Truth Unites - The State of Protestant Apologetics

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Gavin Ortlund offers three big picture reflections on the current health of Protestant apologetics in light of Cleave to Antiquity's recent conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy.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/

Pastor Ben from Cleve to Antiquity announced he's becoming Eastern Orthodox, and this has been making a lot of waves in one little corner of the internet. Ben had a growing YouTube channel doing Protestant apologetics, and so this game is a surprise for many people. In this video, I don't want to look back at Ben's conversion and critique that as much as I want to look forward and just analyze the state of Protestant apologetics. And I have three quick thoughts. The last one will be the longest and most substantive and maybe the most surprising.

First is just take a deep breath. Boy, there's such a wave of reaction emotionally to things like this. And I understand that. I'm not even judging that. Those emotions are valid in some cases. But there's this dynamic with internet conversions where when someone leaves your own team, there can be feelings of hurt and betrayal. And sometimes that makes sense, especially if you've been influenced by this person or if someone, as in this case, they're doing Protestant apologetics right up into a very short window of time before their conversion. And it's totally, legitimate to have concerns about that, to express concerns about that, to, I don't want to make it seem like Protestants can't, you know, observe and respond to the arguments and express their concerns and so on and so forth. There's a place for all of that. But we do need to remember the sort of heat of the moment dynamics, the sociological things that come in here where we just need to be careful not to get swept up into the emotions and respond uncharitably. That happens very easily. In the other direction, when someone joins our team, there's a lot of of triumphalism, and in this case, you can find people saying silly things like, it's over for

Protestantism and things like this. And one of the things we have to remember is that internet apologetics is one very small corner of a much larger world. Take a deep breath, you know, see the bigger picture. I'll come back to that in a second. One thing, too, in terms of, one of the reasons I'm not responding to men's specific arguments and so forth is, I would just love more time to hear, you know, what his arguments are. I've heard a little bit about an experience. had and some of his big picture thoughts, but nothing I've heard so far, and I've watched his video as well as his interview with, I think, Father Peter Hears, where nothing I've heard so far really makes it clear why it's Eastern Orthodoxy, specifically that he's moved into as opposed

to, say, Oriental Orthodoxy or something like that. So I would just need more to know even what to respond to at this point. But, and that's fine. I'm sure that'll be forthcoming, but that's why I'm not going into it yet. So sometimes just take a deep breath, step back, see the bigger picture. Related to that is touch grass and what I mean, I don't want this to come across wrong. And I'm not saying this in a superior standpoint. This is something I have to remember every single day of just how to not get sucked into the internet in a way where it increases anxiety, increases anger, and distorts. On the one hand, I do find it unhelpful sometimes when people say the internet is not real life because this can discount the significance of what happens on the internet. Moving forward

into the 21st century, the internet is a part of life. A lot of us pay our bills on the internet. A lot of us keep up relationship with people to some extent. Communication on the internet. We get information on the internet. It's a part of life. But it's not the whole of life and we need to hold it loosely enough to see the bigger picture. That means a lot of intentional time to step away, unplug, focus on other things. Again, this is not, I'm not looking down at anybody here. This is something I have to regular think through. I'm saying it because I'm 42. I've had a lot of life experience before starting a YouTube channel. If for people who are 22 and have grown up with YouTube, I can't imagine it's any easier for them. If even I struggle with it, I bet they do. And I know I have to have

detailed discipline and systems and plans for how to take breaks, when to not respond to criticism, when to respond. I have to think about that a lot. I want to, I have to work really hard to stay on mission and tune out things and so forth. And all that is to say, this is something we have to remember in the heat of the moment. Hold the internet loosely enough that you can step back and immerse yourself in face-to-face relationships, being out in nature, finding joy in your daily schedule. When you do that, you step back to see the bigger picture, you see, okay, this isn't as big a deal as a lot of people make it. It's not some huge thing. There's a whole world outside of the, again, as I say, this little corner of the internet. Having said that, my third comment will in some ways

counterbalance these last two. Protestants speak up. In general, Protestants don't defend Protestantism as much as some other traditions defend their own ecclesial position. My observation is Protestants are often more focused on general Christian apologetics or on culture, war, and political issues. And that makes sense. You can understand how the energy will funnel there. But especially online, Protestantism is underrepresented and under defended. And this leads to a lot of ignorance of the depth and rigor that exists within Protestantism. I laughed a few weeks ago, someone who posted on X that Wes Huff and I provide a scholarly aesthetic to Protestantism. I texted that to Wes, and we were laughing about it. We've become pretty good friends.

And, you know, because what I was saying, we were kind of reflecting on is, if somebody thinks these two guys with YouTube channels are like the scholarly representatives of Protestantism, what that tells you is that person doesn't read scholarship. They're just going by what they see on YouTube. And no shade to that person, I don't know who that is, but a lot of people function like this. And Protestants do the same in the other direction. And so there's a lot of mutual ignorance and just, again, things huddle online. And we just don't know the depth that is there. in the case of Protestantism, there is an ocean of Christian scholarship and intellectual depth, just taking my own field, my own academic field of church history, for example.

What student of church history doesn't benefit from Philip Shaft's monumental history of the Christian Church and his work on the Nicene and post-Nicine Father's series, which remains a standard reference point to this day? Who doesn't read J.N. D. Kelly's popular text, early, Christian doctrines. It was a Protestant, James Usher, who identified what are the authentic letters of Ignatius. It was a Protestant, J.B. Lightfoot, who produced the first definitive critical edition of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. It was Protestants who invented the term patrology as a distinct term from patristics, technically referring to the systematic study of all early texts related to Christianity, not just those considered theologically orthodox.

That comes out of the 17th century Lutheran scholastics, especially Johann Gerhard. People are just unaware of the, that not only do Protestants, can we be deep in history, but actually it's a lot of Protestants who are leading the charge. Let me just share my own experience. And so what I'm observing here is there's a disconnect between the YouTube world and the popular level knowledge

and sort of the apologetic scene, and just honestly, what's out there. If you really do some digging and get into the sky, scholarship. Let me share my own experience of doing Protestant apologetics online. I started my YouTube channel during August of 2020. I sort of got bored during COVID. I was a pastor. I mean, as the summer dragged on, I was watching Pines with Aquinas and capturing Christianity and these other YouTube channels that would host debates. I love debates. And I dove in thinking, well, this can be a way I can commend a book that I'm writing because up until that point in my life, I've been mainly in pastoral

context and academic contexts. I'd written a book on the existence of God, wanted to push its ideas out there more. And I got sort of accidentally pulled into Protestant apologetics just because of the need. And it's been a fascinating acclamation process to see just how dire those needs are. I remember when I put out a video on icon veneration, this is one of the videos I've done that's generated more energy and reactions. There were so many responses. I got to one where I had to stop. watching. I just couldn't watch them all. There were, you know, 30, 40 responses. Some of them are over three hours long. And sometimes people still fault me for not responding to things. Sometimes there's a feeling of entitlements, like they're the ones that I owe a response to. And the dynamic here

is there's a swarming kind of feeling of so much out there. To this day, I'll find Eastern Orthodox people online saying that I'm a liar because I've been corrected about icon veneration, but I'm still making the same argument. And I don't always even know what video they're talking about specifically. Other times I'll say so. But a lot of that is unfair. The reality is what I'm saying in that initial video is completely standard, uncontroversial, and somewhat assumed in the main, in the big picture, in the scholarship.

And I just give examples of this, but people have never heard this before. I don't take my word for it. Take Richard Price's who translated the acts of Nicae 2, you can read on the screen his opinion. But if I say that, then it becomes this big thing. What I'm observing is something is totally normal in the scholarship, but it's like we've got so much work to do. And I think the same is true in the other direction in the YouTube space. And what I'm saying is, how about more of the scholars help us out on YouTube?

That's sort of what I've tried to do. That's kind of why I felt compelled is I feel like it's a missionary impulse of trying to meet needs. but we need more people doing this. Now there are some great Protestant voices on YouTube. I always state my admiration for Dr. Jordan Cooper. He's a great person and a great scholar. He's doing great work. Ryan Reeves has a great channel doing church history videos.

There's some younger Protestant apologists who are really specifically doing Protestant apologists who do great work, like Sean Luke from Anglican aesthetics and Javier Perdomo. Check out their channels. Forgive me if I'm not mentioning others. There are others as well. and I want to support some of these up-and-coming ones as well.

But I also think there's a place, so I take a both-and approach. I don't think you have to be a scholar or pastor to have a YouTube channel, but I think we need to hear more from them. And I guess if I can just be blunt, I would love to just encourage less disconnect here, more of the people who have academic credentials and ministry experience to help us out because the reality is there's tremendous, is hunger and anxiety and need at the popular level and it's working out online. I know it can sound

crazy, but I actually think we need more experts speaking into the online space. I put this out on X last night. Never thought I'd tweet this, but I kind of believe this. I'm curious if you agree. I said, if you are an ordained minister or credentialed academic and concerned about the disproportionate influence that social media influencers are having, one plea I can make is speak up. The simple fact is that the spiritual hunger and anxiety is so desperate right now that if people don't find good teachers or mentors, they will learn from bad ones. For better or for worse, social media is shaping people. And I just talk about the hunger for spiritual fathers, for theological mentors right now, and just that hunger is so real that I'm feeling an eagerness. I'm feeling an urgency.

And I would love for people, you know. So final question is, who should dive into Protestant apologetics? what kind of people or Christian apologetics or other things. Maybe there's a different field. That's fine. Who should do that? In general, my advice is those who are eager should be more cautious and those who are cautious should be more eager. And I don't want to make this about age, but if you are like 22 and you want to get famous, that's probably not what you should do right now. Now, there are young people who are incredibly gifted who can put out these amazing videos that we can all benefit from. Redeemed Zumer is very young and bet his videos are so skillful. done when he's helping us think about different denominations and so forth. So I don't want to say

that no young people should be in these spaces. I don't want to be legalistic. I don't want to be elitist. I don't want to be, I don't know, I don't want to set a hard boundary where God has not and so forth. But in general, the people I want to encourage and exhort to come help us out here are the people who have a long track record of ministerial and or academic experience and credentialing. We need your voice. So if you're, for example, a 35-year-old pastor or a 45-year-old seminary professor and you're just doing your thing, and maybe you could start a YouTube channel on the side and just start mentoring younger men who are in these conversations, start engaging in these. It's this feeling of like coming off out of the fortress out down onto the battlefield

and helping us out, you know, join the work. If you don't, then others will. And those others might do a great job. A lot of people who don't have credentials, that's why I'm trying not to be elitist. You don't have to have credentials to serve God's kingdom. Charles Spurgeon didn't have a doctorate, okay? You don't, you know, so let's not be elitist about this. But nonetheless, for those who do have the credentials, could I just say, we need you. Can you jump in and help us out here? Boy, much more to say. Those are my thoughts for now. Let me know what you think in the comments. I'll just close by saying, I'm having a great time doing this. I enjoy this. I'm having fun. I enjoy being on YouTube. I think it's a lot of fun. I do need to take breaks,

but the bigger picture is I'm grateful for what I get to do with my life. Protestant apologetics will be a slightly less of a focus for the immediate short-term next few months because I'm writing a book and I really want to focus on general Christian apologetics, which is where my heart is at and where my interests are at, but I'll still do a little bit, and I'm excited for all that's to come. All right, thanks for watching, everybody.