Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep982: The Beauty of the Greek Orthodox Church: Christian Gonzalez

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Christian serves as the Young Adult Ministries Coordinator for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. A graduate of Wheaton College, Azusa Pacific University, & Luther Seminary, Christian is a Licensed Associate Marriage & Family Therapist in Arizona committed to the upbuilding of the Church as a family that facilitates the formation of youth & young adults into the image of Chris. I wanted to have Christian on the show primarily to get to know the Greek Orthodox church. So, I gave Christian an hour to convert me, and, well, you’ll have to see if he succeeded.  https://www.goarch.org/-/christian-gonzalez –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you missed the Exiles of Babylon conference, the video version of that conference is for sale. You can go to theologyintheraw.com to check it out. You can purchase one of the sessions, two of the sessions, three or all four of the different sessions of that conference. We talked about race and racism, sexuality, gender, different Christian views of hell and Christianity, unity of the church and politics. Theologyintheraw.com politics, theologyonrod.com. All the information is there. Okay. So I'm recording this introduction before my interview, which usually I record the introduction after, but I'm going to have on somebody who I've never

met. I've only met him over email. Christian Gonzalez is the young adult minister, young adult ministries coordinator for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. He's a graduate of Wheaton College, Azusa Pacific University, and Luther Seminary. He is also a licensed associate marriage and family therapist in Arizona, committed to the upbuilding of the church as a family that facilitates the formation of youth and young adults into the image of Christ. I primarily wanted to have Christian on. We connected through a friend of a friend, and he grew up evangelical, went to evangelical schools, and now is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. And I'm like, well, that's fascinating. I want to hear all about that. So, I think, I'm going to call him here in just a couple minutes. I think I'm just going to say,

So I think, I'm going to call him here in just a couple minutes. I think I'm just going to say, hey, Christian, okay, do your best to convert me to the Greek Orthodox Church. Like, I'm just, I don't know. I'm fascinated at somebody who has raised evangelicals and now part of the Greek Orthodox Church that wasn't his original heritage. I'm curious why. Why? Because I feel like I've come across quite a few people who have moved from traditional

evangelicalism to a more liturgical context. I've got a few friends actually that are part of some form of Orthodox church, the Orthodox church. And the tiny bit that I've dabbled in Orthodox theology, I've been really fascinated slash impressed with it. And sometimes people, when they hear me talk, they're like, yeah, you sound a little bit more Orthodox, a little more Eastern in some ways in which you approach theology. So I'm like, well, I don't know what that means, but I want to learn more. So hopefully Christian will help me learn more. And maybe, just maybe, in the next hour, I will become Greek Orthodox. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. So, please welcome to the show

for the first time, Christian Gonzalez. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with Christian Gonzalez. Christian, all right, you have one hour to convert me to the Greek Orthodox Church. Ready, set, go. Okay, well, wow. I mean, I guess the first question would be the question of Jesus. What do you really want, Preston? What do you want? Most deeply. Yeah.

In your soul. If you were to die today, where would you go? Oh, man. I would go to Athens. Yeah. I would go to In-N-Out. Just one in and out just one last stop oh are you in and out fan oh yeah oh some people are i mean there is a california nostalgic to it you know like it's part of my homeland um but it still is so good like this is yes it's like they lace it with some

kind of like in and out crack or something like there's this, it's like they lace it with some kind of like In-N-Out crack or something. Like there's a flavor you can only get at an In-N-Out burger that when I cross the border into California, I'm like, we go straight to the nearest In-N-Out. It could be like eight in the morning. Doesn't, well,

they're not open that early, but yeah, but I'll be, I'll be willing to try. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah. I've been there at 1030 in the morning and there's lines out the door getting burgers at 1030. I love it. Yeah. And In-N-Out has like that distinct smell. Like you step out of your car and you can smell the onions cooking or something. I don't know what it is, but you just go, there's an In-N-Out nearby. You just know. And people, you feel it. Some people like the fries. Some people say they're not that great. The fries are, they taste like potatoes. I mean, they taste like so fresh or so good. Yeah. They have like a four minute half life though. You

know, you kind of have to like, you have to get right in there and just go for the fries and then you're good. If you go for the fries first. All right. Tell us a bit about your background. Primarily as it relates to, you know, being raised or at least being part of an evangelical church and then converting. Is converting the right term? I mean, it sounds like you weren't a Christian before or something. I know. Yeah, that's always like the funny one too, but that definitely is kind of the vernacular that is used when someone transitions, I guess, from like evangelical kind of upbringing or Catholic upbringing to, uh, to the Eastern Orthodox church. Yeah.

People will describe themselves as converts, um, to orthodoxy. And then there's kind of a whole nother group of folks who've grown up in the Orthodox church that refer to themselves as cradle Orthodox. So there's kind of this like cradle and convert thing that, that happens. But in some sense,

we're all converts, right? Aren't we all always converting to follow rise ever more closely. Uh,, so I grew up going to, so my home, like my first church that I remember from the time of being little is actually the Anaheim Vineyard. So I grew up with, you know, under Pastor John Wimber, kind of in like all of that stuff that was going on at the Anaheim Vineyard. I remember people rolling around on the floor, being smitten by the Holy Spirit, people prophesying in the middle of the thing. There was also people barking like dogs and falling over. And I mean, like that was kind of the world that I grew up in.

So I guess kind of like right out of the gate, you know, I had a sense of the power of the Holy Spirit and like the presence of the Holy Spirit. Because I do think that some of those more charismatic Pentecostal traditions really have that well. You know, they really convey that super viscerally. And I think you get a felt sense for like God is up to something and doing something. So I grew up in that church and then just kind of over time started moving. I mean, I'm going to give you like super cliff notes here and then we can unpack whatever you want to unpack, I guess. Then maybe like middle school, I started walking to a

friend's Christian church that was just down the road from my house because I had a bunch of friends from middle school that were going there. And so that was a little bit more traditional, less people being smitten by the spirit and all that kind of stuff. And it was, yeah, it was good. I mean, I was happy to be with friends. And I think that was when I started kind of being more interested in my faith as something that was mine.

I wanted to like kind of do things that felt, I guess I wouldn't use the word authentic probably as a 12 or 13 year old. But I think I wanted something that felt more authentic. And just over time, I ended up getting really into the Left Behind series. Like that was a really big thing for me when I was in like middle school and like the early years of high school. And I think I even tried to kind of like do my own dissecting the book of revelation and coming up with my own timeline of things. I'm scary,

man. Every time I remember going up and every time I'd call my mom, like mom, mom, mom, there were times I was like, Oh, I'm left behind.

Like so scary. Like my mom's just gonna get snatched up. Cause I knew she was a Christian. I wasn't sure about me, you know yeah it was scary those books are frightening anyway sorry i was so i was so into this at one point it must have been 14 or 15 when the movie came out and our next door neighbor uh had had owned it or something so we went over to his house to watch it my family and i and he ended up falling asleep while we were watching the movie and so we we all kind of, you know, didn't want to wake him up on our way out. And we snuck out and we got back to our house.

We were like, oh, my gosh, what if we took all of the clothes that we were just wearing and went and put them on the couch like in his house? You did. Totally. Totally. So we all changed our clothes, took the clothes that we had been wearing and went and just put them where we had been sitting on his couch and just waited for him to wake up. And then maybe like, you know, 20 minutes later, the dude wakes up and gives us a call and is just dying laughing. You know, he was like, I swear I was like, I blinked my eyes and you guys were gone.

Is that how the what did he think the rapture happened? For a minute? Yeah. That's so sad oh my god we were just trying to scare him into repentance you know we wanted we want whatever it takes so yeah i mean that that was where where i was where i was at and then i started attending an evangelical free church. And I started kind of having some thoughts and experiences and questions that kind of left me wondering whether or not, at least from what I understood Christianity to be, if the whole thing was kind of bogus, and it just kind of didn't really match with the world that we actually live in. Because I started feeling like,

and through some of the, you know, like every good conversion story, there was this girl that I liked in high school, and like, things kind of fell apart with her. And I was left wondering, like, you know, does any of this Christianity stuff have anything to do with like the kind of person that I become in this life, you know, like it is, or is it just about hanging there? And then when you die, you get to go to like the party in the sky, if you said the right magic prayer. Um, and like, that's kind of just what I understood it to be. And, um, especially when I was like in high school, I think when people start thinking more abstractly as adolescents, uh, they begin to look around and become aware of the keen, keenly aware of the suffering

that other people are experiencing. And when you're told again and again, again at church, that it's like, you know, you got to be looking for like the Shekinah glory and you, you know, it's, it's all like joy. And if you feel any like sadness about anything in the world, then like you're maybe not believing hard enough. And then it's, it just sort of feels like the whole purpose of everything is just to wait around until you get to escape at the end. And it just started feeling like, that's not, that's not how life feels to me though. You know, like life just feels tough and hard. And yet there's got to be some meaning in that, in the toughness and in the difficulty. And so then I started thinking, maybe this is all just bogus.

And then my English teacher in my junior year, he and I are still close friends, he had just become Orthodox himself the year prior. And so I was kind of telling him, this all seems bogus to me. And he was like, well, I can probably show you a better way. And I said, like, help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope. And he started talking to me about how, like, this actually is the purpose of the, because at least in my growing up, to me, the cross always felt like this kind of unfortunately necessary thing just to get to the resurrection. Like, it itself was just a, like, we just kind of had to go through it. Like, Jesus had to do it, but it didn't have any clear bearing on, like, the rest of my life or what it did in the world or anything like that. It just sort of seemed like the unfortunately necessary thing that God had to use. So, when he started talking to me about like, no,

the reason Jesus goes to the cross is because all of us are already there. And so, he goes there to meet us and to find us that we are, we're held captive by death. We're held captive by pain, held captive by death. We're held captive by pain, by our own mortality. And God desires to be so close to us that it's, you know, like, in English, we read the story of Orpheus and Persephone, right? And like, Orpheus has to go down into the underworld to rescue his bride Persephone, because she's being held captive by Hades. And he started talking to me about this, and he's like, the difference is that Jesus actually succeeds. Like, Christ actually succeeds by descending into death and pulling us out of the grave with him. And suddenly, things started making a little bit more sense to me in that regard,

that it actually sort of dignifies and gives meaning to the suffering that we experience, while also redeeming it and, you know, giving us hope. I'm curious, is that why that descent into Hades is part of the Apostles' Creed? Yeah. So, we actually, in our tradition, we don't use the Apostles' Creed. So we use the nice Constantinople Creed that was kind of like, you know, late 300s or whatever. Okay. But yeah, that's the idea of like the descent to hell being about going to

loose the captives that are there, that there isn't some sort of, you know, angry, wrathful God that needs to be appeased by a blood sacrifice. But rather that from the very beginning, humanity has been held captive by sin and death. You know, at least when I was, again, kind of growing up evangelical, the language that was used was all very juridical. You know, that there was the kind of like you're guilty. You said juridical? Yeah.

Yeah, legal. Kind of like courtroom legal, like all that kind of stuff. But when I started coming to the Orthodox world, the language is much more about like therapeutic stuff. It's more therapy and this idea that we've been infected with a disease. And Christ comes as a healer primarily and a liberator. Like that that's what he's here to do is to heal us and set us free from the fetters that bind us. Well,

the reason why I brought up the apostles creed is like, I think most evangelicals when they read it, it all sounds really important and essential except for that one part. It's kind of like partially on a stake. It's kind of like, what's this like, get this out of here. Like with the second Hades, like, get this out of here.

The second of Hades, that's not part of our gospel story. And Christ descended to Hades and preached victory and set the captives free. Most people don't preach that gospel or they get to 1 Peter 3 and they're like, what do we do? This is a weird passage rather than this is an essential part of the story. Anyway,

we'll get back to kind of the theological components, I think, but keep going with your story. Yeah, so just one of the things that was, you know, as I was talking with my English teacher, it started making a little bit more sense to me. And like I said, I was really into the left behind stuff. And the church that I had been attending before I became Orthodox, this evangelical free church, the pastor, I don't know if he was like the head

pastor or what, but he was super, super strong dispensationalist, like way, way, way into dispensationalism. Talked about the rapture a lot, talking about all these different kinds of things. And the church that I even went to, the way that it was constructed had this kind of like conical thing and it was called the rapture tunnel. So I guess the idea was that like you were going to be siphoned, filtered directly into the heavens as the Lord returned. So I guess you're a pull your joke on him or not, you know, it would have been a good idea. But as I started looking into dispensationalism a little bit more, kind of, because I started getting the appetite for theological questions and all of that when I was about 16. And I started doing some reading on dispensationalism and kind of realized, oh, this whole thing

is a very new belief that dates back to John Nelson Darby. And, you know, seeing that he got so much of his theology from his sleeping prophetess, like there was some, there just started to be some problems to me in this whole thing that like he was basically drawing a theology construct, from what I understand, again, I'm going to not pretend like to be some expert on dispensationalism or anything like that. But from what I understand, a lot of the theology he was drawing was based on the dreams of some woman that, you have conversations with, and he would then interpret eschatological issues through the lens of this woman's dreams. And as I began to understand it,

from what I could see, it seemed like what the idea was, was that God is trying to work the salvation of the nation of Israel. And John the Baptist and Jesus were going to be a really important part of that. But John the Baptist was there to pave the way for Jesus to kind of actually restore this earthly kingdom of Israel. But John the Baptist went and got himself killed. And so kind of like ruined plan A a little bit. And so then the cross enters as almost as like plan B for like Jesus to redeem the people that, you know, were supposed to be redeemed through the establishment of this nation of Israel. But because John got himself killed, Jesus couldn't have the way paved for him the correct way. And so he goes to the cross, instituting this dispensation of grace, which happens in the church. So like the church kind of becomes this parenthetical moment in the history of Israel. And so when Jesus finally is going to return to save Israel, that's when that parentheses of the church is pulled out. And now like the story is

completed for Israel. At least that was what I understood it. And maybe, maybe I'm again, totally misreading what dispensationalism is. That does. I mean, I was raised strong dispensational context. I didn't really pay too close attention when I was in it as a kid, at least, but that's, that does capture a form of dispensationalism for sure. More of a classical form, which I would say most contemporary dispensationalists probably would not hold to that. But I think that is kind of, from my memory, it sounds like an accurate description of a older form of dispensationalism for sure. And that was what, you know, whatever it was, that was what I sort of understood this guy to be teaching. And I went to the pastor one day, and I think this was probably the moment where everything kind of turned on its head for me.

You know, after a service where there was just like a, just a real spicy guitar solo during communion. You know, I mean, they were just full on Van Halen that communion service. And I had been to an Orthodox church like once or twice already. And I was like, something feels different about this versus the way that they do it. And I went up to him afterwards, the pastor, and I said, like, so I've been looking into dispensationalism, and I have some questions about it. It seems to me like it's a, first of all, a pretty new theology, and it seems like some of the things that it teaches are a little bizarre to me. And I'm like, it seems like it says that in everything that I explained just now, I said that to him. It seems like it says that in everything that I explained just now, I said that to him.

And he just goes, oh, foolish boy. Don't you know that dispensationalism is a tradition that was taught by the apostles and has been around for whatever, whatever. And I remember even in that moment thinking, like if I was a pastor and some 16-year-old kid came up to me and said, look, I've been reading about dispensationalism and I have some questions. I don't know that I would have responded. You foolish boy. Oh, he literally said that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, I thought you were saying that was kind of the vibe he was giving off, but he said, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. He said that I was like foolish for having these, these questions and not understanding. And I was like, yeah, I don't think I like being here. You know, because like these questions that I had, at least my English teacher took seriously and really wanted to like walk with me into them and let them linger. But just to be dismissed

outright, I think was such a formative part of my story, you know, an important part that sent me going like, wow, this, you sure seem defensive about this, this thing that you really, really, you know, believe to be true. So, I don't know. That was a, that was a weird thing. So, I started going to the church, the Orthodox church full-time, and basically, you know, had this moment in the liturgy where, because part of the way that the service goes is, and it was, I mean, it was so different, Preston, than anything that I had grown up with. I mean, the first service I went to, I remember walking in and like smelling the incense and seeing the icons and hearing this kind of really bizarre Middle Eastern sounding music. And it just was like, I don't, I have,

I don't understand anything about what this is, you know, where are the drums, where are the guitars, where, why is everybody, why is the Where are the drums? Where are the guitars? Why is everybody, why is even the priest up there, he's facing, I'm seeing the back of his head rather than him there with a microphone and a Hawaiian shirt with two buttons undone. I mean, there was just so many things

that I was not familiar with at all. And I remember feeling like I had gotten kind of kicked in the senses. It was just like, whoa, it was overwhelming and beautiful. But as the service goes on, there's like these supplications and every single one of them ends with, you know, one would be like, for the peace of the world, let us pray to the Lord. And then the people respond, Lord have mercy. And then it's like, for the health and salvation of whatever, let us pray to the Lord, Lord have mercy. And it's just for the health and salvation of whatever let us pray to the lord lord have mercy and it's just again and again and again let us pray to the lord lord have mercy let

us pray to the lord lord have mercy i remember about 10 lord have mercies in being like man how like how many times are we going to do this and i it was this weird moment because i wasn't even fully orthodox yet but i looked at the icon of John the Baptist and just had this overwhelming sense that I was being asked, how many times do you think you need to ask for mercy? Oh, wow. And I was like, okay, all right, you're right. Like, yeah, like once is enough. I don't know, three times. Like, it's an infinite amount of times, right? An infinite amount of mercy we need, Like, it's an infinite amount of times, right? An infinite amount of mercy we need, especially the way that Orthodox understand mercy. It's not just about getting off the hook, you know, and being forgiven. It's this like loving kindness, like, Lord, do the thing that you want to do. We're trying to be open to that.

Come be with us. Come let us be with you. That that's what we understand by have mercy, not like, please don't kill me. Yeah. Wow. Can you unpack that service a little more? I mean, is that a typical Orthodox service? And what does that look like?

Our tradition, every Sunday, we do basically the same service. There are some parts of it that kind of change depending on the feast day. So a couple Sundays from now, we're going to be celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, and there'll be different songs that are put in different places as a way to commemorate Pentecost, for example. But the general structure of the thing is always the same. And you can look up online, you know, the divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and you'll find just the whole format of it. And there's some prayers that are constant. But yeah, I mean, the whole thing is basically about gathering to hear the scriptures proclaimed and to receive Holy communion, which we do every Sunday. Uh, and that's,

that's basically the thrust of it. I mean, there's some, there's a lot of different moving parts. Are there any, is there anything in particular you're interested in? Just like what would be, if it's an hour long or something, what does that look like? Is there like some songs up front and then scripture reading and then a homily and then Eucharist? Yeah, good question. So about 90 to 95% of the service is sung all together by, whether it's by the priest and the deacon or the people and the choir. I mean, it is a, it is a, basically reads as a play. It's like a dialogue back and forth all the time, all the time, all the time. So, it begins with the

priest raising the gospel above his head and making the sign of the cross saying, blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit now and forever and until the end of the ages. Amen. And well, actually the people respond, amen. And then from there, we pray for the world. We pray for, you know, seasonable weather. We pray all those different Lord have mercies that I was, you know, telling you about for the release of captives, for, you know, the civil authorities and things like this, just everything that you can name. And then from there, there are some hymns, one to the mother of God, one to Jesus Christ risen from the dead, and then kind of one, whatever commemorating the feast of the day might be. And then, and this is the one that our kids always love, we sing what's called the Trisagion hymn, which just means thrice holy.

You know, the thrice holy hymn in which we sing, Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. And it's really a beautiful, beautiful hymn. And then after that is done, there's a reading from the epistle, then a reading from the gospel. And at least at our parish, our priest will do like a children's homily, which is really cool. So all the kids go up and sit at his feet, and it's always a really sweet thing. And usually the parents are the ones who get more out of it because they feel a little bit less on guard, I think. Talking to the kids, and we're like, oh, I feel like that's for me, because it probably is. because it probably is. And then yet some more singing, and then we move into what is the second part of the liturgy, which is called the Liturgy of the Faithful. So, back in the day, after the

reading of the gospel and the homily, often people who had not yet been baptized or charismated into the church were asked to leave, because this was the idea of like, this is the holy mystery that we don't want to let everybody in on. You know, like this is kind of like the best kept secret. I mean, and this, we're talking like way back when, now everyone stays, we don't kick anybody out of the church. So traditionally, if you weren't baptized, you were asked to leave. Interesting.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So they, if you were what was called a catechumen, you know, and you were entering into like catechesis or whatever, at that point, yeah, the catechumens were asked to like go stand outside and wait around while everyone else had communion and stuff. But that's similar to like when the Baptist church has a members only meeting after church or whatever. It's like only if you're – I mean only certain people are invited. If you're not there, you have to leave. I mean, yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, so that's how, how it plays out. And then everyone

communes, um, again, baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christians. So, um, if you haven't been baptized or chrismated into the church, then, you know, you're, you're asked to, to abstain from receiving communion. And that's pretty much how the service ends. It's like we take communion and then there's maybe like two more prayers and then it's let us depart in peace. So there is no like traditional sermon though, I mean, other than the homily for the kids or? So that is one of the interesting things to, um, well, again, again, at our parish, after everything's done, the kids go to Sunday school after communion, and then our priest will do like an adult homily as well. But even then, like sermons are maybe like 12, 13, 14 minutes long. Like they are not the central part of the Eucharistic gathering. You know,

the central part of it is all heading toward the Lord's Supper. And that's the fulfillment of everything that we are doing. So, would you say it's almost just flipped on its head, like a traditional evangelical church, communion would occupy the role that a homily would in the Orthodox church and vice versa? Yeah. I've been in churches before where they didn't do communion for six months or something.

And that would be, I would imagine your priest would probably just be off his rocker. Like, what is that? Wait, so I thought it was a Christian church. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean that, and that's not just, you know, the local tradition at my parish, like that is what Eastern Orthodox Christians do. Like on Sundays, every Orthodox church that you go to is going to do the same liturgy. Every Eastern Orthodox church, I should say, you know. There's a whole other set of Orthodox churches that are not considered Eastern Orthodox, but are called Oriental Orthodox. And they do a

different liturgy, but they would be doing their same liturgy every Sunday as well. So I'm going to get to some theological questions, but I have so many questions right now. Let's just hang on the service for a little bit, the ecclesiology. What are some things just for you personally that you find really compelling, attractive, meaningful in an Orthodox service versus maybe an evangelical service? And are there any things that you miss about maybe like an evangelical service? Like when you go to an evangelical church, like, ah, I miss this or that. Or if there is any, I'm going to force anything to you, but yeah. What are the, what are the

things you really like about the Orthodox service? Yeah. So again, great question. Um, so one of the prayers that is said at the beginning of most services, uh, is titled the prayer to the Holy spirit. And it's a, it's a really, really beautiful one to me. It goes like this, O heavenly King, O comforter, the spirit of truth, who art everywhere present and filling all things, treasury of blessings and the giver of life, come and abide in us and cleanse us from every stain and save our souls, O gracious Lord. And I love that prayer. And to me, Lord. And I love that prayer. And to me, everything that orthodoxy is and does liturgically, sacramentally, ascetically, like whatever, you want to pick a thing that orthodoxy does,

is meant to fulfill and live out that prayer. The idea that this heavenly king is everywhere present and filling all things, all things, you know, we don't. So I came across an article recently about earthworms that are invading America that can jump a foot in the air. Oh, my gosh, that freaks me out. Have you heard about this? No. And they can also clone themselves. It's terrifying. Yeah, it's like it's yeah.

Yeah, no bad news. Clone themselves. Yes. Yes. They're like, it's yeah. Yeah. No, bad news. Clone themselves. Yes. Yes. They're like space age jumping worms. I don't, I don't even know what to do about it. It's not good. That could have changed the direction. We can spend the rest of the time on that, but let's keep, keep the truck moving here. The reason I'm saying that is because like in orthodox theology, you would have to say, what does this reveal to us about God? Like we really believe all things, even these jumping earthworms, you know, are something that we have to look for as a way to come to know God in and through that which is

created. So, the liturgy itself to me, like when I look at it and I go into church, at least our parish has this beautiful temple where there's an icon of the face of Jesus Christ up in the dome, like it's the top of everything. And from there, everything reaches down around us and encapsulates us. And when I go there, I have a very visceral sense of what it means to be in Christ. You know, I think that we often think of Christ in us, but like, what does it mean to be in Christ? And when I walk into church and I see the face of Jesus above the head of the church and his arms reaching down around us,

and I have like, I look around and I go, oh, here we all are in the body of Christ. Like it's a viscerally felt sense. It's not just some thing I have to, like, emotionally or mentally construct for myself, but it actually gives me an image and an icon of what that means and looks like. Much in, you know, that story of, like, the two young fish that are swimming and that old fish walks up to it, swims up to them and says, morning, boys, the water sure is nice today, huh? And swims off. and the two fish say, what's water? This idea that like it is the environment that we're in, that Christ is the environment that we swim in. The love of God is everything that we swim,

always, whether we're aware of it or not. Like, it's the world through which we move. And so, when I look around in church and I see the candles that are lit with fire, and I see the baptismal font holding water, and I see the incense which, you know, fills the air, and I see the bread and wine put on the table, the elements of the earth, you know, I see fire, water, wind, and earth, and I see that everything is held in Christ. Everything is held together by him and becomes a participation in his body that is not somehow separate from him. Distinct, yes, but separate, no. And that to me is the beauty of orthodoxy where it says that there is a place for

everything in the created order, that everything can bring us closer to Christ. And then, of course, what do we see when we look around in the pews around us? We see our brothers and our sisters, images and icon bearers themselves, images of Christ. And we know this because we look at the, you know, the icons of the saints, and they have this, you know, little halo thing. And a lot of times when we see those halos, we think like, oh, the church is putting these people up as like, you know, somehow like the superheroes of the faith, like they were like bit by some radioactive Jesus and like now are, like have these like cool superpowers and stuff. But really what we're looking at is an icon of Christ still, but it's just Christ in that person. This is what Christ looks like with the face of John Chrysostom.

This is what Christ looks like in the face of Basil the Great. This is what Christ looks like in the face of Andrew the Apostle, whatever. Like whoever, whatever saint you want to kind of bring up, we see like, oh, this is the Christ coming forth from them, them radiating Christ to us. And so now we know, oh, Christ is actually in my brother and sister next to me. Yeah. Yeah. I had a talk to, man, this is years ago. It's somebody at the Evangelical Theological Society. I think he gave a paper on why he converted from, I think, Southern Baptist to Orthodox. And that was years ago, maybe 10 years ago. And I, I, back then I had the assumption of like, no, evangelicals are the ones that are like biblically centered, Christ centered. And everything else is just a bunch of meaningless liturgy.

You're just going in and checking a box, but there's little to no actual discipleship. And I remember him saying like, what drew me was the Christ centeredness. Like it was so Christ centered and it threw me off. So like, no, no, no. Even John, what do you mean? Like you left Christ centeredness because you left the Baptist church, whatever. And he started explaining it and like how Christ is just so woven into the

fabric of everything that is done top to bottom and everything. And I was like, wow, that, that sounds compelling. Is that, would that be an accurate description? And would you, would you resonate with that? I mean, yeah, 100%. I mean, I think so. Yes. But I've also been doing it for 20 years. You know what I mean? So like, I, I, I see it and I know it. And, um, I mean, I work in, in ministry for the Greek Orthodox church. And so it's, it's what I think about and where I live, but I could see very easily how it could sort of just end up being sort of like a testament to ethnicity, a testament to historicity. You know, this is one of, I think, the big critiques that I think that I even have of orthodoxy. And, you know, you asked me like

other things that maybe I miss about evangelicalism. One of the things that I do miss about evangelicalism, and I love my evangelical brothers and sisters for this, is their openness to the idea of how God moves and acts in the world now. You know, that there's this like, what is God doing? What is he inviting us to? What are we, you know, how are we kind of trying to be sensitive to the movement of God in our lives. And I think that what happens sometimes a little bit too much in the Orthodox world is we rely so much on the fact that our faith is 2,000 years old. That's kind of what we end up saying, as if we use, like, it's our antiquity that makes us authentic.

Like, well, we've been around the longest, so we're the real church. okay like well we've been around the longest so we're the we're the real church um which to me is like i don't know if you if you really want to like say that like you know something being antiquated is what makes it authentic yeah then i would say like judaism is probably more and more authentic religion and even hinduism is more authentic right so like there's got to be something more than our antiquity that makes us authentic. And to me, it's the testimony of the saints that makes us authentic, right? I mean, you go back to Tertullian, the church isn't built on its historicity. The church is built on the blood of its martyrs. Like, this is, it's the witness of the church that makes it authentic. What would you say are some of the main, and this can spill over into theology.

it makes it authentic. What would you say are some of the main, and this can spill over into theology. Actually, let's start here. Because you've been talking Orthodox church and Greek Orthodox church. Can you give us a brief explanation of the differences between Orthodox church, Eastern Orthodox church, Russian, Greek, Ethiopian, Indian, like help us for somebody to just pretend like we know nothing about this. Like everything east of the west is like off in ethereal land. We don't even know what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So maybe the best way to think about it is that the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Oriental Orthodox churches are sort of like two brothers that have a kind of a falling out,

a disagreement over a car accident. It's like the best way to think about it. So, you go back to, you know, the fourth ecumenical council in Chalcedon, and there's questions about like the nature of Jesus Christ, right? And is he God? Is he man? Is he God and man? How exactly does this work? And the best way I think that I could probably explain it is that the Eastern churches say it one way, the Oriental churches say it a different way. And because of a kind of like ethnic and language barrier, it seems like there's a deeper theological implication than what there really is. there it seems like there's a deeper theological implication than what there really is so the eastern churches would say like um you know he has he's one person with two natures he's one person who has the nature of divinity and the nature of humanity and then they would

say right he's both and they're like no he's not both he has this and this like right he's both oh really and then that's kind of how it ends up like like splitting it because they don't have that split which churches are split over that that you said that or so the eastern orthodox churches and the oriental orthodox churches so those are two different orthodox branches that that's the in terms of the big umbrella orthodox and under that the next umbrella would be oriental and Eastern? Yes, correct. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And so a lot of it, it goes back to this, you know, this fourth ecumenical council that they couldn't agree, that they couldn't figure out how to agree on. And so in the Oriental churches, you're going to find churches like

Ethiopian, Coptic, Indian, and they kind of do things just a little bit differently. But I've been to like a Coptic service before. And it's the same thing, basically. You know, it's like there's not a huge, like, I didn't catch any like glaring theological problems when I went to a Coptic church. I was like, oh, you guys have the same creed. You know, you do the same kinds of things that we do, maybe a little bit differently. But it's the same basic liturgy and it's beautiful. And then you go to the Eastern Orthodox churches and there you would find things like the Greeks, the Russians, the Antiochians, the Jerusalem, all these different other kind of, you know,

the different instantiations of orthodoxy. But a lot of that just mostly has to do with where things are kind of geographically centered and located and the different music maybe and different iconography styles and yeah so the idea though is that all the eastern orthodox churches actually form one church so even though they maybe have different bishops that are in charge of those churches kind of at a larger scale, like what we would call a patriarchate. Like that's the Russian patriarchate, the Constantinople patriarchate, all of this different stuff. They are supposed to be working together as one council. So that's – I don't know.

Okay. It makes sense. Kind of like if you had – I'm just trying to put it in evangelical terms, like a multi-site campus that has campus pastors, but they're still under the overarching kind of overarching head elder board or something like that. Yes. They're supposed to work together, even though if you go to different ones, you're going to find some differences of nuance and probably some underlying like, yeah, I'm not too stoked about that campus pastor. Yeah. I mean, just naturally like a church in Southern California is going to look different than a church in Northern California, you know, like it is that

kind of a thing. Yeah. The weed in Northern California is pure, but, um, uh, you mentioned, I think offline that there's, there's tension between the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox or there's, or do they, are they? Yeah. And that, and that's a, I mean, that's kind of like a, a larger, a larger question that I don't super understand totally all the, all the nuances of, but I mean, even the stuff that's, you know, that's going on between Russia and Ukraine right now, like that, there's a big, um, a big religious component to that, you know, where, um, you know, Putin and, and Patriot Kirill are kind of like hand in glove with this, with this thing and

using each other's verbiage, you know, like a Russian world or a holy Russia, like kind of like this, this stuff to, um, justify the, the assault on Ukraine. Uh, whereas a lot of the other Orthodox patriarchs and stuff are like, no, this is bad. Like this, you should not be, be doing this. But one of the, I mean, this is, this is really getting into the weeds and it's not, this is bad like this you should not be be doing this but one of the i mean this is this is really getting into the weeds and it's not this is you know it's like weird family drama kind of stuff is what it sometimes sort of feels like but the um the patriarch of constantinople the so-called ecumenical patriarch uh recently a couple years back granted to the ukraine sure the ukrainian patriarch whatever the sense of autocephaly and that means that they're self-governing but ukraine was previously

under moscow it's like it's just it's so it's so confusing right so to say you can govern yourselves moscow was like no they can't you can't do that you can't say that because they're you know under our thing and they were like well yeah we can say that and then there was a split over over that and again I don't really understand the ins and outs of it but well I would I would imagine it sounds like the Orthodox Church has a lot of ethnic socio-political components to it that that's going to add a whole new layer of possible tensions and differences and stuff where like a more westerner protestant church typically doesn't it doesn't have those kind of strong ethnic socio-political ties as much i mean yeah maybe not yeah i might walk that one back a little bit. Maybe not explicitly on paper as much.

It just goes to show, I think, that any time that politics gets in bed with the truth, it's like no matter what it looks like, it's going to interfere with the mission of the gospel. it's going to interfere with the mission of the gospel. And it just can't. It can't not because you have too many, you know, nationalistic like interests and things like this that are directly a threat to the gospel is directly a threat to, you know. So that would be like you would have probably, I mean, every Christian was going to battle with this,

but there's going to be explicit nationalistic tendencies built into the Russian Orthodox Church is by definition. I mean, you know, has ethnic allegiances. Yeah, it certainly is the danger for that. I think, you know, orthodoxy in America, at least, I think people don't want that to be the case. And I think that that was what a lot of people who have converted to Orthodoxy have wanted to move away from, or like, that's what, at least what the idea was, that they would want to move away from some of those more ethnic or national identifiers. But it's tough because you, you know, you do sort of end up going to a church where people

historically have been going because it came from the place that they were from. You know, like when the Greeks immigrated or whatever, they brought their Greek Orthodox church with them and their Greek language with them and their Greek food with them and their Greek priests and their Greek bishops. And so, it does kind of end up being this like, you know, like a little installment of somewhere from home. And it's like all of us, right? We get kind of tied to the wrong things and begin to think that this is the same thing as following Jesus. And it's just not. This is a, I guess, minor question, but you, I don't assume you're Greek. Gonzales, last time I checked, is a Greek. Is that an issue? You being a member of the Greek

Orthodox Church, you ever feel like, well, you're not fully in or no, that's not. No. Yeah, never ever. Which is funny because when I first started becoming Orthodox, I, you know, like read some books about how kind of exclusive, exclusionary the Greeks were and stuff like that. And that has been

the opposite of my experience. Yeah, I know. I've loved being like visiting different greek orthodox churches with my work and um just some of the most hospitable people um you know who who couldn't who couldn't care less where where i'm from or uh what my last name is people have often made jokes though they'll be like oh your last name gonzalez is that short this for short for gonzalikis right gonzalopoulos actually what are some main like big picture differences between the greek orthodox church and a traditional american evangelical let's just say ev free you know kind of middle of the road evangelical church like uh maybe theology we can start

theologically like what are some big big stuff to like, here's some differences. And then, I mean, ultimately, I would love to clear up any kind of misunderstandings that again, the average evangelical, when they hear Greek Orthodox, they're like, is that, wait, is that part of Christianity? Like, or is that, you know, like.

Yeah, yeah. So right out of the gate, we are Christians. We do. We believe in Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, risen from the dead all of all the all the big things um what we do man see this is a this is a good a good question like what are the big differences oh i mean there's we already talked like liturgically and just what a service kind of looks like and feels like um but we and I maybe want to drive this part home too, is that we fully reject the penal substitutionary atonement theory. Like, we just like 100% reject

it. That, you know, God was not offended by our sin and needing to, you know, dole out punishment and have a perfect thing or a perfect being pay for that. It was much more about being held captive by this, you know, this contagion of death and sin that binds us and that what Christ comes to do is to restore us to our proper orientation toward God, our proper functioning, that it has much less to do with getting off the hook somehow to avoid eternal punishment and much more to do with just having our hearts renovated, having our minds restored, our eyes opened, you know. So, I think that's a pretty big one. I mean, of course, the sacramental theology of the church is a hugely, hugely, hugely important

component. I mean, it's, like I said, it's about everything that we do, I think, is this seeing Jesus or the Holy Spirit, God, Christ, as everywhere present filling all things. Holy Spirit, God, Christ, as everywhere present, filling all things. And really, man, I think that at least what I've begun to realize, like, that the ascetic struggle of the Christian is in everything that we do. Do I feel confident saying this? I think I do. That the big work of being a Christian is to come to know and trust and deeply believe that God loves you. Like that, that is what orthodoxy invites you to. So that's a huge emphasis in Orthodox church. And you would say, as you, if you go back to an evangelical church, Orthodox church, you're going to experience that motif a lot stronger in an Orthodox church.

I think that's where, you know, where I've felt it because it's not just something that is given to you in your head, you know, it's something that is given to you through your body, right? Like, taste, literally taste and see that the Lord is good. Feel the smell, smell his love in the incense. Feel it in the warmth of the candle you know like there's a lot of using the body like the body's role in in orthodox worship is so so central to everything and even the way that we are you know are supposed to think about our lives monday through saturday you know like the the orthodox church kind of the tradition is to fast on weds and Fridays, like every Wednesday and Friday. Oh, really?

Is a day of, yeah, to abstain from. It's not like a total fast of like don't eat anything, but it's like don't eat meat, don't eat dairy, don't like just total vegan on Wednesdays and Fridays. As a way, first of all, of commemorating, you know, the day that Christ is betrayed on Wednesday by Judas and then Friday, the day that he's crucified. Christ is betrayed on Wednesday by Judas, and then Friday, the day that he's crucified. So, this is part of the ongoing life of the Orthodox Christian, is to engage in prayer, fasting, almsgiving. I mean, this is like the stuff that is pushed down our throats again and again and again and again to do those things. It's much more about how we engage the world with our bodies than just what we believe, you know? So it's more holistic. That's a, a good buddy of mine

converted to the Orthodox church several years ago. And he said, it's just the biggest difference for him was this, the, the emphasis on the holistic embodied nature of participation. You're all five senses are equally engaged, not just your ears and your mind and maybe your emotions, but it's like, yeah, your, your taste, your touch, your smell, um, everything it's, it's, it's very, you almost leave tired because your whole body's engaged in, in, in the rhythm of worship, which I, I find I'm kind of jealous of that. Um, I find I'm kind of jealous of that. What about the ecclesiological structure?

So you guys, y'all don't have a Pope, right? Like, is that the big difference between you and the Catholic church? I also have a question about Mary and well, I do have a question about like the difference because some people think Roman Catholic and Orthodox, they kind of love them together. It's probably annoying, but yeah, maybe let's go there. What are some differences between the Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church? Yeah. So that is a good question. Ecclesiologically, you know, we don't,

we don't have a Pope, but we do have similar kind of structure, right? That there are, there's bishops and priests and deacons and lay people. So there is kind of a much more like hierarchical kind of formation to how things play out. But all the bishops technically are the same kind of level of ordination, but they are still kind of put into a kind of order or whatever to, for the sake of making decisions and getting things done, right? Like at the end of the day, like someone's got to be the one that puts the foot on the gas and decides like, okay, we're going. Um, but the difference between Orthodox and Catholic stuff is Catholics kind of have like the one guy who is at the top.

Whereas again, in this kind of more conciliar model, uh, in Orthodoxy, there's sort of a bunch of people at the top and they're supposed to function together as a council. Is that like archbishops or what's the, what is that? Yeah. So patriarch. So like the, the patriarch of, yeah. Do you have to call him the patriarch in a day when patriarchy is not smiled upon? Yeah. You know, I don't, I don't, I don't, so I, I don't mind it because the term patriarch can be used many different ways. And I'm fine with that. It's just that at this day and age, and that word is just a

little bit, you know, I don't know. Loaded. Yeah. It's a thing. It's a thing. It's not, not a thing, you know? Um, but yeah, I mean, we, to that extent, right. We, we, the Orthodox church doesn't make any, any apologies for what it is. You know, it's like, yeah, we are kind of what it is. You can, you know, you can like it or leave it. I guess it is, it is what it is. We, we love you, you know, and think that there's probably a good place for you in this. And, and to be fair, like I do feel like Orthodoxy has a really beautiful, rich vision of womanhood as well. Like, I don't think that it's just kind of like, all right, sit down and shut up and, you know, like, don't talk in church and things like this. Even though we don't practice female or woman ordination or anything like that, you know, all of our clergy are men. How high up can a woman serve?

Can they serve in any kind of leadership role, deacon? So there's a lot of, again, there's a lot of questions about that. Historically, we know that there were women deacons, and there is kind of a grouping in the church that is pushing for that again to kind of bring back some of the female diaconate. But there's, again, there's just a lot of questions I think that people have about exactly what that looks like and, and means and what it looks like historically. And is it the same kind of one-to-one thing now? Or I don't know, like there's just a lot of, a lot of questions that people, people have, I think, especially when they're trying to hold on and things are, you know, you look at some of the maybe the more progressive traditions of Christianity who are just kind of like doing anything. And they're like, well, we don't want to do that, right?

We don't want to go like to the far side of things. So we end up kind of holding on a little more tightly to some of our traditional way of doing things. I would imagine given its strong ties to the geographic East, it's not going to be as Western egalitarian, just culturally like with them. I would imagine that would play a, play a role. A lot of Eastern cultures from my knowledge don't have this allergic reaction

to men leading only, you know, I don't know. For good or for ill, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's a cultural thing that, like when I travel to, yeah, I mean, I've been to the several times Nepal and other places and it's like, sometimes it's a little startling how, you know, the women just kind of serve the men

while the men sit around and eat and they wait handed foot all the men, you know, and then they do all the dishes and it would be offensive offensive it'd be profoundly offensive if i got up and said hey let me help out with the dishes or something you know like hey can you eat with us dear woman you know like that would be appalling you know um like get your western ideas out of here kind of you know like but then all that i i don't i I don't, and I don't know, you know, I would be interested to sit down with women and say, do you feel dehumanized? Or if they feel like it's part of their culture and it's not,

I don't know. That's such an interesting, when, when do you, are your Western values intrinsically good or are they just Western and just different? You know, I think people are really inconsistent with,

especially people like the bag on the west western this western that typically more progressive people but then yeah i think they'd be really appalled at some of the more eastern cultural norms anyway we're getting so so so no pope more more of a collective at the top um What about Mary? Yeah, there's something about her. We love her. I think that some of the rap that she gets, maybe even for people as they think about Catholicism, as well as that she serves as a co-redemptrix kind of thing, that somehow her suffering is essential to our own salvation or something like this. For the Orthodox, really what she is, is sort of the perfect prototype of a Christian, that you look at her and we see everything that kind of we are, we're meant to be and to become. So, Gabriel comes to

her, says, the Lord has a plan for you. And she says, yes, let it be done. Like, amen. Whatever it is, I want to say yes to the thing that you have for me. Even if it's like insane, even if it means that I could possibly get myself killed and stoned and divorced and whatever, all the different stuff, right? Like she just kind of says yes to what God has for her. And as a result, the Spirit descends on her, and she literally has Christ born in her. And this is exactly what we want as Orthodox Christians, is to be united with the Holy Spirit, to be in full communion and union with God, To be united with the Holy Spirit, to be in full communion and union with God so that Christ can be born in us. And that is like, I mean, what else is there?

So, she kind of is a symbol of the ideal Christian, by literally having Christ born through a womb, that's a symbol for Christ being in all of us. Yes, exactly. And so, when you walk into like pretty much any Orthodox church, um, you'll see behind the altar, a big, I wish that I, I wish that I had one, um, a big icon of, of Mary, like is, is what it looks like that she's just behind the altar with her arms stretched out often and sitting kind of in her lap or in her womb is the Christ child. And as we look at that, it's easy, it might be easy to think like, oh, these people like worship her. She's like displaying such a prominent place in this church. But really what you're looking at is this is the icon of the church. Here is the church as a mother, Christ in her womb, facilitating the birth of Christ in all of us really is, is the thing that the,

the church is to act as that womb in which Christ is formed in us. So which we are formed into Christ. Would it be inaccurate to say the Eastern church worships Mary? Is that not true? It would be, it would be indeed 100% inaccurate to say that, you know, it's yeah,

for sure. Would that be true of the Catholic church, you know? So are there differences between the role of Mary in both churches or have Western, have evangelicals misunderstood the role of Mary in both churches? Yeah, I think, I think generally speaking, evangelicals have misunderstood the role of Mary in, in both churches. I think she, she often more acts as a, again, like the prototypical model of faith and being a Christian. I do,

I think that there might be a little bit more of a sense of, again, my own kind of interaction with Catholicism is limited. So, it'd probably be better to ask a Catholic exactly what they think. But from what I understand, again, there is a sense of at least something of what her mother's heart goes through watching Christ crucified plays some sort of redemptive role in the salvation of humankind. And I don't know exactly what or how, but yeah. And okay, what about a couple more things? The Eucharist, what's the...

Yeah, bring it on, man, bring it on. The Eucharist is, how would you, what's the word to describe the Eastern view of the Eucharist? And then, because it's not quite Roman Catholic, right? I mean, it's kind of one step away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Roman Catholic once removed. Exactly.

So, yeah is the body and blood of Christ, which is kind of a way of trying to explain how it can, but it maintains the appearance kind of of bread and wine. For us, we would say, no, it's absolutely bread and wine. And it is the real body and blood of Christ. That's kind of a consubstantiation or? Yeah, I think that that's probably a closer word that would define it, but I don't think you would ever find any like Orthodox theologian who would ever use the word consubstantiate. Okay.

It's kind of, the word that we tend to use for all of these things is mystery. You know, like how is it that? It's a mystery. It's a mystery, you know, but what we really do believe is that, again, this heavenly spirit is everywhere present, filling all things, including this bread and this wine, in such a way that it is a very real participation in the body and blood of Christ. How it does that, I don't know, but like that's the transforming act of God. That's the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, which to me is really not, again, having grown up charismatic in Pentecostal, I'm like, I'm totally down on that. Like, yeah, the Holy Spirit can do whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do. Like I seen people roll around on the floor. Like, of course he can take bread and wine and make it a real participation in his own presence. Like, why do I think that's weird? You know, if Jesus says this is my body, I believe that. Wait, but that's cannibalism. No, it's not.

But you said it's his body. Yeah. Mystery. So it's that mystery piece that I do. I resonate with that. And it just doesn't, when I read in scripture things that seem in tension with each other, it just doesn't bother me. For example, is God sovereign and oversees all things, knows the end from the beginning? Yes. Does prayer change things and move God? Yes. And people say, well, you can't have it both ways. I'm like, the Bible says both. Because you prayed Hezekiah, therefore I am going to do X, Y, and Z. Because you prayed, the prayer of the righteous person availeth much, accomplishes much, is strong and inactive. It does something, James 5. God knows the end from the beginning, does the alpha The prayer of the righteous person availeth much, accomplishes much, is strong and active. It does something, James 5.

God knows the end from the beginning. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the book of Isaiah, basically. I can hold both true. I don't need – does it make sense to me? No, it doesn't. I mean, I don't – but it doesn't bother me. Like I don't need to – did God choose you? You chose him?

Have you seen the Marvel show Loki? Did you watch Loki? No know i want to watch it i like loki so it's good it plays a lot with like multiverse and timelines and stuff like this and i think part of the problem we run into is that like we're way more tied to what we think the sacred timeline is than god is you know like god like like god i think for him all things are possible and therefore exist in his mind as reality. You know, like every, with what is impossible for man is possible for God. So, God knows every possibility. He knows whether I'm going to turn right or left.

Or he knows what will happen if I turn right. Or he knows what would happen if I turn left. So, does he know, he knows the end of all things, whether I go right or left. So, is there some sense that like, yeah, that he knows it's just, I don't, I just don't know that there's one timeline that we, like we were so limited in how we think about time, you know, but they, there's an infinite possibility of things that could happen. And God just happens to know all of them, I think. Yeah. And I'm just, I just not, I don't know. Like I used to be, I used to have these systems where it's like, okay, what system does God fit it? And I just don't anymore. And it doesn't bother me. Even like

things within the biblical story that don't really make sense. The conquest is brutal, dude. Like, and I know I can give you all the theological answers of why it's not genocide and all this stuff. And it's still brutal, dude. And it's like, yeah, I don't particularly resonate with that part of the story. It sounds a little like genocide. But it's like, well, yeah, there's parts of the biblical story that, yeah, I have questions about and don't really resonate with. And I'm kind of like, oh, man, that's a little jarring. But as a whole, it's the best story told compared to all the other options because all options have more, more questions and holes and nihilistic conclusions and everything.

So it's, it's the best, it's the most beautiful of all the stories, but there's still lots of stuff I don't understand. And I'm, I'm just, I'm okay with that. Some days are harder than others,

you know, but, um, well, okay. What, what the, the afterlife,

what, what's your, so heaven, new creation, hell, what's hell like, is that, um,

I, I was told that orthodoxy allows for kind of all three, generally speaking, versions of hell, ECT, annihilation, universalism. Is that true or do you guys even really talk about it much? Yeah. So this is a really great, fun conversation. Conversations of afterlife are always really fun. However, I think that probably before I get to like the, you know, eternal conscious torment and stuff, all of the annihilationism, whatever. The, I think the primary thing, again, for

Orthodox Christians would be to start from the divine liturgy. And what happens in the liturgy in the beginning that we're told, again, the priest holds the gospel overhead and says, blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit now and forever and to the end of the ages. Amen. And so, there is this proclamation from the beginning that whatever else, whatever else, whatever we see, whatever happens, it's going somewhere good. Like, we know that for sure, that the kingdom of God is coming, that it's already here, that it's at hand, it's in our midst. You know, that the good news of the gospel is not that we go to heaven when we die. The good news of the gospel is that God has already come to man, like, on earth.

Like, that is the good news. It's not a story of us going to heaven, it's a story of God coming to man, which is a really beautiful story. And therefore, that kingdom reality is one that we can live in now and here and always, even after we die, that is just the, the fundamental reality that we often don't see or, um, or are aware of, you know, again, did you see free guy? No, I gotta write this down. I got, I gotta Google jumping worms and free guy and Moki. I'm going to be busy after this. You got the guy with the pop culture podcast, like on here talking. It's just the best way that I can think of things. Anyway, forget free guy, but I don't want to explain too much because that's beside the point. But that's the fundamental building block of everything is the kingdom, the kingdom of God. So if we can wrap our minds around that, that is the reality that is coming no matter what, that we can't fight the flow of that, that there's no

stopping it, then we can kind of see that that thing is supposed, that reality is supposed to permeate everything. Again, heavenly king, comforter, spirit of truth, everywhere present, filling all things. And so, at least the story that I had been given growing up about hell was like, that's where you go when you're banished from the presence of God, right? Like, you've done something so bad over the course of your 70 years of life that he wants to torture you forever now. Like, now you're going to be tortured forever, like forever, forever. And, you know, when you have it kind of put in those terms of terms of like wow so those 70 years on earth that i had and now i'm going to be tortured forever like it's kind of a hard thing to

even morally grab your like put your head around right i mean imagine as a parent right is there something that's so bad that your child would do that you would say, now you need to go into your room for the rest of your life. You can never, ever, ever come out of there, no matter how sorry you are, no matter how, whatever. That's it. You blew it. You had one chance. And I'm going to torture you in your room. Yes, exactly. But I love you. It's because I love you that I'm torturing you. Yes, exactly. And really, it doesn't make, it doesn't feel good, especially because the whole thing is that, like, we believe that his presence is everywhere filling all things.

So, where can I go to get away from him? Where can I be sent away from the presence of God? It doesn't really follow kind of with what we believe everything else about God. So, I do think that probably where a lot of Orthodox Christians would find themselves is that the solidarity of Jesus as God with humankind is such that every single human person, by virtue of being human and by virtue of Christ's being human, are bound together forever. That there's no, you can't untie that knot. You know, that when Christ assumes humanity, he assumes all of humanity. There isn't some humanity that he doesn't take on. He took it all on. So, my humanity, your humanity, my wife's

humanity, my children's humanity, all of it is held together in Christ because of, you know, that fancy word, the hypostatic union. Yeah. Right? Because in his person, divinity and humanity, God and man dwell together inseparably. You can't separate the two anymore. So are you saying like some form of ultimate reconciliation is the dominant kind of view of the afterlife in orthodoxy? kind of view of the afterlife in orthodoxy or? So I think that, you know, ultimate reconciliation in terms of kind of like the universal salvation kind of stuff like that, that's, I mean, there's,

there's definitely some, some scholars in orthodoxy like David Bentley Hart, who kind of make a pretty strong argument for, for, for ultimate reconciliation. But then you get guys like Metropolitan Calisto's where, who say that we should hope for ultimate reconciliation and kind of hold on to that. But I think that what you would see is that there ultimately is a – every human person is somehow bound to God. There's no unbinding the human person from God at this point because of the incarnation, because of Christ's resurrection. That has to be all. Is there anything other than ultimate reconciliation when you frame it that way? I mean, what would be the other option?

Yeah. Yeah. So, maybe the best, maybe the way to think about it would be like the parable of the prodigal son, that the older brother doesn't know his father, even though he's still a member of the family and he's in the family, he's choosing to remove himself from the feast. He's choosing to stand outside of the party because he does not want to embody the same mercy as his father, even though... And so to this, to him, now that experience of his brother being found is sort of like a hellish experience. So the father is still bound to the son, but the son is choosing to be separate from his father. So that would... Kind of like Lewis, the hell is locked. The door is locked from the inside.

Is he the one that something like that, that it is possible to keep yourself separated from God, but God's not going to banish you forever, even though you're kicking and screaming and wanting to come out of the torture chamber, you know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

He's, he loves you. So like the idea of, you know, like, have you ever had like a weird aunt or uncle that like, like wanted to hug you? Several. Yeah. And it's just kind of like, you're like, ah, like you're, you don't really want them to, but they love you, you know, but you like, don't really like want to be close to them because they kind of weird you out. Um, I think that maybe that maybe is like the experience that we have. But there's other people who love that aunt or uncle. And hugging them is like a really warm, comforting embrace.

But for others, it burns like the fire of Gehenna. You know? So how would an Orthodox interpret like all the many judgment passages, the, the, the lake of fire and, um, Matthew 25. And, you know, would they say that those are real threats that God through Jesus has overcome or I don't put words in your mouth, but, um, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that they're, you know, they're really, and again, this is, there's, there's room for, for pretty much any way to, to talk about like, you know, like in terms of afterlife stuff. Um, as long as we're standing on the fact that, like, it's Christ's work that ultimately saves everybody. But Matthew 25, for example, is, I think, a really great example of, like, what it looks like to live in the Lord's kingdom, right?

right that like his kingdom that is built on justice and righteousness for him you know to have a king who identifies with the poor you know the hungry the thirsty the the sick the imprisoned and if you also identify with the poor you go to them you're with them and you're not like turned off by them somehow then like that's the kind of king kingdom that's going to be a good happy place for you but like if because they're there, they're there with you, you know? But if you're disgusted and repulsed and ignore the poor and ignore the needy, and you refuse to acknowledge the king, then being in his kingdom, it's going to be pretty terrible, you know? And it probably is going to feel like you're in a lake of fire. Because, you know, who I like to be king in my

life? Me, like I like to be the king of my life. And so if someone else comes in, and this kingdom is coming, no matter what, like that feels like an invasion. That feels like a conquest. And even though it might be this kingdom of love, certainly doesn't feel that way when, you know, I'm so bent in on myself and want things my way. But there is certainly even I think with like the universalists, you will see that like they do. They take the judgment and the punishment stuff really seriously. You know that there is still going to be a chastening, you know, because at the end of the day, like you got you're rewarded for what you do or not what you do. But are you saved by that? I mean, first Corinthians, I think it's what's chapter three, right? Like the fire will test each man's work. And for some, like they'll receive a reward

if they built with jewels and gold and other people, like their house will be burned up, but they themselves will be saved is what that says. It's like, well, I don't know what you do with, you know, I just, I just, um, it was gonna get me in trouble, but it's definitely not the first time I think, I don't know, maybe not. Um, I was, I just recorded a Q and a podcast. And one of the first question was Preston, can you argue from scripture for universalism? Um, can you make a scriptural argument? And I said, yeah, I can.

And I proceeded to argue it for 10, 15 minutes and left it at that. I'm like, I'm not going to counter argue it. So I think some of these arguments are actually pretty, you know, pretty compelling. That podcast recorded yesterday, it's going to come out from this recording, recording this on Tuesday,

it's going to come on Thursday, which when people are listening to this now, they've already heard it. So it's weird time, kind of like the time, the different time, you know, where are we right now? Yeah. You know, I, I, yeah, I, it's, it's, it's, it's intriguing to me that the, the scriptural, The scriptural – some of the scriptural arguments for universalism are more compelling than people – than evangelicals I think realize. It's not just – I mean people say I'm a hopeful universalist.

I guess most of us would say, of course, that's – emotionally, we would all want to be – we should all, I think, want to be a universalist on some level. But, you know, the Bible has prevented me from doing that. But, and I would say, I think annihilation from my perspective has the overwhelming case for it biblically. But universalism does, and I've said this before, and I, you know, I'm surprised people haven't hammered me on this, but I think the scriptural case for universalism far outweighs scriptural case for ECT. Just biblically. I'm not talking emotional. I'm saying I can construct several arguments for universalism just biblically, even if I was appalled by the doctrine. But just in Adam all died, therefore in Christ all will be made alive. We interpret the first all is all humanity. So the burden of proof rests on us to say the second all

does not mean what the first all means. God consigned all to disobedience. It sounds like that's what he's talking about, but that's not what Paul really meant. No, he didn't really mean. God consigned all to disobedience so that he would have mercy on all in Romans 11, 32. And, um, yeah, it's, I haven't read David Bentley Hart. Is he, so he's Orthodox? Is that, I haven't read his book. Yeah.

I mean, he's, he wrote a book that is like purely about, uh, universal reconciliation that all shall be saved. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's on my reading list, but, um, yeah. It's wild, man. It's a, it's a wild read. You read it and you know, it's, it's hard to not walk away from that being like, is he right? Is it compelling? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's very, very, very compelling.

I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm used to the work of Robin Perry who wrote the evangelical universalist and wrote the four views on hell book that I edited. He wrote the universalism chapter in it. And it's, it's pretty responsible. I mean, I pushed back and I still have like, there's some certain arguments. I'm like, ah, I, here's reasons why I don't find my other ones. I'm like, Hmm. And I think for like, for me, like one of of the one of the things that is you know the most compelling part of all of it and this to me is where orthodoxy i think shines um is in terms of

leading leading with beauty you know like we lead with a beautiful vision and a beautiful imaginary and a beautiful um uh service whatever and to me like when you look at the three kind of like primary stances of like you know eternal conscious torment annihilationism and universal reconciliation one of them outshines the other two as beautiful more than any other thing and that's the exact wording that my other eastern friend used this is the more beautiful way is that is that like a an eastern well i think that if you're if you're in the if you're in the orthodox world it's hard it's hard not to start thinking in terms of like does this is this beautiful or not but isn't that this is gonna sound so traditional evangelical but i just have to ask it like isn't

that what does it matter what i as a fallen human think is beautiful? I think the girls on Baywatch are beautiful. I think the movie Gladiator is beautiful. I think Napoleon Dynamite is a beautiful movie. Other people think it's ridiculous. Beauty is so subjective. How can we form a theology based on what me as an individual think is beautiful? Because some things

I think are beautiful are actually pretty atrocious, you know? I don't know. Oh man. Is that, I don't know. This is such a fun conversation. What am I missing here? Like I, yeah. Yeah. So I think that one of, one of the things, and this is where, um, you know, you look at the gospel of John and the first words that Jesus says to his disciples, or to the ones who are following him, right? Like, the disciples of John the Baptist follow Jesus, and he turns around and he asks them, what do you want? Like, what do you want? He doesn't ask them, what do you think? What do you believe? What do you feel? It's like this question of desire and longing. And I think ultimately desire and longing only, like those things are,

they have to be awakened by beauty. And so, if Jesus is asking for, you know, what these people want, what they're actually longing for, then the question of beauty, I think, is the next one that follows. It's like, what is the beautiful thing that's drawing you toward that? So, when you want to be, you know, when you see your wife and you want to give her a hug, like, what do you want when you want to hug her? It's not just that you want to hug her, right? Like, there's something that you want when you hug her. It's like, I want closeness, I want unity, I want union, I want comfort. I want something. And these are beautiful things.

But like we don't want them for a place of thinking that comfort is a good thing to have. Like, oh, I think I need some comfort today. It's like this instinctual drive that beauty awakens in us, right? You see your wife and she's like looking real good and you want to go over. Like it's the beauty that first leads you to her. It's the beauty that we are. It's not like a beauty only, but it's certainly beauty first. Would that be a big difference between orthodoxy and maybe traditional, maybe more reformed evangelicalism is you would have a more sanctified view of human desire and beauty, whereas maybe some forms of evangelical would emphasize the fallen nature. And if it's desire,

like they would say, yeah, you want to go hug your wife because you want something else. Actually, that's probably really self-serving, you know, the assumption that your desire is going to be lead to negative places where orthodoxy would have a,

maybe a more beautiful, like a less, I mean, you have a version of the fall, right? Or no, I mean, you have a fallen anthropology, but would you say it's not, that's not as central to your anthropology as it is in evangelicalism? Yeah, no, that's, again, a really good question. So kind of out of the gate, I would just say in terms of like our engagement with Reformed theology, we reject all five points of Calvinism. All five.

Just throw all of them out the window. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. So we don't believe... Not a four and a half, four and a half. No.

No. Yeah. So total depravity, no. I mean, how could anything made in the image of God be totally depraved? Like, it doesn't make any – it's like, no way.

Like, we're good. Are we – and I would still say orthodoxy still believes that humanity is essentially good. Like, yeah, we are still good. are still good even though maybe we are fallen and disordered and confused but we still can't and this is even like bentley hart makes this argument a little bit in his book that we still can't help but want the good we still want the good it's just that sometimes our perception of what is good is messy right so um maybe a good way to think about it, uh, would be like when, okay. So our sins, the things that we do, at least as, again, as like an evangelical kid, I remember thinking like, there are basically like three things that you can do that are really like

sins. You can like look at pornography, you can kill somebody. Um, and like sins you can like look at pornography you can kill somebody um and like you can like rape somebody like those are like those are like the big three kind of i mean drugs like drugs are also like a really a really bad thing but lying you know like that's uh you know it's kind of a bad thing um but even questions of like you know when you start to get into orthodox you start hearing words like vainglory. Yeah. And you're like, what's that? And it's like, well, it's really caring what other people think of you. And it's like, but what's wrong with that?

Like, shouldn't we all kind of care? Wouldn't we all be sort of like psychopaths and sociopaths? We didn't kind of care what people think about us. But the idea of this being like, okay, so what am I hoping to find by really making sure that I impress you, Preston? Well, I'm going to take that to mean something about me, that I'm the kind of person who is impressive and good, and I start believing a lie, that I am what you think about me. I am how you feel about me. I am how you see me. But in reality, I am the beloved child of God. I am a creation of God. I'm already valued and loved and wanted and all of this kind of stuff. But I start misplacing my trust and my ability to win you over. And when I do that, I'm already walking in death. I'm already

walking in sin because I've stepped away from kind of finding ultimate goodness in God. And that really is the big thing that gets Adam and Eve in trouble in the very beginning. Is, you know, God says, let us make humankind in our image after our likeness. So the whole point of making humankind is to make them like him. Like that's the whole purpose. Like I want to make these people like me. And so when they go and they see the fruit and the snake says to them, to Eve more precisely, God just knows that when you eat of this, you're going to be like him. Well, what's the problem with that? Isn't that why God made Adam and Eve to be like them? But the problem is

that they start trusting in creation to give them that, trusting in this other thing to make them like God, and not in God himself. And that is where we start to fall away. So, the things that we want, like, was it bad for Adam and Eve to want to be like God? No, it wasn't. Like, that was actually a desire that God gave them because that was why he made them, to make him like himself. But because they kind of took things into their own hands and decided this is how I'm going to make myself be like God. That's where we start getting into some of of like, you know, a different anthropology. But ultimately, it's still these good desires that we've been given for, you know, love, purity, value to identity, purpose, security, joy, power, comfort.

Like these are like peace, right? These are all things that God has given us a desire for, for goodness. But it's when we start trusting in ourselves to provide those good things that we start to do real bad stuff. It's good, man. You're making a compelling case. I'm almost maybe nearly converted. I'm like a Gentile God fear. Could I be a member, as a member of the Orthodox church, if I was a five point Calvinist who believe in penal substitution? Like, is there room for like, hey, here's what the church believes, but you can be part of the church and have doctrinal differences? Or do you have to like, is it one of those where you have to like really on paper line up with what the church teaches? Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. So,

there's not like a statement of faith that you have to like sign when you come in. But there is, of course, like the Nicene Constantinople Creed that you have to like agree with, you know, and be like, yeah, I do believe in all those things. And I don't think, see, this is what's interesting is I don't think that anybody who is a five-point Calvinist would want to be Orthodox. Like, I just don't think that it would jive because you would hear things that are not five-point Calvinism. You know, you wouldn't hear, like, sermons about the total depravity of humankind and you wouldn't hear, you know, anything about double predestination. And you, like, you just wouldn't hear like any of that stuff. So you would already kind of reject it out of the gate.

Um, but I, there is, there is plenty of, of room for other like questions, you know, of ways of seeing things. I mean, even this question of universal salvation, there's people who will say it's a heresy. It's not officially a heresy of the church. Um, so. it's not officially a heresy of the church um so i mean greg gregory of um nissa one of the main architects of the nicene creed the author of like orthodoxy you know across the board as a universalist so totally and you get like isaac of nineveh and you know a bunch of other guys all throughout the course of our history who have continually found themselves in that same line and are deeply orthodox because there's a lot of gray area.

You know, there's like you can't believe outside of this box, but that box is pretty big. I would say personally I am an anomaly in that I actually like being in environments with different theological emphases? Because I assume that I have wrong theology. Obviously, I have blind spots. The only way I'm going to know that is if I'm exposed to alternative viewpoints and it forces me to think and reflect on my theology. So even if I was a five-point Calvinist, I would actually probably be okay with being in that environment. I'm not sure where I'm on all that stuff anymore but um it just doesn't interest I don't know those questions don't interest me anymore so I'm like I don't know um yeah well dude I've taken

you way past your time and I have to go I wish we could go longer I know I do too but I actually have to go to the bathroom and I have to go try to go to the gym. So in that order. Is it leg day? Leg day, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't – yeah. I try to – if I know I'm going to have like a high-calorie meal, which I'm not sure I'm going to have, that I try to go do legs because that usually gets my metabolism going.

So my wife and I, we've been doing – so she was born and raised in France and we've been back several times. And so we, both my wife and I love like the real aggressive French cheeses, you know, like a real stiff blue. Some of the ones that people like, it makes a whole room smell. So we get a good bottle of wine, some good olives, pickles, like the real spicy pickles, some good cheeses. So we've been doing that almost every other night.

But man, that bunch of cheese and bread and wine, that's not – Surprisingly though, like the French are really – they're not overweight, you know, and they eat bread all the time and desserts and cheese. But I don't know. I think it's the pace of the meal. They walk a ton. They don't typically overindulge like Americans do. So I don't know.

Bicycles and cigarettes, man. Bicycles and cigarettes. Bicycles and cigarettes. Hey, it was great getting to know you, bro. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the Greek Orthodox 101 lesson. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. This was great.

Take care, man. yeah well thanks for having me this was great take care man