Why I Left the Catholic Faith

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bible,culture and stories from around
the globe.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
All right.
So, first off, thanks so much.
This was like so last minute.
It was the way thisconversation came about.
We've already, you know, we'vealready got a format.
Um, we've laid out the next fewepisodes and last night we're
sitting around the fire.
Um, every night during summercamp we we build that fire and

(00:42):
just invite student pastors justfor fellowship and community
and hear people's stories.
And so, john I've just met John.
He's a new student pastor, butwith a church that's been coming
for quite a while and that wehave a longstanding relationship
with.
And we're sitting at the fireand we asked John about his
story, like, okay, how'd you gethere?

(01:03):
Where are you from?
And he just told a story.
I'd like for you to start offby just sharing your story,
because it's fascinating of kindof how you came up, how you
came up as far as being in RomanCatholicism and then into how
that conversion went down, oryour like your, your
transformation.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah.
So I was, uh, born and raisedin Atlanta.
My family's from New York andkind of all over, but we settled
there and um.
I grew up in a Roman Catholicchurch.
Um, there was a lot ofdifferent groups of Roman
Catholics.
We were Polish, there's a lotof just American, a lot of
Hispanic, a lot of African.

(01:43):
Usually in the Catholic churchis very they're usually very
vital Catholic churches inAtlanta and, yeah, my parents
were wonderful.
They raised me in the faith andcommunicated the love of God
and we would think through thescriptures together and stuff
like that.
And so a lot of Catholicsgrowing up, and especially ones

(02:03):
who have left and you'll find ata Protestant church, will come
from Catholic backgrounds.
That would be largely nominaland so, you know, they went to
Catholic church maybe every oncein a while.
Their family wasn't superserious about it, but it was
something cultural that you doand that is an interesting thing
, I think.
Coming to Protestantism, youknow, one thing that's cool

(02:25):
about like rural Baptists isthat they do more of this, which
is like their faith is alsopart of their culture.
It's not so separable.
But in Catholic Church that's abig you know it's a big deal.
So someone could never go tochurch.
They could largely not like theCatholic Church in many ways
and they would still proudlyrefer to themselves as a
Catholic for the most partbecause it's more who you are

(02:50):
than you know necessarily evensomething you believe you could.
I don't know if it'd be like sofar as with you know, uh, kind
of the jewish faith where it'slike you could be an agnostic.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
I don't think you could be an agnostic catholic,
but um, but you, uh, I thinkabout there was a lot of buzz
around Biden.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, last year .
Claim to Catholicism yeah,politicians, mobsters yeah, when
you're in the South.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
All the mafia is Catholic.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of Catholic politicians,
that'll definitely come up.
So maybe that's a good exampleof it.
But yeah, I had a great, greatfamily, really consistent church
background and yeah, I thinkI've always wrestled a lot with
my faith, even from a young age.
My parents, my mom inparticular, really wanted me to
become a priest, which is funny.

(03:35):
She had consecrated me to theministry in her mind and so.
But they from an early age theyasked me like hey, do you want
to become a priest?
And I would say like you know,no, I wanted to get married and
I just didn't really have a lotof interest in it.
But yeah, I did, like askingquestions about faith and I
thought through those kind ofthings I would say in middle
school a lot of that died downand it became really distant to

(03:58):
the faith.
And so you know, like in ouryouth group, to get confirmed to
the Catholic church, you haveto go, basically just be
consistent.
You have to go and attend acertain number of like Wednesday
night or Sunday night, likeyouth group kind of things, and
you check off, like you know, sothey can log your attendance
and stuff.
And my friends and we would go,uh, you'd have one sacrificial
lamb for the week of the fivefriends and he would go sign in

(04:21):
for everyone.
We would all leave and go toSonic or something like that,
like a freshman classes incollege, yes, and so we'd all
leave, and so wasn't thegreatest, uh, youth student in
middle school and and reallyinto high school as well.
Um, I, just, the Catholicchurch I went to was the youth
group in particular is a largechurch but it was very rote, Um,

(04:42):
and so like we'd go to youthgroup and they'd play like a
video and it'd be like a moralinstruction video, you know, and
it looked like one of those oldschool like, um, sex education
videos like where it's like somestudents recorded it in the
nineties you know, from all youcan tell and it'd just be like
about obeying your parents orsomething you know, something
along those lines, and so itwasn't very engaging.
And I started going to adifferent Catholic church ninth

(05:03):
or 10th grade because somefriends from school invited me
and their whole sales pitch andit was as effective was hey, we
have better food, and so we hadpizza, I think.
And there's you know, some momslike would home cook something
every week and bring it andstuff like that.
So I started going to this newchurch for the food and so
that's not normal.
Usually, like a Catholics willall go together as one family.
My parents let me go to thisother church with a different

(05:25):
youth group because they thoughtit'd be more engaging at that
point.
So it was.
It was a very vital religiouscommunity as a youth group, like
it's very tight knit.
We'd go on retreats that lookedkind of a lot like you know, in
summer camps that look a lotlike we do here in some sense.
You know, theologicallyobviously is a lot different,
but it's.
It's funny being youth pastornow and seeing like the the

(05:46):
similarities and like just whatcamp looks like across.
You know denominations and I'msure you can go to a secular
sports camp and get a lot of.
There'd be similar elements andthen there'd be really
different elements.
Um, but yes, I think somewherearound sophomore junior year I
was in this new church and I wasreally plugging in.
I began thinking a lot aboutfaith again and just studying

(06:09):
the scriptures and the catechismand stuff like that.
The catechism of the CatholicChurch is kind of their manual
for doctrine.
They have a consolidated Idon't know when it came about,
it's somewhat recent in Catholichistory but they have like a
formal catechism that has theirtheological doctrine.
But they have like a formalcatechism that has their
theological doctrine somewherebetween like a systematic
theology and a biblical theology, and they've coded it all so

(06:30):
you can read that and as a kid Iwould read it a bunch.
And.
I was a little bit of an odd kidfor that, I think.
But I had a lot of questionsreally, and so something we
talked about last night was whatdrove my journey out of the
Catholic Church and intoProtestantism was was two things
.
The first one was I had a lotof Protestant, you know,
non-denominate Baptist friendsat the public school I went to.

(06:51):
And one thing I didn't say ourpublic school was so large.
It was like six or I guess it'dbe seven, eight now it was six,
eight at the time, and it wasso large and it felt very
secular.
So if you were Christian there,whether you were Catholic or
Protestant, you kind of feltsome sort of solidarity with
each other.
And so I had friends who wewould lead a kind of a club it

(07:15):
was like an apologetic club andmy Baptist friend, he was the
one who really spearheaded thatand he agreed to shake hands and
we would just not talk aboutthe differences, and so we would
both get together and like 50students or so would come over
to his house and his mom wouldmake cookies and stuff and we
would talk about the reliabilityof the scripture and like

(07:37):
evidence for the resurrectionand stuff like that.
So stuff that didn'tnecessarily probe up against the
differences we had, because wejust wanted at our school
something that was likedistinctively Christian at least
, and we had a lot of differenttypes of people who would engage
in that.
But it was really throughengaging with him.
He was the first Baptist I metwho I felt really was like.

(07:59):
He was intellectuallycompelling, and my first
experiences with Protestantismwere like I went to one of those
.
It was like a haunted house.
I don't know if you've seenthis before.
Yeah, okay.
It was like a haunted house, butit was like hell.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
And um, that was my, that was my intro into.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Protestantism.
I can't believe you didn't turnand walk away right then.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I was just kind of there.
I was.
I was like, oh, this is prettywild and it was entertaining,
honestly, but it was a littlebit like man.
I was still wrestling throughCatholicism at this point, but I
was like I don't know who'sright, but I don't think it's
you guys.
And then I yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
I've been to several of those.
Yeah, and to my shame, to myutter shame, I worked at one one
time.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I was a new Christian , I was in my early 20s.
The church we were attended,they were going to do it.
They called it uh, I don't evenremember now, you know, scare
mare, haunted trail, orsomething anyway, and I had to
work at the car crash scene yeahyou know where the kid just
died?

Speaker 3 (08:59):
in the car crash and yeah yeah, oh, it's so bad it's
so bad.
It's creative.
Like you gotta get props, itcan be creative but um, that's
funny.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
It was a little jarring as an outsider.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Uh, that's funny yeah , it was that.
And then another one was I wentto this church some large
baptist church in atlanta, Idon't know what it was called um
.
A friend brought me though, andit was a Christmas service and
it was on the poison of Islam.
I was, as you know, catholics.
Even if you're like aconservative Catholic, you can
be pretty I don't want to saypolitically progressive, but

(09:35):
like socially a little bit moreprogressive, and so I.
It offended a lot of sentimentsof mine.
I was just as a young student.
I was like, oh gosh, like youknow, this is crazy.
I joked last night.
There's a lot of Baptists whopostponed my journey to
Protestantism by somesignificant number of years, at

(09:55):
least three.
But this guy though we wouldargue and we were good friends
and we would talk about allkinds of stuff, his humility was
really striking and hisknowledge and love for the word
was really striking, and we wereboth, you know, I think,
juniors in high school at thispoint and uh, but yeah, we love
this club together and he was,you know, he had, he had a

(10:15):
better grasp on the word than Idid, um, but I would help him
where I could and really so Iwas.
Just I was wrestling throughthese things and I was meeting
up with priests all the timebecause I really wanted to know.
I wanted two things I wanted abetter understanding of grace
and what it meant to be aChristian, what God's

(10:37):
transforming love was supposedto look like in the life of a
Christian.
And that was not something Iwas getting a super easy grasp
of in the Catholic church.
It felt slippery at times and Ialso wanted to be discipled.
I wanted someone to.
I didn't know what that wordmeant at the time, but that's
what I ended up wanting.
I wanted someone to pour intome, to lead me along in the

(11:01):
faith, and I kind of got thesame answer.
You know through and throughwhether I was talking to a
priest at, like, a youth retreator wherever it was, and he
would say hey, dude, you're, youknow, 16 years old, you're
going to church, you're going toyouth group.
You can chill out a little bit.
You can, you know you don't needto just like be so crazy about
everything, and I think therewas probably even some wisdom in

(11:25):
that and I probably, if I waslike in Protestant church, I'm
sure somebody would have had tochill me out.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Oh yeah, we have those kids, yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
But as I kept meeting with priests and talking with
them and stuff, I just wasn't.
I wasn't getting what I waslooking for.
And what led me intoProtestantism, finally, was not
a theological issue per se,although I was wrestling through
those.
Really it was this desire to bediscipled.
And there was a youth pastorthat friend we were in that club

(11:52):
together.
His youth pastor was meeting,was willing to meet up with me
and read the Bible, and Iremember we got a group of like
four or five guys and we wouldopen 1 Peter and every week he
would assign a student a verseand he would say I want you to
go home, I want you to figureout what this means, I want you
to come back and tell us andyou'll lead the discussion next
week.
And, um, that was like myintroduction to interpreting the

(12:16):
scripture, not just hearing itread, not just hearing it
preached, but as a student,having to interpret it for the
first time.
And it's fine, I've starteddoing that with our students now
and we did first Peter too,just cause it worked out.
But, um, that was, that wasimpactful for me.
That was like, okay, I thinkGod wants us doing this.
I think he wants us reading hisword, learning to interpret it,
learning to teach it to oneanother, to exhort one another,

(12:38):
and so it just felt right Again,in the Catholic church, there
is teaching, there is reading ofthe scripture, but and I don't,
I can't just like you know,there's a billion Catholics in
the world or something like that.
You can't just universally saythis never happened, but in my
experience, there's not thisdrive to raise up the average

(12:59):
church member to interpret theBible, and I've actually talked
to Catholic apologists aboutthis, because I thought that was
something that they would justadmit they fell short in, but it
was something that, actually,as I talked to one guy I can't
remember who it was I wastalking to an apologist, though
and he said he said no, hepointed to Ephesians four and he
said God gave us apostles,prophets, teachers, and he said

(13:19):
that means that the predominanttask of interpreting the word is
given to those who God callsinto the ministry, and laity
don't need to really concernthemselves as much with the
formal interpretation of theword.
They really should look totheir leaders, and, again,
there's some wisdom in that.
You don't want an unequippedmember taking it upon themselves

(13:41):
to have to interpret the wholeword of God.
They need the assistance ofpastors and people who have
thought through these thingstogether, and even God's given
us the office of elder to reallyprotect the doctrine.
And you know the elders gettogether, you know it's so.
There's, there's some truth inthat, but then there's also
there is this thing where it'slike the lady are not being

(14:01):
equipped to read the word, umthe uh, more so than just being
taught what it means.
And that was something I saw inProtestantism and I knew
instinctively, or at least thespirit in me, and I guess I
could talk about it in a second.
I think I was already abeliever at that point.
But I knew at that point hey,this is right.
Whatever else is right or wrong, I know that we're supposed to
be reading the word together andlearning to interpret it.

(14:29):
I, right or wrong, I know thatwe're supposed to be reading the
word together and learning tointerpret it.
And, um, I guess could Imention how I, I think I came to
faith in the Catholic church?
Uh, okay, I was at a, uh, asummer camp, a youth summer camp
actually and one thing we didat the Catholic church that I
went to is you would write thesejournal entries every year at
the end of your week of camp andat you know, for some reason,
not when you graduated highschool, but before you went into
your senior year, they wouldgive you back all the journal
entries you know, from whateverit was, middle school up until

(14:52):
10th or 11th grade, and Iremember I read them and I had
known that God had been stirringsomething in my heart over the
past few months.
At this point, but as.
I sat down and read those thatday.
I remember distinctly thinkingas I read what I'd written in
years previous oh, I'm anidolater.
I was just looking at what Iread and I was like, whatever it
is that my heart was after,even if it was good things I was

(15:15):
after, the way that I kind ofheld them was in a way that made
those the supreme thing, andGod was a way to get after this.
You know, whether it was like ahealth of a family member,
whatever it was, the desire, theapproval of others, it was
within the Catholic Church thatI think that I came to faith and
really began to have a savingunderstanding of who Christ is

(15:37):
and what he's done for us, andsomething we also talked about
last night that you can run intoCatholics who are believers.
There's a lot of people whowould say that there's no um,
you, you can't be a believer inthe Catholic church.
Uh, but the reality is, if we're, if we're told that the word is
sharper than any two edgedsword and if it's dividing um

(15:58):
and if it's effective, if itworks on its own, apart from us,
apart from our strength, then,if you're sitting under the
reading of the word of God,people can come to faith, and
people will come to faith evenif it's under bad preaching, and
this is something that isactually part of our Protestant
tradition, more so than mostpeople realize is that, you know

(16:18):
, um, this is maybe a little bitof a turn, if that's okay.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, okay, I'm loving it, I'm I'm having a ball
.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Okay, a little bit of a turn, if that's okay.
Yeah, okay, I'm loving it, I'mhaving a ball.
Okay, you know, over the years,when I first started picking up
Luther whether that was inundergrad or seminary or
whatever it was, you know, thefirst thing that really usually
strikes someone is, oh, this guyreally hated the Pope, like, in
particular, you know, pope's,the Antichrist, you get all that
kind of stuff.
And so I thought initially thatthe Protestant Reformational

(16:48):
tradition around what Luther andZwingli and Calvin thought as
they interacted with Catholicswas that they were stricter on
dogmatically eliminatingCatholics from the conversation
if it was Christian.
That was kind of my initialimpression.
But then really over the years,I've realized the way that
Luther talked about the churchwas that Christ's church is holy

(17:10):
, not because of the behavior ofthe church or even because of
the quality of preaching all thetime, but because God has made
it holy.
It's holy because it's hisbride.
And so what Luther would tellsomeone?
Hey, the Catholic church isstill the church, it's still
part of the church, and even ifits leaders are corrupted by one
thing or another, even if it'steaching false doctrine at some
point, you know if this, youknow for him.

(17:32):
Baptists articulate thisdifferently, but you know he
would say if the sacraments arebeing rightly administered and
the words being rightly preached, then it's there.
This is still Christ's churchand he always saw himself as a
reformer in the sense of thiswas the church that he was
trying to reform, not theabsence of the church.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Right.
In other words, he wasn'tlooking to start something new,
he was looking to reform whatwas there.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, and if you asked Luther, are there
believers within the CatholicChurch still after the
Reformation?
He would have said absolutely.
And I think that the word beingobjectively effective, apart
from the human communicator ofthat word, would have been very
important for him or was veryimportant for him.
And so, yeah, I do think I cameto faith under the Catholic

(18:22):
Church, but it was a stuntedgrowth because there's not this
discipleship there, there's notthis impetus to teach members,
teach believers to read the wordand interpret it for themselves
, and then, on top of that,there is a lot of communication
around works.
That also stunt growth, becauseit's when you see God's grace

(18:44):
for you they're able to betransformed.
One of the things that you know, I've thought was so great this
week, even though we've heardin some teaching, is the the
fact that it's a new set ofaffections.
Was it you who gave that in?
One of your say.
Yes, with the middle schoolerwho, who starts, you know

(19:06):
no-transcript.
He's not going to do it, or he'sgoing to do it begrudgingly,
and he's not going to do itright and so, but he's going to
be very motivated to do it rightthe minute that his affections
have changed.
And the same is true for us.
You know, if the Catholicchurch you need to turn from

(19:33):
dead works and worship the Lordin your actions, but you're not
really putting forward the loveof Christ that drives us to do
that, and I think there weresome motivations there.
But a works-based salvationwill not initiate the same
change, the same sanctification.
Even if the Spirit might bepresent in someone, that work is
slowed by bad teaching, even ifthe spirit might be present in
someone, that work is slowed bybad teaching.
So, even though I said the thingI said about there are people
coming to faith under the word,you know, regardless of the
human interpreter.
The role of the pastor is stillincredibly significant to

(19:54):
communicate the word rightly,because it leads to a the word
going out more effectively, andthere's probably a lot of people
who didn't come to faithbecause of all the stumbling
blocks in that teaching.
And then, for those who arereally having their heart
changed by the lord, that growthis just not being rightly fed

(20:14):
at the same time.
And so I still do think there'sa significant role in the word
being taught in a way that'sfaithful to the text on this
kind of thing.
So I'm not trying to disparagethat in saying that people can
come to faith in the Catholicchurch just through the readings
of the old Testament, the newTestament and and seeing the
beauty of Christ laid out inGod's own word, and so but yeah,

(20:36):
man.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
That's a couple, a couple of things that I think
made me.
That triggered questions for me.
One, when okay, when you wouldgo talk to that priest.
Okay, first off, I'm assuming apriest is accessible to the

(21:02):
laity and outside ofconfessional, that, depending on
the size of the congregation,you have access to the laity and
outside of confessional that,depending on the size of the
congregation, you have access tothe priest.
So this is more for people thatjust don't understand how it
works.
Yeah.
You go have a conversation withthat priest, the same way as a
Baptist person go have aconversation with one of their
pastors, and then when you'retalking about biblical

(21:27):
interpretation, the idea is inthe Catholic church, would you
say that part of what took thechurch down the path that she
went down which ultimately ledup to maybe the Reformation, the
Protestant Reformation down,which ultimately led up to maybe
the Reformation, the ProtestantReformation, was because of

(21:48):
that obstruction tointerpretation and particularly
with worship services throughthe Middle Ages being led in
Latin, people couldn'tunderstand Latin, and so now,
interpretation and translation.
There's so much going on wherepeople are left to just trust
what the priest is telling them.
They cannot check it forthemselves, like the bereans,

(22:09):
who are more noble than thethessalonians, right, so they
can't check the scriptures.
It's not even, um, we caninterpret it.
They don't have a translationin their language.
Right?
That was happening in parts ofEurope, germany.
That was part of what was goingon at Luther's time.
So, were there?
Is there now that you can speakobjectively to this, but with

(22:33):
intimate knowledge?
Were there?

Speaker 3 (22:35):
was that a big part of the abuses, theologically,
that were taking place duringthat time Was that the priests
were saying one thing and thepeople could not check what the
priest was saying, against thescriptures I think so, um and,
but I think there were checksand balances there okay, talk
about that one thing you knowluther even talks about is that

(22:57):
he was made some people don'trealize this he was made a
doctor of the church, and adoctor wasn't like you go get a
phd, kind of more, like it isnow, although I think they're
connected, those two systems inhistory somewhere.
But you know, it means that hehad at some point in his journey
in the Catholic church been setapart as someone who was
supposed to guard the doctrineof the faith.
And he would refer back to thatconstantly when he was being

(23:20):
criticized and say, hey, youguys made me a defender of the
right teaching of the wordwithin the church.
And so he would claim and heactually felt it very important
that that was the case.
And so again, it wasn't like apure absence or vacuum of

(23:41):
checking the word with what thechurch is currently practicing.
Because something people alsodon't realize or I think more
people do now is there were alot of reformations prior to
Luther.
They didn't always follow thesame pattern and a lot of them
were monastic reformations.
So usually in the CatholicChurch you would see the
corruption and then you'd gostart a monastery of brothers

(24:02):
and you're like we're going toreally live out the faith in
this kind of sequesteredcommunity or a convent with nuns
or whatever it was, and sotypically reformations were
monastic, meaning you know you'dgo, you would withdraw to try
and live a holier life and youwould see your role in the
church at that point is not, inthe same way, not saying you

(24:23):
know the church is terrible orit's whatever they would say.
Our role is to withdraw andpray.
You know, for those who areoutside of this monastery and
really devote their lives toholiness and prayer, there was
pros and cons and all those.
I think Christians in generalbecause they have the word have
always been reforming, havealways been trying to get back

(24:45):
to the root of what does thescripture say.
Because you can see anytimeyou're dealing with people, and
even the catholic church,they're self-aware of abuses and
you know hypocrisy within thekind of ecclesial authority and
all those kind of things likethey've always been attempting
to deal with that in a varietyof ways.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Um, and you know now that you're on this side of the
conversation, the baptist worldcannot take the moral high
ground when it comes to, uh,moral failure abuses.
Yeah, I mean oh yeah, no one'sbeen.
If you're protestant, you loveto talk about the spotlight
that's been put on the catholicchurch.
Right, but how about thespotlight that's been put on?

(25:25):
oh yeah baptist, and you knowit's just crazy, it came out.
You saw, it came out last week.
Yeah, the guy, uh, truettmcconnell, former vp.
Did you see this?
No, I did not.
Okay, this came out.
Jb sent me this.
Uh, this guy was a vp at truettmcconnell.
Truett mcconnell is it's baylorseminary um, it's uh, no, no,
truett mcconnell is a uh, biblecollege.

(25:47):
I mean, it's a baptist.
Oh, I see, four-year university,yep, in georgia that's overseen
by the georgia baptist okay andso they have their own board of
trustees, but they answer, Ithink, somehow directly or
indirectly to the georgiabaptist, I see.
So it's a state where whathappened was the vice president.
It's come out this past weekthat the vice president has been

(26:08):
accused of grooming a girl fromthe time she came in as a
freshman and she's got 350incriminating emails over a
10-year span.
Where she was a brand-newbeliever, he took her into his
home to disciple her he and hisfamily Then he started to
isolate her.
Then he started to disciple herand then it went from there.
Her, then he started todisciple her and then it went

(26:31):
from there.
So I mean, it's like thosestories come out of the baptist
church as I uh, ding, ding, ding, as often as they come out of
the catholic church.
We don't have moral high groundthere.
So one thing I've always I'vejust personally felt was that I
get frustrated when protestants,and particularly baptists,
imply that the Catholic churchis is broken because of all the
abuses.
Yeah, and we have.

(26:52):
Well, sure there's abuses andsure they need to be accounted
for and God will deal with that.
But I do think something thatwas really enlightened and
insightful for me last night isI'm I talked about some friends
that we have that are devoutCatholic and they're they're
they're more faithful to theirchurch than probably we are to
ours, it feels like a lot oftimes, and they're very faithful

(27:12):
in their marriage and they'vebeen very faithful in the way
they've raised their childrenand the nurture and the
admonition of what they believeis the Lord's plan for their
kids' lives.
And so in that conversation Imade the comment it feels like
they would believe that they aresaved by grace and in faith
alone.
By grace alone, uh, throughchrist alone, uh.

(27:36):
And you made a comment.
You said, well, in grace alone,yes, christ alone yes.
But they would say faith andworks yes, could you elaborate
on that a little bit yeah, so um, and I think that's when you
said it's kind of Augustinian.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yep, yep.
So the best of Catholics areAugustinian and um best, being
most Orthodox.
Most, yeah, most faithful to thetext.
So, uh, augustine was superimportant for me as a, as a
younger Catholic.
Um, people would encourage hisworks to me and, like you know,
the confessions and stuff likethat, great things, and so, um,

(28:10):
that was something I came intothe Protestant church with, was
something Catholics do reallywell is the Trinitarian theology
.
Is is rock solid, even whenwe've been, we've messed around,
you know, sometimes and triedto do weird, you know apply the
modalism or modalism apply theTrinity to gender roles too much
.
Again, there are some helpfulcomparisons there that Paul
makes even, but, like you know,when we're doing innovative

(28:33):
things that we shouldn't bedoing, the Catholic Church has
really stood firm on that.
And the other thing is, youknow, a deep love for the early
church.
Augustine is so cool to mebecause of all the early church
fathers.
They're dealing with theseChristological debates.
They're dealing with theseChristological debates.
They're dealing with thesedebates around the Trinity and
they're opposing various views.

(28:54):
And the church is really takingthat first few hundred years to
solidify the doctrine that'salready there in the scripture
but it needs to be articulatedand it needs to be universally
practiced and agreed upon sothat we can have a consistent
witness.
And so a lot of the effort ofthe early church is applied to
this Trinitarian doctrine.
Then later, theseChristological debates.

(29:16):
And Augustine, I think thereason why he talks about grace
so much and I think why hebecame such an important figure
for the whole history of thechurch.
Everyone claims him, everybodywants Augustine to agree with
them, and that's a testament tothe how prolific he was, but
then also how wide reaching hiskind of doctrinal statements
went.
You know that if you're aMethodist, you think you're

(29:36):
Augustinian more so than anyoneelse, if you're Lutheran, if
you're Baptist, if you'reCatholic.
And so one of the reasons whyhe was able to devote so much
attention to grace is, for thefirst time in the history of the
church, a lot of those firstdebates are being settled, and
so he almost has a little bitmore time on his plate now to
start turning his attention toother things.
And something he becomes reallyenamored with is this question

(29:59):
of the relationship betweenfaith and works.
He becomes enamored with God'spredestining grace in a way that
you know, especially later inhis life, in a way that other
early church fathers will touchupon and they'll preach on it,
but it's not their kind ofdominating focus.
And so Augustine is superimportant, and the best
Catholics are still followinghim in a lot of those lines, and

(30:21):
particularly in.
You know there's two reallyimportant things he wrote on
this that I think really clarifyhis position and why so many
people fight over him.
It's two they're shorter books.
The first one is called on thespirit and the letter.
He wrote it around four, 12.
And if you read on the spiritand the letter like the first
time I read it I thought I wasreading a John Piper book.

(30:43):
It's ridiculous how similar andI don't you know.
I'm sure now I wouldn't but atfirst it's shocking how similar
it sounds the way that like amodern day reformed Protestant
would articulate justification,salvation apart from works,
things like that.
Because he really wants tostress in that letter how
important it is that it'sthrough God's grace only that we

(31:08):
come into a saving relationshipwith him.
He said you can't do anythingto approach God apart from him,
and he's really pressing thathome and it's a great discussion
.
But he writes another letter Ican't remember which one is
first or second now, but it'scalled On Faith and Works and he
clarifies in that one that hestill does believe that works
have some justifying element tothem.

(31:31):
And you know there's aprofessor I had in seminary who
disagreed with me on this point,so I could be wrong.
He really holds it down.
He's Lutheran.
He holds it down that Augustinewas really functionally in
alignment with the reformers,and particularly Luther in
particular.
I think there's one thing herewhere Augustine thought that
you're saved by God's grace andhis grace alone, meaning that

(31:54):
whatever you have, whatevermerit you have, it is supplied
by God's grace.
He gives you the faith that youbelieve in him.
That's a gift and we wouldagree with that.
Augustine would also say thereis some sense in which God looks
on you in the final judgmentand will justify you according
to your works.
But Augustine will say there'sstill no room for boasting in
that, because he gave you thoseworks as a gift.

(32:15):
And so it's almost like thewater bottle analogy you just
used, where God hands you theworks and then he justifies you
for them.
This is what Augustine says.
So you know now, you know again.
Not everyone would agree on.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Which the water bottle illustration was not
about works, it was aboutsalvation.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
But yes, what we would say about faith.
He would also say about worksand so we would articulate that
differently.
We will, and a lot of thisdebate, if you really want to
get into, like the CatholicProtestant debate around
Augustine and why thejustification language is so
confusing.
A lot of it is because in Latinthe word I think it's estia, I

(32:54):
didn't learn Latin so forgive mefor that but the word for
justification, in Latin it hastwo meanings that we would in
English use two words todescribe one word that they had.
And the same is true in Greekwhen Paul talks about
justification or when anotherNew Testament author you know
kind of famously James talksabout justification, it's not
always being used with the samemeaning.

(33:14):
So in English we will say theword vindicate for the other
meaning of justification,meaning if we're in a
conversation and I say that youwere justified, I could mean
that you were made right, but Icould also mean that you were
shown to have been right.
And so if you're having anargument and a third party comes
in and justifies you, theydidn't by say they give some

(33:38):
kind of evidence that shows youwere right.
They weren't making you correctby justifying you, they were
showing you to have been in theright.
And a lot of the confusion comesbecause you know the New
Testament authors.
But then also you know latereven Augustine will use the word
justification and it's kind ofhard to piece out when you're
reading him which one he'sreferring to and what the
relationship is.
And he's not even as interestedas we are later at piecing

(34:00):
those two things out.
And so you know a famousexample of this in scripture.
I think it's first Timothy3.16,.
You know it's the mystery.
I think it's the mystery ofgodliness.
You know it says that Christ isoh, I'm blanking on what it is,
but basically he says at onepoint in 1 Timothy 3.16 that
Christ was vindicated by theSpirit, by the Spirit yep.

(34:28):
And that word is the same wordwe'd use for justified.
You know when Paul talks aboutit in Romans.
But it's so clear that Paul isnot saying that Christ was made
righteous by the.
Spirit that we know, we have toknow.
He's saying that the Spiritshowed Christ to have been
righteous, he justified Christin the sense of showed him to be
, just to be, in the right, andso, anyway, there's a lot that
goes into that argument.

(34:48):
It's really difficult to pieceout.
Like I remember, later inundergrad I really tried to
apply myself to that issue and Iwas like I'm going to figure it
out, I want my hands around itand to be able to grasp it, and
it was slippery.
It's hard reading Augustinefiguring out.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
The bottom line, then is sorry, yeah, the grace alone
.
No, no, no, no To what you'resaying there.
If I was going to try toexplain that to somebody, I
would be safe to say like if I'mspeaking to a Protestant who
has misconceptions about whatCatholics believe, I could say

(35:22):
in Augustinian theology orsoteriology it's not as simple
as saying, oh, they believe insalvation by works.
But it's also not okay to saythey believe you're justified by
faith alone.
Yes, it's somewhere between that, that we've got to reconcile
those two.
But people tend to think oh,because I've always heard.

(35:43):
Well, Catholics believe you'rejustified by works.
Yep, it's not simple enough tosay that.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
It's not so simple, especially not in the
Augustinian tradition.
Right, but because he reallywould say you are saved by grace
alone.
And he'll use that term and youknow so.
The term grace alone appears inAugustine's works.
Like you can read it, you willnever find the words faith alone
, unless he's saying them in anegative context, saying that

(36:09):
it's not correct, because he'strying to fight against the same
thing James is trying to fightagainst, which is, you know.
He has one example in his OnFaith and Works where he says if
a man is, you know, living withhis concubine, living with the
woman, he shouldn't be.
That's his own life experience.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
That's what he came out of?

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, but he says, if that man wants to be baptized
right now, he would say I wouldtell that man go settle that
situation and then come backbecause he wants to really make
sure that someone is sure thatChrist is not only their savior
but also the Lord.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
That's what he's really trying to hold up in that
moment, and so he doesn't wantevidence that that person has
surrendered to the lord and isnow walking in obedience to his
commands yes, he might.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
He might have some issue.
You know, if we were to say,hey, come as you are, he would
say, well, I agree with that ina sense.
But, like you know, let's makesure that you understand that
you can count the cost, that youcan really say I understand
what it means that if I become achristian, I need to turn away
from sin, declare Christ as Lord.
It doesn't mean I'll be perfectright now.
Augustine didn't think that hewas someone who welcomed in the

(37:15):
sinner, but also, at the sametime, he wanted them to
understand that Christ wantedlordship over their life.
And so I'm not trying to saythat to defend his articulation
of that, but it's—.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Isn't it true?
Didn't Jonathan Edwards teachthat, yeah, yeah, and practice
that in his, in his pastoral somuch so that jonathan edwards
was frequently accused ofsounding catholic.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Um, and yeah, he's, jonathan edwards, uh, was a a
frequent um, what's the word?
Plagiarizer of Augustine heloved.
You know, if you go readJonathan Edwards on the Trinity,
he just copy and pasteAugustine on the Trinity.
And Jonathan Edwards lovedAugustine and he loved the way

(38:01):
that he articulatedjustification.
He had disagreements with itand so Jonathan Edwards is a
great example of someone whowould fall just over the razor's
edge of Augustine being on theone side.
And if you really pushedAugustine, he would say yes,
you're saved by faith and works.
Jonathan Edwards wouldarticulate justification in
almost the same way as him, buthe would not finally say you are

(38:22):
saved by faith and works.
He will say you're saved byfaith alone.
But I think Edwards would findhimself very much so in line
with Augustine where he wouldsay that and I think this is
where that Lutheran professor iscorrect and this is where I
would agree with both of them onthis Augustine was trying to
get across the same scripturaltruths that we were.

(38:44):
So while I don't think that hefinally would articulate the
doctrine the same way becauseagain, I don't want to be in an
argument with a Catholic andthen be just able to point to it
and say, hey, you're justdefinitively wrong.
At this point I do think thespirit of what Augustine was
getting at was very similar, ifnot identical, to what the
reformers were trying to get atin Luther and Calvin, and that's

(39:06):
why they claim him, that's whywe claim Augustine I think
legitimately and that's why he'ssuch an important part of this
conversation.
So I'll just say when you'retalking to a Catholic so many of
them are Augustinian becausethey really want to hold up you
can find Catholics who aretalking about predestination.
Augustine was specific.
Towards the end of his life hereally thought a lot about
predestination, aboutpredestination, and so there are

(39:35):
a lot of Catholics who they getat Paul's real concern in 1
Corinthians 4-7.
If everything you've receivedis a gift, why do you boast as
if it's not a gift?
And then Paul, all throughoutRomans, this real concern of the
removal of boasting.
That's what Paul's after and Ithink you can get that in
Augustine, even with hisarticulation of works.
I would say, hey, it's wrong tosay you're justified by faith
and works, but the way thatAugustine articulates it is

(39:58):
still in a way that he preservesthe removal of boasting, which
I think is where the gospelbecomes so clear to us, is when
you can look at God and say I'vebrought nothing to this
conversation.
I brought nothing to the tablehere.
Whatever I have, for whateverreason, you see me as right in
your eyes.
It was not because of me,purely because of the work of
Christ, and so I think that'ssomething that we would agree on

(40:20):
at times again with the best ofRoman Catholics.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
When Paul says to the Galatians that meganoito state,
may it never be.
God forbid that I would boast,except in the cross of Christ
Jesus.
Yeah, that's, that's helpful.
We're talking about Hopefullydispelling some misconceptions
that people who got theirCatholic theology from watching

(40:46):
boondock saints you know.
Yeah, like that, this is veryinsightful and I think,
unfortunately, the people tendto stereotype and categorize and
pigeonhole someone that doesn'thold their, their belief system
or their point of view onsomething, and so hopefully,
this is insightful.
So, okay, let's go back in yourpersonal story.

(41:08):
Where was that point?
You talked about how it wasabout a three-year like I think
I came to.
I think I actually came to truesaving faith in the catholic
church and that's where theconversion occurred.
What was that thing?
That?
And then I want to segue thisinto the next question, so I'll
give you both questions so thatthat way, if it all flows, you

(41:29):
can just take that.
What was it that took you inthat sort of that final step
into I'm turning from this, fromthe Catholic Church, I'm
embracing Protestantism, andthen so what, what was it for
you, that that final step?
And then what would you say tosomeone who is okay, let's

(41:51):
reverse this a little bit.
We talked about this last night.
There's a massive shift rightnow with young people who you're
seeing this massive movementtoward the Catholic Church.
What would you say to someonewho's wrestling with that and
considering going the oppositedirection of?
How you went, Make sense yeahit does.
Okay.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
I think there were a lot.
It's like I said, there are alot of moments, um, cause I
stayed in both churches for afull year.
I would go to both.
Um, I would go to mass in theevenings.
We had a our youth, you know,or the contemporary service they
had was in the evenings, kindof our version of that now.
But but I stayed in both for ayear and I would have like Bible
studies with these otherCatholic students, I know, and I

(42:34):
was evangelizing and there werefriends who left the Catholic
church with me as a result ofthat and so you know, I had a
friend named Sam and he and Iwould meet up with students and
we would read the Bible and we'dargue about things.
And you know, sadly, I've metsome of them later and some of
them we talked out ofCatholicism and never into
Protestantism and so they'reatheist or agnostic now.

(42:57):
So it was imperfect and reallywe were just trying to— we were
doubting the kind of Catholictheological system we were in,
imperfectly and we were tryingto evangelize and share the
gospel with others.
And there were students wholeft when I did as well and
became protestant not all at thesame time.
It was like a trickle, but, um,yeah, I think there was that

(43:19):
year of overlap where I wasreally there until it was
unhelpful, you know, I thinkuntil I, pretty much everyone in
the catholic church was like,okay, you know, I, they would
have never said to leave.
But it was like, okay, you know, I, they would have never said
to leave.
But it was like I was just kindof openly proselytizing, you
know, students also in the youthgroup, and so I understand, you
know the the tension that beganto rise in those moments and

(43:39):
conversations and stuff and um,I remember our youth were
allowed to teach sometimes andso I was.
Even, you know, I was givingteaching opportunities and stuff
in my youth group and duringthat year.
Yeah, and I was talking about,you know, grace and faith and
all those kind of things.
And eventually, you know, oneof our youth coordinators was
like hey, some parents are likewhat's going on here?
And that's in the samesituation with us.

(44:02):
We would be like that's not good, you know, and so but yeah,
there were a lot of, so itwasn't this firm break.
I do I do remember the day thatI left and did not come back,
and I've I've been to Mass withmy family in years, following at
times and stuff, so but just tokind of ideologically, I knew
that I was leaving.
I was just sitting on theground.
One day we all sat on theground.
For some reason we didn't havechairs in our youth group.

(44:23):
I don't think it was a culturalthing, we just did it, we just
did it.
Yeah, somebody was on the stageand we all just sat on the
carpet.
But, um, but I just remembersitting there one day and just
like I'm not a big audible voiceof the lord guy, but I just
remember god was like all right,you're out, you're done.
This is it last day okay and um,I left that day and just didn't
come back the next week wow andum, but yeah, I remember it was

(44:46):
a distinct, that was a distinctmoment, but that was after a
year of me being functionallyout the door, and that would
have been like your senior yearin high school.
At some point during the senioryear.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
And at that point had you decided to go to a Baptist
college.
No, so I.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
I had intended to go to UGA and um, do like business
or law.
I had no intention of doingministry.
I knew I liked to teach.
I loved thinking about the word, but it wasn't until I started
going to the.
It was a non-drama, you know,functionally.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
He just smirked because JB is behind this camera
and she is a radical.
She is a jihadist for theUniversity of Georgia, nice, are
you barking over there?
Yeah, I knew that just made herday, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, so I grew up in Gwinnett but I really wanted to
go to UGA and that was the plan.
And then somebody at our churchyou know is one of those, like
old lady comes up to you andtells you you're going to be a
pastor moments.
And.
I was like, oh, I don't reallythink so, you know.
But I talked to a pastor thereand you know he's like hey, and
he's like hey, I think youshould really consider.

(45:48):
He's like the church wanted tokind of call me into ministry.
I know that looks different fordifferent denominations and I
probably wouldn't even think thesame way about ordination as
that church I first startedgoing to there.
But they said, hey, we want youto really consider what going
into ministry would look like.
And so I was fine going to UGAand getting a business degree
and then going to seminary.

(46:08):
Afterward I actually thoughtthat was that sounded really
smart to me, um, to get thatkind of both experiences and
tools and whatnot, and but I Ireally had begun thinking I'd
like to become a professor, sothat was my desire at the time.
And there's a lot of guys who gothrough seminary and they want
to be a professor and then theyend up not doing it, and I was

(46:32):
one of those.
But, um, so in undergrad,though, I started meeting up
with this old Testamentprofessor.
Um, I was friends with hisdaughter.
She went to the same youthgroup as I was in and the
Protestant church and, um, yeah,I was just talking to her one
day and she's like, yeah, mydad's an old Testament professor
.
And I was like, oh, I need tomeet your dad.
And so, yeah, he was a guy.
He was teaching at Candler,which is a Methodist seminary in
Atlanta, and he's a fascinatingguy.

(46:54):
He's a minor prophet scholarand we would just meet up and he
would talk to me about the OldTestament and why he thought it
was so significant and justinsights he'd learned.
And I told him.
I was like, hey, if I wanted tobe a professor, what are the
next steps?
What should I start thisjourney?
Looking like?
And you know he said hey, youshould really consider getting
an undergrad in religion ifyou're hoping to teach at some

(47:15):
point.
And looking back, I'm reallythankful I did that because I
really enjoy.
I went to Samford university.
He recommended Samford andBarry and I went to both and
ended up at Samford.
But, um, yeah, but it endedended up there and it was
something we talked about lastnight.
You know the religiondepartment in the undergrad
there is split.
You know there's someprogressive and some
conservative professors.

(47:35):
But I learned a lot and I had areally good time doing that.
But he was the guy who kind ofpushed me in that direction.
So I found myself after senioryear with ruined college plans
and so I took a gap year and Iworked for that church under a
youth pastor the same youthpastor, just kind of followed
him around for a year.
And, um, one thing that was funis I worked as a lifeguard at a

(47:58):
indoor pool all year, so throughthe winter not a lot of people
go to the pool in the winter andso functionally I sat alone in
a room for a year.
You know, there was old ladyclasses, you who'd come and do
water aerobics and stuff likethat, but not a ton of people in
there.
And I'll say, first year reallyconsidering ministry, pursuing
ministry, sitting in a roomalone for 20 hours a week was

(48:19):
almost as impactful as the timeworking in that church under
their leadership.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
It was monastic.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
It was monastic because it gave me as a young
man your mind is, I was sofoolish and I was still am very
talkative, but I was like I was,uh, I was not good at the you
know, uh, speaking little andlistening much, and so just
sitting alone in silence for awhile was it was really
impactful for me.
Um, I was able to like, reallydevote myself to prayer and I

(48:47):
remember so, uh, I just found,like you know, john Piper and um
, ask pastor John and that theweekly newsletter he had sent
out and so just, you know, Iwould read that and I would, I'd
read before I went to college,I just read whatever people
would give me, and so there's alot of Jonathan Edwards, it was
a lot of Augustine and earlychurch fathers.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Yeah, somebody gave me this like spiral bound, like
seven of his books that werekind of put into one volume, and
I read through those and, yeah,the, the classics, and I
decided to sit in that roomalone, cause you can kind of
read if no one's in there and soI just read and I prayed and
did a lot of pacing and, yeah,that was.

(49:27):
That was really impactful forme.
I do want to get back to thatquestion you asked, though,
about um, the person who'sconsidering becoming Catholic.
If you don't mind, there is alarge number of people, usually
younger and usually conservativepeople, who are moving towards
Catholicism, and even Eastern.

(49:48):
Orthodoxy now and stuff likethat.
And a lot of it's throughInstagram or YouTube and things
like that where people arewatching videos or YouTube and
things like that where peopleare watching videos.
But a lot of it is also thatthere's two big things, I think,
that have led to that shift.
I think the first is that we'rein I'm going to use a big word
and then I'm going to explain itI think we're in a little bit

(50:10):
of an epistemological crisis,you know, in the sense of we're
unsure about the foundation, ofwhere truth comes from.
And so Protestantism, whichtells you hey, you need to learn
to interpret the word, and itit feels arbitrary to a lot of
people that I could have oneinterpretation and he could have
another, she could have another, and so the firmness of the

(50:30):
Catholic church, I think, isuniquely appealing in a time
like this.
I think that you can kind ofhit the eject button on the
conversation a little bit andsay, hey, one true church.
It teaches apostolically,authoritatively, and I can yield
to that.
And again, I think there arebiblical impulses there, even if

(50:51):
I think they're a little bitmisguided.
But, yeah, that sprint towardssecurity and firmness where
people are not feeling thatfirmness or that security is a
big deal, I think also somethingparticular with Eastern
Orthodoxy, but also withCatholicism.
A lot of young men are justpursuing traditionalism,

(51:14):
basically, and I think we are toblame for a lot of that as
Protestants.
I think that, especially overthe past four to eight years, we
consider anything sometimes,especially in the Baptist world,
I think we've been guilty of.
Anything is good if it'sconservative and we've really
kind of left behind.
Is it biblical?
And that was a mistake, becauseEastern Orthodoxy is more

(51:36):
conservative than we are.
There's no way to get aroundthat.
You know they'll.
They'll hang up the image ofthe you know, I don't know, like
a rembrandt painting or like aslaughtered lamb holding a cross
, leading an army, or somethinglike that, and you're like heck,
yeah, dude that's you know ifyou're like a you know if you,
if you've just been told our,our society is soft and we need

(51:57):
to just be conservative at allcosts.
There's ramifications for thattheologically, if it's not
word-centered, and so I thinkthat's a big issue.
If you're on Instagram Reelsand there's a guy with a giant
beard and robes and a collarsaying that you know, young men
need to pull their pants up andstuff like that, you're like
that sounds, that sounds.
My Protestant church seems alittle soft compared to what

(52:20):
they're offering, and so I thinkwe've trained people a little
bit just to be as hard as theycan, and that is a mistake if
it's not biblically driven.
Something I've loved we did anight where we broke off into
men and women, and John taughtthrough biblical masculinity and
it was in, you know, johntaught through, uh, biblical
masculinity and it was in a waythat I really appreciated.
I didn't know what to expect.

(52:41):
This is my first year here andI was, like you know, I don't
know what he's going to say itcan be anything.
You know the biblicalmasculinity talk and he really
just laid out you know that itbeing, you know, biblically
masculine means following Christ, um, and a lot of the things
that make a man biblical or make, and a lot of the things that
make a man biblical or makebiblical manhood, make biblical
womanhood.
So if you said in point one.
You know, men lay down theirauthority and submit to Christ's

(53:03):
authority.
Women do as well, and sothere's a lot of ways in which
clinging to the text, clingingto what the word teaches us, and
not just whatever is culturallyconservative, is good.
I think that's led a lot ofpeople down the route of what's
the firmest, strongest thing Ican find, and even if it's a

(53:25):
human authority, I'll cling tothat.
But I would hate to bemischaracterized myself, and so
I don't want to bemischaracterizing.
That's not why all Catholicsare.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Yeah, but I think that's insightful and I think
that's not why all.
Catholics are, are, yeah, but Ithink that's insightful and I
think that's helpful and youhave a to.
I know it's not a uniqueperspective, but it's fairly
unique.
It's not.
It's not a.
There's not a lot of peoplethat have your story and, if
anything, people are going inthe opposite direction, sure,
and I I think, uh, we, whatyou're describing, we see in so

(53:56):
many different ways in ourculture right now, whether that
is, look at last year's electionand how much was talked about
young men, young black men,young, you know so many young
dudes that were saying we'retired of this, the softness or
the progressivism or the genderconfusion or the LGBTQ, whatever
it is.
We want something strong, wewant somebody that says the

(54:17):
things that resonate with us.
But then, when you look at thetrends in the world of
podcasting and social media,it's amazing how much traction
you see with podcasts or socialmedia accounts, with guys that
are pushing some type ofmasculinity, whether that's the

(54:41):
tape brothers or the, the guy.
There's these brothers, one ofthem's a boxer.
Now, forget their names.
Um, people would be able, kidswould be jake paul.
Jake paul, okay, yeah, okay,you know, just weird, like very,
um, strange, but like trying topush this sort of secular idea
of masculinity.
But then you look at, there'sthis massive ex-military

(55:04):
community that are so popular inthat world right now and so
clearly there's this thing thatpeople are drawn to.
Well, the scriptures neverstopped teaching that what men
are to be and what women are tobe, teaching that what, what men
are to be and what women are tobe, and um, but it makes sense
here and you say that peoplehave been informed of their
masculinity from the secularworld and I think maybe with

(55:26):
young we're speaking to youngmen rather than from the
scripture.
And so now they're, they'reseeing a path to a place where
we can kind of get thismasculine ideology or identity
with a conservative andtheological framework, because
we've dropped the ball in inprotestant circles with that.

(55:46):
Yeah, that makes sense.
What about?
Um?
This is kind of what, what umtalk about the apocrypha,
because we had, we just we giveout at graduation.
We give our students thatgraduate from our student
ministry at our church.
We give them, uh, uh, a reallynice Bible, like an heirloom,

(56:08):
quality Bible.
Okay, um, goatskin or whateverthey choose, a scholar or a or
or a Cambridge, but a $300 Bible.
Yeah.
And so one of our dudes, the guyyou met last night, hank, the
former NASCAR driver who told areally funny story about going
to the Catholic church andputting the Eucharist in his

(56:29):
pocket.
That might be fun to talk about.
I think people would enjoy that.
His son asked for his Bible toinclude the Apocrypha and I
haven't got to talk to him yet.
I'm like that's interesting, sotalk just briefly, just super
brief.
What is it?
Why is it in the Catholic Bible, not in the Protestant Bible?

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, so people disagree about this.
I remember one of the firstthings I read as a Protestant
was Wayne Groom SystematicTheology, and I remember reading
it and being like I don't thinkthis is accurate.
At least on that one part wherehe talks about the canon and
how it came together, becausethe Catholic understanding is
different and even inProtestantism there's different

(57:10):
understandings andinterpretations because, history
is complicated, butfundamentally, first of all,
what Catholics call thatparticular portion of the
Apocrypha that they have in theBible is called the Deuterocanon
or the Deuterocanonical books.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Okay, so there's more Apocryphal writings that are
not included in that, so any.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
New Testament Apocrypha.
We would both considerApocrypha.
Okay.
You know Gospel of Thomas.
Gospel of Thomas is not in theCatholic Bible.
Okay.
You know, Gospel of Thomas.
Gospel of Thomas is not in theCatholic Bible.
Okay, there are a few.
I'm a bad former Catholic fornot knowing how many.
I think it's seven.
Is it seven?

Speaker 2 (57:44):
I think that's right.
I think it's seven.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Books that are included in the Catholic Bible,
that are not in the Protestant,particularly from the Old
Testament that are consideredthe Deuterocanon.
Deuterocanonical books, andeven not all of the Old
Testament apocryphal books havemade it into the Catholic Bible,
so it's just these particularones we're talking about, and so
saying Deuterocanon is maybe alittle bit of a nod to them, but

(58:12):
then it's also a helpful way ofarticulating what we mean when
we say that there's more booksin the Catholic Bible, because
when you hear the word apocrypha, if someone's like you know the
epistle, the epistle ofBarnabas, or you know, not all
the apocrypha is in the CatholicBible because the word
apocrypha, if something'sapocryphal yeah by definition,
it's false yep other it's so,it's outside of the canon.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
So if you say something is so, what you're
saying is those say that wordagain, deuter deuterocanonical
deuterocanonical, those bookswill be the ones that are
revered or held as sacredwritings.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Yep, and even the word.
So when we get the deuteronomyin the bible is the second
giving of the lawdeuterocanonical and so it's the
second canon.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Okay, yeah okay, and are all the apocryphal books
that are included in that?
Are they all from theintertestamental period or no?

Speaker 3 (59:04):
yes, I know the more or less I think yes okay so
second temple, judaism period,intertestamental kind of.
It's more complicated becausethere's like longer endings to
books that we already have andstuff like that, um and so uh,
but yes, generally speakingthey're going to be later and

(59:24):
really how the churchhistorically has understood
those books.
Meaning, you know, prior to thereformation people were divided
.
So church fathers even you knowaugustine tertullian did not
agree on uh and they weren't inconversation on this, I don't
think.
But you know various churchfathers will say different
things about variousDeuterocanonical books.
They either thought should orshould not be included or how

(59:47):
they should be considered asGod's word in comparison to
other things.
People weren't sure.
So that's the thing I thinkmost people don't realize is
that it was an unsettled debatefor a long time.
I think most people don'trealize is that it was an
unsettled debate for a long time.
They kind of slowly over timebecame more crystallized, but
never so formally as in thereformation that they were in,
you know.
But how the early church sawthem when they did consider them

(01:00:08):
as scripture or Jason toscripture, was that they were
Jewish commentary on the oldTestament, if you want to think
of it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
That's wonderful.
That's very insightful Jewishcommentary on the Old Testament.
If you want to think of it thatway.
That's wonderful.
That's very insightful.
Jewish commentary on the OldTestament.
Yeah, which is why there aresome works there that are
continuation of older Jewishworks.
Okay, that's very insightful.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Yeah, so I think to really understand that
conversation someone would needlearn more about like the talmud
and how jewish commentary andlike uh midrash kind of works
okay because it's it's not likea, you know, an english
commentary where you pick it upand it's it's kind of formal,
it's logical, it's following the, the grammar of the text.
It has all that, but then italso has interpretation and even

(01:00:53):
like allegorical and at timesmystical elements, and so
dragons yep, dragons, dragonsmake it in and um which, by the
way, I don't think are mysticalokay yes, and so you know you
can find all these kind ofdiverse elements in in jewish
commentary and stuff like that,and so you know when you're
reading the book of, say tobit,that's one of them.

(01:01:14):
You know when you're reading it.
It's funny because if you all,if all you knew is that it's a
hot hotbed for theologicaldebate and everyone was just
arguing whether it's in there ornot, if you go read it it's a
very tame story.
It's just like a guy and mymemory from catholic, uh um yeah
, how old are you now?

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
uh 25 so this was eight years.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Nine years ago I was probably a middle, you know, I
don't remember whether.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I read Tobit, you've read a few things since then.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Yes, I may have forgotten some details of.
Tobit.
So if there's any listenersthat are more familiar, forgive
me, but from my remembrance it'sa guy who is just kind of like
pretty negative and I think he'slike sitting against a wall and
a bird poops in his eye and hegoes blind and his wife
basically he's just like hey,that's the icing on the cake.

(01:02:02):
My life stinks.
And his wife is just kind ofcoming in and talking about how
the Lord is really blessing herand their family and she's
trying to get him to see God'sgrace and goodness towards them
and she's like I think somerandom stranger gave him a goat
or something like that.
And he's like I think like somerandom stranger gave him a goat
or something like that.
And he's like lady, you're lying, like no one gave you a goat,
you're just talking so I thinkit's just kind of him being

(01:02:23):
really negative and his wifejust experiencing god's goodness
, and I think god is just kindof trying to like circumvent his
perspective on the world andit's you know, um, so it's not
really like you know, because alot of people know that a lot of
the purgatory debate kind ofrest or falls on.
Um, it's a comment made about,you know, kind of a pretty vague

(01:02:44):
comment made on the afterlifein one of the books, and so, um,
the doctrine of purgatory yeah,for listeners is is rooted in
those apocryphal writingsthere's at least one line that
catholics don't predominantlydraw their interpretation of
that from okay, the deuterocanon.
It's just that one, okay, thatone part, um.
So really most of it is not.

(01:03:05):
It's like the history of themaccabees and stuff like that
and this revolt and so which isso fun?
yeah, but you, we can read thatas a resource, I think, as
protestants, and see it as notauthoritative scripture but as
insightful literature to gainperspective on what that time
period looked like in secondtemple Judaism.
You know, um, you get like theas uh, um, as draws, I think.

(01:03:27):
I don't remember how topronounce it, but there's, I
remember there's a really coolum.
You can read the second templeliterature and you get to study
what was the Jewish expectationof the Messiah, what did they
think God's final solution wasgoing to look like?
I can't remember what text itis, but there's one where a
Jewish teacher is wrestling andhe's like I know that God is

(01:03:48):
all-powerful and that he's justand that his people have always
sinned and we have always turnedaway from the prophets that he
sent us, and I know that he'smade these promises to us and I
just don't know how he's goingto kind of fit it all together,
and so you get stuff like thatin there, you know.
So it's like um, he's like howhow will God reconcile his, his

(01:04:10):
mercy and his justice?
And so, again, you can go inlike that's insightful.
Yes.
I don, and so again you can goin like that's insightful.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
I'm not going to treat it as authoritative
scripture, but we don't alwaysneed to have the attitude that
it's like a purely negativething Because, excuse me, we
also don't treat Augustine orEdwards or Piper as
authoritative scripture.
But we are so edified, exhorted, equipped.
There's so much to be learnedand I appreciate the opportunity
to read that stuff.
Um, yeah, I, uh, as a fairlyyoung Christian, I I had a

(01:04:45):
really good time with theMaccabees.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Sure yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
As a young man a dude and and just I just loved it.
It was similar, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
And so, yeah, it's interesting stuff.
One other thing on that is thatif you're a big Paul guy if you
really like reading about Paul.
Studying Paul, studying theSecond Temple literature is a
really good way to get aninsight into what Paul's world
looked like.
Who was he arguing with when hewrote Romans?
What perspectives is herepeating?

(01:05:18):
Is he pushing back against?

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
you know, and so particularly uh, the thought on
romans.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
7 romans 7?
Uh, is that where he quotes ormaybe makes an allusion to?
No, it's romans 1.
He alludes to uh, one of thedeuterocanonical books, even I
can't remember I should haveread up on this before I sat
down here.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Well, that's the fun of this kind of format.
This is not interpretation.
This is not hermeneutics, thisis not exposition, it's just
conversation.
In Romans 7, when Paul iswrestling with, would the
Catholics say that he's speakingpre-conversion?
When he talks about a wretchedman that I am, they're not going
to have one definitiveinterpretation, okay, so the

(01:06:01):
same as protestants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're justgonna.
You said something last night.
There's two things you saidlast night that I'd like to
maybe end on.
Okay, one was, um, thecomparison of legalism between
protestantism, particularlyBaptists, and you even talked
about how Catholics.
It's confusing to them becausethey're like we can drink wine

(01:06:23):
or we can have alcohol we cansmoke, we can you know, whatever
.
And then Baptists are verylegalistic, but then accuse the
Catholics of being legalistic.
I'd like to touch on that.
And then, what are some thingsthat would?
What do you think are somethings that the Protestant

(01:06:44):
church needs to do to sort ofpull back a little bit from this
?
We've had this crazy weirdcontextualization mindset.
We've got to be contemporary.
First it was contemporary, thenit was like we've got to
contextualize to the point thata lot of churches have lost
their way.
It just looks silly.
The worship service is justkind of strange and bizarre.
And the the I had a guy lastweek even here say why do we

(01:07:07):
make such a big deal out of thesermon in our churches?
And I'm like, uh, you know,wait, are you asking me that?
Like that, you mean, why do wemake such a big deal out of the
exposition of the scripture?
Um, so what?
What do you think?
Um, so kind of two things.
Talk about the legalism piece,the difference between the two
churches, and accusations that,yeah, this will make or
protestants will make, and thenwhat do you think we need to be

(01:07:29):
doing on this side to sort ofpull people back?

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
okay and this is even a helpful point to say before I
reference the worksrighteousness thing is that if
someone is listening to this andthink you know, oh, john wants
me to become Catholic, he's sofavorable towards them.
What I really want someone todo is see the Catholic Church
and the theology of the CatholicChurch for what it is.
See it rightly is see itrightly and I want them to

(01:07:57):
disagree with it.
I think that you know when thatguy gave his interpretation of
Ephesians 4 and said that youknow laity are to do their thing
and that it's really it's leftup to the ordained ministers of
the church to do all this.
That's wrong.
You know and.
I think that there's so much joyin life to be found in really
taking the Bible for what it isand really applying the whole of
it, the whole counsel of God,to our churches so we can

(01:08:19):
celebrate the good of where theCatholic Church is maybe not as
unequivocally evil or terribleas we think, maybe sometimes but
also at the same time I wantsomeone to know that.
You know there's so much freedomin the way that the Reformers
have led us to see theScriptures as the one true

(01:08:40):
authoritative.
I do want to talk about onething here.
If you're cool with it, ifsomebody wants a book that's
really good to read, gavinOrtland recently wrote a book
called what it Means to BeProtestant, or the Meaning of
Protestantism.
It's just excellent.
Protestant or the meaning ofProtestantism, and it's.
It's just excellent.
It's one of the best books youcould read on apologetics,
specifically in regard toCatholicism and Protestantism,

(01:09:03):
and he even references there.
There's a huge gap in thatliterature.
There's a lot of books beingwritten in the other direction
and very few solid quality booksthat a Catholic would really
even have to wrestle with whenthey read it.
I would have been so helped ifI had read that when I was
younger I was doing, I washaving to.
it felt like go to the ends ofthe earth trying to figure out

(01:09:23):
on my own kind of you know nowthat I'm Protestant what does it
mean to be Protestant?
The same thing you asked there.
And I say one funny story frommy freshman year of college.
I, um, I went to Samford.
I had access to a theologicallibrary for the first time in my
life.
I could pretty much findanything there, and if I
couldn't find it there, they'dmail it, they'd get it for me.
I think I was one of the onlystudents who was going up to the

(01:09:48):
fourth floor and asking them tomail order books from other
schools and stuff like that.
But there was this one book thatI read that was really, really
helpful for me and it was notwritten by.
I don't know if the author wasChristian or not, he was just a
secular historian, I think fromthe University of Michigan.
But he wrote this book calledAdultery and Divorce in Calvin's
Geneva and it was for me.
It was a case study, because Iwanted to know something that

(01:10:12):
Peter Schaaf not Philip Schaafcalls the problem of
Protestantism.
How is it that I can justifiablybelieve something, as a
Protestant that was not held inthe history of the church prior
to that.
You know that's a big traditionand authority in interpreting
the scripture.
It's a big deal, you know, totake a step away from everything
the church has said prior toyou.

(01:10:33):
That's not something we shouldever do lightly, and so, as a
new Protestant, I wanted a firmgrasp on what right do I have to
do that interpretatively?
And obviously there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can go there.
But adultery and divorce,specifically the divorce aspect
of that book was helpful for mebecause Catholics do not allow
divorce.

(01:10:53):
It's not just a, it's not shinedfavorably upon they don't allow
it unless you can prove you getannulment by proving your
marriage was not legitimate inthe first place, and it's rare
to be able to get annulment.
But you can't just say my wifecheated on me, I would like a
divorce.
So the grounds that even maybescripture gives with Jesus, of
sexual morality or even likeabuse and abandonment, things

(01:11:15):
like that, there's noconversation around that.
So when Calvin gets there, hismembers in Geneva this is what
this book is kind of recountingis how he dealt with this.
His members come up to them andsay, hey, we're Protestant, we
can get divorces now.
And he has to say, oh well, Iguess.
So actually we have to parsethis out.
And so they don't have a churchtradition to look back to at

(01:11:39):
that moment and say what has thechurch done historically on
this?
And so what Calvin had to do ishe kind of just pieced together
what the scriptures say, wherethe church speaks to it to some
extent, and then he was going toRoman law and stuff like that
to try and just get some likehow do you piece through this?
But he was for me it washelpful because I got to watch

(01:12:00):
him do something that was he hadno choice.
He had to go against what thechurch had historically been
saying because they had beenignoring these passages in the
gospels where Jesus speaks tothe reality, or Paul speaks to
the reality in first Corinthians, and so it's a difficult
subject and it was one that youknow there was.
It was obviously super messybecause there are a lot of

(01:12:21):
people who wanted illegitimatedivorces and he had to.
I think there was like imagineif you had no divorces ever, and
then the floodgates are openedand all of these members are
coming to you and with differentreasons, and one of them saying
reasons and one of them sayingyou know, my wife did this, and
then you know another one.
You're like, oh wait, thatactually might be a legitimate

(01:12:41):
case, and so it's.
But that was helpful for mebecause here's an example of
where, as a Protestant, youwould have just been forced to
go back to the word and thinkthrough something the church had
not been thinking through.
Rightly, the difference betweenwhat the church had been doing
and what Christ has said was sostark that for me,
intellectually, it just itdemanded action, and that helped
me, as a young Protestant, belike okay, there are situations
where you just to be faithful tothe word, you need to go

(01:13:03):
against the history of thechurch and you shouldn't do that
lightly.
But one thing Gavin Ortlundshows in that book is that I was
going to say this earlier withthe Baptist and the sexual
morality and having no moralhigh ground, we have no
theological high groundsometimes we make all kinds of
mistakes, having no moral highground.
We have no theological highground.
Sometimes we make all kinds ofmistakes.
Protestants have never claimedthey've done everything right or
that we're even in the right oneverything.
What we have claimed is thatwhen we're in the wrong we have

(01:13:26):
the tools to fix it, which isthe scriptures.
When we read church history wecan view it critically and say,
hey, was this right or not right?
We can view it reverently aswell, but we can also view it
with a subjected authority withthe word being at the highest
point.
The Catholic Church has spokendogmatically and authoritatively

(01:13:47):
on so many issues that arecontradictory.
At the end of the day, the Popenot everything the Pope says is
infallible, but he can speakfrom a seat of infallibility at
some moments.
If you just take those, if youtake all the ecumenical councils
and all the infalliblestatements of the Pope and you
put them together, you cannotmake sense of all those things.

(01:14:08):
There are just contradictionsin there and Ortlund kind of
recounts those in the book andshows that, oh, he does, he goes
there, yeah, yeah yeah, and soyou get to see.
he makes this case in the bookand it's true and it's the best
case.
One is that the real debate isnot over various theological
issues, it's over authority.
Where's our final authority?
Scripture alone is the mostimportant.

(01:14:30):
Faith alone is obviouslysignificant for salvation.
But just debating about thatwon't help you figure out
whether you need to be Catholicor Protestant.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Where's the authority ?
Where's the authority?

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
Because if the church can speak authoritatively in
addition to Scripture and alignyour interpretation, that's a
big deal.
And so I think he kind ofrightfully identifies the source
of the real heart of the debateand then he shows really
through the book, just casestudies and examples of where
again we're in the wrong.
They're in the wrong, allChristians err, and we're going

(01:15:01):
to look back in five years.
I'm a young man so I get tolook back every month and be
like, oh gosh, you know.
But the important thing aboutProtestants is that we have the
tools to reform.
We have the tools to adjust, torepent.
We don't have to look back athistory in a self-justifying way
.
We can look back at it and saythe Lord's been faithful to us

(01:15:23):
over time.
We have not been faithful tohim, we have not rightly
understood where he's asked usto.
We need to align ourselves withthe word, and that's what I
love about being Baptist inparticular.
You know, because you know inseminary the seminary I went to
a lot of people come Anglican.
I was a little bit like beenthere, done that, and so that
wasn't a huge temptation for me.
But what I love about beingBaptist is Baptists are just the
blue collar.
Not all Baptists are bluecollars, like in First Baptist

(01:15:45):
Church.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
I resemble that statement.
Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Yes, just the Baptists are like, always
tearing things down in a waythat just has always really
appealed to me, like nostructure.
And again we're in like an agewhere I think a lot of
institution building needs tohappen until you know, maybe we
should even lean a lot on ourother denominational brothers at
the moment, because we reallydo have a spiritual gift for
just tearing the building downand starting over and, in a way

(01:16:10):
that's been harmful where it'slike, led people to really seek
a formal liturgy.
And I think, nine Marks, youhave some books up here, I see
on the shelf are a great exampleof and I'm coming from a Nine
Marks context of thinkingthoughtfully through.
What is a church servicesupposed to look like according
to the Word?
What does it look likehistorically?
Let's get back to the root of.
You know, there was the Acts 2church, but then also, hey,
there's like a lot of resourcesin the church of what is a

(01:16:32):
coherent church service supposedto look like from the front to
the back, not just focusing onthe word and everything else,
but the sermon is fair game.
It shouldn't be that way.
Our worship should be conformedto scripture, our singing
should be conformed to scripture, and so we need to be more
faithful.
To answer your other questionabout thinking reasonably
biblically, theologicallythrough what is a church service

(01:16:54):
, not just what is a sermon, um.
And.
And theologically through whatis a church service, not just
what is a sermon.
Orlin does a great job of that.
That being said, and all thebenefits of nine marks coming
and bringing some stability in,I do like that little rebellious
element of Baptists are alwaysdifficult to manage and chaotic.

(01:17:14):
When you get them together,they're always just.
This impulse is to get back tothe word, to tear it down and
start over again and again.
There's a bad in that andthere's a good in that, but
where the good is is thatthey're always going back to the
scriptures again and again andagain.
And so, yeah, there's just abeauty in the diversity of the
body.
I think in that and there's areason why we need to lean on

(01:17:38):
each other in those things.
Because you know one of the bigjokes, if you're like on
Instagram and you're looking atlike Catholic, like meme
apologetics against Protestants,it'll be like a picture of you
know someone declining from likea rope swing to be you know the
pastor declining from like ayou know cables to preach the
sermon and the fire and thesmoke and all that.

(01:18:00):
Oh right, cables to preach thesermon and the fire and the
smoke and all that, and it'll belike, hey, how's the
Reformation going?
It'll be like some megachurchwild thing going on.
So, yeah, I think the movementtowards stability is a good
thing.
But for someone who's trying toseek stability in liturgy and
church history, I think theyneed to couch that in the fact
that Christianity has taken alot of different expressions and
you don't need to be Anglicanto find good liturgy Um, you

(01:18:22):
don't need to be Anglican toread church history seriously Um
, you definitely don't need tobe Catholic to do so.
And so I think it's for someoneconsidering that, I would say
go read other.
Go read Gavin Orland, and andyou know, his brothers are
Presbyterian and Anglican, hisfamily is all mixed, so he would
have a lot of grace andcompassion towards different
denominational perspectives.
But read Baptists who aretaking church history seriously,

(01:18:47):
and read.
You know and this is not aBaptist podcast, I'm just saying
that in that moment but, like,read, presbyterian, anglican,
whatever you are, there areProtestants doing theology,
doing church history,thoughtfully, biblically,
probably.
Wherever you go, to some extentwe need each other as the

(01:19:07):
diversely gifted body to be ableto even fill in where each
group is weak, and things likethat.
I think there are weaknessesand strengths to each group and
even looking at Catholics,sometimes again, I think there's
ways in which they shouldchallenge us to be better, to be
more historically oriented, tobe more rigorously thoughtful on
doctrines.
They've always kind of heldfirm to an orthodoxy like the

(01:19:28):
Trinity, and so I would tellsomeone like you're not going to
find everything you're lookingfor in hitting the eject button
and just saying I'm just goingto cling to the church's final
authority and the Catholicchurch yeah, that's good, yeah,
that's helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
And even within uh, baptist churches,
non-denominational churches,community churches, especially
the ones that are, uh, that havethat have just blown up into
mega churches.
You, I think there's going atand and like a multi-site.
Sure, there's going to be areaction to that.
I don't want to just becritical all the time of of that

(01:20:05):
, though I don't agree with themulti-site model where the
pastor is on a screen or beingprojected or hologram.
That's not.
That's why we're we're morewe're in the non-marx uh camp.
I guess you would say.
I hate to create labels, butyou know, as far as ecclesiology
and and even the way the churchfunctions, but, um, people,

(01:20:28):
people are coming to christ inthose churches and there's some
good people that I love, goodbrothers, in those churches.
I think there will be areaction to that yeah that's not
going to be.
I don't think that'll be what'shappening a generation from now.
I might be completely wrong.
I think there's going to be areaction.
What we're seeing in thisconversation, with people going
in the direction of liturgicaltraditions or even to the

(01:20:50):
Catholic churches it's areaction.

Speaker 3 (01:20:52):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
And that's the way history works, yep, and whatever
you're talking about, and so weshouldn't be surprised.
Ok, I have what.
We'll wrap it up, but I haveabout 10 more questions.
So can we do this again?
A part two?
Sure, yeah, we'll do it.
Next time you're here, I'llcome your way, ok, and sit down,
do it again.
I'm really grateful.
I mean, this was veryspontaneous.

(01:21:14):
We've gone for about an hourand a half and, um, I I've just
I'm really appreciative.
It's a big deal to me that youwould just go.
Yeah, we'll do it.
I mean, I just met you lastnight yeah, well, thanks for
asking me had the conversationyou're welcome and uh, yeah, it
is going to be super insightfuland helpful for our people, and
so let's it.
I don't know when it'll happen,but but we'll do a part two and

(01:21:36):
I've got.
I want to talk about purgatoryI want to talk about the
communion.
I want to talk, you know, and Iwant to have some fun with it.
We'll tell Hank's story.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
And so we'll, we'll do it again.

Speaker 4 (01:21:48):
So, thank you, thank you Appreciate it so much.
All right, thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required.
Please take a moment tosubscribe and leave a rating.
It really helps.
Visit us at SWOutfitterscom tosee all of our programming and
resources and we'll see you nextweek on no Sanity Required.
Thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Why I Left the Catholic Faith

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

Why I Left the Catholic Faith

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce