May 12, 2023 Show with Joshua Schooping on “Disillusioned: Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood & Church”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father, James Wilson,

19th century hymn writer, George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister, George Norcross, and sports

legend, Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens

another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener,

with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the

planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 12th

day of May, 2023.

I am so thrilled, and that is an understatement, to have as a first

-time guest today a former Eastern Orthodox priest who today

is a theologically reformed Protestant and pastor of an evangelical church.

His name is Joshua Schuping, pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church of

Russellville, Arkansas, and we're gonna be discussing his book today, Disillusioned,

Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio,

Pastor Joshua Schuping.

Are you there, brother?

Yes, sir.

Chris, thank you so much for having me on your show, for inviting me on.

I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to share.

Oh, I am absolutely thrilled that you're on the program.

The last time I discussed Eastern Orthodoxy on my program was

on April 13th, 2018, when I had Dr. Jack D. Kinnear on the

program, who is one of the very few Protestant experts

on Eastern Orthodoxy, and we conducted an interview on Eastern Orthodoxy, what separates

it from Rome and the Reformation, and Dr. Kinnear actually

earned a doctorate at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary.

I believe that's the same seminary where you were educated, am I right?

Yes, yeah, I went there at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.

And I wanted to do a follow -up interview with Dr. Kinnear.

I didn't even know until after the interview was over that he was battling cancer at the time.

I believe he is cancer -free now.

He is alive and well.

And after the show was over, he said, when I asked him to come back for a part

two, he said, brother, that interview totally exhausted me, and because

of the fact that I'm battling cancer, and I don't see me coming back on in the near future.

I'm just totally wiped out.

And debilitated right now.

So I felt very bad about that.

I didn't even realize that he was suffering with cancer at the time of the interview.

But I'm so thrilled that in God's providence, I discovered you, because as you know,

this is something, for some reason, is a subject that very few

Protestants are familiar enough with that they could speak

with any kind of authority in a public forum.

And before I even get into other questions, is there a reason for that that you're aware of?

A lot of it has to do, maybe in an academic sense, with the access to

materials translated from Greek patristic sources or Russian sources.

So in some sense, there's only slowly been building enough material for people to

be able to review responsibly a wide swath of Eastern Orthodox theological

positions.

Another is that it's very mysterious in the sense that it somewhat thinks, according to it, a non

-Western kind of way of thinking, in some ways.

It can be more comfortable in mystical kinds of conceptions.

It has a very deep history, which naturally will give people pause.

People might speak at a turn by only having studied either a more recent document or studying a more ancient document,

but not necessarily knowing the historical development of theology in the East, not to

mention the whole political side of the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium that also has a

lot less scholarship devoted to it that people typically have access to.

So I think there's probably multiple good reasons why people might feel hesitant to

address Eastern Orthodox topics.

Well, before I forget to mention this, and I hopefully will remember to repeat it later on,

but of course, after this live program is over, look up in the Iron Sharpens

Iron Radio archive at ironsharpensironradio .com, type in the search engine

KNEER, K -I -N as in Nancy, N as in Nancy, E -E -R, and you will see

a link for my interview from April 13th of 2018 with Dr. Jack D. Kneer,

who was at the time a professor at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

I'm sorry, and we did the interview, as I mentioned, on Eastern Orthodoxy, what

separates it from Rome and the Reformation, but also you're going to have a treasure

trove, a great wealth of information provided for you with

our mutual very dear friend, Dr. Tony Costa, who

conducted three interviews with my guest, Joshua Shooping,

on his YouTube channel, so if you go to the YouTube website, type in the search engine

Toronto Apologetics, just like Toronto Candidate, because Dr. Tony Costa is

professor of apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Toronto, Canada,

so if you type in Toronto Apologetics, and you add to it Shooping, S -C

-H -O -O -P as in Peter, I -N -G, you will see the interviews that Dr. Costa conducted

with Joshua Shooping, my guest today, and they are rich with content and information

that you will want to hear.

But before I get into your testimony, we have a

tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first time guest, we have that

guest give a summary of their salvation testimony.

In this case, the whole program is really on that, but with

much more information that we will seek to provide our listeners with on the

religion of Eastern Orthodoxy that you have left.

But before I go into that, tell us about the Christian and Missionary

Alliance Church of Russellville, Arkansas.

Oh, yeah, the Christian and Missionary Alliance is a movement within Christendom, within

the evangelical world that started a little over, or about 100 years ago, with a gentleman named A .B. Simpson,

who was a Presbyterian pastor, who wanted to kind of minister and evangelize to

the lost and downtrodden in the New York area, New York City area, I believe.

And it was a little bit of, became a little bit of a conflict with his pastoring of the local congregation, where he

was in the Presbyterian church, and what he felt was a call to minister to those who hadn't really heard the

gospel, maybe coming off the docks, you know, homeless people searching

and in need of the gospel.

And so he ended up stepping away from his ministry in the Presbyterian church to start

evangelizing and ministering both to people locally to help give them the gospel, but to also prepare people

for missions work.

And so that kind of started the Christian side of it and the missionary side of it, eventually joined to become the Christian and

Missionary Alliance.

A .W. Tozer also became a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

It's a special focus is the deeper life.

You know, what does it mean to walk out the life in Christ or Christ's life in us?

How can we walk more faithfully in that?

And so that kind of spread to become an enormous global movement that worked together non

-denominationally or worked together with other denominations to try to share,

spread and encourage people in the gospel.

And so someone came and founded a church here in Russellville, Arkansas

a good while ago.

And it's been here ever since.

And, you know, I was called from Northeastern Pennsylvania where I was ministering to come down here

and serve in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Russellville.

Praise God.

Well, the website for that congregation is RUSS, an abbreviation for

Russellville, RUSSCMA .org.

That's RUSSCMA .org.

And God willing, I will repeat that toward the end of the program.

It's interesting to note that my guest is theologically reformed and

yet the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination from what I understand is

predominantly not reformed.

I don't know if they would identify themselves predominantly as Arminian pastors in

that denomination.

Many who are not of the reformed branch of Christendom

do not like to associate with the title Arminian.

But my guest today is one of those who are among a minority in

the CMA who is reformed.

And in fact, the pastor of the local Christian and Missionary Alliance

Church here in the same town where I'm broadcasting right now, the Carlisle

Alliance Church, the pastor there who's been there, I think, just about two years now,

maybe less, David Monreal, who has become a friend of mine.

He is also theologically reformed.

I've got to introduce you to you guys.

Okay, yeah, A .B. Simpson with his Presbyterian background, his affirmation of

real presence in the Eucharist, things like that, really made it feel like a good,

comfortable place to be.

But in terms of its, quote unquote, non -denominational -ish sort of stream or emphasis,

I think kind of comes out of what I might call a meta -critique of denominationalism in the early

1900s, where it seemed like there might have been a lot of infighting when it seemed like maybe there could be more

cooperation.

And so I kind of felt like there was a real friendliness to that reformed side of things, but at the same time,

giving people freedom and space to be able to work out some of these finer details in a biblical way,

because there's too many faithful people like a John Wesley, even Charles Spurgeon would have

praised John Wesley.

So they thought, well, we might as well try to find a way to organize ourselves so that both a Charles Spurgeon and a John Wesley could

labor side by side.

And so it seemed like a safe place to land coming out of the Eastern Church.

Yeah, in fact, George Whitefield, as you likely know, a contemporary of

John Wesley, they were friends, but Whitefield was a thoroughgoing Calvinist,

and obviously Wesley was not.

And they had very heated exchanges.

And I'm probably revealing my bias here, but I don't think I am allowing a bias to

warp my understanding of the relationship between the two, but it seems to me that Whitefield was

the more warm and compassionate and

patient of the two in his rhetoric than Wesley was.

Wesley was more sharp and hard and severe

in his criticisms of Whitefield than vice versa.

But Whitefield requested that Wesley preach at his funeral when he died, and

sure enough, John Wesley did.

So that shows you the kind of friends and brothers they were who took their

theological differences extremely seriously, but at the same time, recognized that those

issues did not destroy a unity in Christ because

of what they shared in common in their beliefs about the gospel and our Savior.

But, well.

That's what brotherly love is for, right?

That's right.

Brothers push against each other.

That's right.

Well, I'm gonna tell our listeners right now to please go to

your Gmail account or whatever email service you use, or pick up your cell phone,

or however you communicate with your family, friends, and loved ones.

If they are Eastern Orthodox, if they're dabbling in Eastern Orthodoxy,

and even if they are Roman Catholic or dabbling in converting to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism,

there is a lot in common even though there are significant differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and

Roman Catholicism.

But I would contact those people and tell them to tune in to Iron Trip and Zion Radio right now at

irontripandzionradio .com.

And that's where we live stream globally.

Of course, if you are living in Lake City, Florida, you can hear us at 90 .1 FM

on Grace Life Radio.

But have your family, friends, and loved ones listen to this conversation, especially if they are in Eastern Orthodoxy

or contemplating converting to it.

And if you have a question for Joshua Shuping, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I

-S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

So let's start, Joshua, in the home in which you were raised

and the theological atmosphere of that home.

Oh, yes.

My dad was a son of a minister.

So he was a PK.

So my grandfather, who passed away before I was ever born, he was a United Brethren minister

before they joined the United and helped to form the United Methodists.

So my dad would avoid church religiously.

He would joke he was not a man of faith.

Very good father, a man of integrity, but not a churchman.

My mom was a searcher.

She looked for faith her whole life, and had me baptized

in the Methodist church when I was a young boy around 11, 12 years old.

Would this have been a liberal Methodist congregation or a more biblically faithful one?

Well, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference at the time.

And this would have been in the early 90s before a

lot of this happened.

And some of the pieces that I can put together is that it would have been more theologically conservative.

So thank God for that.

But I don't know if that congregation is still following a biblical way or not.

But at the time, I'm in Sunday school, I'm coloring pictures of Noah's Ark with the happy,

smiling animals and things like that.

So I had a very, very rudimentary introduction to Christianity.

By the time I'm in middle school and high school, all of my best friends, or pretty much all of my best friends are all Christians.

And so I'm attending church with them.

I'm going to youth group at a neighborhood local church.

I believe it was a Grace Brethren Church.

And also went to Young Life a lot during high school, went to a camp, but I was never a believer

at the time.

I was really shared, people shared with me the love of Jesus but in terms of like getting

kind of deeper into theology, there were very few answers, few and far between.

And so it kind of left me with nowhere mentally to anchor into the Christian faith.

And so by the time I'm getting into my junior year, in my late teens, early twenties, I'm drifting off.

There was probably only two or three years that I didn't attend church, but I was drifting off into Eastern

philosophy and theology and studying those sorts of things.

And so it wasn't until my wife and I in my late twenties,

both of our late twenties and our son was on the way that God really started moving kind of mightily in my life.

And he put a Reformed Baptist evangelist in my way.

Yeah, we were both at a used bookstore, a great used bookstore in Fern Park, Florida, Bright Light

Books.

If anyone is in Florida, I highly recommend going to Bright Light Books, the best used Christian book selection that I've really

ever been at.

They have a whole wall of books that are just theology.

And then a whole wall of books that are just New Testament and Old Testament commentaries, you know, a whole

section of Christian living, a whole large bookcase just on missions or on

evangelism, just a tremendous used bookstore, very sweet people.

So I have a book problem.

I don't know if anybody can tell by the books that I sometimes have behind me in my -.

Only you and I see each other.

This is an audio -only interview.

So if anyone checks out any of the interviews that I've done where you can see what's behind me, I definitely have a book

problem.

So I would frequent, you know, this bookstore regularly.

And next to me, I have a handful of books in my hand.

A gentleman standing next to me has a handful of books in his hand.

We start talking, what you got, what you got.

And he ends up kind of walking through something similar, approximating

Ray Comfort's kind of good person test.

I grew up in and around church.

I'm able to name several of the 10 commandments, but he was able to apply it to me, to my conscience

in a way.

And God really started working together with his word there.

And we started attending the Reformed Baptist Church there with him as God's just kind of unlocking the truth

of who he is in a very real way, very lively way to my conscience.

But because of my background, I still was having a hard time kind of connecting in terms of

some of the theology.

And so I start reading, well, let me research more of history, let me research more of theology.

I have a BA in humanities in a history department at Rollins, from Rollins College in

Florida, Winter Park, Florida, a great school.

And so let me start looking into the history of the church, the history of this, the history of that.

And somehow I start coming across Eastern Orthodox.

Apologetic materials, instructional materials, like famous ones written by Callistos Ware called the

Orthodox Church.

And I'm starting to read through the history.

And so now I'm starting to get into the middle of some of the disputes between East and West,

between the churches.

And I was absolutely unprepared to really understand the development of the historical

arguments coming from the late Middle Ages into the Reformation era, all the

way up into a present day.

In this case, it would have been a Reformed Baptist expression of the church.

Those arguments are so technical.

I really do believe that they require a lot of deep study, a lot of having a very neutral

mind to be able to understand the sides of arguments and to be able to weigh them out and to understand the

cultural forces at work, the theological forces that are at work.

And then on the other side, I'm looking at this Eastern Orthodox thing that's saying we're historical, we've never changed, we're very

mystical, we have all the great theologians, all of this kind of stuff.

We gave it, we gave you the Bible, all of these kinds of ultimately specious

arguments.

But if you're half educated, which I was, I mean, a bachelor's degree and growing up around churches,

now I'm falling for these kinds of arguments.

And so the guy, the friendly elder at the Reformed Baptist Church is saying, well, when you

go to this Orthodox church, do you guys have images?

And I said, well, yeah, there's images there.

He's trying to warn me, right?

And he's doing his due diligence.

He says, do people kiss these images or bow in front of them?

And I said, yeah, they do.

And he said, okay, well, let's open up to Isaiah or let's open up to Jeremiah.

He's walking me through these areas about idolatry.

And then I fell for this kind of line of questioning where it was like, well, do I take your statement for it

or theirs?

And so he's showing me scripture, and they're showing me an unbroken tradition

of all of this.

And so it's like, well, you know, I guess I'm gonna go with the people who have been saying the same thing for the last 2

,000 years.

By the way, I want to alert our listeners that you used air quotes when you said, unbroken

tradition, because perhaps if we're doing an audio only, since we are doing an audio

only, you would have phrased it an alleged unbroken tradition.

Yes, yes.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

That's quite all right.

Yeah, an alleged unbroken tradition of utilizing imagery.

And so that, and then with the seeming fracturing within the Protestant

churches where there's denominations all over the place, not understanding that there's a deeper underlying unity

that actually all denominations will usually, almost all denominations will bear witness to in an

affirmation of the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, et cetera.

So I thought denominationalism was a sign of brokenness rather than a sign of diversity

with an underlying deeper unity, which I believe that denominationalism really truly does represent.

And I would distinguish between schism and separation or division and separation.

So we entered in lock, stock and barrel, having frankly been converted through the

Reformed Baptist Church, but then kind of very quickly sliding

into the Eastern Orthodox Church.

So I have these kind of like evangelical glasses that are filtering out a huge

amount of Eastern Orthodox noise is what I'd call it now.

Where -.

You'd call it now, not then, obviously.

Yeah, and I think the evangelical heart is very generous.

And so when a generous evangelical heart walks into an Eastern Orthodox setting,

they're going to hear things that a native Eastern

Orthodox person would be stressing that the evangelical

glasses would de -stress.

And so the Eastern Orthodox liturgy is filled with biblical quotes, but they'll

also say at the end of their, some of their prayers that they do

back and forth between the priest or deacon and the congregation, they'll conclude that series of prayers

with most Holy Theotokos save us.

And they'll say that at the end, repeatedly throughout their church services.

And so a generous evangelical spirit who doesn't want to be suspicious, is going to

say, well, what does that mean?

And the friendly Orthodox priest, that's air quotes, your

informative evangelistically minded Orthodox priest is going to say, oh, we don't mean

salvation save, we mean just like situational salvation.

But then when you start digging into their actual canonical documents, their actual dogmatically binding

hymns, you find out that they really do mean that Mary is a saving agent,

but I'm not reading it that way.

So I accept the explanation at face value.

They're not digging into the depths of the fine details of their canons and dogmas and stuff like that.

And so, you just kind of enter in and you kind of find your way around, it's all different, it's all exotic, it's

all Eastern.

So then, if you're a smart person and you read your way in there, you feel smart, you feel cool, I found the

best kept secret in all of Christendom.

And so it kind of also feeds into a kind of a secret pride that a lot of converts have

about feeling like they were sort of sophisticated in finding this Eastern thing.

So I know I've been talking a lot, I apologize if -.

No, no, I always have a rule that my guests

who are the experts on a subject we're discussing should have their voices heard for longer

periods of time than my own voice.

I am not a Mike Hogg, even though I'm the host of this program.

So you don't have to apologize for that at all.

We have to go to our first commercial break and we'll pick up where you left off there.

You were specifically talking about Mary, the mother of Jesus and the Eastern Orthodox

approach to her.

If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question, we do have some people who have submitted questions already who are

waiting for your responses to them.

But if you'd like to join those folks and get in line, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a

personal and private matter.

Let's say you are Eastern Orthodox.

You're starting to question the beliefs of your own religion.

Perhaps you were even raised in this religion and you are starting to read the scriptures.

You're starting to hear evangelical and theologically reformed evangelists and teachers

and scholars and theologians really reveal to you

what the true teachings of the scripture are and what the gospel truly is.

And you're starting to wonder if you are in the right place in Eastern Orthodoxy.

And you're not ready to identify yourself as being on that journey.

Well, we understand that.

And it might be the other way around.

You might be an evangelical Protestant or a Roman Catholic or somebody of another

religion outside of Eastern Orthodoxy and you're contemplating converting to Eastern Orthodoxy.

And you're not ready to reveal your identity at this point.

We understand those things would compel you to remain anonymous.

But if it's just a general question that you have on Eastern Orthodoxy, on the scripture, on

history, please give us at least your first name, your city and state and your country of

residence.

We'll be right back with Joshua Shooping after these messages.

So please do not go away.

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When we left for the break, Joshua, you were

discussing an Eastern Orthodox approach or understanding of Mary, the mother of

Jesus and you were talking about how a spin

was put on some of the more frightening

teachings about Mary embraced by Eastern Orthodoxy that would repel an

evangelical Protestant mindset that would make an evangelical much more hesitant,

leery, frightened to even consider investigating Eastern Orthodoxy as a place where

they would find a spiritual home and they would put a spin on that to make it more palatable to

someone who is not from a background or who has not embraced a background where

Mary is put on such a high and lofty place and the role of salvation as

both the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church do.

But if you could pick up where you left off there.

Yeah, so to kind of, I think, sum up what I would say is the problem there in

their approach or what happens to evangelicals or others as they start to enter into the Eastern Orthodox

Church is what I would call theological impressionism.

If people are familiar in the art world with impressionism, it's a way of doing art that

almost tells you more about how the artist saw it than rather what the thing is itself.

It's not trying to be anatomically, physiologically correct.

It's just trying to portray in art how the sunset struck that person.

And it's a great way to make beautiful art.

But I think some people have a similar method in terms of their theology where

it's like they hear that expression.

Oh, well, what do you mean most Holy Theotokos save us?

And then the priest or the friendly other person comes and says, oh, well, we don't really mean it that way.

Or it's really sweet.

Or in terms of kissing icons, it's, oh, it's just like kissing a picture of, you know, like a soldier away

at war, looks at at night the picture of his family that he left continents away.

And he just gives a kiss to the picture as kind of like a gesture of love towards the absent family.

And they'll try to give these kind of impressionistic explanations of these things to kind of dull

the conscience.

And by the way, Theotokos means mother of God, correct?

Yeah, literally it means God bearer.

Okay.

You know, that she bore God in her womb.

There's another word for like mother that would be more of like anatomical mother or something like that.

Okay.

So Theotokos is God bearer.

But it often gets translated as mother too.

That's an acceptable way of translating that Greek phrase as well.

But the antidote, in my opinion, is sort of what I introduce in my book, what I call the

canonical argument.

It's a way to dispel, I think, that sort of hypnosis of impressionism.

And that's getting into the weeds a little bit of what their actual rules and canons and formally stated

dogmas say.

Because the Eastern Orthodox Church has a very particular way of establishing what they consider truth versus

error through these councils and through the decrees that they give, and then through the

hymns and things that they sing.

Those are two binding sources of dogma.

And then in a shelf just below that is what I would call your pillar saints,

who are the main sort of teachers of the church historically.

So for example, to take the claim, most Holy Theotokos, that it just means a kind

of situational salvation.

Well, their universal teacher in the Eastern Orthodox Church, one of them, his name is Gregory

Palamas in 13th, 14th century, he, for example, says of

Mary in one of his homilies about a feast day of her, he

said that she is the sacred starting point of the spiritual Israel.

By which I mean all Christian people because she was the cause of him who

is above all causality.

And through him, she lifted men up from the earth and rendered them heavenly.

So they see that she is actually an agent of salvation, that she lifts

mankind up through Jesus.

But they have other kinds of, he has other kinds of statements where he'll

say, for example, that the virgin queen of all brought her fellow human beings

into subjection to herself and ruled over them.

So they see her as bringing all of humanity in some sense under subjection to herself.

They even say that she represents and bestows everything good, and I'm quoting

Gregory Palamas, and that she fulfills the same role as regards virtue

for those living virtuously as the sun does in relation to visible light for those who

live by it.

So in other words, just as the sun makes it so it's possible for us to see, she's the one

who makes it possible for us to live virtuously.

And it's also because she bestows these things.

For example, she alone, he says, forms the boundary between created and

uncreated nature.

And then he says, and no one can come to God except through her and the

mediator born of her.

And none of God's gifts can be bestowed on angels or men except through

her.

So it's an incredibly profound understanding of,

it's an incredibly profound view of Mary's role as savior that they take.

So it's not just a situational salvation that she's just a good, she prays in heaven for us and she

helped us to avoid the car accident, or she helped the army win the battle.

They actually believe that that's how she functions in the

saving scheme of God's economy.

Not even angels can receive blessings except through her.

It even says that, he even says, no one was capable of putting an end to this sinful impulse,

which brings destruction on all men alike or to the uncheckable rush of our race towards hell.

Uh -oh, but when the Holy Virgin made, that's Mary, heard and understood this, she was

filled with pity for humanity.

And with the aim of finding a remedy to counteract this great affliction, she resolved at once

to turn with her whole mind to God.

She took it upon herself to represent us, to constrain him, God, who is

above compulsion and quickly draw him towards us that he might remove the curse from

among us.

In other words, Mary, according to this, this main universal teacher within the Eastern Orthodox

Church, essentially represented us to God to bring Jesus Christ down.

Now, what was the actual cause of the incarnation?

What are you reading?

Forgive me if you've already mentioned this, but what are you reading to explain to us these

Eastern Orthodox concepts?

So this is from a book of collected homilies of Gregory Palamas, one of the main

saints whose very theology was enshrined in some later councils

about how they think about ascetical theology, about how they think of spiritual disciplines.

So Gregory Palamas is one of the most universally authoritative teachers in all of

Eastern Orthodoxy.

And this is from Homily 53, from a collected work of his

homilies on their feast day of the entry of the Theotokos.

They believe that Mary literally lived from three years old in the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem.

So even though the priest would only go in there once a high priest, once a year, they believe according to their dogmatic

hymns, they sing that she lived in there for years and years until and was fed by angels until

she was to give birth to Jesus.

And that while she was living, yeah.

And so while she was living in there, she was making these mystical ascents to heaven to draw

Jesus Christ down to be incarnated.

Yeah, this really diminishes the whole humility

of Mary, a servant of God who was the vehicle through which

God brought us the God -man, Jesus in the flesh.

Well, here, listen to this.

He even says that, having thought over these things so relevant to her, the Virgin, full of grace,

interceded for all humanity prior to the incarnation in an amazing way, defying description,

seeking to converse persuasively and honestly with God, to whom she came to God.

She went to God, and it says here, I quote, a self -appointed ambassador.

Wow.

Now, you mentioned before, when you first had a

Christian conversion experience, it was through

the friendship and teaching of a Reformed Baptist.

And you were talking about how when you were being introduced to Eastern

Orthodoxy, those Protestant glasses never completely fell off your face,

and you were starting to swallow the spin, which was giving you a

softer approach to Mary than the Eastern Orthodox

dogma would really teach, something more palatable to

Protestants.

But when we come back from the break, because we have to go to our midway break right now, I want you to talk about what

was going on in your mind when you began to discover things like you are reading right now.

Were you suppressing the alarm bells going off in your head?

Were you just constantly buying the spin that these things should be

adopted and believed just because of the alleged historic pedigree of your church?

They must be right.

They're the true church.

And even if this seems to contradict everything I know about the Bible, I can't

question this church because it's the ancient church.

Tell us more about that when we return.

And if anybody, as I said before, has questions for Joshua Schuping, and I still haven't gotten around to

addressing any of our listener questions yet, but we will get to you, please be patient.

But if you want to get in line with your question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

We'll be right back with Joshua Schuping, so don't go away.

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As you may recall, Joshua, before we went to the midway break, you were talking

about some very revealing teachings of the Eastern

Orthodox religion that you cannot, if you're really going to be honest

with what you are reading or hearing, you have to come to the

conclusion if you know anything about the scriptures that this is an idolatrous

view and practice and practices of Mary and how

to approach her and venerate her.

And my question to you before we went to the break was you were wearing, as you

said earlier, your Protestant glasses during your conversion experience to

Eastern Orthodoxy.

When in a timeline did you start to hear these irrefutable

teachings, irrefutable that they are idolatrous rather than a

softer version with a spin on it that is more palatable to

Protestants?

When in your journey did you start to hear these more in -depth teachings

about Mary?

So it's a good question.

One of the things that really happens in that softening is the sort of

hand -waving that can kind of happen using words like types and shadows.

And so they'll kind of use that sort of language or even

literary terms, like these are like sort of theological poetics that are said about Mary to kind of

venerate her because scripture says that she'll be, they will call her blessed, all generations will call

her blessed.

So they see that as kind of a fulfillment of that scriptural side of things.

And so it's like they just kind of inflate the balloon like a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.

And it's such a slow process that it, the only image that kind of comes to my mind is

there's an old sort of teaching story about a pile of stones.

When does a pile of stones become a pile of stones?

If I just take one stone and I throw it down on the ground, that's not a pile.

But if I just throw one more stone down there, well, that's, I mean, just adding one more stone doesn't make it a pile.

Now, if I just throw one more stone down there, now I've got three stones.

Well, if two stones wasn't a pile, then three stones shouldn't be a pile.

Well, if I throw one more, it won't be a pile.

And it kind of keeps going to the point where you actually have this gigantic pile of stones, but

through that kind of like sequential reasoning process, you've somehow explained it all away

as not a pile of stones.

And so I'd have to say that for me experientially, where the biggest

crack started to kind of happen was around the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement or

vicarious atonement.

Yeah, that's right at the heart of the gospel.

Yeah, and so, of course, in the Reformed Baptist Church, where I was at, I mean, the pastor,

he was proclaiming that strongly, vigorously, clearly, with great

vigor and verve.

And yet that sounded very striking to me.

God is angry, oh, sinners, trying to kind of square a lot of what does that mean?

There is a lot of nuance coming out of kind of like a secular mindset into trying to understand those

sorts of things.

And so while I'm engaging with Eastern Orthodox apologists, they're saying, oh, we don't teach that.

That's very Western, that's very legalistic, that was all invented by Anselm.

And so we have this kind of like mystical Christus victor, Christ just conquers death.

And so it almost seems like you can kind of believe in Jesus without believing in the atonement.

Wow.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Wow.

And this is very serious because you are talking about things that are

salvific.

Yeah, yeah.

And because Christus victor is not actually technically, I would say, an atonement theory because

defeating death doesn't atone for anything.

Right.

Because it does nothing with sin.

And so then you get onto this ascetical theology, spiritual disciplines, hamster wheel, where you start

preparing and working yourself to unite yourself with God.

So rather than beginning with union with Christ and faith, they kind of place it more towards the

end as like a super perfection.

But so I'm at seminary and I'm kind of reading through some of these theologians, these church fathers

who predated Anselm, by the way, and I'm reading this kind of penal

substitutionary language that Christ stood in our place and on our behalf, that he suffered the wrath

of God, that he bore the penalty in himself.

And I'm like, you know what?

I kind of left the Western Church when they were using this language, but now I'm finding it here.

Maybe it is scriptural.

And to make it clear, when we get our, when

our skin begins to crawl and we start to get upset about a false

teaching about what Christ accomplished on the cross, we're not talking about how

dare you disagree with our technical theological

understanding of what the Bible teaches about the death of Christ.

We're talking about what are you trusting in?

Are you trusting solely in Christ, which would mean that you believe Christ

and his death was powerful enough to accomplish what it was intended to do?

Or are you saying that the, that Christ and his

death were so weak in its power that it required human

beings to somehow cooperate with it in order to actually produce the results, which

would be salvation?

Am I making sense here?

Yeah, and we can even find in saints who have only, or not saints, Eastern

Orthodox elders that are considered holy elders, writing out whole paragraphs that in order to be saved,

you have to strive with every nerve and fiber of your being

to be able to be saved.

Like it's like, who is going to be saved?

There's very little assurance.

Like the doctrine of assurance really falls flat in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

And it would even be considered like a great, great spiritual achievement only for the highest level

monks, essentially, to be able to reach any kind of actual assurance of faith and

assurance of salvation.

I mean, and so when I'm finding out that penal substitutionary atonement is

clearly taught, I mean, explicitly taught in, not that word, penal substitutionary atonement, I mean,

that title developed over the course of centuries of theological

growth and precision of what's actually happening in the atonement.

But you see in John Chrysostom that this image of the son taking

the place of the convicted criminal.

And then John Chrysostom would be a saint that evangelical

Protestants, Roman Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox all claim as their own hero.

We all agree with that.

And here you are revealing that Chrysostom seems to be

much more in agreement with those who would centuries later be called reformers.

Oh yeah, very much so.

I would even say that the reformers in some measure recovered the patristic doctrine of penal

substitutionary atonement.

So for me, as I'm starting to study this out patristically, I'm, and scripturally too,

of course, and finding out that, you know, wait a second, the West isn't crazy. It's

starting to kind of help me to understand that there's a little bit more to listen to here.

And it started to make me doubt the contemporary presentation of orthodoxy by its

own members.

All right, let's start taking some of our listener questions before we run out of time and don't take any of them.

We have someone who has been a guest on this program a number of times, a convert from

Mormonism to Christianity, Dr. Latane C. Scott from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

She asks, now she's not specific what she means by this question.

She asks, what role do creeds have in solidifying the faith of new believers?

I don't know if she's asking what you personally believe now in regard to

that question, or what do the Eastern Orthodox teach about that?

So you could give us both answers since she didn't specify, what role do creeds have in solidifying the faith

of new believers?

I think creeds are essential from a pastoral, from a pastoral theological perspective.

I think being able to identify a summary or a condensing of the faith

is how we identify the analogy of faith.

It's how we identify the scope of what we believe, and it helps us to be able to not get

imbalanced in our theology so that we don't become, well, I believe in the Bible, but all of my Christian

focus is on the end times, for example, some people kind of get lost in cul -de -sacs there.

So that's kind of what I think, I see systematic theology as being an expansion of a creed,

and so I think creeds and confessions are an essential part of

a healthy Christian life of discipleship.

Yes, of a healthy Christian life.

I would perhaps push back a little bit when it comes to myself on the word essential.

I think that the scriptures are essential, the God -breathed words in the

Bible are essential, and creeds and confessions, when they are properly framed and they

are reflecting what the Bible truly teaches, they are extremely helpful.

I don't know if I would ever call them essential, but perhaps you and I could have a debate about that later at

some point.

But creeds and confessions, in fact, everybody has a creed and a

confession, because even the statement, I have no creed or confession but the Bible, is a creedal statement.

So you can't get around that, but in fact, the denominations that

began with wonderful, beautiful, and biblical creeds and confessions,

like the Presbyterian Church, they did not become corrupt in

their theology and practice until they disregarded those confessions.

I'm speaking specifically of the PCUSA and other liberal Presbyterian

denominations, which created the necessity that solid and biblically faithful Presbyterian

denominations, like the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination and others, had to come into

existence to combat those apostate ideas.

Yeah, and I would agree with you, too, in maintaining sola scriptura

as theologically and dogmatically essential.

And I don't mean to be too subtle, perhaps, but that's the little bit of nuance that I put in there is

pastorally.

Now, you said that about your own beliefs, but what about the Eastern Orthodox teaching on creeds, because

Latane did not specify what she meant by the question, whether it was your, or she was asking for your view

or the Eastern Orthodox view.

Well, I mean, certainly it's at the heart of Eastern Orthodox expression of faith.

I mean, they try to take very seriously the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed.

It's one of the ways that they organize, if they have a catechism, they'll usually

organize those in some sense, accounting for the creed.

And so, yeah, I guess I'm having a little bit of a hard time mapping the question, because, yeah, certainly

they sing the Nicene Creed every Sunday or recite the Nicene Creed at every

liturgy.

And so, yeah, it's a very important part of the Eastern Orthodox self -understanding, and

it does take a fairly lively role, I think, in their self -understanding.

Let me say a couple of things before we move on to other questions from the listeners.

I'm assuming you share my belief that this is not a secondary or

tertiary area of importance, where we are just discussing how many

angels can dance on the head of a pin, and we're not discussing things like, well, I don't agree with

Eastern Orthodox priests wearing elaborate robes, and I don't believe in

the Eastern Orthodox including incense in their worship.

And icons, we're talking about things that are actually salvific here.

And this is where salvation is at stake here.

Now, I believe you and I would both agree that, yes, there

are Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox individuals who are regenerate and born again

by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, but they are saved in

spite of the false religion they are in, rather than because of it.

Am I making sense there?

Yeah, I think that's correct.

I think they have departed from the purity of the gospel through that

mariological issue that we discussed.

I think through their iconology, they do as well.

Agreed.

And another thing I wanna make clear, because there will be people who are either Eastern Orthodox

or ecumenists who are listening and they'll say, boy, that guy, Chris Arntzen, or maybe even that guy,

Chris and Joshua Schuping, they're really being nasty.

They're being mean -spirited because they're judging other people as to whether or not

they're truly Christian and this is horrible.

Well, we should make it clear also that the Eastern Orthodox are very extremely

sectarian, much more so, it seems, than the majority, if not

all, evangelicals are.

And there is no salvation outside of Eastern Orthodoxy in the minds of most Eastern Orthodox,

especially those who are in the clergy in the hierarchy.

And although we would say, if you deny the biblical gospel, you're lost, if

you deny the biblical Christ, you're lost, we're not saying, if you're not a Baptist, you're lost.

If you're not a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, you're lost, if you're not a Presbyterian, you're lost.

There's a difference, isn't there?

Yeah, and I think that they go to such a different degree in that sort of claim that it has

to be, I think, taken very seriously.

In their Jerusalem Council of 1672, they say, if you're not under a

bishop and if you're not a part of the Eastern Church, you are not even a Christian.

So they deny that there are even actual Christians outside of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and

they will even state that if you don't use the same kind of bread that they

use, leavened bread in the Eucharist, then you're also accursed and going

to hell.

And so, as Protestants, I don't know of any Protestants that actually assign

a curse to anyone, like the highest level of disciplinary measure that we use is

an excommunication at the pastoral level.

But the Eastern Orthodox Church goes another level by assigning people to hell

through what they call an anathema, which in their canonical law books, their canonical summary

books, they say is equivalent to the human death penalty.

So they believe the Eastern Orthodox Church that they're the only church that exists, no one else is even a Christian,

and that people who are heretics or people who are outside or

violate something that they think is proper, like bowing and kissing images, they don't just

merely excommunicate them, they make an additional step to say that you're assigned to perdition

because they have the keys of the kingdom.

So it's not just keys to unlock people for forgiveness, they have the keys to lock people in hell.

And that's another one of the huge spins that almost so many priests will say, there are few honest

priests, but there are some out there, but an anathema to them means to curse someone to hell.

And they define it that way, the councils define it that way, and their canon law books define it that way.

And so they lock people out of heaven if they don't bow down and kiss icons.

So when we say, oh, we disagree with an Eastern Orthodox person, and we think that they're going against the gospel,

we're not cursing them, we're not sending them to hell, we're not claiming that we have that kind of authority.

And in fact, we're generous to say that we actually believe that there are regenerate Christians, as you

affirmed, Chris, in the Eastern Orthodox Church life.

There are real Christians there, but it's not a two -way street.

Now, let me give a little pushback to that.

How are we to obey the Apostle Paul as Protestants, for instance, Bible -believing

Christians, when someone presents to us a gospel, even a false gospel like

the Eastern Orthodox gospel, the Roman Catholic gospel, a pure works -righteousness

Pelagian gospel?

Paul said, let them be anathema, and he was speaking to the Church of Galatia.

How are we to follow his instructions if we do not anathematize, not that we have the power

to actually curse someone to hell, but how are we to specifically approach these

people with a false gospel, as Paul instructed us to, when he says, let them be anathema?

I think we approach them from our faith, and we say, this is what we believe, what Scripture

teaches.

We stand on Scripture alone.

We confess that we're saved by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone,

for God's glory alone, and then we try to reason with them.

In terms of our pastoral life as a church, under the authority, the God -given

authority structures that we have, we can excommunicate people from fellowship within our church,

but I would say, in terms of what our role is, we actually don't have

the authority to literally, and this is the Orthodox claim, is they literally have the

authority of God to send someone to hell through the power of anathema.

So they have a different spin, a far more politically incorrect

view than the modern spin of Romanism, which says, oh, you got it all wrong.

It just means that you can't be a member in good standing of the Roman Catholic Church.

It doesn't mean you're going to hell.

It's not a curse.

That's what all Roman Catholics today seem to be implying, unless you're in a traditionalist

sect, a schismatic group.

They all seem to be putting this Vatican II spin on it, where it's a softer thing, the anathema,

the anathemas of Trent, and the Eastern Orthodox are actually not putting a spin on it.

They're saying, they're using it the way Paul used it, but they are using it for wrong

reasons.

They're the ones with the wrong gospel.

Yeah, I don't see Paul giving the authority to pronounce an anathema

as like a continuous disposition that the church can maintain.

So it can, because for example, and this is a very important area where people I think

would be very well served to use this canonical argument.

What do the canons say about what anathema means?

Because if you ask many, many, many local priests, they're going to say, oh, anathema just means something

medicinal.

Anathema doesn't mean what it sounds like.

But when you read the councils, when you read canonical textbooks that actually define what

anathema means, it means like the unique ability of the church to be able to assign a

person a place in hell because it's equivalent to the death penalty.

So it's such a serious thing, but so many Eastern Orthodox priests and

theologians will try to downplay and soft pedal that, and they'll deceive people.

I mean, they will, they really will.

All right, let me go to Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina.

He has, oh, by the way, Latane, you've won a free copy of the book that we are addressing, Disillusioned, Why

I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church by our guest Joshua Shuping.

And we'll have cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, ship that out to you.

Grady says, greetings, brothers.

I have been friends with two families that are Greek and also go to a Greek Orthodox church, which I understand is

the same as the Eastern Orthodox Church.

It seems that every time I'm around them, I have to talk to several of them because

they're a close family.

I've given them gospel tracts, but never have been able to have a conversation about

the gospel.

What's the best way to approach them, especially when there's two or more of them when

you're in a conversation?

I think really simple, basic questions are probably the best way to go about this in the beginning

so that you can start to have spiritual conversations with them.

Like, who is Jesus?

What did he accomplish on the cross?

And start getting them to really engage with that so then you can use that as an entry place for the Bible.

And then you can start to bring the scriptures in and then to start to ask them some more, because you'll be developing

relationship through this process more with spiritual conversations, biblical conversations.

You can start to bring scripture in in a way that they won't feel challenged, but will allow them to really deeply reflect

and consider the meaning of the questions that you're asking them.

We have Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, what

is the opinion of those in the hierarchy of both the Eastern Orthodox

churches and the Roman Catholic Church in regard to a

recognition of validity of one another's sacraments?

In other words, I believe the questioner is asking, does the Church of Rome

accept Eastern Orthodox baptism and communion, and does the Eastern

Orthodox Church accept as valid Roman Catholic baptism and communion?

So my understanding of the Roman Catholic Church is that they'll accept baptism from, they'll

accept many people's baptism.

Yeah, as long as it's in the triune name.

Of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yeah, and that position has kind of developed over the last 100 years, since between

Vatican I and Vatican II, and then following Vatican II, the Roman Church is

kind of trying to, I guess, be a little bit more open -minded towards non -Roman Catholics.

The Eastern Orthodox Church, however, doesn't really have any mechanism to actually authentically

develop, so to speak, or unfold or unpack some of their canonical positions and doctrines and dogmas.

So according to the Eastern Orthodox canons, they actually

reject and say that a person is accursed if they use

unleavened bread in the Eucharist.

Now that's strange, since Jesus at the Last Supper obviously was using unleavened bread.

Yeah, they would say you're accursed for even having that belief.

Really?

Didn't they know that was a Passover celebration?

You would hope so, but they say you're even doubly accursed because it somehow agrees with the

Armenian Orthodox Church.

So yeah, believing that Christ used unleavened bread is worthy to go to hell,

according to the Eastern Orthodox canons.

Actually, you just touched on a point of another listener question.

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, is there

anything of significance that differentiates the different Eastern Orthodox churches

that are identified by their ethnicity, such as the Russian, the Greek, et cetera?

Today, there is a schism between Constantinople, who's over the

Greek Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.

There's currently a schism between them.

But in terms of the Eastern Orthodox Church in general, those various cultural expressions,

you may find some lowercase t traditions that might distinguish them.

But overall, they're very much the same.

To go from one to the other is not really in their mind to go from one church to another.

The real difference that you'll find would be between an Eastern Orthodox Church and an Oriental Orthodox Church.

That would be the Coptics, perhaps?

Yeah, the Coptic Orthodox Church is Oriental.

Also, the Malankara, or Indian Orthodox Church.

Also, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Those would be all considered Oriental Orthodox Churches.

And they would be the primary victims of Islamic terrorism, aren't they?

Tragically, often.

So, yes.

By the way, all of our listeners who have submitted questions have won a free copy of the book.

We are addressing Disillusioned, Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church.

So make sure we have your mailing address, so cvbbs .com can ship a copy

out to you.

We're going to our final break.

It's gonna be more brief than the other breaks.

Please send in your question immediately if you have one.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

We'll be right back with Joshua Shuping.

Don't go away.

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Welcome back.

Before I go to another listener question, Joshua, is there something going on in Ukraine

that is an example of splintering amongst the different ethnic

Eastern Orthodox groups?

Definitely a question that may go beyond my, or above my pay grade.

You know, in terms of the Patriarch of Constantinople, he kind of

unilaterally established a parallel state Ukrainian Orthodox Church

alongside what was already a long existing indigenous Eastern Orthodox Church

in Ukraine to the point where now this Constantinople

incursion, the Patriarch sort of incursion to create a state -supported

Ukrainian Orthodox Church is now marginalizing a lot of the indigenous Ukrainian

Orthodox believers.

And this was partially to help foment division within Ukraine, according to some,

because the indigenous Ukrainian Orthodox Church was in communion with the Russian Orthodox

Church.

So it's a royal mess.

We have an anonymous listener who says, I have friends who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, and yet in

their speech and attitude, they appear to be very ecumenical.

In fact, I've also seen on numerous occasions in the media and on television

where Eastern Orthodox clergy are participating publicly with

Roman Catholics, Protestants, and others in ecumenical activities, celebrations, et

cetera.

Are these Eastern Orthodox involved in these ecumenical approaches

being dishonest in regard to that because of the fact, as what you said earlier,

there is no salvation, according to their official teachings, outside of Eastern Orthodoxy?

I believe that they're being inconsistent, for sure.

So I think there is a level of dishonesty.

And ecumenism is a very lively debate right now within the Eastern Orthodox

Churches.

It's, some call it the pan -heresy, the great heresy of ecumenism that's taking over

the Eastern Orthodox Church so that they're sliding away from some of these canonical things.

An anonymous, give me an email with your full name and address, and you will receive Disillusioned, Why

I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church by my guest today.

It will be shipped out to you by CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

RJ in White Plains, New York says, the Roman Catholic Church seems

to have an extremely wide spectrum of beliefs that even makes the division of Protestants

pale into insignificance in comparison.

Is there such a spectrum among the Eastern Orthodox where you have very left -wing

Eastern Orthodox and very conservative and traditional Eastern Orthodox?

Yes, for sure.

You know, they're in Fordham University is a Catholic university, for example, that has an

Eastern Orthodox section that's within their school there, and they have their Eastern

Orthodox theologians and teachers or whatever, and they'll often promote very liberal agenda sorts of things,

sexuality, queer theory.

Wow.

And then you have extreme right people who are accused of being Nazis.

You know, so you've got all of it.

Now, are any of these people with these extreme views a part of the

ecclesiastical hierarchy?

Because you mentioned teachers.

A teacher could be just an average person who might even be a nominal adherent to any religion.

So are there anybody who's actually in the clergy or a part of the hierarchy who have either those

extreme left or right views?

Yes, certainly.

There's a famous bishop, Luzar Pujalo, who is very famously

left -leaning.

Right now, typically, a lot of them are very ecumenical.

You know, ecumenism is very widespread in that sense.

And so, you know, there is a lot of, you know, for example, there was

during the Trump debates, when all the Black Lives Matter things were

going on, there was a lot of very pro -Black Lives Matter sorts of things going

on amongst the hierarchy.

There was a priest who famously went to a Black Lives

Matter rally who wasn't disciplined.

He went with his cassock and his cross.

But then there was another priest, for example, who went in his civilian clothes to a Trump rally,

and then he got defrocked.

He got dismissed and disciplined.

Wow.

Thank you, RJ.

You've also won a free copy of the book.

Make sure we have your complete mailing address.

We have Thomas in West Islet, New York.

Thomas wants to know, are there any clergy that must

make an oath to celibacy as occurs with all the clergy in

Roman Catholicism?

Married men can become priests.

So if you're a married man and you want to become a priest, you can become one.

But if you're a single man and you become a priest, then you're sworn to celibacy.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so you either marry before or you don't get married after.

Wow, I didn't know that.

So in other words, there is no such thing as an Eastern Orthodox single priest who meets

a beautiful young lady in the church and falls in love with her and marries her, unless he gets

kicked out, but remains in good standing as a priest.

That doesn't occur.

Correct.

Oh, wow, I learned something there I didn't know.

I want to make sure that we drive home right now.

And by the way, Joshua, I definitely want you back for at least two more interviews,

part two and part three on this.

If you are interested, because we've just scratched the tip of the iceberg,

but I want to make it clear as much as I don't want anybody to think

that we are guilty of bigotry and guilty of pride in

regard to our own theological understanding that we are

not claiming to be the only Christians on the face of the earth.

At the same time, even though I don't want that to be the way people are leaving this program

thinking of us, at the same time, I want to make it clear that this is really a life and death situation.

This is a heaven and hell situation.

This is, in my opinion, although the details might be different, not different

from Paul's grief over some of the very

people in the churches he planted becoming Judaizers, or deceived by them.

Am I over the top for you, or would you be in agreement with me?

I would be in agreement for what I think in terms of Paul's warning

about people being accursed by adding to the gospel, by adding works to the gospel.

And the Eastern Orthodox Church are very clear.

So I don't think we're posturing in any way that they're going to hell because they're Eastern Orthodox.

I think ours is like a brotherly concern and warning over having an admixture

to the gospel where now you have to bow down and kiss icons and otherwise you're going to hell.

I mean, that's a very scary thing to add to the gospel.

I think that somewhat sounds like Judaizing.

And to connect that analogously with what Paul was kind of warning against in Galatians.

Yeah, I've been accused of Roman Catholic friends, of which

I have many, for being mean -spirited and

prideful and just way over the top

sectarian because I refuse to extend to them

an open arms of brotherhood.

I have to say to them, if they are following the gospel of Trent, they have a

false gospel, and therefore I can only say that I'm praying that they repent of that.

I can be loving towards them and must be loving towards them and pray for them and do good for them

and enjoy times of meals and entertainment and

enjoyment.

But to have an actual relationship as brothers in Christ, I cannot do that.

And the fact of the matter is that people who think that such a Protestant is the

bad guy, they have to remember Eastern Orthodox don't believe any salvation exists outside their own

religion.

And the Roman Catholic Church has already, at the Council of Trent centuries ago, after the

Reformation, pronounced anathemas upon me and everybody who agrees with me who are

heirs of the Reformers.

So it's not like I started this fight, did I?

Yeah, and I think it's a little bit inconsistent when we affirm that it's very possible for them to be

saved, in other words, a part of the body of Christ, the mystical body of Christ, and then

to accuse us of being ungenerous.

When we look at many of these anathemas and censures of

us of those outside of, for example, here, the Eastern Orthodox Church, there's definitely no

mutuality.

I feel like we extend way, way, way more generosity, but then how could we be accused

of miserliness when we're giving the benefit of the doubt that they can be saved?

Yes, and of course, we have to repeat, though, that they can be saved in spite of their

false gospel and religion that their church teaches, and that they either, in

ignorance, accept the biblical gospel, or they,

in protest, accept the biblical gospel, and for one reason or another, and I think they're all wrong

reasons, remain in the Eastern Orthodox or Roman Church.

Yeah.

In other words, you can't trust in yourself and human deeds and can be safe in your mind that

you have peace with God.

Yeah, there would have to be some of those extenuating sorts of circumstances where it's like they're not, maybe they're not following

the details of Trent, or they're not following the details of the Nicene, you know, the Second

Nicene Council, or something like that, and somehow, you know, they just happen to hear the gospel, and they

just believe it, and they didn't think much deeper about those things that would cause them to go too far afield of

salvation.

Well, folks, if you want Joshua's book, if you haven't won it today, you can get that on Amazon,

and that is Disillusioned, Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Church, Left the Eastern Orthodox

Priesthood and Church, and I look forward to you returning for part two and three, at least, on this topic, Joshua.

I wanna repeat, if you want to go to YouTube to find out more about what

Joshua has to offer in regard to his wealth of knowledge, you can hear his interviews with Dr.

Tony Costa at Toronto Apologetics on YouTube, and I want to repeat

the website for the Alliance Church of Russellville, russcma .org.

I wanna thank all of you who have listened, especially you who took the time to write.

I hope you have a safe, and blessed, and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

I want you all to always remember, for the rest of your lives, that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.