know that
because you were a Protestant. Yeah, but I mean, in terms of
delineating between, so Anglicans, Coptics, Assyrians,

(53:27):
Roman Catholics, some Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox would all
claim Apostolic succession. And we would admit that some of
those groups like Roman Catholics and Coptics are are
ancient. But it's a question of ecclesial
authority in the history of the Church and what the ecumenical
councils actually contain in their normative theology and

(53:48):
process. So.
Like so you would give Apostolicsuccession to Anglicans and
Lutherans? No, not you.
I was just listening to groups that claim it, and I'm saying
that the only way to suss out between those would be to go to
the councils themselves and see what the canons teach and what
the process of the council's was.

(54:09):
For example, we believe in the Orthodox Church, we believe in
the absolute canons. That's like the first collection
of Canon law. So that lays down principles
that were accepted throughout the East, including the Duro
Canon. And the way that a Bishop is
elected is local, so there's nothing to do for example in the
apps like Cannons with the papacy.
Top top down. It's more bottom up it sounds

(54:30):
like. Is that fair?
Yeah, yeah. And it's episcopate that's
decentralized and that was the normative church law in the East
throughout the whole 3 hundreds.Sure.
Same time in the West, when we look at the Western synods in
church law, whether it's Councilof Rome, Pope Damasus,
Augustine, etcetera, Carthaginian councils, it
reflects almost the exact same attitude in the West for the

(54:51):
normative church law in terms ofthe Deutero Canon being
accepted, in terms of the election of bishops, even though
the West had the Patriarch of Rome, the Pope.
Like we don't see this attitude of Vatican 1 infallibility.
So in other words, when you start looking at absolute canons
and the canons of the ecumenicalcouncils, I would argue that's
the easiest, quickest way. To determine what is sausage?

(55:12):
That question, what about, I know some true Orthodox claim to
be more aligned to these councils than Eastern Orthodox.
Have you engaged with the True Orthodox?
What is your thoughts on the true Orthodox?
Because they kind of have a lot of what you're describing, but
they say but we're even more hardcore and we take these
councils even more seriously. Yeah, The problem is my good

(55:33):
buddy David Arahon, he's done a couple good videos rebutting
this so people could go if they want a longer treatment.
You could look at David Arahon'svideos on his channel that
address the true Orthodox claims.
This is a very, very tiny I mean, I mean, it's almost non
existent in the real world. I mean, I've seen one Chapel in
my travels across the country ofan actual one of these groups.

(55:56):
So it's I mean, even if you don't want to go that route like
it would, you would basically not have a church unless you
were in Florida. I think they have one in in
Florida. But aside from that, it would
mean essentially that all the canonical churches have failed
and there's not. It's basically a Donatist type
position. So I would argue first of all,
Donatism would mean an end of the episcopacy and the church is

(56:17):
basically dead. Because it's because it's
smaller. Because.
It's because it's almost, it's almost nonexistent.
The minuscule groups that do exist, they're all out of
community with each other. There's probably five groups
that are all not in communion. But beyond that, the attitude,
this gets really nuanced and niche, but the attitude is very
similar to the Roman Catholic mindset of subacontists and the

(56:41):
way they view Canon law, that ifone person, say commits a sin or
an error, the idea is like it's a light switch that everybody in
commune with them, it's all blacked out, so there's no
grace. And that is a donutist position,
because what it's denying is theauthority of synods to make the

(57:06):
affirmation or the declaration of a heresy or a schism.
So high authority in the Orthodox Church is bishops in a
Synod. And you can't erase all of that
and say we don't accept any synods or any bishops.
We're going to create a parallelepiscopate or bishopric.
That's classic donutism. Classic schism.

(57:26):
OK, well what about what? What if someone says, Well,
yeah, but you know, Jay, Matthew7 says the wide is the road that
leads to destruction. Narrow go through the narrow
gate and and you know, hey, So what?
They don't have a ton of congregations.
So what They're not super prevalent.
Maybe that's the real remnant and maybe that, you know, like.
Well, but you could never have asituation because of the rest of

(57:47):
the teachings of the New Testament book of Acts, Acts 15,
and what we believe are proofs of absolute succession.
You could never have a loss of the synodal reality of the
Church. So that position would require
essentially they're no longer being synods, They're no longer
being authoritative declarationsfrom a Synod because those
positions are premised on all the synods in World Orthodoxy

(58:09):
being apostate. So there's no longer synodal
authority. There's just like a random dude
in a trailer park in Florida whosays I'm the Bishop.
That's the true remaining Bishop.
So in other words. Can he appoint more bishops?
Like what if there was? A No, that's what I'm saying.
Like Bishop Rick in the canons is appointed by two bishops or a

(58:29):
metropolitan. That's the absolute canons, how
bishops come about. Yeah, right.
I'm saying. If this true Orthodox Church,
which I don't know much about them to be to be transparent,
but if they were to hypothetically have an explosion
of 2 bishops coming together making two more bishops and all
of a sudden it grows and there'smore.
What I'm saying is that it's already negated because it's

(58:49):
they've negated the synodal reality of the Church.
OK, so once you've denied the synods, then it's.
You feel like they're you feel like they're a dead church.
Like Protestantism for us. So you would.
Put them in the same category asa Protestant.
Well, I mean, it would, it woulddepend on like this, I mean, to
get really nuanced, like they wouldn't be identical to
Protestant because they don't hold all to Protestant

(59:11):
ideologies and doctrines. But it would be equivalent to
the mindset of a Protestant thatthere's no synods anymore and
there's just this guy over here and this guy over here.
Does that make sense? In other words, the Orthodox
Church mimic analogy to the papacy.

(59:31):
Like a Roman Catholic would say the papacy could never go away.
Right. And if you're a set of a
contest, you've adopted a position where you can never
have a Pope again outside of some miraculous event because
all of the Cardinals are also Vatican 2 apostates.
Does that make sense? So the whole thing has died
away. The episcopalism basically died,

(59:51):
but even though you have a set of a conscious Bishop, they
can't elect the Pope. So you would put the true
orthodox in a similar. They're in a similar situation
in that rather rather than denying a Pope, there's no
longer synods. OK.
All of the Orthodox synodal synods are invalidated and gone.
Got it. So the Church has fundamentally
lost its elements and it its constituent elements.

(01:00:15):
OK. I mean, I guess that makes
sense. I think that I'm sure they'll
have a response for this for those of them that.
They would probably say something like we'll make us an
odd, like we'll we'll collect together.
But they've never done that. Interesting.
OK. It seems that folks who come to

(01:00:35):
fade like the distinguishment you made it.
You mentioned it earlier betweenour views of salvation, right,
where you guys see salvation as an ongoing process.
And there's a in, in my circles,there would be a distinguishment
between the justification of the, the binary.

(01:00:56):
Are you justified in the sight of God versus a, the
sanctification, the, the, the continuing on of the spirit
transforming you. So, so, so being justified
before God versus being, you know, justified before the world
or positional holiness versus practical holiness, right?
So, so Protestants generally, and I want to say I feel like

(01:01:18):
some Catholics kind of make thisdistinguishment is that there's
a justification that happens because of what Jesus did, that
the debt is paid, it is taken care of.
And so we're saved by grace through faith, but then our
position will be and we're saved2 good works.
So we should obey Jesus command and get baptized.
We should go to church every Sunday.
We should do these things because they're commands.

(01:01:40):
But our we would, we would separate justification and
sanctification. You guys use this as the
language that I understand is you're, you are saved, you're
justified, you're being saved. We would say you're being
sanctified and you will be savedin heaven.
Yeah. You're you're going to be
resurrected, you're going to be glorified.
You guys will probably call thistheosis theification.

(01:02:02):
Our language is going to be a bit different there, but it's
similar, similar concepts. The do you reject that view of
justification that, that and, and, and is this because of
like, like because of church history and church councils or
because like when I read Romans and I read Galatians, like there
seems to be this consistent Pauldoubling and tripling down and

(01:02:23):
that word justified being a thing that has happened because
of the cross. Like we're justified because of
what Jesus, you know, you know, all the verses, I mean, I could
pull them up, but you know, the verses like Romans 8/3 and all
are justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that came by Christ Jesus. So it seems to be this is binary
of justification and then we getto work out our salvation.

(01:02:44):
We work in what Jesus has worked.
We work out what Jesus has worked in.
You would disagree with that on the basis of Scripture, or
primarily Scripture or church history?
Well, Scripture, philosophy, andchurch history.
All three. So give me the scriptural
picture on why justification by grace through faith alone is is
bad. Well, the phrase is not bad, but

(01:03:06):
what is meant by the phrase and what we think the phrase means.
So being formerly a, a Calvinist, you know, solafide
proponent myself, I understand where you guys are coming from
and how you would read the text.First thing I would say is that
when you look through say the Gospel of John and when when
Jesus talks about the way that God's declaration works, it

(01:03:27):
seems to be efficacious when he speaks.
So, for example, when he speaks,he creates, the world is
created. There's no declaration that
doesn't achieve A metaphysical or ontological effect.
So for us, the idea that you could divorce the legal status
from the ontological or metaphysical status is not
possible. And especially when you go back

(01:03:47):
to Luther, Luther's really the first to propose this because
he's influenced by two people, Gabriel Bile and William of
Occam, and they're the most famous medieval nominalist.
I'm not saying that Luther was identical to nominalism, but
that he explicitly read them andit's and said that their
philosophy helped him figure outhow you could be in a

(01:04:07):
imputational legal status without ontologically having
that status. So there's a divorce between the
term the word nominalism, name ISM, and the ontological status
for the reality of that that youpossess.
OK, let me ask that does so. Conclusion then I'm gonna go
back to the Scripture, but the point being I'm I'm blending the
scripture and the philosophical point is that in the ancient and

(01:04:28):
medieval world, there were no anomalists and so nobody had yet
divorced the name or the term from the ontological reality.
So if God declares something, soit must actually in reality and
Ray, be so. So if God declares this
righteous and just and transformed and illumined and in
Christ, etcetera, we actually have to be that.

(01:04:48):
And so there's no such thing as a purely legal imputational
righteousness. So that's the philosophical
point. But back to Scripture, I would
argue that again, when God speaks, it's efficacious in all
those passages. Like in Romans when he talks
about being baptized in Christ, or Titus 3 when he talks about
the Washington labor regeneration, we see those as
actually referring to the actualSacramento rite, and there's no

(01:05:11):
reason to divorce them. So the Protestant presupposition
is that to maintain the legal, Invitational sofide position, we
must divorce the celebration of the right from the regeneration
or the spiritual effects. And we don't believe that.
We think that they're united. Even Luther believe that, and so
did Agustin. Yeah, well, what?
Because they talk about some regeneration.
Right, right, right. So so when I'm looking at like,

(01:05:34):
I think this glues what you justsaid together, right.
This is Philippians chapter 2. I'm sure you know it.
Can you can you, can you read that?
I don't want to. Yeah.
OK. So yeah, work hard to show the
results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence
and fear, right, which we would all say yes and Amen to that.
For God is working in you and giving you the desire and the
power to do what pleases him, right?
So there's this death seems to be a bridging.

(01:05:56):
I don't know if the bridging is the right word, but but it seems
like what you're saying there isan ontological shift that
happens. Our heart of stone is replaced
with a heart of flesh. God give, put, writes his law on
our hearts. And so then, when we're reading
Romans, right? By the way, in that passage that
you just read, yeah, yeah. The Greek word is inergea.
It's energies. Which which?
So it's the power so that Paul uses Inergea and Dunamis and.

(01:06:20):
For this word power. That's if I recall as Dunamis,
but in in it's yeah, Inergea. This is Inergea and he uses
Dunamis and that's has to be, bythe way, it's I'm just pointing
out that it teaches the essence inner distinction, but go ahead.
OK, No, no, no, I don't. I by the way, I don't.
Just look up in blue letter the Paul's usage of inergea.
Yeah, this is, this is inner Gaya in the Logos Bible

(01:06:42):
software. So I don't have an issue with
the distinction of energies. I don't.
I don't need. To but what I'm saying is that
that also by extension, I'm not trying to deflect because you
can go back to the passages, butwhere I was going to go next was
that the essence inner distinction isn't just an
abstraction, it's unique. Only Orthodox Church teaches the
essence inner distinction, and that has to be an ontological

(01:07:03):
reality that we're participatingin.
Protestantism teaches through the covenant.
If you mean classical Calvinist type stuff, the covenant of
works actually ends up making Jesus into an historian, Jesus
who merits a status of grace, and it's not an ontological
position that he has as the Son of God.
That's because he if, if you're a Calvinist, you believe.

(01:07:23):
In the I'm not a Calvinist. OK, well, the covenant of works
in the Calvinist position of justification means that Jesus
fulfills the covenant of works to grant us the perfect legal
status that he kept the law, right?
So, I mean, yeah, even if there's not a covenant of works,
Luther thinks that Jesus perfectly keeps the law to give
us that righteousness. Got you.

(01:07:44):
Yeah. Imputed righteousness.
I understand. But like, but covenant of works,
even if you don't, if you're a Lutheran and you don't affirm
covenant of works, it's the still the same principle that
Jesus keeps the law, right? And so the righteousness that we
get is a legal status. This is not a legal status
primarily, it's an ontological reality.

(01:08:05):
Thus, the legal status reflects the ontological reality, not the
other way around. Legal status reflects the
ontological reality. Right in the Protestant view.
So it's in both. What I'm saying is that it has
to be the two together. You could never have a situation
where I'm filthy rags, but God sees and declares me righteous.
That would make God a liar. That's our point.

(01:08:28):
Well, it's because of the the blood of the blood of Jesus and
the sacrifice and the atonement that happens that.
Then I have to ontologically be righteous.
Well, I think you you have a heart shift and a desire that's
an inside out change. So one has a ontological change
of heart because of being justified before the scriptures,
right? But the.
Change in you has nothing to do with your justification.
That's an effect of justification in classical

(01:08:50):
Protestantism. The change in you say that one
more time. The new heart, the change that
occurs in you in classical Protestants, whether Calvin or
Luther, is not anything to do with your justification.
It's an effect of the justification that Christ
wrought. OK, and I'm saying no, that's
not possible. You cannot divorce the legal
status of being righteous or just from the ontological

(01:09:13):
reality. But the Protestant position
requires that to have the imputational righteousness.
And the ancient medieval world were not nominalists, so nobody
believed in a purely imputational legal status.
It doesn't exist in the ancient world.
So, so, So what? You do you know Alistair McGrath
is the famous Protestant? No.
So he wrote a book called Eustatia Day, and it's about

(01:09:34):
this point that through his research as an Anglican, he came
to the position that he could not find in the ancient medieval
world. A position that justifies A
purely legal status, which is what is required for the Luther,
Calvin, classical Protestant position.
Because they didn't believe in the ancient world.
You didn't have Bile and Occam yet who proposed the divorce

(01:09:57):
between the ontological reality and the naming of the thing that
has to happen first for Lutheran.
Calvin And So what you're sayingis in the ontological reality,
there has to be works to to prove the justification.
Is that what you're kind of getting at?
For us, there's no difference between justification,
sanctification, glorification. That's why Paul in Synchronies 3
says that in this life you can experience glorification.

(01:10:20):
So it's not an it's not a stageslike the Protestant Ordo Salutos
sets up. Well, I don't know if it's in
stages in the, in, in, in it is in the in the.
Well, again, I'm not. I'm not trying to be a a
Protestant. I don't know your position, but
like the classical. Reformation.
Sure, sure, sure. I'm looking, I'm just trying to
look at the scriptures and I'm saying, man, it sure does seem
like there's a consistent declaration of justification

(01:10:40):
over the believer in that. Let me in that they don't, they
don't have to walk on egg shells.
They don't have to have the dread on if I'm going to heaven
or not, if I'm producing enough works or not, that they are
justified. And that anyone that's
justified, anyone that is now a child of God should and will act
accordingly. If my son is my son, he's my son

(01:11:01):
and acts accordingly. Even if he messes up, he still
remains my son, right? And so that that that's what I'm
getting at now. He's also obedient and he also
produces good works, but the good works that he produces
aren't what make him ontologically my son.
What makes him the Son or what makes a person the Son is
baptism. We believe baptism is where we

(01:11:21):
are regenerated. It doesn't mean that if you die
in the way of your baptism that you're not saved because we've
always seen catechumens that dieor whatever, they're considered
part of the Church. Some of them are martyrs and
Saints in the Orthodox Church. So sonship is in the Scriptures
connected to being baptized intoChrist.
So every time in like in the book of Romans, when when you're
baptized into Christ, right thatfor us there's no reason to

(01:11:44):
divorce that from the actual sacrament and ritual baptism.
And that's what the church fathers all teach.
Likewise, the warnings about apostasy are real warnings.
So you can cease to be a son. You can taste of the heavenly
gift, you can be enlightened. We think that's an ancient term
for baptism, right, Being washed, Hebrew 6 right, the
parable, the sower, new life canspring up and it gets withered

(01:12:05):
out and died. So we think those those warnings
are real warnings to being in the covenant and removing
yourself from the covenant because everyone of God's
covenants, whether it's Adamic or whether it's Abramic, there's
sanctions and penalties, sure, for leaving and and and defiling
the covenant. Sure, but wouldn't that be going

(01:12:25):
back to like intent and a desireto leave said covenant, not a
hey, I messed up. I I fell short.
I I sinned in a way. I don't think you guys have the
same like grave sin mortal. Sin, not moral sin.
But like you can apostatize because Hebrews 6 is saying if
you leave Christianity, go back to Judaism.
Yeah, I'm not. You are.
Apostatized I'm I don't really care to the apostasy thing, I

(01:12:45):
don't. That's a.
That's a whole separate conversation.
No it's not though, because it shows that just justification
cannot be purely legal or imputational.
There has to be an ontological reality connected to
justification itself. Works and your and and that that
looks like works and, well, sacraments that I would
categorize as works. Is that fair?
Well, Jesus says, for example, that faith is a work, This is
the work of God, that you believe in him and he has sent.
So faith is a work in our view, OK.

(01:13:07):
And so likewise. I think Calvinists also believe
faith is a work. That's interesting because they
believe regeneration precedes faith.
You first have to be born again to have faith, and they see
faith. As but they would say it's an
effect of regeneration and that even the faith that you have
isn't the basis for the justification.
It's an effect of justification.The Calvinist game.
Do you think this view where someone is only justified if

(01:13:32):
they're ontologically justified,meaning that it's all one long
process? Do you think that it creates a
I'm not. I'm trying to say this in a way
that is not disparaging. A paranoia about one's eternal
state, a walking on egg shells, a dread of fear and uncertainty.
That according. I mean, you could correct me if

(01:13:54):
I'm wrong, but according to yourown soteriology, you can be
Eastern Orthodox and not go to heaven.
Sure, you could do all the sacraments.
There's many people invited to the marriage feast who are.
Thrown out right. And so So what I'm what I'm
getting at Jay, is that like it seems like I have more
confidence in your salvation that you're going to go to
heaven. Then the position is then you do
like I believe you're justified.I understand because you believe
in Jesus and because of the penalty panel cross like you're

(01:14:17):
in a right standing outside of all of our disagreements
theologically and you not thinking I'm truly saves or
whatever, I have more confidencein your salvation in the Eastern
Orthodox folks who follow me than they do.
Is it? Doesn't that create a despair?
And maybe you will say, well, Ruslan, you're just arguing
pragmatically. Who cares?
The truth is the truth, but can you see how that people can come
to that conclusion? I mean, I, I had the same sort

(01:14:37):
of thought process when I was first moving from Calvinism to
Catholicism. I was concerned.
I'm just, I'm not trying to be disparaging or condescending,
but I'd understand the thought process and where you're coming
from. And do you do you like, is that
a, a healthy way to live spiritually if I'm always
walking on egg shells and I'm always uncertain about if I'm
going to go to heaven or not because I got to keep doing
stuff. I got to keep producing work.

(01:14:59):
Well, one thing I would say is Idon't think any of us actually
escapes that question because most, I don't know about you,
but most Protestants that I've met and even Calvinists and,
and, and, and once most of thosepeople still admit the
possibility of self deception and psychological trickery or
delusion. You could fool yourself into
thinking that you're regenerate or that you have assurance of

(01:15:19):
salvation and it could be a deception.
So from an existential vantage point, I don't think anybody
escapes that possible concern ordoubt or fear.
So I'm with you. You could theoretically say,
well, but I believe in the doctrine of assurance, of
salvation, all this kind of stuff.
And so I bypassed that. It's not a problem for me.

(01:15:39):
And I would just simply say again, there's so many warnings
in the New Testament that I think we have to take both.
Of that's about apostasy. Or for us, like we would say
that the purpose of the sacraments is to help have that
assurity and to have the knowledge that we have grace.
I don't know that I have, as Agustin said, the gift of

(01:15:59):
perseverance to the end. Jesus says he that persevere to
the end will be saved. So I have to persevere until the
end. I don't know whether I will, but
I do trust that God will give methe grace and the means to
persevere. So if you want to think of it in
an Augustinian way, I would say I could agree with his position
that God gives us the means to persevere to the end.
It is all gifts of grace. But I do have an A necessity to

(01:16:23):
synergize and be faithful to thecovenant to persevere to the end
to get to get access to the means of grace.
Like the sacraments, Jesus says you have to eat my flesh and
blood to be saved, and that means.
Those who love me obey my. Commands in a general sense,
we're going to keep doing that. Yeah, I, I guess what I'm, what
I'm, what I'm getting at. And the, some of the folks that
I see that are coming towards Eastern Orthodoxy seem to have a

(01:16:46):
crippling fear and anxiety around their own salvation.
And I think you're probably a more seasoned person in the
faith where you maybe are, I don't know, more educated, more
nuanced to it, where I'm saying on a very practical level, I
believe if someone's placed their faith in Jesus, that
they're going to heaven and thatthey're going to produce good
works because they get to and because God is that good, right?

(01:17:09):
Like I am with you, continue on.We maybe I'm self deceived.
Continue on in the sacraments, continue on working out my
salvation, continue on producing.
But it's not those works that are saving me.
It's that I get to do works thatI'm saved.
And and it's so it's not, it's not a I'm not not advocating for
someone saying that the, you know, maybe someone can and can

(01:17:29):
anathemize. I'm saying I don't want to find
out. I don't want to know.
God is so good to me that I'm going to keep going to church,
I'm going to keep reading my Bible.
I'm going to keep in fellowship.I'm going to keep taking
communion. I'm going to keep doing those
things because he's that good that the least thing I could do
is to offer up my bodies as a living sacrifice back onto the
the the to Jesus. I would say if you look at
Romans 4 in this, I'm bringing this up because I noticed that

(01:17:53):
James White recently responded to what I'd said about this
passage. If you look at Romans 4, when
Paul talks about the justification that Abraham
underwent, he cites a very specific chapter.
It's Genesis 15. And the problem is that in the
classical Protestant view, or inthe idea of the transition from
wrath to grace, this is a prettycommon Lutheran Calvinist idea

(01:18:17):
that at one point we are under God's wrath, children of wrath,
then we believe and there's thattransition from wrath to grace,
right? We're now, we're a friend of
God. We're no longer under his wrath.
He's our Father, not our judge, right Paul in Romans 4.
This key passage about solafide supposedly does not cite the
first chapter that's supposed tobe and should be.

(01:18:39):
If the Calvinist, classical Protestant reading is correct of
Solafide, it should be Genesis 12.
But he cites Genesis 15 as whereAbraham is declared righteous,
but. Abraham is already.
He's already been doing 3 chapters of good faithful works.
Now when James White responded to this, he said OK, he bit the
bullet and was like Abraham wasn't justified until Genesis

(01:19:01):
15, but he's already doing good works that God clearly accepts.
To me that's what that is a clear proof that you would have
to say Paul made a mistake for where he's citing in Genesis 4
Abraham's transition from wrath to grace.
And if I'm correct, then it's not a proof text for Solaveda.
It's a proof text that the righteousness of God is the

(01:19:24):
actual uncreated energy in you. It's not a legal state.
The uncreated energy that you possess if you're a son of God
and participating in the in the divine energies, the doing a
mess and inner Gaya, that's whatleads to the legal state, not
the legal state. And then that makes you.
Interesting. Yeah, I, I guess I just, I see
identity in terms of who I am inChrist as neither inside or

(01:19:48):
outside in. It's a top down thing, right?
So like society would tell us that your identity is what
you're good for from a utilitarian standpoint, right.
So if you're in high school, you're an athlete, that's your
identity, you're good for the outside in contribution you
have, right. And then now with them crazy
transformer stuff out identity is subjected to whatever you
think it is. It's inside out.
It's whatever I feel I am, right.

(01:20:10):
Where is if I'm looking at the the layout.
And and in your reference you you're correcting at your.
Baptized into Christ. Right, right.
So, so when we're looking at Romans 4 right after this, he
cites to your point, Genesis 15 and then right after that in
verse 5, he says, however, the one who the however, the one who
does not work but trust God, whojustifies the ungodly, their

(01:20:31):
faith is credited as righteousness.
This is in the context of Jews in Roman, in, in the, in the
Church in Rome, who think that they can be justified by also
keeping the Mosaic law. And Paul is using Abraham as the
paradigm example of the first quote Jew.
Jews think that Abraham was the first Jew.
And Abraham doesn't have at thispoint, even in Genesis 15, the

(01:20:55):
totality of the law or the Mosaic law, right?
So Abraham is justified. He's not the it's Genesis 15.
It's after he was called out of the Oracaldis in Genesis 12.
It's after three chapters of good works, right?
And so it's at this point that Paul says he is called the
friend of God or right, he's made righteous.

(01:21:16):
So there's three separate 12:15 well, 412151722 And in all of
those interactions between God and Abraham, there's not anyone
place where he's quote saved. He's saved in all of these
actions, and he's working in faith, not according to Mosaic

(01:21:37):
law or Mosaic standards. So Paul's whole point is that
righteousness is not contingent upon Mosaic law.
It's contingent upon actually having the uncreated grace of
God in you. Which which we would all agree
with. Well, I don't, I've never heard
of a Protestant believes in uncreated grace.
But maybe you do. I don't know.
Maybe you're, I'm not being, I'mnot being a douchebag, but I'm
saying like maybe you're one of the first.
Well, uncreated grace, are you talking about the dogmas

(01:21:58):
energies? The energies distinction?
Is that what you what you're meaning?
By which is an Orthodox teaching?
Yeah, not a not a historic. Protestant.
I'm not saying it's a historic Protestant teaching You keep
you're kind of in your argumentshere.
You're referencing a lot of Calvinistic teaching, which I
don't really hold to Calvinism or any any.
I'm not a Calvinist, right? So I understand.
What you're saying I'm? Just so.
So if you say something that sounds true, Jay, I'm gonna say,

(01:22:19):
oh, that sounds true, Jay, whether it's Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic or Protestant. OK.
And that's that's no, that's fair.
That's fair. That's me cheating.
That's fair. I'm just, I'm typically in my
mind because I don't know all ofyour positions.
Sure. I'm just arguing against what's
called classical Protestantism. So that would be like the
confessional Lutherans, the confessional, you know,
Westminster Confession. Fair enough.

(01:22:39):
You know it's an abort the the classic Protestant confessions.
And so from your paradigm, when Paul is writing in Romans and
he's doubling down on this, justify, justify by grace,
justify by faith, justify by grace, when it's happening in
Galatians, when it's happening in other parts of Scripture,
from your paradigm, you would say that's exclusive to the
Judaizers and him trying to correct their backdooring of the

(01:23:01):
law. I would say not necessarily
exclusive because a lot of the passages are dealing with that,
but not all of them. There are, there are places
where, you know, like in Romans 2, I think he's talking about
Gentiles. He's not just talking about
Jews. Sure, sure.
Yeah. So, so, so then in, in, in, in
your framework, you would rejectthe idea of a top down identity
where one is declared righteous,made righteous because of Jesus

(01:23:23):
on the cross, because of the work, the fulfillment of the law
of Jesus on the cross. And then from that, they then
are behaving and living differently.
You would say that that's a, a, a heresy?
Or would you just say we're incorrect?
Like where would you categorically put that?
No, I do think that solafide is a heresy.
Justification about faith in oneis a heresy.
I would say so. So, so all of these scriptures

(01:23:45):
are yeah, I, I, I guess I'm justhaving several understanding the
product you reconcile. Presupposition is that this is
all legal status first and foremost, and then anything
after that is something else. That's sanctification or
something. Like cooperating with the Holy
Spirit? Correct.
And what I'm saying is that there is no such thing in

(01:24:05):
ancient medieval world as Ulster, McGrath admits.
Intersticia Day as a purely nominal legal standing that is
not directly connected to or necessitated by the actual
actual ontological reality. So in classical Protestantism is
called the ordo salutis, the order of salvation.
That's what you were talking about.
When we talk about justification, authentication,

(01:24:26):
that's the order of salvation, we would say, and I'm arguing
that that's premised on a late medieval philosophical
development, that this alone shows that Paul could not have
taught the legal status because nobody in the ancient medieval
world was nominalist. And if that's true, then these

(01:24:46):
assumptions as to what Paul means are wrong.
Is it possible that there was some drift in the ancient
medieval world and what Paul taught was closer to the
Protestant position and there was drift and then the reformers
came back who are always reforming and trying to get back
to what Paul taught? Could you see that from our
paradigm at least? Well, no, for various reasons I
I wouldn't be able to admit thatbecause.

(01:25:07):
I say, admit that, I said. See it from our paradigm.
I understand you would. I think you could.
I understand why you might thinkthat, but it would mean that the
church didn't understand the gospel for 1500 years, which is
what Ustisha Day meant, admits Idon't.
Know if they didn't understand the gospel, I think perhaps
there was some some doctrinal developments drift some things
that that that shift out. I'm not I'm not one of those
great there was a great apostasykind of guys.

(01:25:27):
I'm not. I'm not saying that.
But it would mean that nobody but that's the point of Eustish
today by McGrath is that no one taught Luther or the Protestant
solafide until Luther and and Calvin.
But I mean, Luther and and Calvin are also pulling from
Augustine, or so they say. Yeah, but.
Augustine believes in baptism and regeneration and and the
necessity works if you read on the gift of perseverance and on

(01:25:48):
operative and cooperative grace,he doesn't believe the.
Protestant position I I guess what I'm getting at is like the
the we believe in works, we justdon't believe works or would
save us. Like I believe we should produce
good works this. Is why I understand that the.
Free grace community gets mad atme because I'm sure you're
familiar with the free grace position, right?
So like, yeah, like I would say no, that that's bad.
Like, that's scary stuff where you could say like someone can
profess Jesus at one point in time and then live like the

(01:26:10):
devil and even become an enemy of the gospel and they're still
saved. I would say, you know, I
absolutely reject that. So I believe in works.
I just don't believe works are the things that positionally
make us holy. I think works are the things
that practically make us holy. I understand.
Yeah, So fair enough. OK, before we wrap, you got to
tell me, tell me about this tollhouses and and how does that

(01:26:32):
work? Well, you're not going to talk
about comedy that. We're going to talk about we can
talk about comedy. Tell me about toll houses and
we'll talk about comedy. Yeah.
So this is a more of a liturgical, monastic and
spiritual tradition within the Orthodox world.
I wouldn't say it's quote dogma because.
It's not infallible, it's not dogma.
It's yeah, more of a lore. A lore.

(01:26:56):
I mean, I, I, I'm not, should I be just about I'm genuinely
like, how, how do where do we categorize?
I mean, there's, there's all, there are many things within
Orthodox theology that are, thatare not dogma, but are part of
the tradition. For example, I don't know, like
how would you interpret, you know, Matthew 24?
There's not a dogma on the interpretation of Matthew 24.
You have a lot of theologians and people talking about it in

(01:27:18):
Church Fathers and Chrysostom and, you know, have sermons and
homilies on Matthew 24 or whatever.
Or, you know, how to interpret every aspect of the Book of
Revelation, right? There's, there's going to be
areas of mystical theology that are unclear and probably only
advanced, very advanced people understand some of these things.
But so this is a part of the Orthodox tradition.

(01:27:39):
There's multiple books that are put out on this.
I think the Greek Orthodox monastery has a whole book about
this. The name escapes me, but it's a
really big, thick book, but a more accessible book as Father
Sarah and Rose's book, Life of the Soul After Death.
And it's part of our tradition that we think that there is a
kind of a journey that the soul takes after death, that's it's

(01:28:02):
not purgatory, but that there isa return to God that does occur.
And there is substantial liturgical and mystical
tradition evidence for this position.
And so you're returning to God and there is it's not purgatory.
So, so Protestants would hold tolike to be absent from the
bodies, to be present with the Lord.
Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's

(01:28:23):
instantaneous because you have, for example, in the Old
Testament, when when people died, they went to Hades.
That's why Christ preached the gospel to those in Hades.
That's the descent into Hades, which by the way, really the
Orthodox Church is the only church that continues to teach
the heroin of Hades, which is the ancient church's tradition.
But. So the soul houses your your
your body is your body or your spirit is going to God.

(01:28:46):
It's the return of the soul to God prior to the resurrection,
right? And so.
And then and there's fighting happening over your soul.
Well, there's a sort of a judgement that occurs.
It's a, it's the judgement. Even Protestants at times talk
about this as the sort of thing of the word immediate judgement,
which is like prior to the finaljudgement at the Great White

(01:29:07):
Throne. So yeah, we think that probably
most people assume that when youdie, the soul is judged.
It's just that in this tradition, the toll houses, it's
more of a flowery sort of, you can say lore.
There's more of a of an idea that it's not just God sitting
there and judging you. It's like you also have to
angelic judgments, yeah. And so they're trying to judge

(01:29:29):
you based on your works and which works.
You did and did back and. This is partly why we've always
prayed for the dead. Interesting, Jay, I'm going to
be honest, man, your your guys is like when you describe
salvation in that way and then with the justification it, it
just sounds scary to me, bro. Like this stuff is like not
knowing if someone on their deathbed or not knowing, God

(01:29:51):
forbid, one of our grandparents who made a profession of faith
is going to be with Jesus because they weren't in the
right church or because they didn't have enough works.
It's a scary view of the afterlife.
Well, I mean, seems like there'sa lot of warnings in scripture
about. There's a lot of warnings about
apostasy and a lot of warnings about leaving the faith and and

(01:30:14):
that sort of stuff, which I wishI agree with.
Yeah, that, that, that, that that's interesting.
So the toll houses and then you said lore but not lore but I.
Was just. I used the.
One It's a funny word, so. So how do you, how do you, how
are you able to distinguish between which traditions are
infallible and which traditions are not infallible?

(01:30:36):
Like how do you make that distinguishment?
I think every person at an individual existential level is
in the same boat with that. So like, I'm not going to give
like a Roman Catholic type argument where they would just
say, well, the Pope tells us, right?
I think you and me, we're all inthe same boat.
So if I were to ask you about, well, how do you know what the
infallible interpretation of Scriptures is?

(01:30:58):
Or if you ask me what the infallible interpretation of the
councils and the Scriptures is of the Church fathers, like
we're all going to have to at the end of the day, rely on the
testimony of the Holy Spirit. So where we differ, though,
would be the means that the HolySpirit uses.
So I believe the Holy Spirit's going to use not just the
scriptures, but the liturgy. It's going to use, you know,
the, the tradition of the church, it's going to use the

(01:31:20):
lives of the Saints, the teaching of the Church Fathers.
So it's a lot broader in terms of like where I'm going to as,
as in be getting information as infallible information.
Well, it's not all going to be infallible.
So I'm going to say that I have to rely on the tradition of the
Church, teachings of the councils, lives of the Saints,
the the the the liturgy itself. Those are all going to inform my

(01:31:43):
sources for where I get infallibility.
OK. And so the totality of the
Apostolic deposit for us all, divine revelation, not just the
written text, but also what Pauland the apostles taught orally,
for example. Which which you guys believe has
been passed down orally? Yeah.
For example, how to worship God.There's no New Testament pattern
of worship. There's things that Paul warns

(01:32:04):
about, but you don't get an actual liturgical service.
Well, thankfully the apostles actually did leave that.
Many Protestants admit that there's ancient liturgical
Apostolic. It's like the the decay.
No, I'm talking about the actualApostolic.
Like if you go to the Old, one of the oldest liturgies is the
Liturgy of Saint Mark. So if you go to Alexandria,
that's believed to be the ancient liturgy that Mark

(01:32:27):
delivered. And my point is that if you look
at Leviticus 11, like native andAbaihu, like worship is very
important, right? God kills people for not
worshiping the right way. In Corinthians, if you eat
unworthily, the Lord suffered. Many are sick and dead among
you, right? So it would seem like the
pattern of worship itself is very important.

(01:32:49):
The New Testament doesn't give us a liturgy.
Are you guys following Mark's liturgy?
That's one example in an Apostolic see SO.
What do you get these liturgy, these, these oral liturgies,
They're. Saying by they're not oral,
they're written down, but it's saying by necessity they have to
be extra canonical and Apostolicin their origin.
That's why I can go read the Apostolic Church Fathers like

(01:33:09):
Justin Martyr and they describe the liturgy.
He describes the liturgy in his day.
So there was some Apostolic liturgical tradition that
Protestant scholars like Hugh Weibrew admit were handed down
by the apostles. So they're not in the Bible
because they're by definition liturgical texts that are the
context for the Bible. For us, the Bible was not a

(01:33:31):
private devotional book. Mainly.
It can be that, but it's mainly meant to be heard and sung in
the liturgy. That's the context of the Bible.
So for us, that's why liturgy was important in determining the
Canon itself. The lectionaries had a huge role
in the canonicity of the scriptures.
OK, so liturgy is actually the context for the scriptures, not

(01:33:51):
the other way around. Interesting.
OK. And so these things that are
passed down give you guidance onhow to do a service, like how to
do the liturgy on a Sunday morning.
You think the apostles laid downthe the structure of liturgical
services, and that's why whetheryou go to Alexandria or whether
you go to Rome, the ancient Roman liturgy, or whether you go

(01:34:14):
to Constantinople, Byzantium, all of these in their origin are
Apostolic. It doesn't mean that I have the
copy of like, when Paul went to Ephesus.
Yeah. Yeah.
And he said here's how you do the liturgy.
I want to let we don't nobody has those texts, OK.
Just like we don't have autograph of Paul's letters to
Timothy, anybody else. Right.
So we're trusting that the church preserved not just the

(01:34:37):
text of Scripture through the tradition, but also the
liturgical pattern of worship. And even the Protestant scholars
will admit that. Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm not
disagreeing with that. I'm I'm I'm asking like how, how
does then one know if those are what, what sources I guess are
infallible versus not infallible?
There is not an Protestant or a Roman Catholic list of the
things, and I'm arguing that no one has that.

(01:35:00):
OK, we're all in the same boat. OK, That I would have to go to
an Orthodox Church, live it and be imbibed in it to have a sense
of what? The infallible versus the non
infallible tradition. There's no other.
There's not like, just like if you ask the Roman Catholic, for
example, like what is the infallible lists of the
infallible dogmas? There isn't one, right?

(01:35:21):
So if you ask a Orthodox person what is the infallible list of
Orthodox dogmas, there's not one.
But so no one has that. No, no, I know.
And thus I don't make that really a key line of
argumentation. Yeah, OK.
I mean, I think, I think that the the tricky part with that
then is it does seem that that can also be a bit subjective to
experience, right? It's but it's no, but it's not

(01:35:42):
it's and I would agree like we have, there's no way to avoid
some degree of that. Some degree of being subjective
to our. Experience.
But well, something can be partly subjective and also
objective. It's not sure.
It doesn't have to be either or let.
Me bounce this off for you. How do you feel about the
Westland quadrilateral? The what?
The Wesleyan quadrilateral? I'm not familiar.
OK, so the Westland quadrilateral is how does one

(01:36:03):
come to conclusions of what is true, right?
What is reasonable, the WestlandQuadrilateral is the idea that
we're filtering. And I'm not a wrestling for the
record, but I like this. I think like when it comes to
epistemology, this just makes some sense to me.
Scripture, church, tradition, experience and reasoning.

(01:36:29):
So we use all four Scripture being the only infallible one,
right? Because in my circles,
charismatics, God told me this, God gave me a word, God gave me
a vision. Well, it's like, well, no, God's
not going to give you something that's going to contradict
Scripture. So your experience has to submit
to Scripture. Scripture is only infallible
authority. But we also believe that there's
a lot of amazing authorities in church history.

(01:36:50):
There's amazing authorities within our local churches.
My pastor has authority. He's just not an infallible
authority. And, and then also reasoning and
using your mind and, and logic and all, the, all the things
that I think God also created from your perspective.
Like, what do you, what do you think of that quadrilateral as a
system of how I personally do mybest to come to truth, right?
This is my, this is how my epistemology works.

(01:37:12):
Like I I think of those 4 categories.
Well, I would argue that Scripture itself, especially in
Paul's epistles, or even when when Peter's talking, Paul says
that he taught for three days and three nights, or excuse me,
three years, 3, three years, dayand night in Ephesus.
And he tells Timothy in the epistles to Timothy that
everything that you heard from me in the presence of many
witnesses passed that on to men after you.

(01:37:33):
He only wrote Timothy 2 letters that we know of at Ephesus, but
he taught there orally. So there's a three-year Pauline
catechesis tradition that Timothy hears.
Timothy is instructed to lay hands on men after him who are
of good testimony because the giving of the Holy Spirit is
transferred in the laying on of hands.
Paul says that's Apostolic succession.

(01:37:54):
And to my knowledge, there's no Protestant group or denomination
at all that believes that the Holy Spirit is transferred in
the laying on of hands. So for us, that's a very
important Apostolic succession. Hold on a SEC.
Say that. Say that one more time.
There are no Protestant churchesthat teach that there's a
sacrament of Apostolic succession through the laying on
of hands. That's a historical succession.
OK, OK. I mean we believe on laying on

(01:38:16):
of the hands and I want to say. Paul is laying down a historical
reality, telling Timothy in Ephesus, you are the appointed
authority, not all these other people.
I lay hands on you, You lay hands on good men.
Be careful who you choose because the Holy Spirit is
passed on in that laying on of hands.

(01:38:37):
So when you go to Ephesus, thereare still today Orthodox
churches that have that same descent.
All the way back to Timothy to Timothy.
Correct. That's what we're we think it's
a historical reality. The only thing that died.
Jesus says that in in the book of John when he's talking about
the promise of the Holy Spirit, he says I'll be with you until
the end of the age. I will not leave you.
I will the Spirit will lead you and guide you in all truth.
So for us, the idea that the collective church in history

(01:39:01):
could lose that, lose the gospel, lose any of that on a
collective sense, you can have individual churches or nations
fall away. Revelation 2 and 3 warns of
that. I will take your lampstand.
Sure. But the totality of the church
could never fall away. The gates fell can't prevail.
So for us, it would not be possible for that succession to
die or to fail. And that's why whether it's the

(01:39:23):
pre Nicene Fathers or all the fathers in those councils,
they're teaching the same doctrine, same theology.
Each council refers back to the previous councils.
I get that, but but is it in your view that the Apostolic
succession, is it a part of the other churches that claim to be
the one and true church? That it stop.
What do you mean Catholics have Apostolic succession?
No, if you leave the Church, youdon't have Apostolic succession.

(01:39:45):
In the Orthodox view, it's not amechanical thing that is that
exists apart from having the faith.
So for example, in Athanasius hewrites festal letters and he
says everyone who celebrates thefeast, talking about a a pasca
outside the church, he says it'snot a feast.
They don't have it. I, I guess, I guess all I'm
saying, what I was getting at is, and this is you guys, will,

(01:40:07):
will you guys sort this out muchbetter than I can is like from
their vantage point, they don't feel like they left the church
the other 7. Church doesn't have a thing to
do with whether they did or didn't like the fact that they
feel that way. That's a fallacy, right?
So I could. So that'd be like saying that,
well, a lot of people don't believe in the arguments for
God's existence are convincing, so.
That's, that's not what I mean. I mean, I'm saying I'm, I'm sure

(01:40:28):
if we sat down with the leading Catholic apologist, the leading
Orient S apologist, they would have their own systematic
theology and they would make their own arguments for it.
And they, those two would. Probably has nothing to do with
which position is correct or not.
It it it doesn't but but it doesseem like there's there seems to
be a degree of subjectivity to concluding which is the one
true. Church, the fact that a person
makes an argument that comes from them does not mean that

(01:40:50):
it's purely subjective. That's that's an epistemic
mistake. So every one of us makes an
argument and they come from a subjective person.
That doesn't mean that subjectivism is the case.
Right. I, I, I didn't make that claim.
I'm saying that if you have great arguments and they have
great arguments and they're using the rules of logic and
they're using history, and they could point to their sources,

(01:41:10):
they can make the same arguments, right?
Which I don't. I'm not trying to.
Don't buy that. I mean, I understand why you
don't buy that because you, you know, you got your.
But I mean, you have the same type of position that you have a
take and you don't agree with mytake, and so you have sources.
And so that would just be relativizing all argumentation,
all positions. No, I so, so again, Jay, in my
take, I think there's a capital C bigger church which you would

(01:41:33):
disagree with. And I think in that capital C,
all believers everywhere from all denominations are part of
that. Capital, I know.
I'm just pointing out that the argument that you're making
violates the very thing that youjust said would relativize the
positions. The argument that I'm making
right now. Your argument is no different
than anyone else's argument you're citing.
You're saying I have this position, they have that
position. You have your position.

(01:41:53):
Yeah, of course. But that has nothing to do with
which one's true or false. So what you were arguing doesn't
pertain to whether or not the Catholic Church or the Orthodox
Church is correct. You're just saying that, well,
they have arguments. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm saying I've heard compelling arguments from
all sides. That's all I'm saying.
And I'm saying I've heard you make great arguments that I've
heard Catholics make. I've heard voice to reason make

(01:42:15):
good arguments. I've heard a lot of.
That's a fallacy. It's called a psychological
report. That's a fallacy.
Why is it a fallacy? Because I've heard good
arguments and I say, hey, you guys all got great arguments.
Your cycle. It's called psychological
reports. Falls.
Not trying to be a douchebag, it's a falls.
No, it it I'm I'm genuinely. Asking so like when I debate
Matt Dullahan and he says I've heard all your arguments, I
don't find them convincing. It's called psychological

(01:42:38):
reporting, which is not relevantto the debate.
The fact that you don't find it convincing has nothing to do
with the the topic at hand. Yeah, I don't, I don't think I
said. I don't find it convincing.
I think you're very convincing, Jay.
No, you say. I'm saying I've heard great
arguments from from all these streams.
Not. All that's equivalent to saying
that they think their arguments are convincing.

(01:42:58):
You think this is convincing? I think my position it's it's
the same principle. It's a psychological report and
it's just, it's a fallacy. I'm not trying to be a dude.
She just is a fallacy. What what what I'm saying is I'm
hearing truth claims made by allof these different churches that
are all making very similar claims to.
You. But that's not an argument, it's
a fallacy. OK, so I'm, I'm not even trying

(01:43:21):
to argue with you. I'm just giving you my paradigm.
I'm saying for my paradigm, Jay,I'm looking around.
I'm saying, man, there's a lot of these churches that are all
claiming the same thing you're claiming.
And it seems like I have the, the average person that's trying
to find a church that's Apostolic and is the one true
church has a a mountain of evidence to go through and a lot
of thinking to do. And when I look at that, I go,

(01:43:43):
man, it sure seems like repent and believe in Jesus for the
forgiveness of your sins is a more simple and sure pathway to
salvation. The field of simplicity.
So like when I debate the Muslims, they'll say you have
all this Trinitarian theology iscomplex.
Islam is very simple. It just has the, you know,
they'll say you just you just you just believe in the four
principles there. Daniel Hikikojo made that

(01:44:05):
article. He said that Islam's true
because it's simple. That's another fallacy.
OK, so because certain Christiangroups hold to a simple, simple
view of the gospel, that then invalidates said position?
It doesn't. Make it.
It's just. Yeah, I'm not saying it makes it
correct. It's just it's just an
oversimplification. So it would be the fallacy of
oversimplification or just appeal to simplicity.

(01:44:27):
Sure. Yeah, and appeal to simplicity.
That's fair, I think. I think God is simple.
I think salvation is simple. I think people who come to Jesus
and experience a transformed heart, new hearts, new desires,
I would argue an ontological change on the on the identity
basis. I think that's fairly simple.
I mean, I could. I would also worry it's kind of
an equivocation fallacy. So because God is simple as a

(01:44:49):
being, that has nothing to do with whether the message of the
gospel is equated to what you'resaying is simplicity.
So it's another non sequitur. So repent and believe it doesn't
articulate. I mean is that the only passage?
Or does he also say in Acts to repent and believe and be
baptized for the remission of sin I think.
You should be 38. I think you should be.
Baptism for the remission of sins, and then they water

(01:45:09):
baptize a few 1000 people. So the baptism that's water
baptism is the remission of the sins.
Sure, I believe in baptism. I think people should no
baptismal regeneration. You hold to baptismal
regeneration. Acts 23829 says so.
But here's the thing, Jay, you hold to baptismal regeneration,
someone is not born again. Am I tracking correctly about?
Unless they're baptized, yes. Well, again, a catechumen who

(01:45:31):
dies on the way to the baptismalwater.
So there's a nuance to it, that's what I'm getting at, but.
No, you're not born again until you're baptized, correct?
But you could still go to heaven.
In the case of people who are not intentionally warning it,
that's just like the thief on the cross, right?
I think God is merciful and he makes ways He's not.
God is merciful. A miser.

(01:45:52):
He's not there to like, try to cast people out.
He wants and loves man and the liturgy.
He is the lover of mankind. Amen.
But that doesn't. So he's still creating pathways
for people that don't do all theright things.
Here's the problem though. This is this is called taking
the exception to be the rule. And this is what Protestants
often do where they take these exceptions and then that becomes
the theological paradigm that gets rid of the rule.

(01:46:13):
The rule is, for example, in Acts 23839, Peter says Peter
doesn't say repent and Solafeda,you'll be justified by faith.
He says repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and
then they water baptize people. So we know that it's not a
Calvinist. You keep saying I'm not saying
you're a Calvinist. I'm using example of invisible
church. He doesn't say anything about

(01:46:35):
being united, he just says. He doesn't have to say yeah, I'm
saying. Hold on.
I'm not. I understand your your point
about exceptions to the rule fallacy.
I get that. I think that's a fair critique.
What I'm saying is there seems to always be the exception to
the rule, and I agree with the rule.
I think you should be baptized. I think you should be in a local
church. I think you should wage war on
your sin and become more. I'm just specifically saying the

(01:46:57):
dominant New Testament references to baptism from our
paradigm, we would argue our baptism regeneration like Titus
three, Yeah, the Washington labor regeneration.
And if that doesn't happen, someone can be not born again
but still go to heaven. But that doesn't negate baptism.
Regeneration is the point. Because the exception OK, but

(01:47:18):
it's not the rule I. Get most Protestant teaching is
not baptism regeneration unless you're Luther there's.
Tons of Protestants that hold a baptism of regeneration.
I just had the guy from Theos University on that held the.
Baptism. It's not the classical normative
Protestant position, except for many Lutherans believe it, Some
Anglicans believe it, but it's not typical evangelical
Protestant teaching. That's that's fair.

(01:47:38):
All I'm getting at is that thereare lessons that hold to it, and
they're still exceptions to the rule there.
You guys create nuances, Catholics create nuances.
Everyone has exceptions to the rule of what a Christian ought
to do versus the reality of whenit doesn't.
Happen, but this is this is 1 doctrine, right Baptism, right?
We've got the Eucharist. We've got should children,
particularly the Eucharist, we've got a host of things that

(01:48:02):
were already settled. And the main problem I would say
about Protestant in this regard is that each generation has to
reinvent the wheel and start it all over when we have already
settled these issues. And in in fact, in the case of
the ecclesial reality, the church has already declared and
defined the extent of the body of Christ.

(01:48:23):
Christ is not divided. Paul says he doesn't exist
amongst thousands of different competing claiming sects and so
if there's no boundaries and guidelines as to what the
visible church is, and I would argue formerly being a
Protestant believing in the invisible church doctrine, it
contradicts Christology that. Christ's body is divided and you
can be divided. OK, I got you.

(01:48:45):
Tell me about comedy and your and your and your comedy stuff.
I want to well, I want to make sure I want to make sure we get
to it. We're going on 4 hours which I.
Think this is This is why are you?
I'm glad you like. It are you willing to engage
like in in person debates? Because I'd love to facilitate.
Some. Yeah, maybe.
Bless Scott Summit too. It's a couple folks.
That me versus Mahdi, I'm going to, I'm going to be Jim Jones

(01:49:08):
and I want the Mahdi to be on the I.
Would love to see I I don't think this would happen, but I
would love to see you and Gavin Ortlin go over it in person.
I don't think he would do it. Cleaves to antiquity.
Would you do something with him in person if we facilitated it?
We didn't have the best interaction, but maybe.
But could we not get a a a a larger?

(01:49:29):
I don't mean to be a douchebag. No, no, no, I don't.
A larger name, I don't think, I don't think Gavin would do it.
I think Gavin is the largest name.
That's a Protestant apologist. What about cosmic skeptic do?
You want to debate cosmic skeptic on what atheism.
I mean, I would love to see thathappen.
I don't know if he'd do it. I don't think he'd do it.
I think he really wanted to debate issues of God who say

(01:49:50):
that again, we kind of got, yeah, we got with the timing of
that was, was great with David Wood, 'cause they had already
had that set up. It fell through because of the
jihadi stuff. And it was like, hey, let's, I
remember that, you know what I mean?
And so we, we got him to do that.
But I mean, I I would, I wouldn't mind asking for sure.
He was supposed to debate who, who, Who'd you say you were

(01:50:10):
going to say? David Wood was supposed to
debate cosmic, cosmic modern debate.
That's right, 7 or whatever it was called.
And then there was jihadi. That's right.
Or something. Yeah.
And then he dropped out and thenwe were able to say, hey, let's
just do it at our event. And it worked out 'cause David
was already coming. Why don't we like, I don't know,
we can game plan and and figure out like a do you want it to be

(01:50:31):
a Protestant or like a Muslim orjust a?
Protestant, I don't want to do anything with Muslims, OK, I
think atheists are pretty hard to come by nowadays in terms of
atheists that are willing to to to engage.
I know. And there's not a lot of
Protestant apologists that are like even trying to wave the
flag of like we're defending because because we believe in
the invisible church, because webelieve you guys are in those of
you guys that believe Jesus diedfor your sins and placed your

(01:50:53):
faith in him. I there's not there's not a lot
of them. And so you tend to really
discuss these things a lot, right?
And so that's why I go, Oh well,Jay versus a cleats to.
Antic What about Wes Huff? Wes Huff I I could ask about
Wes. He's he's loosely confirmed for
night one of our debate of our Bless Scott Summit.
So what would you want to debatehim about?
I'm flexible. Like what?

(01:51:15):
Whatever he thinks or you think,I'm I'm.
I'm open. OK, Yeah, that's that's a good
idea. Yeah, he'll be.
I think we got a soft yes from Wes on Canada Scripture.
That was in Canada Scripture. Yeah, Canada Scripture.
Westheuf, Jay Dyer. That'll be fire.
I think you're you're way more pleasant in person than you come
off online. And I think, I think hopefully
people who see. This keep in mind, yeah, like

(01:51:36):
online, you're also dealing withlike, you know.
Bad faith actors. Many bad faith, yeah.
Sure, I'll mention it to Wes anyway.
And if not, we'll keep it open to other people possibilities,
OK? Comedy.
Tell me about the, the, the, thecomedy direction.
It seems to be a disarming tool used in by, by by brilliant

(01:51:59):
communicators. Is that your, your use of comedy
is that you see it as like a hey, this is a great tool to
disarm the impressions, like allthe all the stuff that you you
incorporate in terms of the, the, the broader thing you're
building. That is Jay Dyer, which is not
just this Catholic, Protestant, the Orthodox stuff, the broader
community. You're I.
Never even thought about it as disarming but I guess it could
be. I mean, I think it's very

(01:52:19):
disarming. I think anyone that that can
make somebody chuckle. Yeah, for sure.
That's a good point. No, it's just really just
something that is just, I'm justa naturally goofy dude.
Like I got superlatives like in high school, like I was wittiest
in my high school. I used to do stand up when I
graduated, I went to New York and did a bunch of comedy club

(01:52:39):
like open mic nights and stuff. And that was before getting
serious about Christianity. And then I kind of, you know,
just didn't think about anythinglike that for a long time When?
You were doing an open mic scenein New York, were you?
Was it like a 5 minute set you had or?
Yeah. Yeah, this is like 1998, so
9798. And then when I came back from
being in New York for a while, Idid like open mic in Nashville

(01:53:01):
for a year or so. It was fun to do, but like, I
was very like, I just, I wasn't a Christian at the time.
I was just kind of wild and being silly and it's kind of
raunchy routine. But then, you know, over the
years, I would like, you know, jot down ideas and write down
skits and stuff. And probably the the big
breakthrough that we have with with that was being on the the

(01:53:23):
Tucker show where I did the whole skit where I was dressed
up as Klaus Schwab and going around New York and going around
Austin and and that was a great skit.
And so I appreciate Tucker and Scooter for, you know, making
that opportunity happen. And then that led to other, you
know, doors that we did a lot ofpodcasts with comedians over the
last five years and and networked with those guys and.
Would you ever see yourself doing just straight up stand up

(01:53:45):
like you're writing sets, jokes,maybe you have writers with you
and that's like the main thing of your live?
Events, I mean I'm open to that it's just I'm not like the
problem is I don't live near a place you need to to practice
stand up. You know what I mean to to be a
stand up there's not really goodvenues in the middle of nowhere
Tennessee. So I we'd have to move and I
mean maybe in the future, but for the meantime, like doing I

(01:54:08):
write for Sam Hyde and he started a show a few months ago.
Sam Hyde show first episode got 20 million views across like
most platforms, counting YouTube, counting acts huge,
huge thing went viral, got clipped, shared zillions of
times and then episodes 234 did pretty good.

(01:54:30):
So I'm really enjoying doing that and it's a way to do comedy
without like it's just pure stand up, like writing for him.
So, but I'd like to keep doing that.
I'd like to expand that kind of stuff because I really get a lot
of joy out of doing that. How often are you writing?
We've been putting on a show every couple weeks, so we've
done this is we're going on the like, I think it's the 6th

(01:54:51):
episode. I mean, I just mean like, OK, so
I'm asking this purely out of selfish reasons.
Like as someone that is interested in multiple things, I
wrote my first book. Maybe you'll take a look at
that. You don't have me on for that,
but I'm I'm still passionate about music.
I do a four night, four days a week.
We do stream. Sometimes we do guests like
today. We probably won't do a stream

(01:55:12):
because I'll be cooked after this.
Your daily process in order to get your stuff done that like
I'm asking like, how does that work?
Like Jay comes in, you're streaming.
Well, it seems like a lot of hours a day.
When how do you structure out when you're writing for comedy,
when you're writing books, when you're writing for other
comedians, when you're writing for your own show, when you're
writing your lectures? Like how does how does that work

(01:55:34):
And how do you balance all that?I'm assuming you don't have kids
yet. No.
OK, that probably that probably helps.
Not because of anything on on our end.
Sure, sure, sure. We're not avoiding that or
anything. It just hasn't happened.
Yeah. I mean, day-to-day structure is
just like I I'm sure you're the same way.
Like I work from the time I wakeup until midnight one in the
morning. So we work all the time.

(01:55:55):
Like the whole drive here. I read two books because we
drove to. I don't like to fly.
So like I, I. Wait, did you did you drive?
Yeah, it's a gangster, bro. I hate flying so much.
Like we had a really bad flight experience too coming back from
Italy. How bad?
Really bad, Really like. You thought you were going to

(01:56:16):
crash back? Yeah.
It was extreme, extreme turbulence for for 8 hours, no,
the whole way back. That's horrifying.
Yeah, it was like some kind of weird torture.
It was like being in like a Guantanamo Bay or something.
Like like the whole thing was like this for 8 hours straight
and people were screaming. It was crazy crying.
So that was a traumatic experience that'll make you

(01:56:38):
repent is. This recent.
We did an Orthodox Italy pilgrimage November of last
year, yeah. That that they'll give you some,
some, some, some. Repentance.
Repentance and justification prayers.
So when you're OK. So a lot of it is like you're
driving places, you're getting to read and then you're just
kind of. Yeah, I mean, I read a lot.
I've always been a reader. My mom was the editor of

(01:56:59):
Librarian, so I was raised with books, so I love to read.
I'm always devouring a book and then like comedic stuff is kind
of random. Like usually when you're having
good conversations, you get funny ideas.
My wife and I are my friends, soI have a comedy notebook.
I write stuff down so that but that, I mean that's only like
probably once every week or two where where we hammer out SM

(01:57:21):
hide episode or whatever. So far, live events, like I
said, a lot of that's improv, a lot of that's impressions.
I have a roster like 50 impressions I can do so.
Your lecture lectures improv? Or is your lecture written out
word for word? Or is it bullet points?
Or is it just kind? Of like, I'm so used to riffing
off hand, I don't have it written out.
I just talk from the slide and. So you have a slideshow.

(01:57:44):
There's slides of images, got it.
And a little bit of text. But like, you know, we, I think
you know this like too, like when you've been talking and
podcasting for over 10 years, you don't really have to have
everything written out. You can.
I'm with you. I would say I have to read it.
Writing a book. There's a there's a rolodex of
stuff that I've organized my thoughts, put them on paper, and

(01:58:04):
then I could always pull a talk from different facets.
Makes it easier for sure. Yeah, I mean sometimes, like if
I do a lectrum, I have a couple notes, but most of the time I
have a good recall. God bless me with a good recall.
So yeah, I know you're super smart dude, and you're you're,
you're freaking. Your ability to do so many
different things and retain so much information is is super

(01:58:26):
duper impressive. Before, before we get out of
here, you got it. You got to either give us an
impression or you got to kick, kick a freestyle one, one of the
two. How about I do a little Nick
Cage? All right, Nicolas Cage.
So I have in my my code here a piece of bone that I picked up
and it felt like it really gets me into a shamanic attitude.

(01:58:48):
How's that That's. Great, that's an actual code.
He actually says he's, I believein a style of acting called Neo
Shamanic. Well, so.
That's what he says. Look up.
That's crazy. Look up Nicolas Cage, neo
shamanic and it yes, that's he pulls up in his coat.
He says I have a piece of bone here and I feel like it makes me
into a shaman. That's dark.

(01:59:10):
Who else You Who's your favoriteimpressions?
To do Hello. Whatever.
Yeah. Billy Dee Williams.
Oh, there's a bunch, man. Yeah, there's Terence McKenna.
Do you know who Terence McKenna is?
If you take the mushroom, you will see the gods and they will
speak to you. I'm gonna vote for the mushroom
in 2028 for president. You know who?

(01:59:31):
Terence McKenna. Is yeah, I, I, I, I, I see the
picture. Say it again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Terence McKenna.
That's Terence. That's exactly how it talks, by
the way. That's amazing.
How? Did you?
There's like 440 of them. How did you get into
impressions? So in high school I did stand up
at our senior graduation, OK. And all the stand up was was me

(01:59:52):
impersonating all the teachers. No.
And killed it right now. The teachers got mad, but yeah.
That's awesome. So I just started in, you know,
like everybody's. Oh, he does Impressions.
There's a, there's a, there's a thing to people who can do
impressions like I don't, I don't know what it is.
I don't know if it's like a a a a a attention to detail.
It's a weird. Talent ability they have where
they can catch the things that like in AC, I can do an

(02:00:13):
impression interview because youlike, I'm just interacting with
you. I'm present in this moment.
Like you could pick apart the inflections and a.
Tons, Yeah. Certain things that like, I
don't think it's some people cando.
Sometimes the impressions are super easy, but then sometimes
you have to really work on it. I had to really work on Trump.
It took me a long time. We got to hear Trump.
It's OK. I have to get into it.

(02:00:34):
Let me think. Let's see.
So glad to be here. Thank you.
Thank you, Ruslan. Probably the best podcast.
I don't know. Maybe, probably, I don't know.
We'll have to ask Kamala, is this the best podcast?
Maybe Ruslan's got? We're going we're going to make
it the best podcast because we're here.
We're on it right now. I didn't even catch the.

(02:00:55):
That's pretty good. I didn't even.
Zach does impressions. Oh.
OK, nice. Like not not.
I don't. Say I don't say I do
impressions, but he does impressions.
But you do, I do. Impressions.
No he you do impressions, but Zach will do some on stream I.
Do have a bad Trump impression, Yeah.
And then I do, I do in the moment impression.
So I got in trouble for doing anRFK impression.

(02:01:16):
Oh yeah, with. The voice Yeah, Hold on, Do you
want to get in trouble doing an RFK impression?
I I told so when we did our LA event I thought it was going to
be funny if I rolled out my RK jokes.
Exactly dude. I had AI had a killer RFK joke.
I was like I'm going to kill with this stand up routine about
RFK and everybody got mad at me dude because I made a joke about
his voice. He did a great impression but

(02:01:36):
the thing with RFK is his voice is coming back.
If someone's voice is coming back, the Lord might be healing
him. Who knows.
Like I think it's OK do. You want to know what my joke
was? What was your joke?
So before I did the impression right, I was like, so you know,
remember the JFK assassination event and the magic bullet?
I'm pretty sure I know what happened to the magic bullet.
It went into RF KS throat and itwas just like dead silence dude.

(02:02:01):
I was like, it's a joke. I don't hate RFK.
That's that's a dark joke. That's a dark joke, sweet man.
Which, hey, thanks for doing this, man.
This is one of the longest we'vehad.
Could I recommend if people do want to get Star Hollywood 3,
which covers a plethora? Yes please.
I'm sorry, really cool. No, it's.
Cool. Link it below for.
Sure, every a lot of really coolmovies. 1 and 2 obviously have a

(02:02:24):
lot, but three, it's got a lot of like Christopher Nolan.
It's got all the Marvel movies. It's pretty dope when I didn't
read the whole thing, but I definitely look through it and I
was like, man, you you, you hit a lot of the stuff I'm
personally into. You can go to jayanalysis.com in
the shop and you can preorder the Part 3 and they're all
signed. You can also get one and two,
but J analysis. J Analysis.
Analysis.com, we'll link that and.

(02:02:45):
It'll be a shop and then you canget Part 3 and it will come out
in two months. Two months, July.
Yes. Mid-july, mid-july.
So it'll be out and they could check that out.
And yeah, it it looks dope. I mean, these these are great
Part 1 and 2. But when I looked at that one,
they just, they just had more ofyou like it.
Just the stuff that I'm into. You know, you're going really

(02:03:05):
deep in some of the stuff that like just kind of older movies.
But on the third one, it was like, oh, like there's more
Inception Batman, like all the stuff.
That I would all the marvel. Are you working on another book
after this or is this kind of? I think what I if I do, it'll be
a it won't be Hollywood. It'll be like intelligence and
religion. OK, because nobody's there's
like 2 books on that so. Dope.

(02:03:26):
All right, we're out of here, guys.
Jay Dyer, thanks so much, brother.
Hey, thank you so much for checking out the video.
Please be sure to comment below and subscribe and all that good
stuff. And check out this other video
that YouTube seems to be recommending just for you.
Let me know if they nailed it. All right, I'll see you over
there. Peace.

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