Truth Unites - How to Decide Which Church to Join

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Many people wrestle with how to know whether to be Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or a part of some other Christian tradition.  Whereas my other videos focus more on the content of the theology involved in this decision, here I simply offer four practical tips for walking through this process. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

One of the questions I get asked all the time is how do we actually go about making a decision between the different traditions within Christianity? Especially here, I'm thinking of Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox. Certainly there's other options, but a lot of people are wrestling with those questions. And between those three traditions, a lot of people have grown up in one, and then they're seeing, ah, the issues are more complicated than I realized, and they're feeling a sense of burden with that. sometimes people feel like, how do I make my decision when there's smart people in each of these traditions who have studied this way more than I have and they can't agree on it? And I understand that and I have kind of a pastoral burden to try to help people with those kinds of questions when they're wrestling with that, which I think is a lot of people right now.

So I'm going to make this video, a very brief video, strictly on the process. Most of my videos are about content, you know, arguing for a Protestant view of something. I'm not going to do that at all in this video. I'm just going to talk about how practically we actually go about making decisions like that. Just, you know, not an exhaustive list or the way to do it, but just a few thoughts hoping this could help people out there. So I have four pieces of advice. The first is take your time. I see a lot of people who move relatively rapidly in a change like this. And sometimes five years later, they end up back or they end up making another significant change.

and I think it's just, you know, people should be aware. It's not compromise to delay actually making the decision until you fully feel peace and a kind of settled conviction in your conscience and in your thinking about where you belong and what God is calling you to do. It can be easy to kind of get pulled in too quickly in the midst of the excitement of discovering something. and I think it's good to just be careful and to really make sure that you've fully understood the consequences. One reason for that is these differences are really significant. Some people, you know, sometimes it can be downplayed. And especially because I try to take a more ecumenical approach. I try to say, what can we learn from the other side?

Where can we see Christ in the other side? Some people think, well, if it's not a matter of salvation, therefore it's not really that important. But it really is. These differences are significant differences. Historically, theologically, practically, makes a big difference in your life, in your relationships. So it should not be done lightly or speedily. And the issues are complicated. That's the main reason to take your time is it takes a while to really fully understand each side,

especially because there's so many caricatures of the various views. So they're really complicated. I've been studying these, I've been studying theology for most of them. my life and I feel like a lot of these issues, I'm still just scratching the surface. There's so much to them. So it's not compromise to work through it. Obviously, you could go too far. You could just, it could be 30 years and you're still not, you know, but I think most, usually the error probably for most of us is in the other direction. It's not compromise to wait until you arrive upon a settled piece of conviction that you know this is where God's calling me. Second piece of advice

I'd say is have wide exposure to all of the different options. Read widely in each tradition, as much as you can. I understand not everyone is a professional theologian, but to the extent that you read widely in one, read widely in the other, you see, let it be a fair fight. And then when you visit churches, visit all different kinds of churches, one of the things that is dismaying that I sometimes see is when people who have grown up in more of a non-sacramentalist, low church context and they feel the pull towards more of a sacramental view, toward liturgy, toward church history, and they completely bypass Anglicanism and Lutheranism and even other Protestant options for Catholicism or orthodoxy. And you just want to encourage people to

understand how much there is to Protestantism, at least give it a due consideration, you know, because often this is how things are framed. It's either like the low church evangelical or the Catholic option or the Orthodox option and people are not aware of how diverse historic Protestantism is and Protestantism today is. Another thing that happens is people don't read widely in all the different traditions. For example, people will often read the Church Fathers in connection to Catholic views or Orthodox views, but they won't read the historic Protestants. So the comparison ends up being something like, you know, the fathers versus my own

anecdotal experience at my Protestant church. And I think I need to say this strong that maybe we could say most particular Protestant churches probably aren't going to give you a good reflection of Protestantism because many contempt, I mean, that's a very general statement, but I'm thinking of my context and in the United States and evangelical churches. I think it's true that most modern-day evangelical churches are different from historic Protestantism in many ways. And so the idea here is you just want to understand all the different options. I see a lot of people moving out of Protestantism, I'm sorry to say, I think, without fully understanding Protestantism. And that's part of the goal of my channel is I want to, for those who don't have the time to read, you know, or the money to buy,

some of these older Protestant texts, Martin Kemnitz's four-volume examination of the council, of Trent. It's been a lot of time reading that and trying to channel that into my videos to try to help people who don't have the ability to buy that and read that through for themselves. But I do think, you know, before making a major change, you really need to look into, if not Kemnitz, at least some of these historic Protestant voices, because people are often shocked at how different the historic Protestant voice might be from a contemporary Protestant. So the idea here is don't compare historic orthodoxy to my own anecdotal experience at this Protestant church or historic Catholicism to the same.

Just let it be a fair fight. Read widely in all of the traditions. Read the Puritans. Read the reformers. Read the second generation reformers in Protestants. In fact, I put it as strong as to say, do not leave Protestantism without reading William Whitaker and John. John Jewell and Richard Hooker and Francis Turriton, or I mean, I know not everyone's a professional

theologian, but at least some of, something of the historic Protestant voice. Just as I'd say, don't leave Catholicism without having some exposure to Newman and important councils in Catholic history and other major canonical Catholic theologians. It's just we want to know what these options are in their historical artis. The third piece of advice is be skeptical of triumphalism. There are such different mentalities that can be found within each of these traditions. Unfortunately, in all of them, there is a lot of triumphalism and caricaturing of the other side, unfair representations of alternative views, a defense of one's own view by means of misrepresenting

the other view so that it sounds like my view is the smart one, yours is the dumb one. My view is the one that's biblical, yours is the one that's unbiblical, mine is the one that's historical, yours is the one that isn't historical. Usually the contrast is not so obvious and absolute on those things. Usually you can find, okay, there's a reason why there's a difference here. And you can find intelligent, sincere people on both sides of the dispute. So my encouragement is look for the people who are proponents in each tradition who are fair and thoughtful and reasonable in the way they defend their own tradition.

They don't overstate their case and make it sound like all the truth is on their side and the truth is really simple. I think the more you listen, or if you listen to those voices, take it with a grain of salt and make sure you do your fact-checking. I think the more we can listen to, and there's good examples in all of the traditions, those voices that are more aware of the complexity of the issues and will fairly represent the other options that will be. to the good. Lastly, and this is the most important thing, and what I could hope could maybe encourage some people is remember that prayer is the key. Sincere prayer is the key. And now study is important as well, but with any decision we make in our lives, we can trust the Lord and we can look for his guidance and his leadership. We don't have to be smarter than everybody else to figure it out. That really isn't the way we should make a decision like this. We should study and work hard at it, but ultimately,

we can trust that God is at work guiding us in this decision just as we do in any other decision. Like when you're deciding whether to propose to someone and get married to someone or whether to take a new job or whether to move or whatever it might be, you pray, sometimes you fast, you look to the Lord, you look for his guidance, and we can do that in this area. And I believe that is the key. Sincere prayer is more. of the key. That's where you'll actually get to a sense of existential peace and commitment than mere intelligence. I really believe that because no matter how smart you are, there's always somebody smarter and there's always somebody who's read something you haven't read, you know.

But the way you come to a peace of mind is by looking to the Lord's direction in a very personal and sincere way. And I just believe that God has no intention to deceive us. So if we look for his guidance, prayerfully, taking our time, studying, exposing ourselves to the different options that are out there, listening to the most credible and reasonable and honest voices on each side, I do believe he meets us in that place and he'll guide us forward. So I hope this video could help people out there wrestling with this. May the Lord bless you and guide you and direct you. And I hope my channel is helpful for that. I do videos on this topic. I'm kind of broadening a little bit in my focus with my YouTube channel to other things as well, but I'll still be doing stuff in this space

as well, just maybe not only stuff or mainly stuff in this space. One last thing I'll mention is that for those that are interested in this, I am, I have officially decided to work on my book on this topic. Reasons to be Protestant will probably be the title. It'll be a while before it's out. I really don't know, maybe late 2023, something like that. But I hope that, you know, I was trying to decide whether to do that. I don't really have a burn. desire to, but I have thought about these issues enough and I know there's a lot of people wrestling with them and I thought it could be helpful for people. So I have decided to do that. So you can be aware of that and if that's of interest to you that is kind of hopefully

Lord willing coming down the pipeline. So thanks for watching this video. Hope this could help somebody out there, maybe even just give some encouragement to people who are wrestling with these things. And let's stay in touch as I make other videos in this space. Let me know in the comments what kinds of things you're wrestling with and how it can be of help for you in your process. Thanks for watching. May the Lord bless you.