Truth Unites - Can Protestants and Orthodox Agree? (Fr. Josiah Trenham & Gavin Ortlund)

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Gavin Ortlund and Fr. Josiah Trenham discuss culture, Christian collaboration, and their upcoming conference, Marriage: Bedrock of Civilization.Get your tickets here! - https://www.themarriageconference.com/Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/Timestamps(00:00) - Coming Up(00:26) - The State of the World(03:01) - The Ortlund Family (05:47) - Gavin's Ministry History (18:19) - Gavin's Theology (26:57) - The Marriage Conference(47:18) - Outro

I want young people to know marriage is fun. You know, I have five young kids. It is so much fun. And the impact of these collaborations on society, I don't think can be underestimated. I'm like 100% in on these things and think that they're extremely fruitful. Do you have concerns or do you share the same mentality? It's a great joy to be hosting today. Dr. Gavin Ordland, who is a new friend of mine, for which I'm very thankful.

It's wonderful to see you, dear brother, and welcome to Petristic Nectar. We are talking today on 9-11, on the 24th anniversary of one of the most horrific days in the history of the United States of America, when more than 3,000 of our fellow Americans were. murdered, viciously murdered by terrorists, were remembering them soberly this morning at church. We remembered them and prayed for them and their families that are still missing them. And also, sadly, less than 24 hours after the murder of the deeply respected and so beautiful young Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, and such a delight. to so many people, especially the young people of America.

I can speak for my own family and my children, my grown children, especially my young adult children, who have been so impacted by Charlie and have gone to see him when he came through my town and spoke at our University of California Riverside campus. We had tons and tons of our young people from the parish go and hear him. we're mourning.

It's good to be with you, brother, on this day of morning for Charlie. But I'm hoping that we can have a fruitful conversation even with tears. I want to say, if I may just interject my thanks for, this will be a bright point in my day. I respect you personally, tremendously. So it's an honor to know you and build a relationship with you. And, yeah, this, boy, I just feel. a five-minute pastoral video myself right before we started talking. What I was saying there is it feels like we've entered into new territory. The world hasn't felt quite like this in my lifetime,

that just my sense. And there's a sense of evil being afoot. And so my heart is heavy as we're having this conversation, but this conversation will be a bright point in my day. And I'm excited for how we can, boy, even reflect upon those things and how we can stand together. me too me too you know the ortland name is has been in my family's vocabulary for a very long time so when i got to meet you some months ago i was so delighted to see the connections i'm wondering if you can help clear some of the family connections for me so uh i was went to college at westmore college i was there from 85 to 89 i went to college with nels ortland who i think is your uncle correct okay and my parents uh i'm a i'm a glendell and pasadena boy and my parents in the late 70s early 80s went to church at lake avenue congregational church right

there on the 134 Freeway, 210 Freeway. And I believe your grandfather, Pastor Ray Ortland, Sr., was pastor at Lake Avenue. That's correct. I'm correct about that, too. There's a lot of Ortlands and easy for them to be mixed up. But, yeah, Nells was then Ray Sr.'s youngest son. So Ray Sr. is my grandfather.

Ray Jr. is my father. and that part of the world is very special to my wife and I. We love Southern California and lived there for 15 years, and in fact lived right next to Pasadena and Sierra Madre, a beautiful spot. California has so many beautiful spots. And then there's other Ortlands, I guess, the others. I have a wonderful sister named Krista, who is a dear friend of mine, and I have two older brothers, Eric, who teaches at an Anglican school in London,

and Dane, who is a Presbyterian minister, So if you hear a joke about a Baptist Presbyterian and Anglican go into a bar together, the answer is it's the Orleans. We've got the different traditions covered at this point. How beautiful. What a family heritage you have. Incredible. When are you coming back to California to stay?

We miss it. We miss the mountains. We miss the sheer beauty. We miss the people. So I don't know the answer to your question. but I'm excited to be coming to visit very soon and we're going to talk about the marriage conference. I'm so thrilled that my wife can come with me. We've roped my parents into watching all five of our children. And so we will be treating it as sort of get away and just cannot wait to be there. It's going to be a lot of fun.

I really think so too. Brother, could you tell us a little bit about your own history, how you decided to enter into minutes? ministry, a little bit about your theological education also? Sure. Yeah, I became a Christian at a young age when I was 10 years old, was very much solidified in my faith and in my commitment to Christ, my love for Christ in my high school years through the ministry of the youth group at my local church, a Presbyterian church in Georgia, wonderful church, First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, wonderful people, and began to stay in my college years and do internships there, leading worship on guitar and teaching and doing youth ministry, and just found my heart coming alive to this and saying, you know, this is how I want to spend my life.

I just absolutely love the thrill of pursuing people. You know, the imagery in my mind of being, when Jesus says, I will make you fissures of men, this image of your pursuing people. and you're trying to push them toward Christ, you're trying to direct them toward hope. I just found myself coming alive and saying, this is how I want to spend the rest of my life. I really struggled with that because, as we've discussed a little bit, there's a lot of ministry in my family.

My dad was at that time a pastor and has been a pastor his whole life. He's one of my great heroes, my father, just a wonderful man. Ray Jr. and my mom as well, she's a hero of mine, both my parents are dear friends. So I've seen ministry in my family. My two older brothers are in ministry of various kinds. I have uncles who've been in ministry, not just one or two. And then my grandfather served as a pastor his whole life.

And so I had these doubts thinking, am I just drawn to this because I've seen it? Or is this a genuine call from God? And I worked through that and realized my family is not a reason to go into ministry, but it's also not a reason not to go into ministry. I've got to follow Jesus. And so I got through that. And yeah, I've been serving in various roles, primarily pastoral roles. My education undergrad was at the University of Georgia, where I majored in philosophy and religion, love studying philosophy.

That's probably my first intellectual love, reading Kirkagard and reading existentialism and being fascinated with these ideas. I did my seminary training for pastoral ministry at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, which is a Presbyterian institution. I did a, after a pastoral internship at a church, then served in Southern California in ministry for many years. Before a year and a half ago, we moved to Tennessee, and my doctoral work, my PhD is in historical theology from Fuller's Seminary. My dissertation was on Anselm of Canterbury, who is my favorite theologian, in his text, the proslogion, which is my favorite book ever written, I could read it every day. I could start off my day. I just love it. It's just a fascinating. This is where he gives his famous ontological argument and so forth. And so that Anselm pulled me into

historical theology. I love Augustine. I love the Church Fathers. I love the Puritans. I love more recent theologians. So that's my academic interest, and that's where I published most of my work. I do a little bit in biblical studies, mainly in historical theology. So that gives you a bit of an introduction there. That's a beautiful, beautiful background. Could you say just a bit more about your ordination? When were you ordained into the Protestant ministry? And also a little bit about who was guiding you in your doctoral work? Yes, my doctoral work, my supervisor was Oliver Crisp, who's an excellent theologian. I also worked closely with John Thompson and a few other faculty at Fuller. I had a great experience there. My ordination was in 2013 at Sierra Madre Congregational Church, and I'm very

grateful for that process. That was a wonderful experience. And I'm currently serving at Emmanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm the theologian in residence here and teach each Sunday leading a seminar, also on Wednesdays occasionally. And then I also serve as a visiting professor at Phoenix Seminary. So I fly out periodically to teach courses there. It's a very part-time role. But I really have a heart for the local church, but I also love teaching in academic contexts.

And so my current ministries... I'm watching your channel that you have both this evangelistic calling and also a great love for instruction and teaching. You know, that's another connection. I'm giggling inside here. my my parents loved supporting seminarians so it was normal for me growing up to always have a fuller seminarian in the house that was you know my parents offered them a room and meals for free to help them you know not get in debt so that was just a normal part of my life was the fuller seminary students there especially through through the 1970s

into the early 1980s. And Sierra Madre is such, such a delightful and gorgeous place. My parents used to drive on Sundays after we would leave church. Since I was about 10, my dad would let me kind of sit on his lap. And we would go for a long one or two hour drive back from church on the way home. Through the mountains up against the San Gabriel Mountains there, out to Dina, all the way through Arcadia and into Sierra Madre. we would I would drive he would use the pedal but he wouldn't touch the steering wheel

that we left church until we got home and so it was great for me I wasn't so into looking at the houses and at the at the trees as much as I was driving the car when I was 10 and 11 years which I loved very much so would you speak with us a little bit too about your online ministry how in the world did you start that how did you decide to to start Truth Unites and what exactly is the vision of Truth Unites? Yes, I never expected to be doing anything online. It's not been a part of my past. It sort of caught me by surprise.

I was watching a lot of YouTube videos in 2020, especially during the pandemic, as we all had more time on our hands during that summer. And I just enjoy debates. I enjoy, I just find it intellectually stimulating to listen to William Lane Craig, and whoever it may be, go back and forth and think through the ideas, sort through the ideas. So I was watching these debates.

And I had just completed a book on the existence of God, an argument for God's existence, an apologetics kind of book. And it came to me that this would be another outlet for trying to reach people with this message that wouldn't come to my church and hear my sermons and probably wouldn't really realistically read my book either. But these young men especially, as you know, young men, go to YouTube with their questions. For better or for worse, they're getting catechized by YouTube and by podcasts, and there are people to be reached.

And so I began to put out videos very much in that spirit, apologetics, and so forth. And along the way, number one, I just found it fun. I really enjoyed it. I made some friends with other people. And number two, I found that it was actually a very powerful mechanism for reaching people and for getting a message out there, even with all the dangers that we can. also observe. And so it sort of snowballed and to my own surprise became a big part of my life. And I

enjoy it. I find it a lot of fun. I learn. It challenges my thinking at times. It's brought me into different orbits of thought and so forth and I enjoy that challenge. And I'm trying to steward it well. The vision of it is to promote gospel assurance. So I want my prayer, if it doesn't sound too mystical, my prayer is that every video would shepherd a viewer to an experience of the love of Christ. whatever the topic is that it would end up with the sense of my sins are forgiven heaven is real God is real God loves me as I walk with Christ there is hope and it would shepherd people to those gospel basics and a feeling of assurance in their heart that's what I'm hoping to do I'm sure I fall short of my goals at times

but that is the vision and the heart and so it goes into theology and it goes into depth I think people actually want depth and substance they want the meat they want theology They want church history. They want to go deep. They don't want the shallows. So I go deep, but the goal is shepherding toward gospel assurance. So it has a fundamental evangelistic commitment. You're trying to help people actually have faith in Christ and nourish their faith in Christ.

It also has this apologetic avenue. Is that an equal disbursement of your energy? What guides what you produce? Yeah. There are a couple of different buckets. So I do general apologetics, as you mentioned. I discuss Protestantism and do what sometimes is called Protestant apologetics, trying to explain and defend Protestant views. A third bucket would be triaging issues, which means sort of helping people rank different issues.

So one of the topics that I speak about a lot is the doctrine of creation. And I have convictions there about where, and it comes out of my own story, my own past, my own convictions, about, about where sometimes we make into a first-rank issue, that which is not essential to the gospel, like the exact amount of time creation took. So I talk about those kinds of issues and try to encourage historical perspective. I did my post-doctoral fellowship.

I forgot to mention that in discussing academics on Augustine's Doctrine of Creation and his various commentaries in the book of Genesis. So that'd be a third area. I also do general theology, education-type videos. I just, you know, So in the recent past, and then I do pastoral videos. So those would probably be the five buckets.

You know, the last video I put out yesterday was an evangelistic one on the Big Bang and why the Big Bang was disturbing in the history of science because it challenged the sense that science can explain everything. And it was commenting on Joe Rogan's comments about that, more of an evangelistic video. So an example of general theology would be, did Jesus descend to hell? Where I'm defending and expositing what I see to be a widespread view among the church fathers, this basic idea of Christ's triumphant proclamation that we see there referenced in the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed. So things like that. So it's a broad disbursement. And the name itself, truth unites?

Explain the name. I sometimes have people push back and say, but truth divides, and I agree with that. Truth unites and divides. I mean, you know, both of those things are consistent, of course. But it comes out of John 1711, where we do see this conviction that the truth does draw people together. The heart behind that is we live in a time of incredible combativeness and rancor and fracturing and cynicism. and I long to give my life to be a constructive and positive force that around which we can sort of gather and that will consolidate truth and so forth and to be a positive force.

And so even where we do disagreements and arguments against our different traditions, I seek to do it in an ironic way that is open-hearted personally to the other people that I'm interfacing with. and also in a way that appreciates our common ground and doesn't only focus on the disagreement. And so that's the heart behind that name is I do believe it's true, that truth draws us together and even where we engage in polemics,

I hope to do it in a spirit that has that sense of broader context and personal ironicism. That's what I aspire to. Well, in my interactions, the little interactions that I've been blessed to have with you, Irenic is a word I would use.

So it's a very, very attractive commitment on your part, dear brother. Could you say a little bit more, too, about your philosophy and your distinct theology? So you've mentioned your great love of philosophy, St. Anselm, you've mentioned also William Lane Craig. Would you say that you are, I'm somewhat familiar with Dr. Craig. would you say that you are very similar to him in his orientation towards philosophy? I would say I have incredible love and esteem for Dr. Craig, and we have many points of agreement, but we also have some differences. And I actually had him on my channel a week and a half ago to discuss some of our differences.

So it was intimidating to have a discussion with such a proficient debater. I'm not, I wouldn't call myself a great debate. I'd say I'm probably pretty mediocre, but it was a very positive discussion and because we have a deep friendship. But we have some differences. I think, so I would describe my own theological orientation as reformed, first of all. I would describe myself as within the reformed tradition. I am baptistic, so I'm basically a reformed Baptist. But I think that that label can sometimes draw up certain associations, one of which will be a very ah-historic. mentality. Sometimes Baptists are perceived to be just a thing of yesterday. And we've earned that reputation, unfortunately. But I would say, and this might be an area where Dr. Craig and I have a

difference, not a total difference, but a difference of leaning. And that is I have a deep respect for the Christian tradition. And part of that, of course, comes out of my academic work in historical theology. But I feel very weighted down by the testimony of the ages. I feel very respectful of the Christian past. And so that is something that, so that in my academic work, but also in, for example, how I try to express convictions, I mean, even just a moment ago, I mentioned, you know, Christ's dissent to the dead. It's very significant to me that that was universally affirmed to my awareness in the early church. And that's the kind of thing that I'm going to take very seriously. So, yeah, so I guess, Reformed Baptist with a little more of a,

ecumenical in the good sense of that term, leaning. I know ecumenical can refer to things that are really not healthy, where we just paper over our differences. But in my mind, it can also have a better sense to a kind of principled and proper desire for locating areas of agreement. And then a little more of a historical posture as well. I don't know if that describes it well. It does. It helps me a lot.

You know, William Lane, Craig, I saw. him have a conversation. He came to Pomona College, I think it was, with Bishop Robert Barron. And they packed out a stadium. I took my sons and some young people from the church. We went to hear their conversation, which was fascinating. They agreed on many things. They disagreed on many things, but they did it very beautifully and very collaboratively, which I thought was fantastic. You know, Dr. Craig was actually my professor, my senior year at Westmont College. Amazing. Yeah, when I was a senior, I was taking a doctor, Christian doctrine class.

It was one of the four required religion classes that you had at that time to take if you went to Westmont College. And he came in, he was not there my first three years, but my senior year, he took a one-year stint at Westmont. just after he had completed his second PhD, and before he had really launched his Campus Crusade for Christ on campus ministry. And so I looked back, and it was, for me, just a great blessing. He hadn't really started publishing yet, so I had no idea just how big he was going to be an influential in the Christian world at that time.

But I remember having long conversations with him about middle knowledge. I hadn't even heard of middle knowledge what he was talking about. But both my wife, we were married at the time, both my wife and I were his students. And, well, just I was incredibly impressed by a man who could be that intelligent and that pedigreed academically and have such a heart for the love of God and for evangelization to see him put aside an academic career, which is what he did after teaching us for a year as he went kind of into this incredible apologetic ministry traveling the world. campus after campus. I watched him debate a very well-established scientist from University of California, Santa Barbara, was a raving atheist.

And it was one of the first things he did when he started this new aspect of his life. And he just, what can I say, with a smile, sliced and diced this man, he just melted him onto the floor. With his competence, his academic competence and his inner spirit. So I do appreciate him as you do.

Would you say in your Reformed Baptist convictions that there is a particular, I know, I remember at once, I taught for about 10 years on my day off for fun, and it was fun, at Cal Baptist University, which is a big Baptist university here in Riverside. and when I was applying for the job I used to go there on the request of some religion teachers I used to go there just to give you know like their world religions class I would come in and give a talk on orthodox Christianity or sometimes once or twice a year teachers would bring their classes here and I would give them a tour of the church and that kind of thing always very pleasant and there was a professor there a really fine professor uh dr scott key is his name he's retired now

he's actually doing apologetic work at this at a c s lewis institute in uh massachusetts now it's a really fine fine man but he told me he said why don't you why don't you come and teach one class a term here i said well you know i can't really do that i'm a i'm a enslaved pastor and he said well you could do it just in one night do a three-hour class so i started doing that for almost 10 years I did that. I taught history of California one semester, and then I would teach a history class called the Cross and the Crescent, the history of Christian Muslim relations on the off semester, and back and forth. And I got to know Dr. Scott, and he was very, I think that the official confession of the school is a late 17th century Reform Baptist Confession.

1689, I'm not sure I'm completely positive. Is that something, you know, when I was born Presbyterian, the Westminster Confession of Faith was very important, and that was our officials thing. Is that the same? Would you say that that confession has the same kind of relevance in your life and then those who share a Reform Baptist persuasion? Yes, I think so. Yeah, the 1689 Second London Baptist confession would function for me, kind of like the Westminster standards might function for my Presbyterian friends. And one of my great passions is to encourage Baptists. I think contemporary Baptist have many weak points, though I'm thankful for their witness. But one of them is we have lost a sense of confessionalism, in many cases, though not all. And even just going back and

reading the 17th century Baptist theologians, you get a sense of much more rigor and depth and thoughtfulness than you will get in what you might picture in your mind today. And so, yeah, One of my passions is to encourage Baptists to engage their own roots and see the substance that really is there and the thoughtfulness. These three strands of reformed Protestantism, the Congregationalists and the Baptist and the Presbyterians have some common roots. And they've gone in their own unique ways. Congregationalism has really been reduced just in its overall size, whereas Baptists have grown huge. but I hope to encourage Baptists toward greater greater reacquaintance with church history generally,

but even just with our own roots, which sometimes we have fallen away from. Yes. Fascinating. I'd love to speak a little bit with you, dear brother, about our upcoming work together, our collaboration on the marriage conference that we're going to be hosting here just in a month. Actually, today is what the 11th,

So it's literally a month from yesterday, it begins Friday, October 10th, and going through Saturday, October 11th. This is going to be a high-level collaboration. Please forgive me for those who are watching. I'd like to give just a little background of the genesis of this. So Patristic Nectar has been hosting two conferences a year for many, many years now. We always have a Lenton conference focus on the spiritual life, and we bring really competent, recent patrologists into who talk about aspects of spiritual life. It's been very blessed.

And then in the fall, we have a conference. Because of what's been happening, this incredible, what shall I say, a reawakening of interest in the Christian faith all across the land, especially amongst young people, with YouTube very much at its center. You know, I was looking through a schedule. I write down all the interviews I give on kind of a master sheet, and I was looking at that sheet yesterday at how many. interviews I've given in the last year about people becoming Christians and people becoming

Orthodox Christians and why? I just gave an interview to the New York Times yesterday about this question. And it seems to be this incredible work of awakening happening with young people. And I thought to myself, what better time to do a collaboration, an Orthodox Catholic Protestant collaboration on very high-level important values that we share in common, to be able to hold up a vision for what we hope would be normative in a land in which the majority identify as followers of Christ. And in my mind, we identified five topics. We're starting next month, the first, which we hope to hold each of these once a year

over the next five falls. This is dedicated to marriage bedrock of civilization, and the focus of this conference will be upon setting forth the Christian vision for the role of marriage and family life in society, not so much an interior examination of the mystery of marriage, but an examination of its social place. What does marriage contribute to a land and a nation? and why is it the fundamental foundation upon which a Christian nation or a decent nation, we could even say, a reasonable nation could build itself? If it succeeds, we hope next year on the 250th anniversary of our nation to hold a conference on patriotism.

What does it mean to love your nation? What is the Christian virtue of patriotism? After that, a conference on motherhood, a conference on technology and a conference on education. I'm hoping that at the end of five years, there will still be this awakening going on. I'm hoping it will have actually become much more thoroughgoing and that we will have much more obvious discussion culturally, nationally, about repentance and about reestablishing a foundation of basic Christian morality in our country for the good of our kids and our grandkids.

So we're going to start. We're going to start on the subject of marriage. I'm very interested, and I know those who are watching will be interested, to hear what they might be able to anticipate from your heart and mind on this subject. What did you think when I asked you to participate? What was your initial reaction? And what are you hoping to contribute? Yeah.

I'm excited, and I feel the first thing to say to answer this is to express my deep gratitude to be able to be involved. I share your vision for working together for the good of our surrounding culture. And so I'm honored to be involved. I think one thing that is on my heart to say is how important marriage is as a sort of building block for society.

And as we look around us, we see, you know, we've talked already a bit in this conversation about the sense of evil floating around, the sense of evil rising. I almost feel in my heart this sense of foundations are rumbling underneath our feet. Civilization is being assaulted at some of its basic levels, and one of those is marriage. And so I am very, I think one thing I'd really like to say is that I believe we can come

together and work on an issue like this amidst theological differences. And boy, if we are not able to identify, here's where we disagree, but here's where we agree, and have a clear sense of the difference between those areas, we will not be the salt and light that Christ calls us to be. We want to come together around the basics, you know? Marriage is a good gift from God. We can come together around that and promote it and promote its honor. I believe that when marriage is held in high honor, it is good for society.

Young men and young women as well. I want them to know what a blessing marriage is. Those that God calls to be married are stepping into a wonderful institution that God created. To hit the main point, my talk will be addressing what is marriage exactly? And I'll be drawing from C.S. Lewis a little bit in his novels. One of his novels, That Hidious Strength has the marriage is one of the motifs of that novel. And he's making some points about marriage, particularly in response to the church. challenges of modernity and the assault of modernity upon marriage. And I'm going to be going back

to those amazing words of Christ in Matthew 19. What God has joined together, let not man separate. And we're going to double click on those words what God has joined together. And to emphasize that marriage is the first human institution before government, before anything else, marriage is the beginning. And God made marriage. is a divine institution. It is not a human invention. It is not simply something that two people choose to do. It is a gift from God. It is a divinely created institution. And it is such a life-giving, and if I may even say a joyful institution. Not everyone is called to marriage, of course. But for those who are called to marriage, it's, I want young people to know marriage is fun. You know, I have five young

kids. It is so much fun. I mean, I can't even express the joy. I couldn't even talk about how cute and fun my kids are. Every night I'm wrestling with them. We're playing, you know, it's one of the great joys in my life to be a dad, to be a husband. And I want young people to know that. I think sometimes people, here's the tragedy in our culture, the message of the world is that marriage is confining and the way to really have fun is the hookup culture. And I want young people to know that actually the path of life, God is not holding out on us. He's leading us to life. And his commandments are for our flourishing.

And those who are called to marriage, who enjoy marriage and have a happy marriage, it is a great way to live. And they are going to find the blessing and the smile of God in that arrangement. So, oh, boy, I don't want to give the whole talk right now. But those are some of the themes I'm going to be. You've wet our whistle. You've wet our whistle. This is good. I'm hoping, as you are, that those who come will be greatly moved to continue to invest in their marriages, to endure their marriages.

Marriage is fun. It's also torture. It's also torture, right? Because it's the place in which our own limitations and our self-centeredness is exposed. And because of the love and fidelity of spouses who are pledged to each other, to stick it out no matter what. It gives us the context to be able to fail and recover and repent and reform, really a place of incredible transformation.

I was reading last night. I was giving a lecture here in our St. John Chrysostom Cate Cetical School, which is on Wednesday nights. I'm sure similar to what you're doing on Wednesday nights. I always give an hour lecture on Wednesday nights. And I was giving a lecture last night on chapter 10 and 11 of the Epistle to the Hebrews. I've been going through that book with my congregation. And I was describing, I was reading a quote of St. John Chrysostom. You know, Chris Ostum wrote a commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews, like he did for most of the New Testament.

It was the last thing he did, though, before he was casted to exile. So the condition of the actual Greek text is really a mess because he did not have time to receive the writings of the stenographers and edit them. He was going to do that. and then he got attacked by the emperor and cast into exile and he never returned. So the book's a little bit messy. But he makes a beautiful comment. He's talking about the benefit of living in trials and tribulations, which the Hebrews were very much, these Jewish Christians were very much doing.

They were being tempted to abandon their faith because of trials and tribulations. And he says, look, if you have two rocks, if you have two rocks, and they hit each other and it causes a fire, how much more when you have two people, two human beings who are committed to each other in a deep commitment of fellowship, which is an aspect of what marriage is, this consecrated friendship as St. Seraphim of Sorabdera describes marriage.

He says, if just two inanimate rocks can provide a flame of warmth, what can two human beings do in a relationship in which they are resolved never to leave each other, to endure each other, to forgive each other, to cover each other. What a recipe for human potential and transformation actually become something. And everything's short-lived in our culture. Everything's thrown away. And in the midst of that, we have this incredible gift from God, as you're describing it. I can't wait to hear the rest of your contribution. And also from the other speakers, you know, you were describing about the negative attitude that a culture has towards marriage as though somehow it's a stealer of happiness.

I can't wait especially to hear Dr. Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia. He wrote this book last year, Get Married, Why You Should Defy the Elites and Save Civilization. And his whole focus is to pop the myths, really to shatter the myths that somehow if you get married, you're not going to be fulfilled, you're not going to be happy. It's all not true. It's just the opposite. it's just the opportunity. Yeah.

You know, I think most people who are aware of our conference, certainly those who are coming, but a lot of people who even can't come and are aware are really thrilled to see leaders from all Christian traditions collaborating. Some aren't. Some aren't on the Orthodox side. Some aren't on the Catholic side. And some aren't the Protestants.

I'm on your side as well. And I think that's unfortunate. I think that's unfortunate. They, I don't think, have a proper appreciation for the value of this collaboration. I'd like to say just a word about my mind about it and then ask you, as we conclude our interview, if you would say a few words about this as well. You know, one of the happiest aspects of my, I've pastored for about 33 years now. And one of the happy aspects has been the opportunities.

I've had locally, nationally, and even internationally, to collaborate with other leaders and other spiritual leaders. So in my town here in Riverside, I've been able to do that. I've served for some years on a mayoral committee. Our longtime mayor, really fine man, wanted the clergy to be involved in some issues of city life. So I was on an environmental commission. that was a mayoral commission for years. That allowed me to work with other pastors, priests,

and lay leaders here in my city. It was a really great blessing for me. We've also had a number of times, as many cities have, where our cities had to kind of defend herself against secular attacks back in 2011 and 12, an organization called the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a guy named the Reverend, Barry Flynn. Please don't make me say more about him. Basically threatened. He wrote our mayor

and city council and said, if you don't take down the historic cross on the top of your mountain, we have this beautiful mountain called Mount Rubidou, dedicated to the great Roman Catholic missioner, Father Hunipro Serra, who started nine of the 21 California missions. And he said, if you don't take that cross, this is a 40-foot cross that's been there. I actually can see it outside my office window. I look right at it. It's love. Thousands of people hike to it every day. Many, many people have been engaged there. It's a place where people go for refuge and for refreshment. And they said if we didn't tear it down, they were going to sue the city. And they got our city attorney all afraid that we were going to spend millions of dollars to defend ourselves, et cetera.

but it was an opportunity for an incredible collaboration of Christian pastors from all Christian traditions here we actually came together we wrote a very respectful common appeal which we presented to the mayor over 40 pastors signed this this letter and I was and we succeeded in saving the cross thanks to God but it was very instructive to me. I was grabbed later by numerous city officials and the mayor to ask to come into their office and sit down just to thank me for participating. It was such an incredible witness to them, this kind of collaboration. They're just not used to seeing it.

And it had a tremendous impact, and it led in this case to a great victory for the city and for our historic cross, which, by the way, is also the site of the longest yearly Easter sunrise, Protestant Easter sunrise service. It's been going on every year since 1907 here on the top of Mount Rubidou. I've also participated many times in the World Congress of Families when it came here for the first time in 2015 in Utah. Then in 2016, I went to Tbilisi, Georgia, 2017. I went to Budapest, Hungary. And this is a gathering of thousands of scholars and activists and politicians and pastors, all for the support of the family and of marriage.

And this was extremely encouraging to me. And the impact of these collaborations on society, I don't think can be underestimated how much our secular dying society needs this kind of intentional Christian concern and investment, I'm like 100% in on these things and think that they're extremely fruitful. Do you have concerns or do you share the same mentality? The honest truth is I'm 100% in agreement with what you just said and outlined. That is deep in my heart. I could say two things about this and it's just very much in the same spirit of your comments. And I feel so honored to be a part of this personally.

I feel grateful. I admire you personally. And so to be invited into a collaborative effort like this, to me is a sense of, thank you, Lord. I sometimes look around in my life and I say, the Lord has been so kind to me in my life. He's poured out so many blessings. I don't deserve them. I'm just grateful. I'm grateful to God.

I want to spend my life promoting good. I want to spend my life well. I want to live well. And to me, it's very clear that we can work together where we agree and work for the good of society. I think part of this comes down to a doctrine of common grace even. If I want to be a laborer for the pro-life movement, which I do, I'm happy to partner with anybody to do that. Because those babies are so precious, how painful would it be? if I withdrew from collaborative efforts that can save lives because of differences of theology that would not follow.

And so I think the approach that I see, I envision in my mind an approach that I do not execute perfectly. I'm a sinner who is seeking Christ. I'm not perfect. But the approach I see in my mind is we can argue openly, transparently, and honestly about our differences. They matter. They are important. We are not minimizing them. You know, we can even do that in a way that honors Christ by caring about the truth and contending and publishing books and doing things and so forth. And at the very same time, then we can look over at where we agree and those areas are significant, particularly in our societal witness,

among other things as well. And we can come together. And part of what, the last thing I'll say, and why this is so important to my heart is that we are living in very dark days, as we mentioned at the beginning of our time. I think we all feel that. We feel a sense of pressure. We feel a sense of heaviness. I have a heavy heart today.

I am grieving evil. I'm sad for, you know, I will get emotional if I think of Charlie Kirk's family and what they have to go through now and the particular age at which he was killed. And that is just one recent, episode that's on my heart today because it just happened. But it hit me differently than other things. And so I just feel that because of the unique evils and pressures of our time, because of the

sense of societal fragmentation, it is all the more important to, without minimizing our differences, be able to come together and, you know, support the basics. Unfortunately, the internet is radicalizing many people, and even the basics cannot be assumed. And so I'm very eager to do everything I can to partner with others to support just basic common sense of our Christian heritage. So, yeah, so I feel honored. And I just think it'll be a lot of fun. I can't wait to learn from the other speakers. I agree.

The Marriageconference.com for those who are watching, if they'd like to come and get tickets, you still can. Themarriageconference.com. It's going to be October 10th and 11th in downtown Riverside at our historical. Fox Theater. It's a great venue right next to the mission end. It's going to be a joyful time, I think. Dr. Ortland, Gavin, thank you. Thank you for being with me. Can't wait to see you and bring your beloved. May God bless our time together. Thank you, Father Josiah. Looking forward to it very much. See you again.