A Protestant Asks: What Is Orthodox Christianity? (And Why Is It Growing?) W/ Jonathan Pageau

What is it that I want? What is it that's driving me? What are the things that make me feel like I'm myself? And when we realize that those things are unrelated to God, whether it's fame or money or whatever, or power. I mean, that's when we have to repent. To the extent that you embody Christ in the world, that's how much you'll be free. That's how much you'll be full of love. That's how much you'll be full of grace. And then that is what will carry through, right? That is what is real about you anyways. It's good once in a while to be scared. I know that people Protestants don't like that. They like they want to be certain of their salvation. It's like the certainty of your salvation is your listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. What's up guys? This is Ben from Provoke and Inspire. And do you ever wonder why the Eastern Orthodox Church is seeing a resurgence of young people flocking to their services? Because study after study and article after article keeps coming out, revealing this fact about society and culture today. And I've always wondered why. And even more fundamental than that, I've wondered about the Eastern Orthodox Church in general. If you're anything like me, you probably just grew up with this vague suspicion that it's not quite right, but you're not really sure why. Well, to settle some of this, I had the privilege of talking to Jonathan Pajot. He is a French Canadian icon, Carver, public speaker and YouTuber with a significant online platform, and he's probably most famous for his frequent interactions with Jordan Peterson. He is a really humble, brilliant guy, and I had the opportunity to just ask him all of my basic questions. Now, we definitely don't agree on everything, and there are certain points of theological difference, but I do think it was a very productive conversation. And like I said, if you're like me who really doesn't know a lot about Eastern Orthodoxy, I think you're going to come away with a more profound understanding and you're going to see the areas in which it's helpful, and definitely areas in which we diverge. So you're going to love this conversation with Jonathan Pageau. Check out the entire thing. All right, enough of the preamble. Let's get on to my conversation with thinker and artist Jonathan Pageau. Thank you so much for being on the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Certainly, like I said, I have been a fan from afar. I've really appreciated the things that you've said, the content that you have put out there, and there's a thing that keeps coming and keeps being put in front of me. And you know, I'm from the Protestant tradition. If there's anything that we love is evangelism and going out there and telling people about Jesus and again and again, people keep saying, Ben, there's this statistical phenomenon. There is this rise in interest of the Orthodox Church, especially among young people. And as I was saying to you before we started recording, my whole world is how do we reach young people for Jesus? That's what my dad started in the eighties. That's what we continue to do today. And so as I was reflecting on that and what has led to that, and then also as our conversation was on the horizon, I thought, you know what? I'm just going to ask Jonathan to educate me. I, like so many of my tradition, know very little to nothing about Eastern Orthodoxy. I know almost nothing about the tradition. The things that cause the tensions, the divisions, if you will. And I thought, man, this would be so instructive, just selfishly for me, if you would indulge me, I would greatly appreciate to learn more. I'd be definitely happy to. I also come from, you know, I grew up in an evangelical church. My father was a Baptist pastor. And so I kind of went through that transition myself, where in my twenties, I discovered the ancient church, the church fathers and, you know, kind of have a kind of enlightening, uh, perception of, of church history. Awesome. So if you can, in just broad brush strokes, help me understand what are the foundations, what are the basics? And of course, I've got questions related to some of the classic points of contention, or at least things that need clarity as far as I'm concerned. But if you can just start with kind of a basic overview. For someone who knows nothing and that someone is me. Yeah. And so, I mean, I think that a good way of understanding the, the basis of the, the Orthodox Church is that we, we are the church of the apostles. That is the way that the Orthodox Christians understand this is that we are in a direct continuation and it's a continuation of people. It's a continuation of a body, right? A continuation of community from the those that saw Christ die and resurrect up to today. And so we have a deep attachment to the, you know, pre-nicene fathers, the apostolic fathers, we call them, that came right after the apostles. And then all down the line, we have this sense of continuity from the early church all the way until today. And that maybe is the best way of understanding it. We don't see a disruption. We see continuity. And we we kind of place ourselves in that continuity. That's probably the first thing to, to, to understand. And so when I grew up as a Baptist, I remember in my teenage years, at some point I started asking questions. You know, it's like, so when is, you know, are there Christians after Constantine or this idea that there are no Christians like between, I'm not sure what date and up to the Reformation. And if there are, where are they? And, you know, and so in studying church history, I realized that many people see the break at Constantine. And at the same time, it's at Constantine that many of the things that we believe as Christians, all Christians, were really set in stone, whether it is definitions of the Trinity, you know, kind of the the real understanding of that Christ is truly God, the incarnation. And all of that led me to wonder what there's something I'm missing. Uh, and then it sent me down the line of reading those early fathers, reading the Church Fathers. So again, you alluded to this, I think a little bit. But why why does that sense of continuity matter? Like, why is that important? Well, because if you understand a body, you know, the image that Saint Paul uses as a body is a good one. That is, the body is something which has a memory, right? It's a continuation. It's a participation in the head that is connected both in time and in space. You could say to its head, and therefore this is how we see it. We see that the church is born, you know, in the resurrection of Christ, the, the, the Holy Spirit coming down on the apostles. And that that body, just like a human body, continues to exist. It doesn't it doesn't stop to exist and then start to exist later. It really is like this promise that, that the body will continue. And also because there's also a sense of spirit, you could say spirit in the broader sense, which is that there are things you can learn from a text, and there are things you learn from being in contact with people you know. And so I can. I can write to you. Uh, you know, an essay on how to be polite, but looking, you know, as a parent, showing it to a child. And the example of that, right? Actually being in the example and looking at what that looks like is different. And so we really believe that there's a, there's an apostolic continuity. That is one of the very important things was to be in contact with those that knew Christ and to kind of and to have all the unsaid. You could say that isn't just, uh, a kind of text that you can interpret. Obviously. Not that the text is wrong. The text is fine, the text is wonderful. We love the Bible and the Bible is we believe the Bible is, uh, is God's revelation to us. Um, but there is this sense that there's also a, we call it the phronema, which is there's a mindset, there's a way of thinking and a way of perceiving the world, which, which Christ left us. And that's not as easily, uh, gotten from, a from a text or just instinctively my, my reaction would be, okay, so if we have this continuity and it's based on our understanding of the apostolic succession or this line of thinkers and fathers, I would again, probably the cliche Protestant response would be, how do we, how do we know which ones to trust? Like, how do we understand the succession of that line? And because clearly there were guys that went off and went in directions that we would not consider sort of part of our understanding of Scripture and Christianity in general. So how do you kind of avoid that infinite regress just of human opinion if there's not like a bedrock criteria to judge it against? You know what I mean? Yeah. There's no way there's no way out of the regress. Sure. Whether it's the Bible or it's a, it's a community. There's no way out of it, you know, because the, you know, the Bible was written by people and the books were chosen by people. So there's no like, there's no completely way out of it if you want to do it, like as this kind of logical thing. Um, I think that the, in the, in the Orthodox tradition, we have this, this idea of the council, we have this idea that the body can recognize something to be true. And we see that as having an authority. Of course, that authority doesn't contradict, can't contradict Scripture. It can't contradict the the, you know, the the that which has been handed to us by the the apostles. Right. But we do believe that there is something real about that. And so we, we, we believe there's authority in the Trinitarian, uh, you know, resolutions of, of, of Nicaea and then of the seven, the seven ecumenical councils. Um, and so this is kind of how we, we know, but there's also an actual continuity, which is, you know, that we can trace the, the, the bishops all the way back to the apostles. That is, there is a like a handing off of authority kind of laying on hands, you could say from the time of, of, of the apostles all the way to today. And so of course, that can sometimes go wrong. But there's also a, you could say, a kind of immune system in the body that eventually ejects the problems and kind of returns back to the, to the, to the, the truth of, of Christ. Mhm. I'm not trying to sound circular here, but it's like the rubric or the matrix for even identifying the thing that needs to be expelled or exposed. That's probably what makes guys my instincts uncomfortable, right? Because it's like, well, I have to have this objective standard because if I don't, how do I even know what to eject? You know, and again, as I said, that's where there's probably elements of a rationalistic enlightenment or overemphasis on having to have perfect logic. Is that what makes me uncomfortable? What makes me uncomfortable about this? No, I think that I don't know what makes us uncomfortable, but I can try to surmise this is that there is. In fact, you're right. An enlightenment understanding of the notion of factuality, right? So it's like, I want data that I can analyze and therefore the text, the Bible, as seen in this way, is a kind of solid factual thing that I can hold in front of me and I can analyze with my mind. Uh, and that I can be certain of what's in the text, right? I can be certain of what's like written down. Um, but at least my contention is that there is no certainty down there. That is, the certainty is in Christ and Christ gives his influence, like, you know, gives, gives his revelation. And that revelation is, is, is important. It's, it's without it, you know, we don't have boundaries, but a good way of thinking about it is more to think of the Bible as a kind of wall that is preventing us from going astray. But the life of the church doesn't come from the Bible, right? The life of the church comes from Christ in us and from the Holy Spirit. Uh, yeah. And that's really important to always kind of remember. Of course, it doesn't take anything away from scripture, but when we what we've seen, it is like when we make the Bible into a simply an amount of data that can be analyzed, then it's then it gets deconstructed. And we've seen that happen in the last one hundred years where now we have these horrible Bibles with like parentheses. And like the last part of this gospel is in some text, but it isn't. And like some little thing where this is not isn't is in five of the original and this is not and these insane Bibles where everything gets questioned and the data gets deconstructed at the level of the of materiality. Certainty is not in materiality. That is really a big mistake. Certainty comes from heaven. It doesn't come from earth. And therefore we. We always have to remember that our certainty comes from the incarnation, right? It comes from knowing that God had has become man. And knowing that that is this, that is the source of certainty. Because once you once that enters your heart, right? Because once you know about the incarnation and you know what that is, there's no turning back like it is the key to reality. And I think that that's the most important thing. The most important thing is, is the incarnation of Christ. And then the rest are there. Like I said, think of it as like guardrails, like things that help us when we're confused and it can help us kind of make sure that we don't, uh, that we don't step out. If you look at the councils, for example, like the early councils, what you can see is in some ways what we call heresy is the word heresy means something like choice, right? And this is mostly where heresy comes from. It's mostly that we see an aspect of Christ's revelation and we hold on to it, and then we hold on to it, to the exclusion of other aspects. And so we see that Christ is definitely a man, you know. And so if he is a man, then he can't be God. And we hold on to that. And we see that in the text. And then someone later goes, yeah, but Christ is really God, right? So then we hold on to that and we just want that. And we are we refuse to understand the fullness of the, of the revelation and most heresies. That's what it is. It's that there's some aspect of Scripture or of something that's true, that we kind of hold on to too tight. And then we, we, we struggle to see the fullness of the, of the revelation. What is it about the human condition or the just our instincts to, to want to, to not be comfortable sitting in that mystery? What, what leads us in that direction and makes us turn it into this very factual. I think we want to we want to own things. You know, to some extent. I think it's the it's the garden all over again. You know, it's like we want to hold it. We want to have it. We want to be able to say this, I master this. But if you think you're going to master the incarnation of God in the world. Like it's not going to happen. You're not going to master the resurrection when people are telling you no. I remember people are like, well, I have proof. We're going to find proof of the resurrection. You're not going to find proof of the resurrection. What are you talking about? Like you're not going to master the incarnation of God. It's there to master you, right? It's there to rule over you. And that's why when we talk about the mystery, you know, when Saint John, at the end of his gospel says that, you know, that all the books of the world could not contain what Christ brought, what what Christ did. This is to say, look, like I said, these are the guardrails. Like Christ is much more than Scripture. Christ is more than all of our traditions. He's always beyond that. Uh, and so we have to, we always have to remember that even, even as Orthodox Christians who love the liturgy and have all these rules and have all these things, we always have to understand. And if you read the fathers and you read the saints, they'll always remind you that that Christ is more. Well, I would say the Bible becomes one of the well, if not the sticking point, right? Because that, as you said, becomes undergirds that desire to have a perfect systematic theology, a perfect understanding of everything and unwillingness maybe on some level to embrace the inevitable mystery that you would think intuitively would come from a God that is so vastly superior to us in every possible way. By definition, we can perfectly master him in a bunch of systematic ways. Is he God anymore? I mean, it would seem intuitive from that sense, but of course, then one of the next thing that is, you know, if the Bible is our source of everything, then the big one is salvation. What does it mean to be saved? And I think I don't think any honest Protestant would be unwilling to admit that we have oversimplified what salvation is. We've made it. We're so concerned that we don't attach anything to it. That would even hint at the possibility that I contributed to my salvation. We've just made it this box to check. How do you understand salvation and are any of the fears in the opposite direction that. Well, they're just making it about works. Are those founded. How do we understand this from your perspective? Yeah, I think I think that really from the orthodox perspective, we kind of just step out of this whole like faith versus debate. We're just not in it. Like it's very confusing. Once you kind of start to enter into the mind of the fathers, this type of debate that ended up happening is, it seems just confusing the way to understand salvation in the Orthodox sense. If you read Saint Athanasius, you read, you know, uh, his essay on on the incarnation, you understand that the salvation is an ontological reality. That is salvation. Is Christ going through all the levels of being, that is, God entering into the world and then assuming all the aspects of reality. And in assuming those aspects, he saved them, he gathers them into himself. So salvation is the gathering of creation into God. That is what salvation is. That is what that's the point. It's that not just salvation, it's the point of creation. It's why God created the world in the first place was because he wanted as a lover to be united with his creation. That is what that is, the whole reason. Or else why, like what is going on, right? And so the incarnation is not just something there to solve a problem of sin. The incarnation was the purpose of creation from the beginning. Right. And we see that in when when we talk in Scripture about the Lamb of God that was sacrificed before the foundation of the world, it is trying to get us to understand that the incarnation is not only a kind of thing that God has to do to like kill his son, to like replace our sins in order so that if we believe that, then when we die, we don't go to hell. Like that is not sufficient. It's not sufficient to understand what God is doing in the world. And so what is salvation? Salvation is the participation in that process. It is you entering into Christ and through that participation in his body, to enter into the body of the body of God. For all intents and purposes, that is to become God's bride, to become the the one that is united with God. We actually, in the Orthodox tradition, we believe that the ultimate vision is participation in divine nature. As Saint Peter talks about. It's. It's theosis. That's the purpose of creation. God made us to then unite us with him. And so you have to become something. Maybe that's a good way of understanding how we see salvation is that being saved is to be something. And so if you say, I believe in Jesus and then you don't or you're not transformed into something, then what are you talking about? What is this salvation? To be saved is to be transformed. And so of course, it's through faith that is, through an attachment to God. We are attached to him and we begin that transformation. But it does obviously mean works, not works, in the sense that I'm doing all the right things to make my daddy God happy works in the sense that you have to change. Like you have to become the thing that Christ is describing. You have to attain the, you know, the perfection of Christ. That's what you're you're moving towards. And that is what salvation is. There's no difference in orthodoxy between salvation, justification, sanctification. All of these things are aspects of the of the same reality. That is the possibility of being free from your sins, free from free from your desires, you know, joined in love with God. These are all the same, the same things I, of course, I think the way I would have heard what you said, described in far less eloquent language, is, you know, we are we are saved. In a sense. There's this defining moment of the Holy Spirit revealing to me my need for God, my sinfulness, my. And then then. But from there, a proper understanding would include a recognition that there is then a lifelong journey of sanctification that needs to take place, which is more and more and more aligning myself with God's design and desire for me and for the way I'd be useful to him in the world. The first thing is that you have to start your description, not in you, but in Christ like we were. You're not saved. When you heard God, you were saved when Christ died on the cross and resurrected on the third day, that's when you were saved. And therefore, our participation in that in the life of Christ is what makes us enter into salvation. And so that's the first thing I would say. And then the second thing is to be saved is to be something. So again, what's important is like this idea that you could be this. For example, like the idea that you could be this like, uh, guy who believed in Jesus one day, but is like addicted to different things and is like, is struggling with all of these things and is sinning and is prideful and is doing that. And the idea that when you die, that suddenly you're going to be in the presence of God, like the beatific presence of God, why would you be in the beatific presence of God? You don't want to be in the beatific presence of God. Like God's not going to force you to be in his beatific presence. It's like you are what you are. If you don't want to be in a in in God and you don't want to enter into God, then the idea that when you die, you're suddenly going to want to be in God. That's ridiculous. Like you are what you are, you know. And so that's what I mean by salvation is that it's like salvation is your friend. Like you become heaven like you, and you can be in heaven. Now, you don't have to wait until you die. You can be in hell right now. Of course, there is an eschatological like realization of that, but these are realities that are there, like the kingdom of heaven is now. It's not some time in the future, you know? I guess I know myself enough to realize that, you know, again, not to pretend I'm the Apostle Paul, but, you know, I do what I don't want to do and what I want to do, I don't do. There's this trying experience of being human where we. Man, I don't want to be impatient with my wife, but I did it again. I don't want to be a jerk. I don't want to think only of myself. And so it's this wrestling with it. But but I don't have a relationship to that. As someone who is trying to earn God's love. I genuinely feel a love and intimacy with Jesus and a trust in him to go, oh man, I. I want everything you have for me now. I want everything you have for me tomorrow, forever. I want all of it. Give me all of it. You are better than anything else I've tasted and seen. And yet, if any snapshot of my life was to be the defining proof that I'm saved. I'd make me nervous. If I'm honest. Like. Because you can catch me in a bad moment on any day. What do I do with that? Well, I think it's also because again, like I think I mean, how can I say this? Like, I think that this, this switch that you talk about like this kind of switch, uh, that's not the way that the orthodox kind of perceive it. And also there is, there is a reality about salvation, which is also, we are all kind of participating in each other's salvation. This is something that we really believe, which is that, you know, we pray for each other, you know, and we help each other in in this process. And that's why orthodoxy looks the way it does. It's confusing for some people to say, well, why are you praying to the saints? You know, why are you asking for the saints to pray for you, all of this stuff? Well, it's because of what we're talking about here, which is that we all, in love and compassion see the weaknesses of our brothers. We see our weaknesses. We ask people to pray for us. We ask the saints to pray for us. We pray for others. And there is in some ways a. There is a mystery in which God is also saving us through that process. Uh, and, and that this like reduction of salvation to like just me and God, right? This like I'm just this lonely little figure in the world and God is there and it's like just this vertical thing. And that's not what I see in scripture. You know, I see that the body that exists in the communion of love is also saving us, right? It's changing us. It's transforming us. Um, and it's leading us to, yeah, to be closer and closer to God. And so obviously it's also the same for us when we think about, you know, we have this vague, it's very vague. We don't want to, we're not very like, uh, tight about it, but this vague idea that there is, there's mercy, you know, that that God has mercy on us and that mercy will work itself out. We have to we have to ask for forgiveness. We have to constantly be repented of our sins, but we also trust on, on, on God and His mercy and his loving embrace of us, you know? So it's all of those things kind of mixed, but it's good once in a while to be scared. I know that people Protestants don't like that. They like, they want to be certain of their salvation. It's like the certainty of your salvation is in Christ, dude. It's not in you. So you so like the the it's good to be scared once in a while because maybe that'll make you stop watching porn or whatever the hell you're doing. Like, it's good to be a little afraid because that's like a fuel to like to, to move towards God. I don't feel a fear in any of this, if I'm honest. I just want to. I want to learn. And I'm I'm suspicious of my own blind spots. I'm certainly aware that the proclivity of humans to overreact and throw the baby out with the bathwater. And so part of why I was so excited about this conversation is that I know we need course correction in a lot of ways, and I'm not content to be someone who just has this binary wasn't saved. Now I'm saved experience. And now now I can just kind of go about doing my thing. Who cares? Doesn't matter. Like I don't have to have any fear. Believe me, I don't believe any of that. And yet, when the stakes are significant in that, it would seem to me that Jesus will say to some people, depart from me, I never knew you. I want to reduce it to the most basic question my basic brain can understand, just not to cover my bases, but to at least ask the question like how? How much do I have to embody it or not embody it? These are all reductionistic questions, but I think you can get the heart of what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I know, but that's a rough one because. Because if you go to that image, if you go to the image of Christ saying, you know, depart from me, I didn't know you. If you go to the show, the goat and the sheep image, and you see what it is that Christ requires of those that he brings in. Good luck. It has nothing to do with this. With the John three sixteen like kind of Christian that says, I just need to make the declaration, you know, and then I'm safe forever. Like it's it's things are, um, things and this has nothing to do again, with like works in the sense of I'm going to do things that will make Jesus happy. It's about how are you embodying Christ in the world that is your salvation. That is, you will be saved to the extent that you embody Christ in the world. That's how much you'll be free. That's how much you'll be full of love. That's how much you'll be full of grace. And then that is what will carry through, right? That is what is real about you anyways. You know people will be in hell, right? I mean, we believe that it's I, I don't it's not my business to judge necessarily someone's life on this earth. I don't know, I guess I'm just trying to. The hardest thing about hell, and this is true. This is the, this is something that you see both in kind of traditional orthodoxy and in Catholicism. Uh, and it's the hard one is that the people in hell want to be there. Yeah. That's the hardest thing to understand. But you, you have to realize that that God, that God lets us. God does not force himself upon us. God is not a rapist. God lets the relationship be real, and if we don't want God, then we. We're not going to we're not going to to have him, you know? And so I think that that's always important to understand is that this is a harder one. I mean, I think for for kind of more, I think that the thing that we can be certain of is that whoever does not want to be in hell, God will not place them in hell. That's what I really believe, that if God wants to save everyone, God wants to save all of creation and he weeps. You know, uh, for those who do not want to be in communion with him. Yeah. And so I think for ourselves, then we can move in that and we can realize and ask ourselves all the time, like, what is it that I love? What is it that I want? What is it that's driving me? What are the things that make me feel like I'm myself? Um, and when we realize that those things are unrelated to God, whether it's fame or money or whatever, or power, um, then that's when we, I mean, that's when we have to repent, you know, for our own sake, because it's actually better even now, like right now, it's better to live in love and compassion and forgiveness, even for your own mental state right now. Like not just don't, don't even think about like when you die yet. Just think about now, like, what is it? What is the best way to be in the world? And it's to be a disciple of Christ. Yeah. I think for so many Protestants, though, everything is framed through the lens of eternity. Everything is framed through the lens of what side of that ledger will you fall on in light of the decision you made here? Right. And so I think it's so hard to even hear that even when you say, don't worry about that. I think that would just be language that is hard to even Incorporate into their paradigm because like, I don't, I think I can, I have no problem holding those two truths in tension easily in the sense that in the same way that as a good father, I got three kids, I got a ten, seven and five year old, and I have I don't see any sort of contradiction between wanting the absolute best for them in this life, and also caring deeply for their spiritual destiny beyond this life. I think to create a false dichotomy would be bizarre. I don't not take them to the doctor or not clothe them or feed them or want the best for them here. But also, I mean, you know, I have to be careful because you I mean, we do obviously have to maintain our vision of the eschaton. We can't you know, when I say don't worry about it, we should worry about it to some extent, not worry, but we should be concerned about it. Uh, worry obviously we're not supposed to worry. Uh, we're supposed to be concerned. But what I'm trying to say is that they're not different, right? Right. If I love my neighbor now, that is the best version of reality. Uh, And that is a glimpse of heaven already. I'm already. I'm already in the kingdom of heaven. When I love my neighbor. When I forgive those that offend me, when I, you know, when I defend the weak, when I, you know all the things that Christ asked us to do when I, when I participate in that, not in the sense of like, again, doing good works on a ledger, but in the sense of becoming, becoming Christ for others in the world. I mean, that that is the, that is the best possible world, you know. Yeah, yeah. And the circle all the way back, maybe just to close here to that initial thing I used to lead us into this, which is the statistical resurgence of young people coming to this belief. I have my suspicions as to why that is, but I'd love to hear what you think is becoming attractive to, I think a generation on paper, those of us would be like, wait a minute, we got the smoke machines and the Ted talks and the rock concerts. What do they got going for them? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Well, I think it's related to what you're saying, which is you could imagine that in the twentieth century, maybe, especially since, uh, World War Two, that the church in some ways has been trying to stop the bleeding. That's basically what they're doing. And so they're saying, oh, this is what you like. Well, if I do this thing that you like, will you stay or will you come back? Like, will you? And so there's this kind of movement where we, we try to imitate the world basically in order to maintain people in, in the church. Now we're at this point point now, right, where a lot of people that have gone and that have left the church, they feel despair and they feel they have everything that the boomers wanted, right? They have all the porn. They have all the entertainment, they have all the freedom, they have all the things. And their life sucks, right? And they hate themselves. Uh, and they are like, well, no. What what then what? What is this? And so I think that these are the people that are are kind of a lot of the people that are, were trained to orthodoxy because they now are trying to reorient themselves and to reform their world in a vision of Christ. And so if they go back to church, they don't want the thing that's almost like what they are like. If I want to go to a rock concert and a conference, like there are way better ones than the ones that I can, I can see at church. And if I'm not Christian, like I'll just go, I'll just go to a rock concert. Like, why would I go to church? And, and so what they're saying is, no, I want the full, I want the fullness. I want the thing that fills up my entire life. I don't want it to just be this faith thing and then everything else looks like everybody else. I want this to kind of fill up. And then what you realize is that, you know, if you think of orthodoxy, the way it looks like to say the architecture, the the icons, the music, the liturgy, uh, everything is deliberate. Everything is coherent. There's no disjunction. That is the way that the liturgy functions and the way that the priest dresses. You know, when the priest goes up and dresses himself, he reads psalms as he's dressing himself to remind himself of what vesting is. What does it mean to put on clothing? What does it mean in Scripture to put on clothing? And all of the elements in the liturgy are deliberate and are meaningful and are not accidental. And I think that that's what people love. They love the fact that, you know, when when a pastor goes up on stage, let's say in a in a Protestant church, if he's wearing a business suit, he's saying something, right. It's not arbitrary. If he's wearing, if he, if he's wearing ripped jeans and a t shirt, he's saying something, right. So you the idea is like, you can't. If you have a smoke machine in the in the church, that means something. If you have a huge PowerPoint presentation that means something. And the idea is like, what are we signifying when we're participating in these things? And I think that what the people coming back to orthodoxy, I know that's what it was for me, was to say, no, I'm speaking from the inside. This is speaking from the inside, from the worldview of Scripture, from the worldview of the body of Christ. What does singing look like from the point of view of, of, of the incarnation? What images do we engage with, etc., etc.. And so there's this deep coherence. So imagine people that are nihilistic and living in a world where they feel like there's no meaning. And then they encounter this, this like beautiful, radiant image of the kingdom, at least in their perception. I think that that's what's attracting. And maybe they grew up with parents who, you know, took him to the church services and to the to the youth groups, but whose lives looked rather unmarked by the very thing that they claim to follow. And again, I'm not. I know you're not saying that. You know, everyone who is part of this tradition is somehow perfect in their in the way that they follow Jesus. But there is at least an an emphasis, a deeper emphasis on the idea that this this ought to transform you. This ought to have an effect on you right now and in a way that I think is is given, you know, and again, I don't want to speak for thousands of churches and thousands of pastors, but I think there is more of a accepted incongruence between sort of the boxes we check. And, and a lot of that probably is because if I have my health insurance, then then yeah, I better, I should try to do good things. Think about it like in the way that we've been talking about it from the beginning, right? So one of the things that I said was being saved is becoming something like being saved is participating in the incarnation, for all intents and purposes. And so if your idea of being saved means that you need to get people to believe something right. Then all the techniques are are good, like whatever. It doesn't matter what you use. Like it doesn't matter what advertisement technique or what, like, you know, modern AI generated pastor or whatever it is that people can come up with. It doesn't matter, because the point is to get people to like, believe something and make some kind of like life declaration. And that's how I that's it. Like that's my job. My job is just to get them there. The rest like, but if you say no, salvation is on earth as it is in heaven, and not just for people, but for communities and for buildings and for music and for the arts. All of this becoming like a symphony of the kingdom of heaven in the world. Then everything changes. Like the way we understand what we do. It's not just about getting people in and convincing them of something. It's about manifesting heaven on earth, right? Actually having something on earth that looks. That's why the. That's why the liturgy is in large part based on the Book of revelation, because what we see in the book of revelation with the altar and the Lamb and the incense and the angels that are precessing around the altar, it's like that's go to an Orthodox church. That's what you'll see because we are trying to manifest the, the worship in heaven. Uh, on the earth, you know, and that's what we think salvation is. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, Jonathan, I, uh, I really appreciate your willingness to, to go very much to the basics with me on this. I've learned a lot in this conversation and I really appreciate you. There are certainly things I still don't know if I fully comprehend or how to make sense of it. And, you know, in large part I've lived and breathed, I would say, somewhat of a non-denominational, but certainly Protestant upbringing. And so again, I'm not saying we necessarily see perfectly eye to eye on everything, but I really appreciate your insight and your wisdom and the way God is using you. So. So thank you for taking the time with me. Well, thanks, Ben, I appreciate your I appreciate your question and your attention. I hope that it was useful in that. Yes. And that it helps people a little bit understand what this weird kind of, uh, thing is. If God, by definition, is someone's far superior to us in every single way, and yet we also simultaneously believe we have perfectly figured out every aspect of who he is and how to think about it. If that's not the most obvious contradiction, logically, I don't know why it is so. Yeah, maybe we could do a second round. If people find it interesting, I'll be happy to do it. Love it. The art stuff you do. I'd love to dig into. There's so much. So I'm gonna hit the stop button to make sure your file is uploaded, and then I'm just gonna let you go do your thing. I'm sure you're a busy man, so thank you. All right. Thanks.

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