What is the One True Church? with Ben MacDonald, Apologetics Canada

In this conversation, Graeme and Joey sit down with Dr. Ben MacDonald from Apologetics Canada to determine what the One True Church is. Catholicism vs Orthodoxy vs Protestantism. Which one is true? Find out, here!

00:00 Introduction
02:10 Academic Preamble
8:10 Who is Ben MacDonald?
16:19 What's the One True Church?
23:58 Why are people NOW interested in EO & Catholicism?
29:49 A case for high liturgy
39:45 Spiritual milk vs Spiritual meat
43:37 Does the Lord's Supper institutionally matter?
54:00 The institution isn't your faith, but it can hold it
1:08:00 Transcendence and Immanence in liturgy

Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why are we, you know, we want to talk about Eastern Orthodoxy. Why is that movement happening now? Well, it goes beyond just what they teach and what Protestants teach, right? It's embedded into culturally what's going on at the moment. You know, one of the most popular names online right now is Josiah Trenum. What you see with a person like that is an incredible exclusivism. But I do believe that one of the uh great advantages of Protestantism is ironically that we are in one sense able to be more Catholic. There's also been a confusion between we talk about it like here's Eastern Orthodox Catholicism and Protestantism, but really what people are talking about is not Protestantism. They're talking about evangelicalism, which is a different, like, what does it mean to be a Protestant? What I don't like is this drawing of boundaries and lines and tribal distinctions and saying, like, well, the Holy Spirit only is over here. And until you're doing, and that's, and unfortunately, that is the language that we hear in some of these, in some of these traditions. And unfortunately, then Protestants do the same and go, like, well, they're heretics, and they can't, you know. And so then Catholicism, for instance, is treated like it's another religion, and it's not really Christianity, and I have an equal problem with that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Kirnakoto, and welcome to Lunch on the Way. Today we had a conversation with Dr. Ben McDonald from Apologetics Canada, talking about what is the one true church. Orthodoxy and Catholicism are on the rise, and what that means in the online space at least, is that this idea has become purported that you have to be in communion with one of those two true churches in order to be a part of the actual Christian church. And we're creating a lot of genuine confusion out there within the broader body of Christ. So, what Ben does in this conversation masterfully is he nuances and tries to get into the heart of what is actually the church, not only ontologically, but what is the church institutionally as well. And are you a part of the one true church? Anyway, enjoy this conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So anyway, yeah, it's uh that it is interdisciplinary in that regard. And and a lot of it is also coming out of something like Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. I was deeply influenced by that work. And I think Kenosis was a shortcut into talking about the absence of religion in the modern era. So, you know, uh however you want to define that. I say absence of religion, that's probably not the right way to put it, but the changing, you know, that same thesis of why 500 years ago, why did everybody believe and why is that more difficult now? Uh and just understanding the shifting landscape. I think that's always been more of my interest is understanding where the church currently is. Um yeah, it's more of a social question.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

See, there's these big books, these big players that once you read them, it opens you up to like not only other people, but just like uh like pathways throughout history that you just didn't think existed before. When I read Charles Taylor's Secular Age, and it took me about a year to do it properly. I was like, this is just like this is phenomenal. I'm like, I don't even think you can define secularism the same anymore.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

You can't even I totally agree. Yeah, I you can't. And I and I it's a very, very helpful study. I think people have advanced uh since Taylor. We've we've refined that thesis a little bit more. Uh there's a there's an interesting book actually by a guy named uh Eugene McCaraher called The Enchantments of Mammon. And that's a massive book, kind of advancing, saying basically Taylor's thesis of we've we've, you know, not a subtraction narrative. That was his whole thing. You know, it's not that we've become necessarily a religious, but the point is that religion is now a choice. That was really the big thing. Religion has become an option among others in the modern period. Um, and and what McCarraher is arguing is really what's happened is we've replaced God with mammon, with with you know, our capitalist economic structures have sort of infiltrated their way into our epistemology to the degree that this is our new God is just money. Uh, and that's a really interesting book as well. But it's just people advancing on Charles Taylor's work in some fascinating ways that that I've always been interested in. And and actually, Graham, that that led me to uh Marshall McLuhan became somebody of interest as well because I'm really fascinated with this idea of uh form and content. We might end up discussing that a little bit today, even. Um, but uh but just his idea that you know the ways in which people absorb information are just as important as the content itself. And I think that's sort of it's a really important point when you're talking about why we are where we are today as a society and where the church is. So yeah, that's I'm I'm fascinated by that.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

I know it begs the question when I when I look at McClure and stuff, I'm like, does the idea come first, or does the practice come first that leads to the idea? Or like, what's the because you can say like these philosophers back in like the Enlightenment period and who kind of pushed secularism to the brink that we see it actually living out today, was it their ideas that began the practices that formed the people that changed society, or was it the other way around?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Well, and I tend to think maybe the other way around. I mean, one of the things that you you're introduced to in any PhD study is the idea of the narrative of decline, right? The uh uh a good PhD thesis is take anybody in history and blame them for all the problems, right? So just take Rene Descartes and say he's the issue and everybody can blame him, and that's when everything changed. And the truth is that when you do that, you realize Descartes probably, as an example, quite insignificant in the in the grand scheme of all that was happening historically, one could even say providentially, to change you know what was going on in society that led to a person like Descartes announcing the things that he was saying, but to put it all at his feet as though everyone read his ideas and then he was the one who changed all of it. I mean, that's I I I find that very hard to believe.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Um history is not it's not how would you put it on? I'm trying to think of a metaphor. It's like it's like knitting, there are many stitches. Yeah, exactly. And then and then not linear. No, precisely weaving in and out of each other. Um, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah. And some people declare that more effectively. I think, you know, I while not being a uh a Hegelian in some sense, I still believe that Hegel has has remained one of those philosophers whose uh we're still working through him, like we're still asking similar questions, or we're still he's provided us with a set of uh of questions that we're still paying attention to. And uh he seems to be in every conversation. So certain people do, I think, harness uh harness what's going on in their age and in their era better than others. And so I don't want to also downplay these thinkers, but it's uh like you said, there's so many factors uh all that's going on in human history that lead people to certain things. And so and that's where I'm quite interested in most movements, even theologically. Why are certain theological topics when do they become important? And when do they why why is everybody talking about this now? Why are we, you know, we want to talk about Eastern Orthodoxy? Why is that movement happening now? Well, it goes beyond just what they teach and what Protestants teach, right? It's it's embedded into culturally what's going on at the moment that's leading people into different directions. So I I'm fascinated with that intersection. And and and and so I see everything as sort of having to be multidisciplinary to the degree that to the degree that I can say theology is the queen of the sciences, however much people want to push back on that idea or not, that resonates with me to the degree that it theology sort of touches everything, uh, and and as it should, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

But yeah. So Ben, just to um because uh Joey knows where you're located, and perhaps for our audience, it's helpful to just give us a bit of how we you're located, so context, you know. Um I think you're Anglican now, aren't you? Or Episcopalian as they call it in North America.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, Anglican Church of Canada. I mean, so interestingly, I I consider myself somewhat of a I don't know what you say, an ecclesial mutt. I've been everywhere. I grew up, I grew up in the Anglican church. My father was uh an Anglican priest, he's semi-retired now. He says retired, he's always doing something, so he's still uh, you know, overseeing a church in the Niagara region and doing some work. But I was raised Anglican. Um, and uh probably uh geez, when I was in grade three or four, I actually got sent to a Dutch reform school. So because my parents were like, we don't want you in the public school system anymore. This is better, this is good. I learned the Bible inside and out with the Dutch Reform. It was amazing. By grade four, I mean, I think I knew the whole Old Testament. I mean, they were really good with that. Uh and so, and all my friends were Schinkel and Van Dyke, and that was the you know, everybody. Um, but so that was also formative. And then I got a little bit older, and I I think around, you know, university age when the new atheists started to show up and stuff, I started questioning things and didn't really have all the pieces together to answer those questions, and I started really questioning my faith. And I think it kind of walked away, not fully. I didn't ever let go of it entirely, but I just needed some time. Like I just needed to sort of step away, I think, for a moment and and re-examine what was happening. And when I came back into the faith, that largely happened because I I kept reading and I started reading people like C.S. Lewis, who were pivotal for me. Um, and that led me back actually to the Wesleyan church simply because it was what was there to a degree. Uh, I needed something comfortable. I needed something that I could just ask some questions and sort of hover in the background for a while in. And so our church, Joey is aware, Deepwater Church in Halifax, was meeting on Spring Garden Road in a movie theater when I first started attending. And that was comfortable for me and for my uh now wife, Melissa. At the time, we kind of discovered that together and we heard the gospel. Like, I mean, we just were hearing Jesus preached and it galvanized us again. And I felt we we felt called to that. And as that kept going, I recognized my interest more and more was in theology and theological studies. So now I'm this Anglican school Dutch reform brought into the Wesleyan church. Now I want to go to school. I go to a Baptist college. So now I'm meeting all the Baptists in my master's program at Acadia. They're this wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Is it a Baptist college at Acadia?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

It's a Baptist, yeah, Baptist seminary. Um and so I do my master's degree with the Baptists. And uh, and then when I go to do my PhD work, I go back to Wycliffe College, uh, which is Anglican again. And so uh it's it's funny. I should say I've never really left the Anglican church. I don't think at any point I said I'm some other denomination. I always felt Anglican worked for me. Uh it still does. Um, but I've been everywhere. I've kind of had my hand in everything. Uh I should also say my mother returned to the Roman Catholic Church, actually. And so that's been interesting. And uh she's also the most evangelical person you'll ever meet, so that's a weird juxtaposition.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

That's another, I mean, that's another very interesting trend at the moment is the growing uh growth of Catholicism. It's here in New Zealand, I suspect it's very much global.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Totally. So, and and all I have to say, my context is uh maybe a little bit difficult to just pin down in any straight sense. The Anglican formation that I was raised with was probably a little bit more evangelical leaning in the sense of, you know, there's high and low liturgies within the Anglican church to some degree. Um, my father, he would do both. He would do an early service that was more liturgical, so to speak, and then one that was more contemporary. And so I had a flavor of both of those. Um, and I'm I'm saying all this because I think what's important is that as I, since I started working with Apologetics Canada, where I work now, the question of denomination and what's correct, I think for the first time for me, has really become a question. I don't think I ever really, even going to all these different churches uh when I was younger, I never saw it as tribal. I never saw it as combative. I never really had an issue with any. I have learned an immense amount from Eastern Orthodox theologians, Catholic theologians. It's never been a problem. The moment I became an apologist, people start really wanting you to defend that or taking sides or think. I mean, I'm doing a series right now with Apologics Canada called Denominations in Conversation. And this was a deliberate move to like, let's learn a little bit about different backgrounds. Well, you know, some people really love it, some people really don't. And it's been very interesting. I'll say interesting at times it's been heartbreaking to see, but there are people who really don't like that I've chatted with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Um, there are many who, you know, I've I I I don't I won't say too much more. I I don't want to pass too much judgment at this point, uh, but I that's been a difficult thing to navigate. It's been something, and it's been interesting to me that that question is suddenly showing up in a big way where I don't think it had before.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, I it's yeah, it's an it's an interesting one. I I uh in terms of and Joey may have expressed this to you, so in New Zealand I'm gonna put it through it out here, but I think that we cross over very easily because we're so small. So there we cannot afford to be sort of ghetto departmentalized into very tight uh tribal groups. That's not to say there isn't that that elements that don't exist, but I think generally, I I think that you'd agree with that, Joey. Would you say that?

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah, definitely. You just can't be too picky and choosy. But it seems like in some ways, I think in some ways I think Atlanta Canada the context that Benz in is a bit more uh uh ecumenical than New Zealand. Oh, is that right? Yeah, like we we we can we talk in New Zealand, I think, between denominations, but we really don't do too much between denominations in New Zealand. No, that's true. Where the difference in Atlanta Canada I've seen more kind of collegiality uh between denominations. I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

There is a history to the ecumenicalism of uh Australia and New Zealand itself, and then it kind of it sort of died away, died away about 30 uh 30 plus years ago.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

But there's something that happened in New Zealand, and we're already off topic slightly, that was like this charismatic revival that happened, what, in the 60s and 70s, Graham?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Uh mostly in 70s, yeah, late 60s, 70s, and um and probably anywhere, I mean you compare Australia and New Zealand, it didn't have the effect that it had in in Australia like having New Zealand. So what effectively happened is you um you know there's a kind of people can be a so my brother's uh Presbyterian, but he's more Pentecostal than me, probably. He's a Presbyterian minister, and you've got this in and out. Um you've got a colleague that's just recently become Catholic from Wesleyan, Wesleyan, one of your Wesleyan.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah, within my Wesleyan movement, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Um even at an evangelical college like we work at, um, you know, I had a student last year, she converted to Catholicism. She said, Oh, you know, I said I can't it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Yeah. So that kind of let's let's move into that then. I want to get right to the heart of the conversation, Ben, and we've kind of been teasing it. Like I thought your two conversations on the podcast with um the Catholic theologian. What was his name again?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

It's uh Dr. David Dean.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Yes, I I'm familiar with him. I was less familiar with the Eastern Orthodox priest theologian. And what was his name?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

His uh David Goa. So two Davids. Uh yeah, David Goa, who I I wasn't as familiar with either, uh, but we had a wonderful conversation before the podcast as well. And uh yeah, anyway, those were the two. I'll let you go with your question before I ramble on more about them.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

But yeah, one one thing I thought was really interesting, and I didn't expect either of them to say this, was how how they were so focused on the ontology of what the church is. Yes. And it's like so to make the differentiation, they they were they're clearly two institutional guys, c Catholic, Eastern Orthodox. They both believe that their churches are the way to go through to be a part of that ontology of church and to experience God, that's or else they wouldn't be those. And um, but they were incredibly charitable, and that's not the sense that I get online when I we posted our conversation about Alexander Schmeman, which got a few thousand views, which is like 10x what we normally get. Half of the comments were just come back to the one true church brother. And I said, Well, I don't know what that means. And then I'm seeing a bunch of other friends and and former colleagues, I guess, move more towards Catholicism. And I'm even listening to a podcast uh this morning by the former what uh banjoist from Mountford and Sons, who's now uh political pundit. Um basically he interviewed this comedian, James McCann, who's an Australian comedian, who's incredibly funny. But he's and and you wouldn't know it necessarily from his comedy, but he's Catholic and he's like quite staunchly Catholic, dogmatically Catholic, but he doesn't see Catholic as Christianity. He sees it almost like, well, I can be atheist and Catholic. And it's just like it's really confusing me. And so within all of that, like what is within your conversations, within all this cultural confusion, like what's the real church? Like, what are we actually talking about here when we talk about church?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Um, okay, well, I want to say a few things. First of all, I do know James McCann, he's very funny, and it's it's true, he hangs out with a number of comedians like Shane Gillis and stuff, who are all Catholic, but they're Catholic, it seems, almost in a cultural Catholic way. I almost feel sometimes that being Catholic as a celebrity is a way to get away with behaving however you want, and then claiming some kind, but that's a whole other issue. I won't say much about that. Um, before I even just answer the question of what I think the church is, um, it I think it's important to recognize that both David Goa and David Dean were in many ways, I we specifically chose to speak with them, not just because they have necessarily just a charitable stance or more ecumenical, but maybe one that is actually slightly different than than what others within their uh within their uh traditions would say. And I think it's also important to maybe even treat, like not to group them together, but if you really want to treat it properly, David as a Roman Catholic being very different than David Goa as an Eastern Orthodox. Uh David Goa, as an Eastern Orthodox theologian, I don't think would say you have to become an Eastern Orthodox to be really part of the one true church. I think that's precisely why I wanted to chat with him, because if you go online right now, and I'm going to speak specifically about Eastern Orthodoxy here, you know, one of the most popular names online right now is Josiah Trenum, Father of Josiah Trenum, you can see him on a number of YouTube channels. What you see with a person like that is an incredible exclusivism, where institutionally speaking, the church is the Eastern Orthodox Church. He would also say the, you know, it's the body of Christ and whatnot, but it's the Eastern Orthodox Church. And if you are not in the Eastern Orthodox Church, you are a heretic and so you are outside of salvation completely. I believe David Goa, as an Eastern Orthodox theologian, would say that's antithetical to what he believes. And so I just want to say that up front because I think people really paint with a broad brush when it comes to this. And that's one of the things I don't like about the conversation is people go, well, Protestants believe, or they go, well, Eastern Orthodox believe. And a more sophisticated look at that would be something like, well, what have they historically argued? And then what do individuals say? Because people like Gavin Ortland, for instance, who has a YouTube channel, uh, you know, speaking from a reformed uh position, would make the case more historically. And he would say, if you look historically, the Eastern Orthodox are exclusivist in their teaching on these things. But that doesn't mean that that's necessarily the opinion of all it. David Goa didn't even see his conversion, let's say, to Eastern Orthodoxy as much of a conversion. He saw it as adding a layer to his faith, and and and he would speak about it in looser terms. So it's, I just want to say it's it's a little bit different for people like that. And that's why I'm interested in having a conversation with them about like what is the church? Is it this institutional boundary? To me, and I'll try and answer your question now. The simple answer is that the church is the body of Christ. But that means that one, it's the body that is broken for you. Okay, and I would want to start with kind of looking at the language. Of, like, well, how does Jesus speak about his body if that's in fact what we are? But also it means that it is a gift that we have received by grace and not something that we constitute ourselves. And I think this is precisely where maybe my uh my unease with sort of institutional boundaries being placed, because to me, what that feels like is your gatekeeping where the Holy Spirit is allowed to go. And I just fundamentally disagree with that. I believe that the church is uh basically wherever the Trinity is being mediated to the community of believers. And I'm not going to put a label on where that can happen. Uh so it is the butt, and so I say it is the body of Christ, but it is also the body that is broken for you. And so I think the fact that we are fragmented and often at odds with each other and having to learn how to reconcile those differences is is providentially a part of what it means to be the church. Um and it's one of the reasons why, you know, I'm not, I don't look at myself as a sort of like die in the wool, I'm a I'm a Protestant through and through, or something. I don't identify in that way. But I do believe that one of the uh great advantages of Protestantism is ironically that we are in one sense able to be more Catholic. You are able to be quite universal in your scope of saying, well, I don't believe that it's an institutional boundary that keeps me from being within the one true church. And yet I do believe that there is one true church, you know, one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Um and it's constituted by by the believers, it's constituted by the cross of Christ. It's not something that's brought together by like-mindedness and me and you agreeing with each other. It's brought together by Jesus and his death. Uh, and so it goes beyond me. Um anyway, so those are those are ways that I would think about it and look at it.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

And so what then do you think is culturally happening that's making those two traditions, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, really attractive? And even to the point, like this is this is public knowledge, it's broadcasted. Like there's a minister within my denomination who's uh always wore a collar and has now shifted to Catholicism and has given up his ordination from Wesleyanism. And so that's a big move. Like that's a big that's a convictional step. Like that's not a I'm attending this church on this Sunday morning now. It's like it's a real difference.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Absolutely. And it is a real difference, and it's growing. I think, you know, it's uh it's a trend that hasn't slowed down. I talk to people all the time. I meet people who are pastors who, you know, who who have grown up in their uh with their evangelical roots and they're in those churches, and who basically once they, you know, the the saying of like they start studying some history or some theology, and suddenly a question is raised that they've never really confronted before, and they feel this need to go, like, well, do I need to become Catholic now? Do I need to, and of course, the Roman Catholics might say, Yeah, you do, and East Orthodox might say the same. But um uh, but I also think what they really need is to just understand why the church they're in is the church that it is. Like, what's the history of that? What's the history of the do you know about the Reformation and what was really going on there? I the the simple answer to the question, I think, that everyone is well aware of is that there's a clear need for stability. Um, there is uh a need for rigor that people are seeking and they're very hungry for, uh, and that most churches have done a very poor job of fostering. So keeping you rooted in an actual tradition. People want something that hasn't changed because culture is constantly changing, and it seems like the church just sometimes goes along with it. I think sometimes that they think of the evangelical church specifically as being quite commercial, right? I I one of the greatest examples, one of the best lines I heard on this, which really illustrated the point to me early on, was from uh the actor Shia LaBeouf, because Shia LaBeouf became a Roman Catholic. You probably you might have seen this or heard about this. But he uh I think he stated it very, very clearly. What he said was when he was and he converted because he was exploring a role. He played Padre Pio in a movie. And um he said, When I went into the evangelical church, I felt like I was being sold something. And indeed, you know, you actually are. I mean, some churches sell merchandise and do whatever. Okay, but I felt like I was being sold something. And they said, when I went into the Latin Mass, I felt like I was being let in on something. And I think that feeling right there explains a lot of probably what you're seeing in the movement right now is that um people don't want to be sold something. They don't want to feel like they're going to a rock concert when they're going to church. They want reverence for the holy. They want uh that's it's another reason why, for instance, the flock to Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, but specifically I'd even say Eastern Orthodoxy more so, is largely a male movement. It's almost all men. Uh, and it is driven by masculinity, it is driven by austerity. There is there's certain disciplines within Eastern Orthodoxy demands things of you. You should fast, you should sleep on the floor, you should do things, you should abstain. There's an aesthetic, um, you know, ascetic, sorry, ascetic movement that that you should adopt. And people want that. Uh, people really do, especially in a culture today where sort of like discipline, we see a rise of muscular Christianity coming back. I mean, it all kinds of things that make it uh almost incredibly obvious to me that people would try looking for these things and find them there. But what I would say, and this is maybe maybe one of the bigger points I would have, is that it seems to me like there's also been a confusion between, we talk about it like here's the Eastern Orthodox Catholicism and Protestantism, but really what people are talking about is not Protestantism, they're talking about evangelicalism, which is a different, like, what does it mean to be a Protestant? If you were to go back to the Reformers and you were to go back to Luther and Calvin and others, do they look like what the modern church today looks like? No, I I don't think so. And I think we're seeing the erosion of actual Protestantism, which I know the idea of the via media, for instance, is something that maybe came over time, but just the idea that you were trying to take the best of what there was in the tradition and actually bring it back to biblical roots, but also a huge reliance on people like the church fathers and things like that. So I believe that I think that's why for me, I'm I was so content to be an Anglican all the way through. Because I went, well, you can find that in the Anglican Church. My my Anglican worship on a Sunday morning at St. George Round in Halifax looks pretty darn Catholic. You know, it's and it so it supplies those things, but it's reformed. Like it's a reformed tradition. And I'm not sure people are aware of that. Like I don't know that they know, I think they think of Protestantism and they think of Hillsong United. And they look at right, they think of big rock show with lights and everybody's wearing the latest fashions. And that for a lot of people, they want more. They want to get off milk and they want to eat solid food. And it makes sense that you would find that in a deep tradition with art and liturgy and demanding stuff of you. So yeah, I think I there's all kinds of reasons why people are doing it, but I think those are some.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Yeah, there's because I know you went from obviously Wesleyanism back to your Anglican roots, and if I because of the conversations we've had, I think over a decade ago now, uh you did sense that like there's a there's a call towards more of a like a litur liturgical um fullness within that tradition. And I and honestly, that's the thing that attracts me most with Catholicism and with uh orthodoxy. But where you just look at it and and beauty actually mediates something profound, like and and it's not superficial, it's not subjective. Uh like any good phenomenologist, you know that the object, the world of objects has a givenness in and of itself that kind of like draws you in, and you can't just ascribe anything to it. Um like uh this the symbol is not just illustrative, it's actually constitutive of something that's that's different and that and so and so can you speak a little bit more to that that switch, that liturgical switch? Because I think Graham has a lot more to speak into that with the medium is the message kind of stuff. Like, why that switch? Why did you want to move more into that high liturgy setting?

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Well, well, here, yeah. There's there's a couple ways to answer that as well. I mean, you know, you could go the the academic answer of look at look at people like Charles Taylor, they talk about sort of the the enchanted world and the disenchanted world, right? Like we live in a disenchanted world. Symbols mean way more than we think they do, put it that way. Uh and I think we're uh we're a ritually poor and symbolically deprived society in the way that at least we think about symbols. Symbols are everywhere, but we I don't know that we think about them as having meaning. In the same way you ask somebody if, like, does advertising work on you? And nine times out of ten, people say no, it doesn't. But of course, of course, it is working on you, otherwise they wouldn't be pouring billions into it. The the idea of advertising isn't to make you make a decision right away, it's to sort of live in your mind, and then eventually when you go to make a decision, it's what's there. Well, liturgy, in one sense, it's doing the same thing. It's it's you know, it's making you pay attention and it's pointing you towards things that are transcendental and it's doing all kinds of things. And when you are starved of that and you don't have a society around you that actually practices ritual or festival or, you know, and all of that is deprived or depleted, and you don't have any of that, um, there's going to be a natural hunger to kind of go back to something that doesn't look like the rest of your week. You know, one of the great things about going to a service like that is it's alien to the rest of my life, right? Suddenly there's the smells and bells, right? There's a choir singing and it's music I don't normally hear, and people are actually dressed funny, and it's, you know, and there's it's ornate and there's all and and and it is, it's important. I mean, we sacramental theology has has importance, and and so these things uh people go after it. But uh the shift of why that's happened, I think, you know, why have people become disenchanted? There's a whole number of reasons why that's possible, but uh I think we are a hyper capitalist society that has commodified everything, and we that you know, the wall martification of the world, as I like to call it, is is starting to really get to people. And I think they're recognizing that, rightfully so. I think one of my issues, though, is just the fact that when people turn back then and go, like, well, I have to go to the Eastern Orthodox Church or Roman Catholics, and you're going like Protestants aren't embargoed from this. Like you're allowed to have these kinds of practices, you're allowed to be quiet and meditate and uh, you know, and be in prayer and contemplation and uh and do things with a higher liturgy. You can recite the creeds, you know, you can do that. Um, but there's yeah, uh I don't know if that's answering your question. There's just this movement away from thinking through things symbolically, right? Um it's not our natural way of going about things, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

I mean, I do think that um so your Catholicism and I'm just not enough familiar with Eastern Orthodox, just don't know. But the sense of that our uh way in which we perceive the world, and and and I wonder whether the trajectory of Protestantism I don't think can be blamed on that, but the sense in which we are really directed towards one's sense and the eye, whereas you know, Catholic the Catholic kind of liturgical thing, it's multi-sen it it's it's across the senses rather than of saying multi-sensory. You know, we you you hear, you feel, it's it's so it it it's much more um embracing of the whole human person. And and and and I think that that idea of you know so just broadly in a kind of kind of culture we live in, it's very flat. And so I wonder, you know, that what people are looking for, and you mentioned those words transcendence, they're looking for transcendence and they're looking for immanence, a sense of beyond themselves. And uh, you know, when it's just sort of dished out in a kind of very uh how would you put it, you know, not to knock my Pentecostalism, but a very kind of commercial way of doing it. It's very flat. You can feel close, but it's actually it it's actually quite empty. Um so yeah, I I I mean I'd I wonder where that's sitting in the background, the sense that people are looking for beauty, they're looking for for that sense of of something other and and and that and and it's that mystery in that that's they've they've got to find rather than than it all just put out as one, two, three, like a paint by number.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

No, I think that I think they absolutely are. I think you know, I think they are looking for for beauty and a sense of something. Well, I'll put it this way for myself. I I don't like to think of it necessarily as being some kind of hierarchical, you know, graduated system. But the truth is, is that and this may be I I've often used this to speak to the idea that in a way, this is why I think we actually need each other. We do need, I think we need evangelical churches to do sometimes to do movie theater performances, you know, that some people are there. Um, other churches, high liturgy isn't that accessible. But what happens is that as you as you're a Christian and a believer, I'll speak for myself here, but I mean, uh you go from having one kind of sense of the faith where you you need to learn a number of things and you need to listen and you need preaching, good preaching matters, and that's where you know Protestants really were they they at a I think at a time brought that really into the into the forefront and made it um all that it was, and and that's really important. You go through that and you learn things, but eventually, as you, you know, for me, I went and studied my master's, I go do my PhD, you're doing this stuff, and suddenly you realize like people are coming to you all the time for this kind of advice or to preach the sermon or to do the thing. And you realize that when you want to be fed and nourished, I don't want an hour-long sermon and two songs up front and one at the end. I want a 10-minute homily where somebody reads me some scripture and reflects a little bit on it, and then fills the rest of the space of the service with liturgy, with the movements of like, I want to pray, I want to hear as much of the Bible as you can give me, which is what happens with the liturgical calendar and what happens through these services. You actually hear the epistle, you hear the Old Testament, you hear the scriptures, you hear the proclamation of the gospel, there's actions to this. Um, and then it's centered on the Eucharist, right? You come and you have the Lord's Supper, and it actually feels like it means something because there's actually been something said over it and done, and it's and it's treated with reverence. And, you know, all of a sudden there's language that's being used that you're not used to hearing in your normal evangelical setting, where you're confessing about your sins and what you've by what we have done and by what we have left undone. I mean, like, where's that language? Oh, I haven't heard it for so long. And so it it really does, it brings you back to being nourished by something. And I all I want to say about that is I I can do that in I can do that in an Anglican church. I could do, I could do low church in the Anglican church. There's not a the idea that I have to go join the Eastern Orthodox Church in order to make that happen to me as I think the problem that I see, without thinking through what's the actual theology being spoken. What do we think about the theology there is where that would matter? Um, most people I think are brought in quite simply because they're hungry for liturgy and that's where they find it. Um I mean there's more to it than that.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

I think you raised an interesting point before that it it um it uh triggered for me um something that McLuhan had talked about, that the going going into a church or worship service is so different. Can be into opposed to kind of sometimes evangelical and Pentecostal, where it's the idea is and there are reasons for in Pentecostalism why it's like that, because of its mission and sense of that. But but it's so much the same. Maybe going to a mall to a rock concert. And so McLuhan talks about anti-environment. The notion that our senses are are are ruptured. And you know Yeah, and I quite like that idea. I think that's I that's when you mentioned that I thought, yeah, that's a sort of sense that when when we go into a church, it's like, oh my goodness, it's it's it breaks the it breaks the nar the narrative, the liturgical sort of you know, if you're thinking of um sort of secular culture, there are kind of liturgies within secular culture, you know, that we do. Um we go to church and it and it breaks that it breaks that narrative. I don't know what you think to that.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Yeah. I think um there's a few things you hit on that I thought were really interesting. And obviously that that as you grow and as you mature and as you go from the milk to the solid food, like that that liturgical expression I I feel like does rise up because you need more weightiness to it. Um but as as a church practitioner, as a pastor, I'm trying to be like, well, I don't want people to move from like my church to then the more meaty church and then the meediest church, and then all of a sudden they'll get to, you know, if we this might not be true, but get to orthodoxy, because that's the meediest church there is, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Yeah. They don't need and the thing is like you can you you can provide that. I mean, you can offer, yeah. I mean, I know it's hard to do all things, and and maybe maybe that's why more ecumenical movements need to happen. Um, but but the you know, because here's the thing, you also do need the other. I want to say you do need the other. I wouldn't have walked back into the church had I walked first back into a high liturgical Anglican service. I would have gone, this is a little too alien for where I am right now. It's not accessible. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know when to stand, I don't know when to sit, I don't know how I'm supposed to put my hands when I go to the altar. Like, I I'm not ready for this. I'd feel judged. I'd feel, you know, there's all kinds of stuff that you might feel. And I get people feel uncomfortable. Uh though I'm not saying that the Wesleyan church that I went to in a movie theater needed to somehow evolve and upgrade. I think they need to do what they're doing the best way they can, because they offer something that the other church doesn't. And other people need that. I mean, one of the great things about Deepwater, where I went, where and Joey, you're familiar, obviously, and AJ Thomas was our pastor there for a long time and a great friend. And like that church ran on a program called Celebrate Recovery, where half the congregation of Deepwater were recovering addicts and ex-convicts and people who were trying to get their lives back together. And it was incredible. It was like it was the Holy Spirit was there. Because one of the, yeah, I mean, that's the greatest thing about the gospel is until you could see how what it does to a person's life, and you see them take a complete U-turn and become a new creation. And it's just, well, that was happening there all the time. It wasn't happening at the Anglican church down the street with its high liturgy, and that's not a knock on them. It's just like, but but you know, that was maybe where more seasoned believers and people who had been around the church for a long time, they were going, Oh, I like this. I I don't like drawing too hard of a line saying, like, well, this is the correct way to do it, this is the not correct way to do it. I don't think that's true. I think, I think we we need different things at different times. And churches do certain things well. As a matter of fact, there are many, many evangelical churches and you know, sort of low liturgy churches that if they tried to do a high liturgy, it would just do it poorly. And if the Anglican church tried to do it contemporary, I I use the Anglican church, I'm talking about specifically the high liturgical ones I'm talking about. If they tried to do some sort of contemporary service, it would equally be terrible. You know, you'd be like, this isn't this isn't great, it doesn't fit your DNA. Um, I I just think people uh uh we need it all in a sense. Um and yeah, there are degrees to it. And I I don't even know that I want to say one is solid food and one is milk. I, you know, that's more of an understanding of the gospel and how you receive that. I think you could remain your entire life at deep water church and be completely fulfilled as a as a Christian. I don't think you need to necessarily move on, but it doesn't surprise me that you might get to a place where you're you're hungry for that and you can go experience it. Um it's a I mean it's a difficult conversation, a difficult thing to put a hard line on, you know, and uh yeah, but I think it does speak to this idea of you know, when we talk about like sacramental theology, are there certain things though that are just proper to do?

SPEAKER_02 43:36

This is where I wanted to move into. I just need to segue what happening. And so my uh this as I was preparing for this conversation, this question is kind of nowhere because I as I was just processing and thinking about it, I was like, actually, institutions aren't nothing, right? They're they're important, not just for the business stuff, right? It's not just for the AGMs and the governmental compliance and that that put that to the side. Like the Institution there is a role and it is important. And what I've noticed, I'm just gonna read the question because it's it's easier to do that. It seems to me that there's a lot of a lot of ecclesiology centers on a church's view of the sacraments. Like, is the body, is the bread and the wine the body and blood of Christ? And yes, no, or nuanced opinion. Uh the lower the view, it seems like to me, the more not anti-institutional, but the more low tradition, a the age of authenticity kind of rises up if you're talking more of a Taylor um terminology, that that whatever feels like it's the most meaningful, most authentic is the is the move we're gonna make when it comes to liturgy and churches and institutions. Whereas maybe the higher the view of the Lord's Supper, the more pro-institutional, the more structured the liturgy needs to be in a particular way. And so do you think there's a relationship between sacramental theology and institutional form?

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Yeah, I like the way you put that, Joey. I mean, I think that's I think that's largely true. Um You will definitely, yeah, you will I I think you're right. I think you'll definitely find the higher view that you have of that, the more well, I mean, a sacrament implies that there is form and content, right? Going to what you were talking about earlier, Graham. Like, I mean, there is there is a form and content. There are words that are spoken over the action, and those words actually matter to give context to the very thing that's happening. Um, and this I would go back to what I was saying about look at what actual Protestantism, so-called, really was. I mean, the reformers believed in the real presence during the Lord's Supper. Uh, yeah, I mean, at least some, you know, as Wingley obviously went a different direction. That's part of the debate. But like that there are many who were trying to retain this, keep it at the center. Um, it is more than just a symbol, in my opinion. And and and that means that you should treat it differently. And I I admit that that is one area where I do see that, you know, it gets watered down, maybe even quite literally. Uh, but that uh yeah, yeah, I I I mean, I just I I can just affirm I see this connection between a sacramental theology, an understanding of what that even is, and and institutional structures.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

Um I don't even have it all worked out myself.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Well, and I don't know that it necessarily gives more credit to the fact that you then need see, I I still would resist the idea that I therefore need the institution in all of its in all of its contexts and every single one of its definitions and uh and prohibitions and whatnot, in order to uh experience that and to practice that and to see that. Um, you know, I find it interesting, for instance, that the church that I've been talking about here, Deep Water, this Wesleyan church that I've been a part of for so long, uh, while having a low liturgy, low liturgy, so to speak, it did the Lord's Supper every week. Now that most churches wouldn't do that every week, but they did. And they would make a point of saying that this is at the center of what it is that we're doing. It might appear like the preaching of the word seems like it's got center stage, but no, that's all preparation for this. And even though the form that it took maybe looked a little less uh uh ritualized or or you know, dramatized, even however you want to put it, um nevertheless, it was it was instituted every week and practiced every week and and said to be at the center, and it was blessed. And there was a there were words of of of affirmation over this, right? Like so um, so it yeah, I don't know. Every church has a liturgy, regardless of whether they think or not, right? Every church is practicing something, even if that means they're purposely not doing something. The the acts are all purposeful. Um and so I think you can I guess what I'm trying to get at there, Joey, is that I think you can say that. I think you can say the higher view, the more institutional, but that doesn't necessarily mean uh uh that it either has to be that way or that that that's necessarily correct that just because you have a high um uh a high sac view of the sacraments, that then you need to have a higher view of the institution.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

I'm trying to find a way of saying this, and and I might fumble a bit, but the sense in which um you have form, but you have to have within the form, and this is where I'd use my Pentecostal language, that that it it's it's spirited. So in the in one sense, you know, if you've got a you know, you can have high sacramental, but it kind of in one sense can feel feels not the right word, but empty because you're just relying on the form without the sense of the connection, relationship with God, uh spirit I would call it, those two things together, maybe the object and subject together, make that make that alive, make that connective. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Well, I think that's right. I mean, like you're I believe that every church structure, every liturgical form, in a sense, and and this goes beyond just liturgy, what we call liturgy, but into every religious expression, in a sense assumes a risk of what it can push too far into or pull away from. We all know that the the high, like for instance, this is maybe a good example as sort of lead into this. I mean, one of the issues that was going on during the Reformation was uh an issue with sacraments and with liturgy itself and the way that church was being conducted. So, for instance, the the phrase hocus pocus, which you hear in magic spell. I don't know if you know about this, but the origin of that term comes from, you know, and I won't know the Latin phrase exactly, but hoc estporum, right? The the language that's spoken at the moment of transubstantiation. And the point is that it was recited so long during this liturgy that was so foreign and in Latin and unknown in the vernacular to the people, that eventually it just seemed like a conjurer's trick that was, okay, I guess that's when the wine turns into real blood. This is when the bread turns into a real body. And hocus pocus, I don't know how it works, but this magic superstition evolves because there's a disconnect. And at the time, people were going, you have this really high liturgical kind of structure around it, but none of us know what you're talking about. And we're not connected to it at all. And we're just doing it because we're told, and that becomes very cold and very stale. And for a long time, we I mean, that was exactly at a time in history, that was the experience that galvanized another movement. And I think we're at the other end of that now. And I think that's why you're seeing the move back, because now we're going, but it's not cold, it's not stale. There's actually a lot of meaning into it. And and I'm starting to understand that meaning, and therefore I want to participate in it at this level. And so I I if that's sort of answering the point that you're saying, like, yeah, the our the form can uh either invite us in and make a lot of sense and hit us deeply, or it can become just rote and and meaningless, and actually at a certain point, uh uh almost a mockery to my intelligence that it just becomes this thing that, by the way, we just continue to do this and we're not actually giving ourselves. And so I think that's where for many, you know, for for many evangelicals who, when they do the Lord's Supper, it maybe looks like something more toned down, or it doesn't have all these the smells and bells, so to speak. Still, many of those people partaking in it are deeply connected in what it means at that moment. They're spiritually driven, they feel like the Holy Spirit is with them. That's what matters. Uh, how the form gets you there. And that's why I was saying the form is not to be neglected, it's not negligible, you're, or you can't you can't just dismiss it. But but it has the everything has a risk. And I would say, like I bring this into a greater conversation about these ecclesial structures as a whole. I think Roman Catholicism has a lot right. There's a lot that they're doing that's correct. But they also, in having those structures, doctrines, and dogmas, run a risk of pushing into another direction that can be cold and inaccessible, right? And we as Protestants or we as evangelicals, however, you know, whatever context you're in, you have to identify what your risks are. What are your strengths? What are the things you're focused on that you're emphasizing? But where do you run the risk of leading people into something that's disingenuous or not, you know, not appropriate? Or, you know, it requires wisdom in everything. And that's, again, I think one of the reasons why I'm I'm hesitant to ever put anything into a strict form of saying this is the only right way. And that's what that's where I would say to people who are flocking to Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism or something, I'd say, before you do that, just understand that the positions historically of those churches have often been you have to agree with all of this or you're anathema. Now I know that's not how it's treated by many of them, but like historically, that is what the church is often saying, right? It's you're you've got to take on all these forms. You have to, you have to take it all or nothing. And I don't know that I don't know that I could do that. I don't know that it's right to do that. So I anyway, that's a bigger conversation, but I think it's about emphasis and risk.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

And I don't I I think um I think the problem that arises within Catholicism and Orthodoxy with the institutions, people seeing their salvation purely through the institution, or like their relationship with Christ is purely through the institution. I think the evangelical move towards that is oh, my faith is my parents' faith.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

You know, I think that's the same thing. Where it's like the the it's not there's no personal conviction or impetus upon them to actually decide to to be to repent in a sense and to be different, to turn in a different way. Because when I look at that conversation of only like 25 minutes in with James McCann on Catholicism, it does read like that. He's like, he it sounds like he's relying on the institution itself, hence why he can say you can be an atheist Catholic.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

And historically those are the roots of, I mean, like, you know, there was a time that's exactly how it functioned. The priest basically believed for you. You know, that that isn't how the medieval church in a sense saw itself. And so and and I see this all the time today. And I and I won't say, well, like you said, in the evangelical world, it's well, this was my parents' faith, and I didn't really get handed this, or you know, but the cultural, I mean, the fact that the very fact that people get married in churches who have never walked into a church otherwise. You know, I've met people, I remember one of my wife's old co-workers saying, I want my baby to be baptized, and the Catholic priest here is giving me, giving me, you know, uh he won't allow it because I don't go to church. And I go, well, obviously. Yeah. Why would you why do you want your kid to be baptized if you don't go to a church? And and you know, to paint the priest like he's a bad guy for not allowing this is frankly crazy. I mean, it's just like he's got a point, doesn't he? Shouldn't you, you know, but the very fact that he would want this, I said, Why would you want to baptize your child if you don't go to a church? And he said, Well, because I was. You know, and it's it's this sort of this hangover of like, well, this is the tradition, it's the thing you do. I don't really believe any of it, but I'm connected with this institution. And that sense of belonging means a lot to people. You know, that's another thing is people want to belong to something. They want to they want to be able to stand with, like, oh, look at this ancient thing that goes back. I mean, it's hard not to go. I've been to the Vatican, you walk around there and you're like, wow, it's I can understand the allure of being wanting to, you know, to connect with this history and be a part of it. But uh, here's what I would also say this is where a lot of Catholics get upset with me, is that I go, like, but it is my tradition. It is my tradition. That I get that. Um, you don't get to just tell me I don't belong to it anymore because I reformed, right? I mean, you can, you can tell me I'm a heretic and kick me out if you like, but I'm still gonna quote Augustine and I'm still going to, I'm even still gonna read Thomas Aquinas. So, like, you know, it's the idea that somehow you're out if you don't, you know. I think I just resist tribalism at every turn. I can't, I can't do it. I think that's antithetical to the gospel uh at its core. And so I won't I I I the institutional question of you know how important that is, I don't want to say it's not important, but I could never I could never play that up any more than than you know well than it needs to be.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

I so what I'm hearing is that yeah, there's the one church, it's on ontological, spirit-filled body of Christ level that the church is kind of constituted and you're a part of as you repent and you go through all that that process of of coming to Jesus in the evangelical way of phrasing it. Um but there's a cultural shift and mood that has taken place where stability is valued, uh tradition is emphasized for the sake of stability, and because of all the cultural, say moral relativism, um whatever per you know, whatever uh liberal uh politics has kind of moved us into has made people have a second thought about okay, what did we do in the past. Sure. It seems like to me that the the moment for maybe more evangelical churches, and let's just say Protestant too, but we'll say evangelical for the moment, is is to reassess the liturgy. I I think because that's what I feel within myself. I I feel like I need to the liturgy needs to be reassessed. The boomer generation um they wanted to be seeker sensitive. We got it. Uh it w so we watered it all down, and that was their move. And you know what, whether you can criticize it or not, but lots of people who like you like you've already said, who wouldn't have gone to a high Anglican church, would have gone to um you know, a church at the movies or whatever, right? Okay, but then the Gen X were like, let's make everything uh different and more not uh more meaningful on like a rebellious stage. So we're gonna do like uh a poetic uh slam poetry night for uh the for Easter weekend or something, you know, like something different. It was like Gen X, it was their move. Where I feel like the the young the mid-millennial to Gen Z move is is that traditional move. And and that's even me saying that out loud is like well, then what's like my kids' generation or the their kids' generation? They're probably gonna rebel against that at some point, right? Sure, certainly. But would you agree or disagree with that? Do you do you think because you it's I'm kind of I'm kind of disagreeing with you a little bit, but not like, yeah, it's great that there's tons of different churches that do different things and emphasize different aspects of the body of Christ, but there is a moment where things are coming to the surface, and you kind of do need to change if you can change a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Absolutely. I mean, look, you know, we say ecclesias emperor est is that was a famous phrase during the reformation, but the church must always be reforming. The the idea we actually do want to constantly be bringing ourselves back to what's proper. And I think this is what's happened is that a lot of evangelical churches have have moved in a direction, I think, rightly, out of out of proper motives, have tried to move towards something where you're going, like, look, that's part of the Protestant movement, is to say, let's get rid of these accretions, the moss that has gathered over tradition, that is just convoluted our way into just talking about a relationship with Jesus and simplifying things and saying, actually, it's where two or more are gathered. That's where, that's where the spirit is, that's what the church is. Let's move into that. But as a result, what's happened is you've turned whatever Roman Catholicism is doing or whatever Eastern Orthodoxy is doing, whatever these traditions are doing into a sort of enemy, and we can't, we can't be a part of any of that sort of traditional stuffy stuff. And it's like, no, you have access to all of that. You don't have to get rid of it, you don't have to treat it like it's the boogeyman. And yes, in your services, it's okay to integrate different liturgical devices if you think that that would benefit the community. And I just don't understand the allergy toward trying to do that. So there are examples of this. As a matter of fact, somebody like um uh Brian Zond, the pastor of, I think he's a word of life church in Missouri, okay? Now, people say what they will about his theology and whatnot. I I'm not here to debate that. My point is, is he's somebody obviously, I mean, it's called Word of Life Church, if I have that right. It's a Protestant church. But if you were to walk into that service, it looks pretty Eastern at this point, or it looks very Anglican in many ways. Uh, it's they they're reciting creeds now. They're they're they've added things to the Lord's Supper to make it a little bit. You can do that. You can experiment with those things. You don't need to do it all. You don't need to, but I think the point is, is for for congregations and communities to yeah, to reassess well, how how are we orienting ourselves toward God in this service with our actions, with the ways that we're doing? Because for so long, it just seems like it's the same script everywhere you go. And it's it's been flattened to like two songs, sermon, one song, done. And if that's the way you want to go for now, you think that's meeting your community, then stick with it. But I think it's okay to integrate new things. I think it's okay to, or old things, I should say, you know, and to change and to recognize that I just think the idea that some other institution has license to that and only they are allowed to enjoy these traditions or these rituals, and you don't get to do that because if you did, oh, you'd be you'd be stepping into the heretical, uh, you know, the heretical pool of Eastern Orthodoxy or something. I just think that's I don't think that's true. So yeah, I think I think there's always time for reassessing, looking at what you're doing and and trying different things.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:52

And I I do uh sorry, Graham, you go for it. No, I just I mean I I could tart off there's things that spring to me, but I just sort of thinking in terms of from a sort of a pastoral leader point of view, um, and that's how I when I was pastoring, I had thought, and this is going back a little while now, but um sort of your James, James K. Smith sort of stuff a little bit. Yeah, but the idea that actually it doesn't matter what you do, you're always living to something. In other words, we're always um what's the word? The poet the notion of poesis. We're always moving. So so how are we how are we how are we making ourselves becomes the question.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

I think so so in a in in any service, that'd be my question. We're making ourselves here, but are we making ourselves Christian in a sense? Yeah, I think. And then there are words around that about embodiment, form, um, filling the form, you know. We so I that's why I go, you know, with institution. Um look, I'm sort of, you know, I'm I like sort of liturgy, but I go at the same time, what's important? We have to embody that liturgy for it to live. It has to, we have to connect it in and of itself, we'll just end up with being an empty gong.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

So yeah, so um, so I think the sense that that how we're making ourselves becomes a very important question to ask. Whatever denomination you passed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

I I I yeah, you brought up James K.A. Smith as well, somebody who's spoken about this, right? The idea of you are what you love, and and uh you you we are creatures of habit, not just brains on sticks. And I think that's part of this idea of you you need to make people aware of the fact that every action is uh is is reasoned. It it there's a purpose for all of the things that we're doing, we're actually communicating something. Um and that I think as people learn that, that's exactly what attracts them to sometimes the higher liturgy, like even to know that the decisions that have been made here are purposeful. Because they're but but it's like you said, what are we being formed toward? I mean, you know, when you go go read Paul in any of his letters when he's writing and he's saying, Why am I instructing you to do things a certain way? Well, so that you may abound in love more and that you may grow in knowledge and depth of insight, right? So that you can understand what really matters, he says, Philippians 1 uh 110, right? So that you can discern the exceptional. So, like I I think it all needs to be geared toward actually, there's a practical reason why we do any of this. So, like your your liturgy and all of it is just, yeah, you can integrate it, you can try and take it away. But are you is it producing, are you abounding in love for one another? And are you growing in knowledge and depth of insight? Is it actually bringing you in? And that's just where I say different communities are in different places. And I don't know how much I could play fast and loose with that. I I I know some people would be highly critical, maybe, of what I'm saying and making it sound like it is just the decision for local communities, but to a degree, you you need to speak to the people who you're who you're serving, and not everybody's ready for. Moving to this high next next phase, you know? Um, so I yeah, but I but I have grace for those who who want to go there and want to do it. I'm not trying to please everybody, you know, and then to the idea that the church is going to be able to do that is just, you know, but what I don't like is this drawing of boundaries and lines and tribal distinctions and saying, like, well, the Holy Spirit only is over here. And until you're doing, and that's and unfortunately, that is the language that we hear in some of these, in some of these traditions. And unfortunately, then Protestants do the same and go, like, well, they're heretics, and they can't, you know. And so then Catholicism, for instance, is treated like it's another religion and it's not really Christianity. And I have an equal problem with that. But you know, I think we need to lighten up a little bit. Maybe that's part of it. I think the fact that there's a schism in the church over the Filioque clause, for instance, is stupid. Um, I don't go on record as saying that. And I know, and I'm not saying that that doctrine's unimportant. I'm not at all saying that. I wouldn't want to relativize that, you know, theology matters and that matters. But to schism, to to actually be split, to have the body of Christ ripped apart because you can't decide on what the word proceed from means, um, is is is crazy to me. And the fact that we I I just think Jesus shakes his head and weeps over our profound ignorance and hopefully has grace for us and says, forgive them, Father, they know not what they're doing. But I just, I just it breaks my heart that the church is shattered in that way. But at the same time, I see wonderful movements happening. You know, uh today I listened to a podcast with a Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox uh and an Anglican all having a conversation together, and not once were their distinctions brought up. Uh, they were talking about something that unified them all. Um, and that's what ultimately matters, and that's what I want to see more of.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:59

Yeah, yeah. You're not really good. Well, I I don't want to take too much more of your time up, Ben. I think this is really great. I brought a lot of clarity to me, to be honest, and and selfishly it was just great to chat with you again.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

Yeah, it's really great to chat with you as well. Yeah, and you as well, Graham. Nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

Yeah, likewise, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

Oh, there's so many little threads and bitsy guy, but uh so many. Um yeah, I could push into that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

Yeah, I don't know. How do you normally does your podcast normally carry on for like do you try and keep it to a certain time?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:29

It usually floats around an hour and then that's that's about it. Like I'll I'll cut it at that uh kind of goodbye, but I wanted to say, I wanted to add in like that the last question, the reflection on um Colossians 3 16, like let the message of Christ dwell among you richly. Um and and then looking at the context, because I'm like, how do how do you actually I might add this in actually later? Um, how do you um practically as a say an evangelical pastor begin to move into like more of a litur that like not higher liturgy necessarily, but a more thoughtful liturgy? Um and I I think it might be that that uh Colossians letter where it's like it's it is that that tension of the transcendence and the immanence where we are actually just we are so stuck in the imminent Christ, we forget about the cosmic Christ. And that the the the imminent Christ is so powerful because he's so cosmic. And like that's the mystery of the gospel is that that same Christ who created everything and then and everything sustained by is in you. Like that's the that's it, right? And so I wonder like if there's a way to like liturgicalize that tension. Wow, that's like a simple way to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

That is what we're always we're always aimed at. I mean, the history of the church is an oscillation between imminence and transcendence. That's just what it is. And that's that's the whole nature of that's the whole Christological question, right? Is is fully man, fully God, uh without confusion or separation, and not some third cool other thing, right? I wish they had said that in the tome of Leo, right? And not some cool other third thing. But the idea that you you are always trying to get to the heart of the imminent and the transcendent together in one in the person of Christ and communicate that. And we will always inevitably, let's like I said about the risk, move too far to one side or the other. But here's what I would say like to the even just the practical question about how does an evangelical pastor move toward that, you do it slowly, first of all, you do it in baby steps and you do it scripturally, because there are many things, like for instance, even the fact that you could say, we're gonna start reciting the Lord's Prayer as a liturgical habit, because Jesus told you to pray that way. It's a very simple if anyone is not on board with that, I just don't know how you'd argue to not be on board with that when you can point directly at least to say, if we're gonna practice anything, maybe we try this and try it, you know. But it's you can move slowly towards these things, engage and walk with people and say, is this helping? You know, and you don't need to do it all at once, right? If all of a sudden you're feeling you know, I guess that's the thing, we don't need to race and rush toward these things. Um I think we can do it patiently and uh yeah, and and at our price, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:31

Yeah, I really like your I really like your thoughts. And um and uh, you know, what you're saying, I mean, uh because I uh uh uh supervise and coach pastors, I mean, I'm uh it reminds me of a recent story of a pastor, uh Pentecostal, who um was, you know, they were looking at the Apostles' Creed and had played it out in different ways, and he was expressing his excitement as the congregation were feeling like, my, this is really wonderful, um, which is an example of what you're saying. And and I think that sort of highlights the importance that um we belong to institutions or denominations, um, but within the congregation, the spirit is leading those congregations to discern and hear as they engage with the text where God's leading them. Because we, I mean, every congregation is well, I think the aim of a pastor is to bring people to maturity in Christ. So, what does that look like? Which is being sensitive to where your congregants are at and they're in the way in which they're forming and growing into Christ. So, yeah. So I I really love what you said, Peter. I'm 100% on board with where you're going with this. So yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:41

And um, what are you up to, Ben? Like what are you what are you move? Are you speaking all over the place? Are you mostly doing a big project or what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

Yeah, a little bit of both. We do I I do speak pretty regularly in different places, um, and and there's a bit of travel for that. One of the main things that Apologetics Canada does that I that I really help out with is that we have a series of uh documentary movies called Can I Trust the Bible? Um, and they're hosted by Andy, Andy uh Steiger, who's the president of Apologetics Canada, and Wes Huff, who a lot of people might know because he's been kind of everywhere lately in uh in a lot of circles. He's been on a lot of podcasts. But they host this, and and um and so we're actually about to travel to go film the next couple of episodes, which are gonna be on the translation of the Bible and the interpretation of the Bible. So looking at people like Wycliffe and Tyndale. So we're gonna be going to Europe in June and uh and doing that. And those episodes, I mean, it's incredible to be working on a project. I think our last episode, episode three, uh hit like 2.5 million views on YouTube. So knowing that you're sort of writing projects that, like, oh, a couple million people will be watching these things and learning from them is uh is pretty significant. So that's uh I'm excited to be working on those things. And it hits different.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:59

It hits different than oh, maybe a few hundred people might watch this, and it's like a couple million.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:05

So for for our for our listeners, uh just that the that so uh Politics Canada's has a uh podcast. What what what is the name of the podcast?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

Yeah, we so we do a weekly podcast, and uh and and it changes from time to time. We either we'll interview people and discuss things uh uh with experts in fields and and things like that, or we'll actually just have a discussion with some of our team members and it'll be very casual. I mean, we did a podcast a couple of weeks ago uh for Easter on like watching The Passion of the Christ and just reviewing that movie and talking about it. So uh the the the podcast is sort of like the engine that keeps Apologetics Canada going. It's our it's our mainstay. We always have something, but then we're always doing conferences and a lot of us are speaking places and then we do different, we we we are partners with a number of different organizations. We do some stuff with UVersion Bible app, for instance, or we're doing these documentary films. So it really is changing all the time and it's just growing, and it's uh it's been really cool to see. And I think for me, I just would say, like, you know, I never I never envisioned myself when I was younger as being an apologist per se, but uh, but I also have uh a lot of time for where I think that could go and what apologetic uh what apologetics can be, uh, not as some sort of combative, pugilistic debate style thing, but with helping with people who uh especially, you know, maybe even new believers or people who have one foot into the Christian world who are, you know, not quite confident enough to take that final step of like, do I really trust this? Just help them have a little bit more uh ammo in terms of like, oh yeah, no, there's there's reasons to trust this. And it's actually on a pretty solid foundation and that that we can make sense of it. Because I know for myself, when I had that, then I was able to then move into the the greater depths and riches of actually just living what you know out what does it mean to think theologically. But until you're there, until you maybe can trust at a basic level that, you know, did these things really happen? Is Jesus real? Is can the Bible be trusted? Um, you know, it's hard to get there. So uh happy to answer those questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:17

Well, I think you're you are specifically particularly placed, like because you I think you're you're street smart, you're an intellectual, your recall is ridiculously good of what you've read and what you've talked about, and you have an ability to to to suss out the cultural mood and also to speak directly to that. So I think it makes complete sense why you're in the position you are in, Ben, because I'm just waiting for you to get on some of these big podcasts because I think I think like you have a different lens by which you look at things, and maybe some of your other friends or people who you know might go about it. And I think it's really refreshing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:53

Well, I've got I'm flattered by that. I will tell you this, I I do not wish it upon myself. I am happy I am happy to walk into that uh territory if it ever comes to me, but I will say, you know, I I have no desire whatsoever to get on like the Joe Rogan podcast. I I watched Wes go through that, and um he I mean I I can't say enough good about how how well he's handled that. I mean, he's he's he has an incredible humility, um, and and just going through, you know, fame really in it, maybe a small F fame, but certainly a fame. Like people recognize him all the time, and he's seen, and it's it changes your life. And and and then especially in theology where like your views are attacked openly, very quickly by people. Everyone and their dog has an opinion, and uh and yeah, if if that time ever comes, I hope I'm ready for it. But I you know, I walk humbly with God and I let him lead the way. The fact the very fact that I'm even working with this organization, I believe was incredibly providential, just how it happened. I I don't really know how I ended up here, but um, but I appreciate that very much, and I just hope to be faithful to uh to the ministry and just kind of, you know, I I just want to be able to speak to people in a way that they can understand, and uh, and that's sometimes hard for me. I like to ramble and maybe move into academic conversations very quickly, but but I'm really happy to see people following there and wanting that and and kind of wanting somebody to kind of like challenge them to think a little bit deeper about stuff because uh because it's infinite, it's just an infinite depth, and it's just an incredible, it's an incredible journey.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

Thank you so much for listening to Lunch on the Way. And if you've enjoyed this episode or any past episodes that we've published, please hit the subscribe button and like button on YouTube and the follow button on whatever podcasting platform you are using. It goes a long way. Jonathan Graham and I back in 2022 started this podcast because we wanted to have open-ended conversations that were exploratory and a little bit risky and allowed us to venture into uncharted territory, not only theologically, biblically, philosophically, culturally, but also anthropologically as well, to help us follow Jesus better and to think better about the Christian faith and our discipleship to him. And so we are so glad that you've been joining us since twenty twenty-two. And if you haven't, we have a whole back catalogue of conversations and episodes that I still think are very relevant for today.