Truth Unites - Mainline Denominations and Church Unity? With Redeemed Zoomer

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

In this video I talk with Redeemed Zoomer about the unity of the church, especially as it relates to the mainline Protestant denominations. Check out his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@redeemedzoomer6053 Check out Stephen Charnock's The Existence and Attributes of God: https://www.crossway.org/books/the-existence-and-attributes-of-god-premiumhc/ 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/

Hey, everybody. I just had a great discussion with Redeemed Zoomer. Really a great channel, fascinating. He's got lots of interest in Christian unity, different denominations, ecumenism, those kinds of questions. We had a great discussion. It was so quick-paced and interesting that I thought, I think people would be interested. He was happy for me to share it on my channel too, so I'm going to put it up here and dive right in in one second. I don't think you'll get bored. It was a really interesting discussion. What we got into is the mainline denominations, which is eventually. interest to him, and me too. And we were kind of reflecting upon the difference between the mainline

denominations and the evangelical churches that have broken away. And in some ways, that split raises larger questions about other kinds of splits within Christianity. So it's really interesting discussion that I think if you're interested in my channel, you'll definitely not want to miss this discussion. So I'll dive right in. But the one thing I want to do first is give another book recommendation. I always get questions about, you know, what are good resources to read, especially classical Protestant texts. You're always talking about the magisterial Protestants. Well, who specifically, you know, should we read? Here is an awesome resource that just came out from Crossway. It's Stephen Charnock, his existence and attributes of God. I'll hold it up so

you can see. Brand new edition. It's a little bit of a glare there, but this is just a classic Puritan text, but this is a new edition that has all kinds of cool features. Stephen Charnock, one of the great 17th century Puritan theologians. I done work on his view of Christ's intercession, and he is, just like the Puritans, so theologically rich and penetrating, and at the same time, so devotionally rich. That's what you get in this book. He goes through God's existence, and then God's attributes like wisdom, patience, eternity, and so forth, and he just teases them out with incredible devotional richness as well.

It's really a feast. This is a new set, two volumes, edited by Mark Jones, and each discourse has an introductory summary that explains Charonach's approach. And then there's explanatory comments. There's an updated, basically footnotes. So you can tell where Charinock is quoting from in this edition in ways that you can't in earlier ones.

It's also got modernized language, so punctuation, spelling, phrases, things like this have been updated. So it really is, if you want to get Charnauc, that's the addition to get, and it's a really worthwhile, you know, I really can't commend enough reading these classic texts. You'll find them so helpful. So I'll put a link to that. Check it out in the video description. Without any further ado, here is our discussion.

I hope you enjoy. How's it going, guys? I'm Redeem Zumer, and today I am honored to be joined by the Dr. Gavin Ortland. He is a Baptist minister. He has a great YouTube channel called Truth Unites that all of you should follow. I'm leaving a link in the description to it. And he does a lot of work about recovering the classical Protestant faith and engaging with other Christian traditions and pursuing an ironic sort of Christian unity.

So Dr. Orlund, do you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me on your channel. I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah, you kind of summed up some of my YouTube work. I'm also a father. We have five kids. And then my academic work, which is another side that kind of comes into YouTube a little bit,

but it's not my main thing, is in historical theology. And then I've gotten into apologetics, kind of cultural apologetics a little bit as well. So that's some of the other work that I do. Great. So I was thinking we should discuss Christian unity. Like what's the right way to do it? What's the wrong way to do it? And how should the various Christian traditions engage?

So you've done a lot of videos on this, especially one about engaging with, like, like the apologetics of Catholic and Orthodox, especially Eastern Orthodox people who say there needs to be just one true church and that the visible church needs to be one united organization and one united tradition. So briefly, why do you disagree with that? Why do you think the Church of Christ doesn't necessarily need to be one unified organization or maybe why shouldn't it be? Okay, yeah, I like to use the word institution to describe this. invisible institution. And my basic argument against that is just the principles of the New Testament for how we are to discern the church. It just seems to me, I've done videos on this and gone

through some of these passages where it seems like Jesus and the apostles command us to recognize the true church by spiritual fruit. So Matthew 7 and Matthew 12, Jesus says, the good tree cannot produce bad fruit and vice versa. It's like a metaphysical principle. Satan doesn't do the fruits of the spirit. He can't do that stuff. So where you see that, or in Matthew 12, there's the same teaching about a good tree and a good fruit. And that's in the context of an exorcism where, you know, basically Jesus is holding people accountable to say a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Satan doesn't cast out demons. If this is a legitimate exorcism, you should recognize it as such. And then you think about the test of Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, 3, where he says, basically,

if someone is saying Jesus is Lord, that's from the Holy Spirit. And people can't say Jesus is cursed from the Holy Spirit. So there's a doctrinal test there as well with the Lordship of Christ. And you think about Mark 9, where there's a man casting out demons in Jesus' name, and the disciples try to stop him because he's not one of us. And Jesus says, don't stop him. whoever's not against us is for us. So the exorcism done in the name of Christ, the disciples are commanded to see that as fundamentally on their team. He's for us. And these are the kinds of principles

that people misunderstand and think that we're arguing for universalism. We're not arguing. We're just saying, we're not saying the church is everywhere or that all religions are true or that, you know, it doesn't matter if you're a Buddhist or a Baptist or anything like that. We're just saying it's not one institution. Rather, we recognize the true church in multiple institutions, because in multiple institutions, we see genuine glory to Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 12, 3, genuine spiritual fruit that the Holy Spirit is bearing, Matthew 7, Mark 9, etc. That's my brief canvassing of kind of, gosh, there's so much more we can unpack, and I really want to hear your thoughts about all this, too, but that's kind of a first stab of putting it out on the table.

Yeah, that verse you quoted from Mark, that's usually the exegetical basis I use to say why the church doesn't need to be one institution. I also think Protestants are the most honest because Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, all claim we're the one true church, no, we're the one true church, and the Protestants are the ones that say we're not necessarily the one true church. Now, then the question is, how do you discern the true church from the false church? That's always been a bit tougher of a question for Protestants than for like the other apostolic organizations. What I would say, I think what the reformers would say, too, is just the Nicene Creed and the church is like wherever the word of God is preached and the sacraments are administered. But what would you say is the, if we need to do some gatekeeping,

of course, gatekeep is like a bad word in our pluralistic culture. But if we need to do some gatekeeping, how do you discern the true church from the false church? Which churches are true churches? Okay. Yeah, this is a tough one for sure. It's, you know, I want to, I want to humble myself before the complexity and challenge of this question. I'll give a positive, statement and then all that's broad, then I'll start to hone in on the edges. And then, you know, you can share your thoughts too if you want. But I see the positive statement, I would say, here's a definition of the church, where Christ is present in word and sacrament. Okay. Brief, pithy, succinct, you know, so, so word and sacrament are both needed. And as

Protestants, we believe in two sacraments, the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist and baptism. So by this definition, the Muslims who start having dreams in which Jesus reveals himself to them, and they are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and they are gathering in a covenantal community to worship Christ and to partake at the Lord's Supper and hear the Word of God and worship the Trinity. Where this is happening, despite the, it might look so different from other churches and other cultures, it might have no formal institutional connection through a line of bishops. Doesn't matter. It's the true church, because you see Christ and his gospel present in Word and Sacrament.

Same with all kinds of other circumstances where, you know, people in a remote village come into contact with the Internet. And through this, they are exposed to the gospel. And the same thing happens. You have a revival and the demons are cast out and so forth. You can see the true church advancing in these kinds of contexts. So Protestants are able to affirm that. Now, the question then you're asking is here kind of where are the edges? Now that's tricky. I did write a whole book called Finding the Right Hills to Die on. I have a chapter on the first-rank doctrines

That's kind of what we're getting into here. What are those first-rank doctrines if it helps locate us a little bit I would include things a lot it's hard to be exhaustive. It's hard to give you like the 17 things you have to have I certainly think what you've pointed out to some of the early creeds Apostles Nicene and Athanasian creeds are you know a great kind of starting point to get us thinking about this those are are also historically occasioned, so they're not, they're also not going to be exhaustive, though, you know? They're not going to cover everything you might want to look at. But to give some examples, I would say the Trinity is a cardinal doctrine, because this is the very identity of God. It's like, do you worship Jesus? Well, that's pretty foundational. Is Jesus God? You know? So that would distinguish us from saying, like, a Mormon church, for example, is a part of the one

true church. And that's a boundary that, you know, different Christians might approach that a little differently, but that I would identify myself as saying, well, that would be a boundary marker there. But then if we're including like the major Protestant traditions, you know, all these other things that divide like baptism or views of church government, those are important. They matter, but they're not demarcating the one true church from a false church or something like that. So I don't know. That's just kind of an initial stab at that. But I'm happy for us to keep. kind of finessing this if you want to keep working through this. Yeah, sure. I like the work you do on theological triage, and I think it's important to distinguish between heresy and heterodoxy.

Like I would define heresy as we don't worship the same God. That's why the issues about the Trinity or about the nature of Christ himself would be issues of heresy versus not heresy. And heterodoxy, I would define more as we worship the same God, but not in ways that are compatible. It's like, and that's why, um, and that's why, um, A lot of my fellow reform people get mad at me for this, but I say that despite their errors, Catholic and Orthodox Christians, are indeed Christian because they worship the same God that we do. And they would agree with all the creedal essentials. Now, obviously, some of their beliefs I would consider heterodox, but not heretical, because I don't see any reason in scripture or in church tradition pre-Reformation that says, you need to believe salvation is by faith alone to be saved. or to be a true church. Totally. I'm with you on that. I'm totally with you. Yeah. You know, I think sometimes contemporary Protestants forget how generous our Protestant forebearers were about this kind of thing because they think,

oh, to be Protestant is to be sectarian and kind of reject the majority of people baptized in the name of the Trinity who are alive today. But, you know, the reformers were not like that. I've just been doing some work on that this morning. I give a few examples. I mean, Luther was very clear in saying the church that is under the papacy in his day is a member of the body of Christ. It is a true church. Now, he said the hierarchy is totally corrupt and evil and, you know, ravenous wolves are eating the sheep, but it's a church. Calvin, same thing. He said in the institutes, he said, when we say to the papists, you're not the one true church, we're not saying there's no true churches among you. Hucker, Richard Hooker, later in the Anglican tradition, same thing.

Turriton in the reformed tradition, same thing. That's standard fair, classical Protestant outlook. And so, you know, I think it's just totally consistent with our Protestant history for us to say that. And that's not downplaying the differences. This doesn't mean that we're saying, oh, well, these differences are no big deal. I find in the YouTube arena, a lot of the commenters seem to think in all or nothing categories. Like you're either damned to hell or everything is grand. It's like, well, no, there's, you know, intermediate options of we could have serious errors that require practical separation while still saying, yeah, I think you'd probably be in heaven and I think you're a fellow Christian and we can partner in ways and we can be friends, you know?

So that's, I don't know, to me, that's a little bit of that ironic approach that I try to take. Right. Like some people will say, oh, this church teaches something unbiblical and therefore it's not a true church. Okay, how do you define unbiblical that the church isn't going to say, hey, we're a. an unbiblical church. It's like when you say they're unbiblical, you mean they disagree with you on an interpretation of scripture and where you draw the line between things that are okay to disagree on and things that are not okay to disagree on. I think you need some sort of objective standard. And that's why, like you said, even though the creeds aren't exhaustive, they're the closest we have to

an objective standard of which matters are trivial, more trivial, and which matters are more essential. Now, something I would like to talk about is I think a lot of the reasons that are reason that people are, a lot of people in the modern world are flocking to like Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy is because they need something historically rooted and they've been convinced for various reasons that Protestantism is not historically rooted. And with the way the direction the culture is going, the loss of like goodness, truth and beauty in the culture, people are more than ever seeing the value of a historically rooted faith. So I know you've done a lot of work in demonstrating that Protestantism is indeed historically rooted just as much as Catholic

thalicism and orthodoxy. And anytime, like, I've always been a big fan of your channel ever since I discovered it. Anytime someone asks me, like, I need something historically rooted. Isn't the Catholic or Orthodox or whatever churches? Aren't they the one true church? I always point them to your work, explaining that Protestantism has just as much of a historical claim as all the others. But why do you think, why do you think Protestantism is seen as not having historic roots? because I have some ideas. I want to hear your thoughts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'll be curious years, too. I think it is an intelligible concern that we should consider.

I mean, you know, one of the things I love is about Philip Schaff. I love his vision of Protestantism in the 19th century. Great Church historian has lectured the principle of Protestantism, 1845, Samir Newman converted to Catholicism. I have to think what Newman, Cardinal Newman, is to Catholics, Shaft is to Protestants. He gives us this vision of organic development throughout church history and how Protestantism relates to prior church history. Schaff, I lost my train of thought. Say your question again, I'm so sorry. It's okay. So now, I don't know much about Shaft,

so you can tell me about him a bit, but why do so many people have this idea that Protestantism is not historically? Okay, thank you. That's the end of a long day here. So I think it's a totally intelligible claim because of how many contemporary Protestants function. It's just true. I mean, so one of the things I brought in Shaft because Shaft, one of the things he says is to be a Protestant Christian isn't to say Protestantism is perfect. And he just talks about the importance of recognizing where Protestantism has errors that have crept in. But he says the best way to deal with those errors is on Protestant principles. And so this idea of continually reforming Semperifermanda. But I would say a big reason for this perception is just that what he and his colleague Nevin were so concerned about in the 19th century, the sectarianism that has corrupted.

Was this John Williamson, Nevin? Yeah, I'm trying to think of it. I can't recall his middle name off the top of my head, but I think so. He and Shaft are often associated. They taught together at a university of Mercer'sburg. Their theology is— Yes, that's the guy. I am a huge fan of John Williamson Nevin and his book, The Mystical Presence on the Lord's Supper, just as an aside.

That's him. That is so good. Oh, yeah. People have to read these guys. They don't realize all the richness to the Protestant tradition. Nevin and Schaff. They're amazing. They're there. Like I said, I think their theology is often summarized as Mercer's Burke theology. They're offering a vision of Protestantism that is really robust. And it deals with a lot of these contemporary objections. And like I said, I think he is for Protestants, what Newman is for Catholics. This kind of contemporary expression. of how this tradition functions in its organic unfolding throughout church history. So I would just say, I think, to answer your question, what Shaft acknowledges there is a reason for this perception, namely a lot of Protestants have just gone too far. We've responded rightly against errors in one direction, but like so much of human history, a lot, not all, but a lot have just gone too far in the other direction. And I have a great metaphor. I want to say at some point about that, but I kind of want to hear your thoughts about this, too. Right. So my thoughts, and this is something I've talked about for as long as I've had a platform,

is that Protestantism has had a huge disadvantage ever since the confessional Protestants were estranged from their own historic institutions. I'm talking about the mainline Protestant churches. The mainline Protestant churches are the ones with a more direct roots in the Reformation. That's why if you go to like the old historic Protestant church at the center of your town, chances are it's a mainline Protestant church. And for the most part, the mainline churches are not committed to orthodoxy. Now, I am a mainline Protestant. I'm in the Presbyterian Church USA, but my goal is to try and restore it because there's clearly a very big problem with just there's no enforcement of true doctrine.

Like they have they, they're confessional on paper. Like the Westminster Confession is still one of the PCUSA's confessions, but they're, they're a confession. they don't enforce adherence to it. So most of the Presbyterians who actually do believe the Westminster Confession or most of the Anglicans that do believe the 39 articles are estranged from their respective mainline institutions. So that's why both Catholicism and Orthodoxy have really old historically rooted institutions that they can claim for their own.

But because of most confessional Protestants don't have those to nearly the same extent, it's a lot harder for Protestantism today to claim historic roots. And I always get really annoyed when there's these memes about like, here's a Catholic church, it's beautiful, here's a Protestant church, it's ugly. It's like, that's not really true. It's more of an old versus new thing rather than a Catholic versus a Protestant thing. Old Baptist churches from the 1900s look like beautiful cathedrals and modern Catholic churches look like gyms. But the difference is that most of the old Protestant churches are no longer in the hands of confessional Protestant Christians anymore because of the whole mainline evangelical split. So when people see that difference, it's a subconscious signal that makes a lot of people think Protestantism is not historically rooted.

And I think the best way for Protestants to reclaim its historical rootedness is to try and reclaim the mainline church. So what do you think about that? That's fascinating. Well, I would like to make one comment that's not kind of a comprehensive response, but it just takes what you're saying, kind of extends a little bit from it. So one of the things you're talking about is the drift from confessionalism. Now, I would want to broaden it even beyond just the main line, just to, in some ways, I almost think of it as even bigger than that of just a drift away from kind of historically rooted confessional Protestantism,

which could even be like in an evangelical context or something like that, but there's so much drift away from that. And the thing that I'd like to say, this is the metaphor from Shaft that struck me, is as Protestants, we can just acknowledge that and say, hey, that's a problem. We need to work at it. And we can address that on Protestant principles. You know, that's one of the things Shaft is saying. Here's a metaphor that he gives that, or actually he doesn't give this,

this metaphor I thought of when I was reading Shaft. Nice, nice. And it really helped me. So imagine a married couple. Okay. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the husband is to blame for a divorce that occurs in their 50s. They're in their 50s. The husband is that is totally at fault. He's abusive or something like this. And in their subsequent divorce, both parties are seriously diminished. Both of their lives are diminished substantially because of the departure. The husband becomes more socially awkward. He doesn't know how to dress. He forgets his grand. kids' birthdays. He's got all kinds of problems. The wife, now that she's separated, has financial problems. Stuff falls apart around the house. She doesn't know how to fix it. You know, you can think of like 10 different examples of how this happens. Now, the fact that it was the husband's fault

that they got divorced doesn't mean that the wife has not been diminished. Right. So what you can say is, as a Protestant, this split was justified. We were justified to depart from the claims of Rome, but we've still been diminished in some ways because of the overarching outflow of history. And, you know, and so in other words, then you just say, okay, what do we do about that? And I think the answer to that is the Protestant principles, Semper Reformanda, always reforming, solo scriptura. We look to the scripture as our North Star, only that's infallible, and we go through and so forth. So it's an imperfect metaphor, but it's trying to get at that thing of, like, we can acknowledge

our own errors, our own contributions without compromise of Protestant convictions. I don't know. I think that's a really good metaphor, and it can also be applied to the whole mainline evangelical split. Like the reason evangelical denominations like the PCA or the ACNA exist is because the mainline churches were getting theologically liberal and the conservatives. left for better or for worse. If you ask me, it was for worse. It's like, even though in some of the situations you could say it made sense, it's understandable, even though I disagree with it, it's

understandable why they left, but they still were diminished in many ways because they lost a lot of their seminaries, a lot of their resources, a lot of their historic churches. They lost a ton. Now, the differences, I think because Protestant churches are reformable, unlike the non-protistent churches, I think it's possible. It's very hard, but I think it's possible to try and reverse that split and to try and redeem the mainline churches. So right now, I'm in the PC USA. I sent 95 theses to the PCUSA a couple months ago, just about calling for a return to confessional Christianity. I got a lot more positive responses than I expected. So I think it's possible to redeem the mainline churches, but in order for that to happen, a lot of evangelicals should be on board.

A lot of evangelicals need to be willing to join these churches that might not be the most comfortable for them to be in. Because I feel like a lot of a lot of the reason why Protestantism is so fractured is this radical individualism where people are more concerned with being an environment where they're as comfortable as possible rather than striving for the kingdom overall. So do you think retaking the mainline churches for Christ is a worthwhile goal? My instinct is that it's always good to tilt in the direction of reforming and remaining rather than separating and starting. And that we are way too quick to go to the second of those two, generally speaking. but there are sometimes where you just have to, but here's a thing that is useful in my mind.

I'm not able to give a definitive answer to your question fully, but I can say this. The need for humility, you know, even if, even if and when it is necessary to separate from a more rooted tradition that has a lot of institutional backing, say it like a mainline denomination, because I think it's brilliant what you just said about how the same metaphor applies to the mainline and evangelical split. It's so true. But so then even when it does, you get to that final point, it's like just war theory, where it's like it's very rare to actually be a just war. You have to hit all these conditions.

But even when you get to that point, you still need humility to know this much, even where it's justified to depart, that doesn't mean we're not going to make a lot of mistakes as we go. you know and so that's where you're going to be looking over your shoulder and saying it's like um every revolution this is true and other outside of the church too just in in human history it's so easy to kind of swing the pendulum to the opposite side and you just make all kinds of errors in the opposite direction you know so i don't really have a definitive answer to you but i'm just reflecting out loud i guess with you about the need for humility that whatever whatever you think and whenever you do get to that point where separation is justified you need to do something

so with incredible fear and trembling before God, knowing how fallible we all are. Right. I think that what you just said is not just theoretical. It's what actually happened. I'm speaking from a Presbyterian context. So the PCA, for example, the PCA is the largest confessional Presbyterian denomination, in America at least. So they split from the PCUSA in order to uphold the essentials like the salvation by

faith alone and the authority of scripture, which is great. But in departing from the more traditional denomination, I feel like a lot of Presbyterians in these denominations like the PCA don't have a very good understanding of the reform tradition anymore. That's why a lot of them in practice don't value the sacraments, don't value church tradition at all, and are just sort of like broad evangelicals who sprinkle water on their babies, but don't know why they do that. Yeah. It's a stereotype, but it's what I've seen in a lot of PCA churches. Yeah.

You know, one, not to be too pietistic about this with all these injunctions to humility, but if I may hit the bell again here on this point, is like, let's suppose it's this kind of difference between like PCA, PC USA. Or let's suppose even it's a different tradition or a different kind of difference. Let's say it's like, you know, on the one hand you've got high church, let's say in a certain town, there's two churches, and one of them is this really liturgical, high church, rich theology, beautiful building, lots of rootedness in church history. And then there's another church that's a church plant, very low church. Now, let's just say for the sake of argument that the low church, it's a non-denom

and it's charismatic. Let's just say for the sake of argument, they're doing really good at getting people into the church who wouldn't ordinarily go to church. Like their ministries, their social efforts, their evangelism is so emphasized and so part of their life and so part of their DNA that like people, the whole town is being affected and Christianity is being introduced to so many parts of the culture from their efforts. Okay. But their worship is a little shallow and a theological. Okay.

Now, let's say the high church has really great preaching. They have an internship at their church where they go through the church fathers and they do at catechesis and it's like robust and it's like a seminary in a church you know it's amazing but they're not having as big of an impact now the the thing that will happen in our flesh is it'll be so easy for each church to look down on the other and the high church is going to look down and say those people are so shallow and the low church is going to look down in them and say those people don't care about evangelism but I think what humility will do is cause us to say we actually have something to learn from the other. Their flaws are going to be more visible, and it's going to be easy for us to see their

flaws, but we have something to learn. So the high church is going to be able to say, you know what, we can learn a thing or two about how to reach our community and get people in the doors of the church and, you know, evangelize. And the low church is going to say, you know what, we need to take some preaching lessons and we need to learn about liturgy and church history. And then the kingdom of God is strengthened by each learning from the other if that humility is present. And that seems to me to be just be a basic perennial need that I think does dovetail into your comments about where the conservative reactionary groups need to have more humility to learn from the very groups they're departing even while they criticize. And too often that humility isn't there. Right.

I agree with what you're saying that a lot of times in reality, these high church mainlines and these low church evangelicals have opposite strengths, where one is strong, the other is weak and vice. versa. But I think that like that's sort of the consequence of this split, the sort of Christianity's a machine. Like the, you know, Paul said that the church is a body with many different parts, many different abilities. I feel like it's the machine that's sort of been split in half. And ever since then, it correlates roughly with the decline of Christianity in America. I think the, both types of those churches you mentioned have important abilities that could influence the the culture for Christ, but by themselves, I question their ability to do so like they used to. So if you think of the church as like a pie, and like part of the pie is like, you know, evangelism

and connections to universities and hospitals and an intellectual tradition, I feel like what the conservatives did was they took a slice out of the pie and now the conservatives just have that slice. And now, like, let's say the slice is evangelism and the authority of scripture. Let's say it's two slices. And now the mainline churches have everything except those two slices. And in both cases, there's some impotency and some weakness there that I think there needs to be some sort of ideally, in an idealistic world of reunification, where they both, like you said, humility and repent of all their flaws and learn from each other. In a more practical world, they both try to try to learn from each other. That's why in my

thesis that I sent to my denomination, I said, we need to actually learn from evangelicals how to have an impact on people. And on my social media, most of my followers are evangelical. I'm like, yeah, you guys need to be a bit more mainline in your thinking and in your practice. But how would you say, what do you do? See, the scenario I envisioned is in which the high church, the low church, they're both orthodox. You know, they're both basically evangelical in their theology in the sense of they believe in the authority of scripture, they hold to an orthodoxy of sexuality.

That's kind of what I'm envisioning. What do you do when the pieces of the pie aren't there at all? And the, you know, like the institution you're connected to doesn't even believe in evangelism because they think evangelism is imperialistic and they think it's domineering. And they think, no, we just see, you know, that does happen. And you get to. Oh, I've seen it. I've seen it. It's hard. What do you do? Well, I still think that everything, the, when I'm talking about the main line, I'm talking about the more theologically liberal ones that do not have an Orthodox view of sexuality or even the essentials of Christianity.

I feel like everything they don't have, the conservative denominations do have, and everything that conservative denominations don't have, the mainline does have. So the conservative denominations, the evangelical denominations, tend to have much more of a passion for evangelism and for influencing the culture for Christ. They have a lot more of a willingness to, but because of their lack of historical rootedness, I would say they have less of an ability to. And for the more liberal mainlines, it's the reverse. Because they're connected to so many, like, universities, because they run, like, food pantries in every single neighborhood, they have a lot more ability to, influence the culture for Christ, but a lot less willingness to because of their lack of orthodoxy. So I think we need to sort of combine their abilities to have churches that are both able and willing to profoundly influence the culture on a large scale. Yeah. Well, I'm tracking with you,

and to me it's going to take a lot of wisdom along the way to know kind of in your own unique context where you're at what that looks like, because I can imagine scenarios in which you're at a relatively conservative mainline church that's open to growing in certain areas, and it's still within orthodoxy, and you're going to be able to work there fruitfully for the good of the Church of Christ. Or, whereas the conservatives want nothing to do with it, they're so sectarian and feisty. They just want to attack other Christians all the time. I see that kind of thing. Or, but I can imagine another context in which it's sort of the opposite, where the conservatives are saying, hey, we need to learn more. We need to grow. You know, there's all these kinds of movements

for theological retrieval. For Baptists who want to learn liturgy. So they're like, hey, we need to learn and grow. Whereas the mainline context might be one where the people are saying, like, no, we think you're bigots and we don't want anything to do with you. Right. So in that scenario, so I feel like it's going to take wisdom to know, okay, you know, what does this look like for me? And to me, it'll may differ from one context to another. Yeah, it's really hard to do it. It will take a lot of wisdom, like you said. Now, I think the best strategy and what I've been trying to rally up with whatever resources

I have is for those looking for a historically rooted church to move into the more conservative congregations in the main line, knowing that those are going to be the ones that last, because theologically liberal churches always die out. If you don't believe in anything, there's no motivation to go to church. That's why the main lines are always shrinking. And it's really easy to actually have an influence within the main line because they're just so desperate for leadership positions because there's usually like 10 old people in a congregation and they hand out leadership positions like free candy. So I think the way to do that is I think conservatives might need to make the first move in terms of the humility. but I think if people start moving back into some of the more Orthodox churches within the main line

and just start forming connections there within a generation, I think it'd be possible for the main line to be restored. And once the main line is restored, then there can be reunification with its evangelical counterparts. I love the goal of that. One of my worries is, what about, like, ordinate, I take ordination vows really seriously. Yes.

So if you're in a context where ordination in a particular denomination requires you to affirm things that your conscience forbids, you know, that could be a deal breaker right out of the gate. So, because some of these mainline denominations, their doctrinal standards are such that, you know, as an evangelical, you're dead in the water before you even start. So that would be a barrier. But if you can, if you're able to function in that context, I mean, you know, as long as you're not compromising your conscience, I think working for reform and good is a wonderful thing. thing. Yeah, it's kind of a case-by-case basis. I've heard some denominations, some of the liberal denominations are more strict with enforcing their adherence to liberalism than others. I know in my denomination, it's really the liberals that are dishonest with their ordination vows. And of course, I mean, theologically liberal, not politically liberal, because in order to be ordained, even in the

PCUSA, which is generally a liberal denomination, you need to confess the authority of scripture. You need to confess that the Westminster and the other confessions are a faithful interpretation of the scripture. It's just that a lot of people confess it with their fingers crossed. So I've seen ordinations happening. The ordination vows are pretty simple. It's just do you affirm the Bible? Do you affirm the Westminster confession? It's almost the same as a PCA church, maybe less emphasis on strict adherence to the confessions.

So the only dishonesty would be from those who do not affirm the essential. of Christianity. And that's what's been happening. That's sort of how the main lines got hijacked because of people who were dishonest and pretended to be faithful ministers, but really they had an agenda to try and change the beliefs of the church. My only comment is I love the instinct to work for reform and renewal where you are. I think that's a healthy instinct. And I will say, again, where one does separate, humility is needed in that movement so that you don't realizing the temptations and dangers that await you in any act of separation as they so often come in. I will only add the caveat, though, that there are churches

do go apostate. Individual denominations do sometimes. I was in New York City last week, and I walked by a church. I won't mention what kind of church it was. And there was a flyer for coming to worship there. And the words were a God optional community. Yes, I've seen those. So literally the appeal is, oh, just come for this community and God is optional. And like, so, you know, that's like an extreme example, but you can get to a point where you can just say, in good conscience, this is like apostasy. I just can't be a part of this. I just, to be faithful to the gospel, I have to separate.

And so there, I just want to leave room for the legitimacy of that act when it does become necessary. and then it will just be a matter of doing that with great humility and faithfulness to the Lord and His word, it seems to me. Yeah. Now, that is a tough question because, of course, there's different stages of progressivism. Like, I once made a video where I divided it into five stages where the whole God optional thing, that would be stage five out of five, the highest level. 10 out of five. Yeah. But where does denominators? as a whole become apostate.

So like in the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church in the PCUSA, the denomination as a whole does not kick out churches who say, oh, it's a God optional drag queen story hour. But at the same time, in those very same denominations, you have conservative churches that explicitly teach that the Bible is infallible and that marriage is between a man and a woman. So like, let's say you're in a conservative congregation in one of those mainline denominations. Is that a true church?

Well, this gets into some of the differences between the Protestant denominations. Because as a Baptist versus a Presbyterian, we construe the relationship of different churches to each other a little differently. So I guess it would kind of depend on how you answer that. And then your conscience is going to need to work through kind of, you know, here's what I would counsel people on, if they're wrestling with this question in real life, you know, when do I leave if I'm on like stage three or four or two or whatever is like we never want to leave out of pride or preference. We never want to leave like, oh, this is a tertiary doctrine, but I just really don't like it or something.

It's like there's all kinds of bad reasons to leave. But there is this principle in the New Testament you see in like Second Corinthians, for example, that light and darkness have no fellowship. And it can get to a point where you just realize to be faithful to Jesus Christ, I can't be in fellowship with this particular. group because they have fundamentally denied that gospel in some way or another. And so I don't know exactly where that line will be for each particular person. I think it's good to kind of leave room for the complexities of real life in this. But I just do want to leave room. Sometimes

that does become necessary. Yeah. Maybe it's because I grew up in New York. I grew up in a super secular atheist community. So I think I have like a higher threshold for what I'm willing to tolerate. than a lot of evangelicals would. But now, I agree with what you're saying that if it gets to the point where it's actual heresy, yeah, you can't fellowship with that. The question I want all like conservative, theological, theologically conservative Christians to consider is any time there's been a denomination split in recent years, it's always been the conservatives departing from the liberal mainline thing.

Every split has been a split into the original one and the conservative one. There's basically no examples of liberals splitting off and running away because they don't want to be with the conservatives. Like we always conservatives always make fun of liberals and say, oh, you're just a bunch of sensitive snowflakes. But in practice, that's not actually what's happened. In practice, every split has been the conservatives leaving. So the question that I think we all need to ponder is why is that? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I mean, part of that might just be the liberal ethos, you know, liberals tend to be more kind of inclusive and accepting. And as you put it, there's sometimes, like you mentioned, sometimes they're just desperate for leadership. So they're kind of just, they're not as distinctive theologically in general, you know, but I don't think that's the only reason. So I think that's a fair question to wrestle with. What, this is slightly off topic, but just one parenthetical thought that I do think is worth saying is that sometimes we have an expectation for what kind of church will be real evangelistically effective or will have the best

possible cultural reach. And sometimes I'm surprised at the way that plays out. There are some churches that are very low church, but have huge cultural reach and cultural opportunities. Meanwhile, there's lots of churches that are extraordinarily high liturgy, ornate, beautiful architecture, et cetera, and are unbelievably effective at evangelism. So, you know, I guess I also just want to, I guess, qualify my own earlier comments to just leave room for this, too, that we don't, we can't always anticipate exactly what the strengths and weaknesses will be. Sometimes they're a little surprising. Yeah, definitely. So another thing I want to talk about before we go is like, what do you,

what do you think is the best way for different, like, denominations to sort of view each other? Like, do you think it's a good thing that we have a diversity of denominations? As they're sort of a beauty and diversity, or in an ideal world, would it be better if we could all just be the same thing more or less? I definitely don't think formal ruptures, which that is part of what denominations are, are ideal. So, you know, I think we need to acknowledge that in an ideal world, we would have a perfect unity. But I would say that in an imperfect world, denominations can be, I don't want to call them

the lesser of two evils, but I guess I could call them like a practice. way of negotiating our theological differences that will have less collateral damage for the kingdom of God. Because what you want is situations where people are not, you know, and here's where we can hold our non-Protestant friends' feet to the fire here, because they've got these statements of saying, it's just one institution. I mean, that's, in my book I'm working on on Protestantism, I send it off to the publisher at the end of this month. I document this in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. That is the universal view to my awareness throughout the medieval tradition. And up until, you know, the confession of Dothius in the 17th century, basically up until the 19th century,

even then, it's way majority position. Basically, if you're not Eastern Orthodox, you are damned to hell, zero exceptions. Okay. And then you've got magisterial teaching from the Catholics to the same effect in the at the Council of Florence, in the Unum-Songdom, places like this, where they're saying all the non-Catholics are damned to hell. So like that, you know, I think we kind of need to hold their feet to the fire because they're going to try to say, oh, no, you know, well, yeah, we're the one true church, but, you know, we don't know where the church isn't and try to qualify that in all these ways. Those qualifications are modern deviations from the outlook. So lest we get too criticized for having denominations, the nominations are better than that. The nominations are better than just saying everybody else is not the church and they're all damned, you know. But what the good of denominations is we can follow our conscience, And with that, but just recognize and say, you know, we think those other people are wrong and what they're doing. But there's still the church and they're still Christians. We can partner together. So I would say, how do we view each other?

You know, I honestly feel in my heart toward noble traditions like the Presbyterian tradition, the Lutheran, the Anglican, etc. Like they're almost like older siblings, you know. They're these honorable things that in my heart I look up to and I feel like, wow, I love this. I reverence this. I honor this. even where I disagree, I'm learning and I'm listening. And I think just that, you know, this is a simple point, but just to say there should be love. There should be love for other Christians and other traditions.

Boy, that's simple, but it's important to say because sometimes it's not the way it is. Yeah, I think there's a delicate balance because I feel like what the evangelical world has tried to do in the past now 30 or 50 years has been to try and remove denominational distinctives and say, oh, we're all just Christian. We're not, but I feel like the result of that has been least common denominator, Christianity, lowest common denominator, where it ends up just being a bit anti-intellectual, anti-doctrinal, because they're worried if it gets too doctrinal, then it'll just divide. At the same time, a lot of people idolize their own doctrines and will unathematize anyone else. You see that in some of the most conservative, like, or I would say cage stage reformed parts of the internet where it's like anyone. who's not, doesn't follow the Pope John MacArthur is damned. So what I think the best way to do it is every time I see someone start to really appreciate their own distinctive tradition, whether it's Baptist or Lutheran or Methodist, they end up becoming

more committed to Christianity as a whole because they start seeing there's a lot of, there's this whole intellectual tradition I just found out about. So how do we, like, I think it'd be better if it was like it used to be where you'd have a bunch of Presbyterians and a bunch of Methodists and a bunch of Baptists and a bunch of Lutherans rather than everyone's just Christian, but there's no distinctive. So how do you get people to appreciate their own tradition and other traditions while still maintaining a form of Catholicity and ecumenism? Well, I love what you're saying, and to extend from your comments to say that it doesn't mean we downplay our own distinctive tradition. So to value Catholicity doesn't mean that I, as a Baptist, say, oh, well, let's just kind of excise that word Baptist from our vocabulary and not think about the distinctive contributions of Baptists. I can look back at Baptist history, and I can look at, you know, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and say, God has used this book. many powerful ways or Adonarim Judson's missionary efforts in China or in India and say,

this is so wonderful. But then I can look at the contributions of other traditions like Herman Bovink and the whole Dutch reform tradition. Like, wow, I can learn so much from that. So we don't want to downplay the differences. I mean, I'm with you. That's what my book on triage is trying to do, is trying to simultaneously push forward these two values. On the one hand, unity, but at the same time, this ethos of doctrine matters. We should tremble before the word of God and we should care. And so, you know, one thing we can do is just what is countercultural now, and that's respectfully argue. You know, nobody in our culture. It's iron. Yeah, right? I mean, because that's countercultural. Our culture doesn't do that. Right now our culture just demeans and attacks,

you know, Republicans and Democrats don't argue with each other. They just attack each other. Doug Wilson said it's sumo wrestling. what I like to say is that I would rather someone disagree with me strongly on a doctrinal point and be able to give intellectual, biblical reasons why, than say, oh, I don't care, it doesn't matter. If it's not an essential for being saved, it doesn't matter. And I know a lot of people who are like that, and it's like, I would rather you strongly disagree with me and explain why. Like if someone's a, I don't know, like someone's a cradle Baptist. I know that you have very good biblical intellectual reasons for being a Cratobaptist. I'd much rather have a discussion about that than someone say,

eh, it doesn't matter. The baptism issue is not essential to salvation, so let's just forget about it. And my analogy for that is someone who's like a huge Star Wars nerd will argue a lot over, like, you know, which Star Wars trilogy is better, and they'll be passionate about it. And someone who doesn't care about Star Wars will not, will not bother to argue because they don't care. So the more, like, of course, this is not always true. I'm not saying argumentative people are the standard. That definitely not. But the more willing someone is to think about the distinctives, the more someone thinks about something,

the more it shows the more they care about it. Yes. Just to agree with you briefly, Jay Gershamachan has a great passage in Christianity and liberalism where he critiques Luther on the Lord's Supper. But then he says, but way better that Luther had that view than if he had said, oh, this matter is a trifle. Let's not worry about it. And he says, indifferenceism produces no heroes of the faith. And what I say from that in the book is better to be wrong than indifferent. Yes. And what Tim Keller always talks about is like if you say doctrine and dogma doesn't matter.

that's a doctrine, that's a dogma. So you can always relativize the relativizers. And I think, because I think iron sharpens iron, I think the best way for Christianity to go forward is, you know, let's start actually going into our respective traditions, even if we have arguments respectfully argue. Like, I would not want a Methodist pastor to start preaching the five points of Calvinism. I know there's some Calvinist Methodists, but I don't know. I would not want a Lutheran pastor to start preaching a spiritual presence view of the Lord's

separate. Then he wouldn't be Lutheran. He wouldn't be honoring his own tradition. I wouldn't want a Baptist pastor to, while still being Baptist, to suddenly talk about, like, why the covenant demands infant baptism or something. Like, I don't necessarily want everyone to become Presbyterian. I want everyone, first and foremost, to be Christian. I also want everyone to be, um, care to care about being.

part of intellectual tradition. And I think the traditions will become more intellectually rigorous if they engage with each other in debates, because iron sharpens iron. And all doctrine has developed out of some historical debate, including the Trinity, including salvation by faith alone. It's always questions and debates that arise from those questions that actually cause doctrine to be created. I agree with you, but I would also just leave a little space for it if, and it's rare, but if we can, come together, that is a good thing. So like if people, like there are these movements in Protestant churches like in India and elsewhere where different denominations have been unified and formed like basically a merger denomination. That's large. So like if we're if we're respectfully arguing about

our differences and like a, I don't know, like a Methodist and a Presbyterian church are just arguing and arguing and the Holy Spirit is pleased through that argumentation to bring about an agreement, then cool. I mean, that's great. I would say. But that should never be compromise. That should never be just be saying, well, it's just because it doesn't matter anymore. So, but it is cool to be open if we can make progress at times. Yeah.

Now, agreement is good. And I think it's important to focus on like the creedal essentials that we all agree on. Usually what happens when denominations do like a merger is that it ends up just conforming to the beliefs of one denomination. Like the reason Lutherans in America tend to be kind of isolationist and Jordan Cooper, who I know you've talked to before, talks about this, is because back when the Lutheran reformed churches united in Europe, they ended up just being reformed churches, and the Lutherans ended up being persecuted and had to flee to America. And that's why the American Lutheran churches

don't do as much ecumenical dialogue as the other ones, and that's why no one knows what Lutherans believe. They're probably just Catholic Protestants or something. And as a Presbyterian, I understand why Lutherans don't want to unite with Presbyterians because of the history. And a lot of Presbyterians feel the same way Lutherans feel about us, like we feel about some reformed Baptists. Because in like the Gospel Coalition or Ligonier, when Presbyterians and Performed Baptists have become part of the same organizations, it's ended up becoming like effectively Baptist. And it's not like we don't want unity, Christian unity with Baptists, but when we also sort of lose some of our traditional distinctives. And that's why a lot of a lot of more evangelical Presbyterians will be more clueless about the classic reform view of the sacraments, for example. So I agree with you that it's important to have agreement and understand where we have agreement.

But also there can be, I'm sure you would already acknowledge this, there can be like danger of if two denominations just unite, it often ends up just becoming like one, one of them. Oh, it can happen for sure. That would be a way of an example of doing it badly. I've also seen times where it isn't that. I can't remember the name, but some of these large, I don't know if merger is the right word, but in India and places like this where they've been able to carve out space that allows for both groups. But that's not necessarily like a Baptist to Presbyterian kind of union. It's a different kind of thing.

But I will say, too, another thing that helps me think about this is there's a distinction between a church and a parachurch ministry. So things like Gospel Coalition Ligonier, they're not churches. And so they don't have, so I think, I think that's healthy to have things like that where two different churches can partner for social causes. They can go, you know, advocate for something in society together or for evangelistic purposes. They can go share the gospel together. Like a Presbyterian and a Baptist could go do door-to-door evangelism together. Cool.

But, you know, there's no, so those kinds of partnerships. that are outside of the church to me are another positive thing to think about how what does that look like for us great any final questions you have for me oh man great job on your youtube channel did you what was it like when you're you had a recent video that canvassed all of the christian denominations and it just blew up what was that like experiencing that yeah i was really not expecting that like before that um like just i don't know in 2022 i was a small theology nerd on Instagram. That's what I was.

I was an Instagram theology nerd who made a bunch of posts with colored circles and I was just like a college student and yeah, I wasn't expecting to do anything more than that, but then when I made that video that got millions of views, which I was not expecting at all. That video was meant to be filler

between a previous video I had made and another video that's coming up. It was meant to just be filler. I made it in like just one night after I got home from a flight. But once that happened, I was like, dang, now a lot of people are actually coming to me with questions. And I am not, I don't have credentials to like answer that. So that's why I'm having conversations like with you. I need to, I want to make some connections with people who do have credentials because I don't.

Yeah, yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, you're doing great stuff. I love it. Yeah. Well, do you take from the popularity of that video this. positive, encouraging thought that I wonder about is that, well, it shows there's a hunger for, there's an interest and hunger in Christian history, Christian unity, and different Christian

traditions? I think so. I think the reason that it got a lot of views was because a lot of people are wondering what the differences between Christian denominations are, but there aren't very many resources explaining it. People will maybe explain their own denomination, but everyone's like, if you look on Wikipedia, what's a Lutheran? It was founded by Martin Luther. Okay, thank. So a lot of people are curious about religion. I find that even though Gen Z is like the least religious generation, because it's been so estranged from religion, they have a lot of curiosity about it. And that's what I want the focus of like my channel to be is answering the questions that everyone's thinking. But I don't know how well equipped I am to answer it because given that I've not gone to seminary.

I'm just listened to YouTubers like you and Dr. Jordan Cooper. and occasionally read books, but I don't read as much as I should. Well, that's great. Well, I love the thought of partnering and, you know, working together in any way that we can. Here's a last quick question for you. If you could change one thing about the state of Christian discourse and dialogue right now and just snap your fingers and change something, what would you change? Hmm.

This is kind of something we already went over, but I would say, say Christians need to be a lot slower to anathematize one another. Because, and I know you've talked about this in your theological triage, but they pick like the worst hills to die on. I would even go so far as saying, I'm dropping a bomb at the end of, it's not really a bomb. Even if a Christian is wrong about something like sexuality, if they believe you correct them on that, you don't anathematize them for that, because especially if they're like a new Christian who's just, you know, learning and stuff. If it's like a famous pastor, you could be a bit more harsh. The more influence someone has, the more harshly they should be judged. But I believed a lot of leftist

things for two years after my conversion because of just where I grew up. I don't think I was saved the moment I realized marriage is between a man and a woman, right? So I was saved when I believe that Jesus is Lord. So if I could change one thing, and I would apply this specifically to specifically to Catholics. A lot of reformed people who I love disagree with me on this, but I think we all need to not anathematize each other. I think Rome has extended some olive branches. We're still waiting on the Orthodox churches. Rome has extended some olive branches. I think we should take them. Great, great answer. All right. Well, thanks for coming on. Yeah, my pleasure. I love talking. Keep up the great work. And let's stay in touch and keep talking. Absolutely. God bless.