Truth Unites - Before You Become Eastern Orthodox...

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Gavin Ortlund exegetes a letter from Theophan the Recluse, outlining the historic Eastern Orthodox position on the salvation of other Christian traditions. Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

Eastern Orthodoxy is hugely popular right now. It seems to be a very attractive alternative to a lot of the problems in the world. And I certainly can understand this and appreciate this myself. There's a lot to admire in Eastern Orthodoxy. Tremendous beauty, tremendous depth, and many wonderful people as well. My own experience, attending liturgies and so forth, I've not found it hard to admire this tradition in many ways. At the same time, we Protestants have some concerns with Eastern Orthodox theology. Some are about specific aspects. of Protestant or of Orthodox practice and theology. For example, in this video, I've talked a lot about the Second Council of Nicaea, and its theology of icon veneration and its historical claims and so forth. And then in various videos like some of these, you can see responses that I've given to criticisms that have come up. That was a really fun discussion, though I'm a little bit burnt out on it, to be honest, because I've done so much work on that and kind of ready to move on. The basic issue is there is just we think Nicaa, too, is wrong, and therefore it's not infallible, and that's a falsification of the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic ecclesial claims.

But that's another discussion. Beyond specific issues like that, I want to address one larger question that is an even bigger concern for me personally, and many of us, and this is something I think every person who's considering converting into Eastern Orthodoxy to think through. And that is, what does that entail for your prior Christian experience and for all other Christians outside of Eastern Orthodoxy today and throughout all of church history. Because the Eastern Orthodox Church claims to be the one true church. And historically, that's been taken to mean that all of those outside of Eastern Orthodoxy are damned. And because that is no longer the belief in many particular

Eastern Orthodox circles and there's been a softening, many people are simply not aware of this. I do think a lot of people, and this is the concern with this video, it's not just to attack for the sake of attacking. It's a genuine concern, and it's that many people go from an evangelical context, and then they dive into Eastern Orthodoxy without fully being aware of what they're committing themselves to and what kind of system they're submitting to. Then later on they realize this, and I want people to understand right up front what they're committing themselves to. Now, in this video, I've documented that it's the consistent position of the Eastern Orthodox Church as expressed in official councils and from saints,

from the 9th century to the 19th century, that those who affirm the filiocque in the West are damned. What hope do they have for salvation, unless they renounce this heresy and become Eastern Orthodox, this would include the Roman Catholics, this would include all Protestants and so forth. And people try to get around this in various ways.

They try to say, well, the patristic data they'll appeal to, again, that's irrelevant. I'm talking about what the Eastern Orthodox view came to be from the 9th to 19th centuries, and various other ways they'll try to push, but I think the statements speak for themselves. I think this theology is very clear. So that video was kind of chronicling that from a number of different contexts. But then the danger is, well, how do you know you're really taking them all in context and so forth? So I want to kind of approach the same question in this video from a different angle, and that's more systematically working through one particular text. And that's this from St. Theophon, the recluse, preaching another Christ, an Orthodox view of evangelicalism. This is

just a recent publication of this, but it's a letter that he wrote. He was a 19th century Russian Eastern Orthodox bishop and theologian, and this is a hugely helpful and relevant text for this question for two reasons. Number one, Theophan is a saint and a contemporary father of the church, so his views can't be dismissed as just saying, well, that's just his own private view or something like that. He's representative of authoritative Eastern Orthodox teaching, and it is consistent with the prior tradition. Number two, this is a letter to a fellow Eastern Orthodox Christian who's had his faith shaken by an evangelical preacher. And so Theophan is responding to him, giving him counsel. So in that specific context, you get a very clear

articulation of the Eastern Orthodox perspective on the church and salvation. So in other words, the whole point of this letter is to address this topic. It's to lay out, and he does so very clearly. And so in this video, what I want to do is just work through this letter. Let us see plainly. I won't be, you know, raving against it. I just want to, I'm not even going to argue against it, really. I might gesture here and there to how I would argue just to ward off misunderstanding. mainly it's just for the goal of clarity and explication just to put it out on the table, just so people know. I find people are not aware of this because they don't hear this as much today. But this is historic Eastern Orthodox teaching, and people need to be aware of this.

So we'll just kind of exeat this letter and lay it out on the table and try to make it plain and clear. So the first thing that Theophan does is a quote from the letter that he has received from this other Eastern Orthodox Christian. you write a preacher of the faith showed up in our area he looks very kind visits the homes of the rich and poor alike reads from the gospel preaches faith in christ and urges everyone to repent a poor bookbinder lives near my home the preacher uses his house as a meeting place and gathers quite a few people i have also been there twice so far it is reported that this preacher visits other places too and that his audience is quite large. Okay, so this is the presenting occasion.

You can see how this particular context, the clash of a Protestant preacher among Eastern Orthodox Christians, and then one of those Christians writing to this authoritative Eastern Orthodox bishop, how this is going to yield a lot of clarity on this particular question. So here's how Theophan immediately responds.

He says, let us stop right at this point. It is quite obvious here that this new preacher of the faith is not a preacher of the church. How can he go about preaching faith in Christ without having been first appointed a preacher of the church? This is unheard of. So already there's this conviction here that you can't go out as a preacher of Christ without being appointed by the church. And the church is the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now, already, this kind of raises some concerns I've gotten into elsewhere with, you know, Mark 9, for example, where the disciples try to stop an exorcist who's casting out demons in Jesus

is his name, and they say because he's not one of us, and Jesus says, don't stop him. Whoever is not against us is for us. And, you know, the concern you could say it like this, like, if a valid preacher must be appointed by the Eastern Orthodox Church, why is a valid exorcist not even needed to be known to the apostles? And you feel a sense of dissonance here. Not really going to make that argument here. I've made that argument elsewhere. By the way, one thing I do want to clarify, though, is throughout this video, I'm going to be, laying out the Eastern Orthodox view and encouraging people to consider this, the concern is not sentimentality here, like, oh, this just doesn't feel good. The concern is about obedience to Jesus

in texts like Mark 9, or other ones I've quoted a lot as Matthew 7, Matthew 12, the good tree produces good fruit. And so we're going to make this appeal that we see good fruit outside the Eastern Orthodox context. Now, I'm not trying to fully make that case right here, but that's the nature of the concern. Whether that concern is applicable or not we could debate, but that concern is not just sentimentality. The concern is obedience to Jesus. All right, that's his first kind of immediate response. Theophan then goes on to basically give a second reason why this Eastern Orthodox Christian should have been immediately concerned about this evangelical preacher. You go on to say that he teaches faith in Christ and speaks constantly from the Gospels. This is exactly what should have

made you cautious all the more. Why does he preach faith in Christ to you? Are you perhaps a tartar or a Mongol? You have believed in Christ since your childhood, and you have always lived within the bosom of the Holy Orthodox Church, and so on and so forth. So he's basically saying, you know, why is he preaching Christ to you when you already have Christ and so forth? Now, this seems a little odd. Again, we're not going to make an exhaustive case against this. I'll just kind of observe in passing, it does seem weird to assume that just because someone is within the church, they don't need to have the gospel preach to them. People in the church all the time routinely need the gospel to be preached to them afresh. Nonetheless, not to get into that too much here,

let's just work through and just try to make plain theophan's rationale and how he, you know, what we're going to get here is a very clear presentation of salvation and the church in this context. This is revealed in what he says next. You write, he constantly speaks about our Lord Jesus Christ and his saving sacrifice. He speaks with enthusiasm. He is pleasant to listen to and attracts us all the more. Have you perhaps examined whether he is orthodox or heterodox? And then skipping down to the end of this, he says, he is a heretic. He may well be preaching about salvation in Christ, but not in the way that Christ himself and the Holy Apostles taught us. Okay, so you see that word heretic. This is going to give us the category that we're going to be working through.

What does he mean by heretic? Is it possible that any of the heretics can be saved? And Theophan is going to lay out his own history, his own understanding of the church, his own understanding of salvation and of the sacraments, and he's going to make it very plain. So the first thing he does is he gives some history and context to explain this particular judgment linking this Protestant preacher with a prior Anglican missionary. Is all this unknown to you? do you not know whose disciple he is, judge the disciple by his teacher? Certainly you know that some

Anglican came once and went about from house to house, deceiving some of our own people. Men and women who were not walking steadily on the path of the truth with his preaching. It is from these deceived people that this present preacher of yours sprang forth, continuing the deceptive work of that Anglican. He goes everywhere trying to lead more and more people to deception. Whatever that Anglican believed, this one does also. They have both. fallen from the crystal clear truth of God and find themselves in the fourth degree of the fall into darkness and falsehood or falsehood and darkness into fallacy and heresy. I will not elaborate now on the nature of this fall, nevertheless, I will briefly outline its historical course for you.

Okay, so you saw that language there, the fourth degree of a fall. Okay, so why fourth degree? And then you got the word heresy again, but linked with words fallacy, falsehood, and darkness. right, now he's going to give history. He's going to explain, and this is our main interest in this video, is to try to understand the Eastern Orthodox teaching about itself in relation to things like Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and so forth. Here's what he has to say. In the beginning, there was one church with one true faith, but temptation set in. The Pope of Rome, through sophistries of his own invention, fell away from the church and the faith. This constitutes the first degree of the fall into falsehood and darkness. Okay, so there's fall number one. From the Roman

the Protestants sprang forth, who, through more sophistries of their own invention, fell into deception and broke away from Roman Catholicism. This constitutes the second degree of the fall into falsehood and darkness. Later, the Anglican sophistry sprang forth. This constitutes the third degree of the fall into falsehood and darkness. Finally, this man sprang forth from the Anglican sophistry. It was he who led this preacher of yours, along with several others, astray and carried them into deceptions. So there's these four degrees of falling way, and they're defined as Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, and then this particular missionary who occasions this letter. So now we can ask, what are the consequences of those falls into error?

For Theophan, when he says heresy and falsehood, I mean, what exactly is he thinking of there? This will become clearer and clearer and clearer. He's going to nail it down exactly here. He says, the truth of God, the whole pure and saving truth, is to be found neither in the Roman Catholics, nor in the Protestants, nor in the Anglicans, nor in this preacher of yours, it is to be found only in the one true church, the Orthodox Church. The others may well believe that they possess the truth in reality, however they are far from it. Note that adjective saving, the saving truth is only among the Eastern Orthodox.

Now from here he goes on for a bit, talking about how Eastern Orthodoxy has the truth of God. He compares other preachers like this evangelical preacher like to previous heretics like the Ariens. I won't read this quote, but you can read through it if you want. He then compares preachers like this evangelical preacher to the false prophets of the New Testament. Did you not read the Lord's words of warning in the gospel? Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Do not think that the Lord refers here to those who do not know his name. No, he means exactly those who use his name as a cover of deception. He's saying, look, the fact that this evangelical preacher is using the name of Jesus and is talking about the cross of Jesus and repentance in the name of Jesus and so forth doesn't mean he's not a false prophet because the false prophets in Matthew 7 did the same thing. And he quotes from the later portions of Matthew 7 as well. He continues to say that these Protestants, in fact, preach another Christ. Quote, by these words, the Lord wants to show us that in no way does he recognize them as his genuine preachers. No matter how much they claim to be such in their preaching, the Lord,

Lord does not see himself but some other Christ, different from the one who was sacrificed here on earth for our salvation. He then quotes other passages about false prophets like Matthew 24 and the false prophets there that Jesus warns of in the Olivet discourse. I think it's verse five. And then 2nd Corinthians 11. This is the passage about Eve being deceived by the cunning of Satan. Okay. And he's saying like Eve was duped, so you have been duped by this false prophet. Okay. So this is setting the very clearly. Then Theophan anticipates a response. Quote, you will tell me, no, he does not preach another Christ. Whatever he preaches, he takes from the gospel, and he uses the words of the gospel. He constantly repeats that Christ died for us, and that if we believe we will be saved,

what falsehood and deceit can exist in this? Here's his response. It is true that these words contain a joyous message, what soul who searches for Christ cannot pay attention to them, but it is equally true that falsehood and deceit can be grafted onto these evangelical words. Let us pay attention to the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the Galatians, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you unto the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Okay, so now we're in the territory of Galatians 1. He goes on for a while about the book of Galatians, and he's saying,

just as the Galatians said things about Jesus, but still fell into heresy, that is exactly what you are doing by trusting this evangelical preacher. And you can see these words on the screen here, you have imitated those Galatians exactly. Now he anticipates, so in other words, the Protestant error is basically just like the Galatian error, which receives an anathema from Paul in Galatians 1. Now he anticipates the response that, no, this evangelical preacher is preaching the gospel. He's preaching from the gospel. And his response to this is basically to say, to summarize,

a little bit here he's saying, it's not enough to preach from the gospel if you misinterpret it. And he's calling this evangelical preacher a liar and a scoundrel. And he's going on, emphasizing that it's not enough to have this simple message of repentance and faith in the name of Christ. Now, some of the appeals he wants to bring against this, we who are Protestants and other Christians might agree with. For example, he spends a lot of time talking about the importance of the Trinity, saying that salvation is a work of the entire Trinity, and we would agree with that. He also makes various other appeals that we could agree with, like, you have to look at the entirety of Scripture, not just one scripture. Well, so far as that goes, we would certainly agree. But he's still

opposing this basic, more simple message of salvation through repentance in the name of Christ and in response to his work, his death on the cross for our sins. So you're kind of wondering, okay, what exactly do you believe? So here, and again, this is why I'm doing the whole video on this, the benefit of this book is it's very clear. You get a very clear articulation of the Eastern Orthodox point of view. So here's how he gives his own summary of how a person is saved. Quote, I will tell you now what is most important for everyone's salvation. It can be stated briefly as follows. Have faith and receive the divine grace that guides us in the Christian life through the divine mysteries. Live according to the commandments of God and the guidance of the God's

shepherds, be in a living relationship with the church. Now this is a very ecclesially oriented summary. Think about what's being said here. First, you have faith in the divine mysteries. That's the sacraments of the church. Then he says, the guidance of the shepherds. Well, that's the priests and leaders of the church. And the church is the Eastern Orthodox Church. So that means Eastern Orthodox, bishops and priests and so forth. And then he says you need to be in a living relationship with the church. And again, the church is the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now he's going to flesh this out even more clearly of what all that entails, what you have to believe, what you have to do. First, he uses a metaphor of walking on a dark road at night. And he says, you need a light in order to know where to go.

And then he says, similarly, if a person is pursuing salvation, they need a light. And that light is the Eastern Orthodox Church. His conclusion is, all this takes place within the bosom of our Holy Church. Everyone who works well for his salvation is united with the church. All those who have been saved following this path, and all those who are being saved walk on this path. There is no other way to salvation. Then he provides a summary of those things that you must believe to experience salvation. And that list includes the Trinity, the incarnation, various things like this. But he includes on the list also the doctrine of the church, including things like apostolic succession and the intercession of the saints. As you can see on the screen here, he then stipulates that both

faith and works are necessary for salvation. Now, on this point, he doesn't, I don't think the, we're Protestants, that's a fascinating conversation. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox on the nature of like Solafide. You know, that's a discussion that really needs to be had. I don't think it really gets into that discussion because from this book, it's not aware that Protestants, it's not clear that Protestants believe in the necessity of works. But that's fine. I'm just saying it doesn't really go too deep on that. So that's fine. So we could have that conversation. But we believe we're justified by faith alone, but then faith will result in good works as a fruit of that justification. But leaving that aside, it's fine. Okay. So just for the moment, he's saying,

faith and works are both necessary. And then he says, divine grace is necessary for both faith and works. And guess where you get the divine grace through the sacraments? And you get the sacraments through the church. He uses the story here of Nicodemus to illustrate this from John chapter 3. And according to Theophan, if you want to have the sacraments to receive divine grace, which is necessary for both faith and works, then you need to have apostolic succession. So then he discusses all the sacraments and the priesthood of the church, and he enumerates four things that you need for salvation. So he's already said faith and works. Now he's added on divine grace via the sacraments. Now he adds the priesthood of the church. Quote, so far we've presented three elements that are necessary for the work of salvation,

faith, life, according to the divine commandments, that's works, and divine grace that is given through the divine mysteries, sacraments, these three require a fourth the holy priesthood that was established by the Lord. He then expounds his theology of the priesthood for a bit, and then he gives a fifth and final requirement. Note carefully these words, I presented to you the four necessary elements for our salvation, but there is one more to belong to the body of the church in a living union with the congregation of the faithful. And then he uses various biblical proof texts to bear this out, like the vine and branches in John 15, or Paul's metaphor of a body for the church in 1 Corinthians 12. What does it mean to participate in the life of the church?

He says three things. In order to participate in the life of the church and to work out his salvation within her bosom, every believer has the following obligations. Number one, he ought to believe as the whole church has always believed, to examine his every thought using the criteria of the church and never to allow himself to disagree even slightly with her teaching. That sounds pretty exacting. Second, he should differ in nothing from the other believers in the order of ecclesiastical life. So then he talks about things like fasting, partaking of communion, partaking of liturgical events, and so forth. And number three, he should

believe deeply that the members of the church in heaven are in a living and direct communion with the members of the church on earth. The prayers of the former for the latter are heard and fulfilled according to the will of God. Okay, so now he's talking about the intercession of the saints and angels, he talks about a little bit too. So you can see why this text is so key on this whole question. He's very clearly laying out. Here's what you have to do to be saved. If you do this, this, this and this. What does this mean? Okay, it means this, this and this. And he's laying it all out. You can read from start to finish. And the benefit of it is it's very direct, you know? Here's then his summary. Let us summarize here all things necessary to attain salvation. And let us point out the

following. Do you want to be saved? Believe in the whole truth as God has revealed it, except the strengthening power of divine grace that is offered through the divine mysteries, always live by the commandments of God, under the guidance of the God sent shepherds of the church, do all this with the mindset of the church within the framework of her laws and ordinances united in a living and unbreakable manner with her. This is how you will be saved. Remember, every time it's talking about the church, that means the Eastern Orthodox Church. because as he laid out the history very clearly, there's been this fourfold falling away. The Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, the Protestants, they've all fallen away.

They're like the heretics. They're like the false prophets of Matthew 24. They're like the Judaizers of Galatians 1. They're preaching another Christ. So every time you hear the church, that's talking about the Eastern Orthodox Church exclusively. That is why this evangelical preacher that this Orthodox Christian is writing about has he's saying he's deceived you like Satan deceiving Eve and you've become bewitched like the Galatians being bewitched by the heresy of the Judaizers in Galatians 1. So this is when, so in other words,

when Theophan clearly enumerates these five necessities for salvation, and he says numbers one and two, faith and works, require number three, the sacraments, And numbers three to five, all have to do with the church, which means the Eastern Orthodox Church, you can see the plain implication. There's no salvation outside the one true church, meaning you have to be Eastern Orthodox to be saved. I have to say without, you know, now one of the things that often comes in response when we offer criticisms of Eastern Orthodoxy is, well, you just don't understand it.

You need to submit to it before you can understand it. I'll let the viewer be the judge of if that's a fair response, and if it's a consistent one that is consistently made. I need to state the concern this strongly, and I'm not just trying to provoke people, but I think the concerns here are about as important as it gets, like everlasting salvation of the two billion Christians in the West. That's pretty important, and lots of others as well. The concern is, in this theology is the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Savior rather than Jesus. and therefore is there a danger of an idolatry of the church? I hope not. I'm not always sure where that kind of concern might apply.

Try to be careful with this. I'm not trying to hammer this down as a judgment, but this is the concern that is provoked. This is the question I am now asking. Because the restrictiveness, you know, again, I'm not going to make the full case from Mark 9 right now, but my appeal to the viewer is, do you know that's what you're committing to historically?

if you become Eastern Orthodox. That's the position. Now, just to finish off and then I'll make the final appeal from that is the letter, it goes on, he's talking about the necessity of making the sign of the cross and bowing in prayer. He talks about calling upon the saints and the mother of God. He talks about fasting. It addresses various other concerns that the evangelical preacher is teaching, while the Eastern Orthodox priests don't ever teach. They just rely on the divine services. So he's addressing that concern. And then he concludes like this. Distance yourself from the heretical false teacher and attach yourself more firmly to our Orthodox Church. This is what you should also advise other Christians to do. You have heard enough of this erroneous teaching and troubled

your ears enough with his sentimental words. Enough is enough. No good will come of it. And in order to detoxify yourself more quickly from what you have heard, study the book, The Rock of Faith that I mention to you, it would be better, however, if all of you who were contaminated by the poisonous words of the heretical teacher meet together and study the book carefully with each one noting for himself what he finds most useful in the fight against the attacks of the enemy. And then it's over. That's the end of the book or the letter. So you can see very clearly the appeal here. You know, he's not even encouraging this Eastern Orthodox Christian to evangelize or to have any sort of relationship with this heretical teacher. He's the enemy attacking. He's a

contaminant to be shunned. No good can come from listening to this and so forth. Okay? That's the, you know, keep your distance. That's the way of thinking. So what all this amounts to is this. The whole point of this letter, the whole point is to answer the question, what is necessary for salvation. That's the whole point he's trying to address. And it's cast specifically by the occasion of Orthodox Protestant relationship and Catholic relationship is addressed by it as well. In other words, this isn't said in the context of like, you know, Eastern Orthodoxy versus some other Eastern religion or something like that, and then we're then applying it to that context. It's specifically occasioned by this context, the evangelical preacher preaching salvation and by repentance in the name of Christ.

And it's very clearly stated that you need to be in the one true church. The Roman Catholics and the Anglicans and the Protestants and this preacher have fallen away from the one true church. They're like the heretics. They're like Galatians 1. They're like the false prophets. They're preaching another Christ and so forth. So I think that's pretty clear. So the upshot of all this is like this. If you want to affirm the teaching of Theophon and the entire tradition it represents, because Theophon is not alone in this, and yet still allow J.R.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis to be saved and make it to heaven, then words just have no meaning, because he's saying as clearly as you can say, you know, you have to be in the one true church to be saved, and that church is the Eastern Orthodox Church.

it's not the Protestants and it's not the Catholics. And in order to be in the one church, here's what that means. You know, you have to observe the liturgies and keep the feasts and pray in this way and believe everything and not doubt anything and so on and so forth. Even talks about the spirit in which you think through these things, has to be sort of in the spirit of the church and so forth. So what all that means is I would make this appeal to those who are considering converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. I understand that allure that it has. It's mystical, liturgical, rich, and very beautiful and very profound. And we do not need to return the favor and reject them as Christians.

We can affirm they are Christians. So I'll come back to that at the end. But the appeal is this. You have two options. Number one, you can say that theophan is wrong, and the entire tradition he represents is wrong. Or number two, you can say he's right, and the two billion Christians in the West are damned as well as all those throughout history because they don't have access to faith and works and the sacraments and the priesthood and communion with the church and so forth. Now if you go the

first route and you say, nah, I don't buy this. I don't think that's correct. Then why become Eastern Orthodox in the first place? Because now the whole appeal of being the unchanging church is no longer on the table. They've clearly changed. But if you go the second route, the problem is not sentimentality. The problem is how do you explain the spiritual fruit reflected in Western Christianity, the miracles, the saints, the hospitals, the universities, the exorcisms? There's an entire Christian empire that exists outside of Eastern Orthodoxy that has transformed the world. How can we stand before Christ one day and give an account of simply rejecting that when he himself taught us the good fruit reveals a good tree? So, you know, before you become

Mason Orthodox, ask yourself, can you make peace with this system? Can you look at your Protestant and Roman Catholic friends, parents, family members, previous experiences, and the entire last millennium from St. Anselm of Canterbury to Richard Wormbrand and so forth, and say all of that, heresy, darkness, and falsehood. Can you do that? That's what you're converting to. Now, that's not what you'll hear a lot of times, but that's the history of it. And I know people will, they don't like this, I get anger and response, but I just don't know any other way to look at it. Again, I think words have no meaning if this doesn't entail the damnation of all the non-Orthodox. Final comment is this, we who are Protestants don't need to return the favor. We can't acknowledge

there is salvation outside of just one institution and therefore in all, in these multiple institutions. That's a whole Protestant contribution to the church. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, except among the proto-Protestant groups like the Waldensians, you really didn't have that. It's amazing, you know, that the whole idea that, and by the way, if you want to see the historic Protestant position, I've addressed it a lot in this video entitled Protestant Orthodox Relationship, the moment that defined it. That's about a 16th century interchange between Lutherans and the archbishop of Constantinople at that time. Or you can see chapter one of my book, where I'm drawing from Luther and Calvin, then I'm drawing from Richard Hooker and others later to show that it was not

the historic Protestant position that the Eastern Orthodox were not a church or did not have salvation from the beginning and out of the gate. Because another thing people will say is, oh, you know, don't try to act like Protestantism is more ecumenical. I've had this experience, I've had that observation, I've seen how nasty it is out there in Protestantism. And I don't question people's experiences, but my point would be that's not official Protestant teaching. Protestants historically haven't said that. Luther and the later Lutherans didn't say that. Calvin didn't say that. Turriton didn't say that. The Anglicans have not said that. Historically, in fact, this was one of the whole appeals against Roman Catholicism at the time of the

Reformation and for a while afterwards is you Catholics are wrong to submit salvation, or to restrict salvation to those who submit to the Pope. Because look over there at the Oriental Orthodox. Look over there at the Eastern Orthodox. They're Christians, so therefore you Catholics are wrong to restrict salvation to the Pope. And I've documented that, again, in the same resources I just reflect. So I want to make one final comment. I think, you know, Tom Holland has this wonderful book, Dominion. He's showing how we just take for granted Christian influence in the modern West. It's so normal to us. We just assume it when we forget that it comes from Christianity. I think the same thing is true for Protestantism in various ways. And one way is this ability to not

restrict the church to one institution, but to understand there are valid Christians and salvation outside of my institution. That's sort of taken for granted today. That's even seeped into Eastern Orthodoxy in the 20th century, and certainly today. That's a Protestant influence. I know people will get mad, and I know they won't believe me, but it's true if you just read, in the 16th century, you read what the Eastern Orthodox said, you read what the Roman Catholic said, and you read what the Protestants said. And it's very, very clear that it's only the final of those three groups that was saying the other side can be saved. That's just true. The Protestants have been the ones who bequeath this to the world that actually we can look

over at each other amidst these deep divides, and we're not minimizing them and say salvation can exist outside that, and that's only subsequently come in in these other traditions. and I've documented that in various places, but it's really true if you look into it. So that's one thing I'm grateful for about Protestantism. And that's one reason I would encourage people not to become Eastern Orthodox because if you do, think about the implications of what you are saying about the rest of Christendom. Can you really live with that? Can you really stand before Christ and say that?

I submitted to a system that required me to basically regard over 85% of the people who can recite the Apostles' Creed as just stuck in the darkness and just to shun them, basically. I mean, that's the other thing. It's just the utter lack of love. And the utter, I mean, the accusations of sentimentality are going this direction,

but in response we'd say, that's not sentimentality, and in return, we would say there's a lot of prejudice in that accusation. And I wouldn't say that if I didn't think needed to be said. But because I'm concerned, I see people converting and they maybe haven't really faced this and really looked at it and really come to terms with it, because this is serious stuff. Let's not restrict salvation any more than we need to, any more than Christ himself in the New Testament

and the apostles command us to. All right, let me know what you think in the comments. Let me know if you think I missed anything. I'm curious what others would take of this video. Thanks for watching at the end. Don't forget to share this, like, subscribe. Oh, you know the drill. All right, thanks, everybody.