How to Engage Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Critics

This transcript has been lightly edited from an automated transcription for clarity and readability. While we've worked to preserve each speaker's words faithfully, errors may remain.

1. 00:00

   Gavin Ortlund

   Most people today, most modern people, more secular people, people who maybe have some awareness of Christianity, they're not asking Luther's question, “How can I find a gracious God?” They're not terrified of Judgment Day, although I still think their conscience is probably working on them at levels that they may not be as fully aware. But there are those dynamics that play out differently for many people. So, I don't think that problem has gone away in the human heart, but it is experienced a lot differently. Sometimes I'll think of it like people are in more of a Kierkegaardian place than a Lutheran place—Lutheran in the sense of Martin Luther himself as a man. There's tremendous anxiety, tremendous sense of dread, uncertainty, instability. So, what do we do about that? I think we're like Paul in Acts 17, not like Paul in Acts 13. So we're not in the synagogue.

2. Gavin Ortlund

   In Acts 13, Paul just quotes the Old Testament and says that Jesus is the Messiah—repent. That's one way of preaching the gospel. That makes sense if you're in a context where there's already some background beliefs that make Jesus the answer to those background beliefs. If you're in Acts 17, in a pagan context in Athens, Paul preaches totally differently. He starts way further back with the doctrine of God. He challenges their idolatry, and he basically talks about God and creation for a long time before he gets to Jesus. And I think that's really where we're at today.

3. 01:35

   Adriel Sanchez

   Hey, Adriel Sanchez here with Sola Media, and I'm joined by Dr. Gavin Ortlund, the president of Truth Unites. And what a privilege it is to be with you, Gavin. I've been a longtime fan of your work. One thing I'll say that I really appreciate about your ministry is just the charity I think that you exhibit. It's an example for us as followers of Jesus. And I think it's one of the things that comes through in your recent book, What It Means to Be a Protestant.

4. Adriel Sanchez

   Looking even at the early chapters, thinking about how we view the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, there's kind of an openness that we can have as Protestant followers of Jesus, a charity that we can extend that sometimes isn't extended to us as Protestants. And that's one of the things you highlight. And so excited to talk with you about Protestant apologetics and some of the work that you've done. Thanks for joining us.

5. 02:31

   Gavin Ortlund

   Yeah, I'm honored to be here. It'll be a joy. So thanks for having me.

6. 02:34

   Adriel Sanchez

   So as I've been thinking about your book and going through it some, I kind of wish that I had it back when I was in seminary, because during that time, I remember friends who were interested in becoming Catholic or Orthodox. I even had a classmate of mine who became Roman Catholic. It was while we were in seminary together. It was sort of this big thing on campus. And for him, at that time, he became Catholic. I remember asking him, “Why Catholic? Why not Orthodox?” And he said, “Well, because we have the Pope. Catholics have the Pope.” There's the issue of authority, which you address in your book.

7. Adriel Sanchez

   But how can I know that what we believe about the Bible and about the church is true? It seems like there are so many divisions among Protestants. I wish that I had the book back then. How have you ministered to—I know you pastored also for several years—ministered to people who are wrestling with this very question, tempted to become Catholic or Orthodox? Where do you begin?

8. 03:31

   Gavin Ortlund

   Yeah, the driving heart for me is wanting someone to understand the gospel and have a sense of assurance in their heart from the Holy Spirit. Their sins are forgiven. If they're trusting in Christ, they know they are headed to heaven. They know God is their Father. They don't have a state of anxiety feeling like their spiritual relationship with God is storm clouds. They have a sense of peace, and that is the driving kind of experience underneath everything else that I want people to have.

9. Gavin Ortlund

   I talked with my dad once about wanting my YouTube videos to be “wonderfully predictable.” Those are the words he gave me as advice. And as soon as he said that, I thought, “Ah, that's exactly what I want them to be.” Not that the content's always the same, but that they always end in the same spot of what I hope happens—and I don't always do this well—of shepherding people to Jesus himself.

10. Gavin Ortlund

    And that is the driver for me because, without wanting to simplify things, I think many people wrestle with these questions of church history, denominations, different traditions. And they're looking—I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here—but I think many people are aching for some kind of existential peace and resting place. And that's not everybody who makes a change. I don't want to psychoanalyze. But I think there are a lot of people who are there, especially younger people. I never expected to be drawn into this kind of ministry. Protestant apologetics—that was not something I set out to do.

11. Gavin Ortlund

    I got pulled into it just because of a pastoral burden. I want people to know that that resting place, there's a real food to that hunger. And that food is the gospel. And it's accessible and experiential through the Holy Spirit. And it's that simple. I really want people to experience that. So, that's the driving point for me. And then from there, we springboard into all different kinds of topics.

12. Gavin Ortlund

    But I just want people to know that that peace is available to them. That's one of the things Christ gives us. And I do think that—again, I want to be careful—but I do think that's involved in these conversations. A lot of people, young people I know—I'm curious if you see this as well—there's a lot of anxiety right now. People are looking; the world feels very unstable right now. There's lots of change. People are looking for a resting spot, something to cling to that is like a solid rock amidst the turbulence of the world.

13. Gavin Ortlund

    [inaudible] to church history for that. A big passion of mine is church history, as Protestants learning from church history. But church history is not the ultimate resting spot. It's a community, it's a family, we learn. But the ultimate resting spot is Christ himself. So that's a passion of mine.

14. 06:18

    Adriel Sanchez

    Speaking of the church history piece, I remember the first time I read St. Augustine's Confessions, being shocked as a newer Christian—I converted in high school—and being struck by the fact that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ didn't just start in the 1960s or the 1970s. There have been people who've loved Jesus for thousands of years, and then beginning to ask questions like, “Well, how did they worship? How did St. Augustine worship?” And I think that's where sometimes people will be struck by this sense of, “Oh, the church has been doing it the same way for all this time.” And you find these traditions like the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church that sometimes will claim that to some degree in apologetics. They'll say, “This is how the apostles worshiped. And so we're maintaining this form of worship that is ancient and was handed down by the apostles.”

15. Adriel Sanchez

    How would you respond to that specifically? Because I think that's such a draw for so many young people.

16. 07:10

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah. Well, and I'd be curious for your thoughts on this as well. But I like to say two things and push in both directions. So on the one hand, I do want to encourage Protestants to be humble, to consider where our practice may have fallen away from church history, and even from Protestant church history—even from 100 years ago or less. Just lately, I've been studying the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, and the theology of the Lord's Supper. And there's such a rich heritage of practice and understanding of the Lord's Supper in Protestant traditions. So, in the Reformed tradition, there's some of these major theologians who spent so much labor helping us understand the preciousness of how Christ gives himself to us in that experience.

17. Gavin Ortlund

    And a lot of Protestant churches have fallen away from a rich experience of the Eucharist, and people are hungering for that today. So, part of my ministry in wanting to sort of commend Protestantism is I do want us to be humble. But this is part of the great thing about being a Protestant: we can reform our practice where we have fallen away from what Christ calls us to. In the other direction, I think I just like to, hopefully with charity, a little bit go on the offensive and just challenge this idea of a changeless church, or the way it's always been done. I think that's very naive. I think if you study church history—a little bit of church history might start to make you think that way.

18. Gavin Ortlund

    As you get deeper into church history, I think you start to realize those more triumphalist and simplistic narratives are just not accurate. And you can see such dynamism and diversity throughout each different epoch of church history. So, a lot of my work when I'm defending Protestantism is going into church history, and I try to make internal critiques, and I try to show the development of different doctrines, whether in Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Lately, I've been talking a lot about the idea of no salvation outside the church, which is a doctrine almost all of us would affirm in broad form. But in terms of the implications of that and how that is teased out, there's been unbelievable change over time. And so we can talk through examples of that.

19. 09:39

    Adriel Sanchez

    I think it'd be good just with that, because I know there are some people who hear that idea—especially modern evangelicals—this idea of no salvation outside of the church, and they think, “Well, what does that mean? Isn't it me and my personal relationship with Jesus, or trusting in Christ? What role does the church really have as far as that's concerned?” So maybe—you mentioned there's a sense in which we want to affirm that idea. But then there's also a sense in which we would say it seems like, traditionally or historically, Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox have had a very rigid view or understanding of that. What might be the good understanding of this idea that there's no salvation outside of the church?

20. 10:17

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah, this is a principle that goes back early on in church history. You think of, in the third century, a Christian named Cyprian was instrumental in kind of catalyzing this doctrine. And he said various things like, “You cannot have God as your Father without the church as your mother,” and so forth. And when the Protestants came along, they agreed with that doctrine—Calvin, for example. So this is recognizing that Jesus doesn't just relate to us as an individual, but when we are saved, though it is personal and we respond as an individual, we are then brought into a family and into a context. Now, that doesn't mean that Jesus cannot save someone who's living alone on an island or something like that. And so one of the emphases in the Protestant tradition is on the distinction between the visible church and the invisible church.

21. Gavin Ortlund

    We think the church is both. We can count the number of baptized people, in theory. There's a visible aspect of the church, but only God sees who's actually united to Christ. Anyone who's saved is united to Christ and is a part of the spiritual family. And the great saints before us are our brothers and sisters in the faith. And so that's a reality. Where Protestants will differ is an institutional restrictiveness to what the church is. And then there will be lots of differences about what that means for where we locate valid sacraments, what does ordination consist of? And so, a lot of my concerns—the basic thing, we could talk through this as much as you want here, but the big picture is, in the medieval era, this was understood very restrictively, to the point where you have teaching that comes from infallible contexts, allegedly, in both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, that basically, there is no salvation unless you are part of the one true church, and the one true church is us.

22. Gavin Ortlund

    The Roman Catholics were saying you have to be in submission to the Roman pontiff, the Pope, to be saved. And the Eastern Orthodox were saying if you affirm the filioque, which is a Western doctrine, you are not saved. And I've traced this out in various videos, but I think we can be a little naive today of kind of assuming they didn't really mean it the way they said it. And I think there's a lot of evidence that they did.

23. 12:43

    Adriel Sanchez

    I think that's one of the things you highlight well in an early part of your book, where you're talking about how—you mentioned the Eastern Orthodox Church and how it wasn't until the nineteenth century, twentieth century that you begin to have some openness as far as this particular idea is concerned. Whereas before it was, “If you deny the filioque, you're eternally condemned,” that sort of a thing. That highlighting, too—I think this is one of the directions you go—there is something in one sense unique and even better about Protestantism in that there is an openness that we can have, a charity, a grace that we can extend to others in other traditions. And I was interested to see how so many of the early Reformers, even though they critiqued the Roman Catholic Church and said, “Okay, there's a lot of idolatrous things that are happening,” were also willing to say there are legitimate sacraments there, sort of buried beneath all of it. And so, I wonder if that's something that we don't sometimes miss in the polemics as well. It's just really easy to want to anathematize each other when maybe we don't have to, in the sense that sometimes people do today.

24. 13:51

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah, 100%. I've been doing this long enough to anticipate how some will respond. And one of the responses will be, “Well, Protestants have been very nasty throughout church history at times as well.” And that's true. But in our official historical standards for the mainstream Protestant traditions—so Anglican, Reformed, Lutheran, to pick three big examples—we actually haven't said that the church is restricted to one institution, for the most part. You can find that a little bit in splinter groups. And there actually was, as I talk about in the book, from Luther and Calvin and others, Richard in the Anglican tradition, of surprising generosity. On the one hand, you have these devastating critiques of the hierarchy. So there's concerns that the label “Antichrist” is being used for the papacy. This is going on.

25. Gavin Ortlund

    But at the same time, both Luther and Calvin are able to say there is salvation going on over there, and there are valid sacraments. And they didn't restrict the church to their institution. They didn't restrict it to Protestantism as a whole. And that's significant. Wherever we look back in church history, we'll find things that we can repent for and things we can sort of acknowledge—sins in church history, errors. But it's significant that the Protestants didn't say that. And it also, I think I need to say, becomes a kind of falsification issue for some of the other traditions, because the way no salvation outside the church is understood 800 years ago, articulated in allegedly infallible, irreformable contexts—like, say, the Council of Florence—versus today at Vatican II, very different.

26. 15:37

    Adriel Sanchez

    Yeah. We think of the Council of Trent as well. It seems like there's a point in history where it's like, we can't go back from this without undermining essentially the way in which we think about the church's authority.

27. 15:49

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yes. And the other response we'll get a lot is that this is an appeal to emotion. And I would want to push back against that and say it is emotional to consider where is salvation and even where are valid sacraments. But it's not an appeal to emotion. I make an argument here from the teachings of Christ: Matthew 7, good fruit reveals the good tree, and from Mark 9, where Jesus teaches that he who is not against us is for us. I think the teachings of Christ about how we respond to exorcisms, to glory unto Jesus, to positive spiritual fruit in the way he defines spiritual fruit are relevant, because we see those things in multiple institutional expressions of the church.

28. Gavin Ortlund

    So Protestant ecclesiology, or doctrine of the church, isn't completely open-ended. We have boundaries, but it's not institutionally restricted. And I just think that enables us to make more generous judgments that fit with those teachings of Christ. That's how it seems to me.

29. 17:02

    Gavin Ortlund

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30. 17:59

    Adriel Sanchez

    As you've studied this now for some years, what would you say—if there are any—some of the arguments that have been the most difficult for you to respond to? Or the arguments that coming from, if you want to say, the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Roman Catholic Church, arguments that you felt like, “Okay, maybe I could kind of see that.” What would you say?

31. 18:21

    Gavin Ortlund

    There's a lot. Because you get into this and you realize these are not simple issues, and there's intelligent and sincere people in various different places on these topics. The first one that comes to my mind is the canon. There's a lot of people that you can point to throughout church history who quoted what we call the deuterocanon as Scripture. And that was one that I sort of agonized my way through, trying to understand that for a long time. I think the key breakthrough for me there was realizing something can be cited as Scripture in multiple senses. A lot of the church fathers had a two-tier system of Scripture.

32. Gavin Ortlund

    And I didn't really have a category for that when I was growing up, but that's how a lot of the church fathers thought. They'll talk about the books for doctrine and the books for edification—books for edification being a larger category of books—but they'll still cite them as Scripture. But then they'll give a canon list, and they'll exclude them from the canon list and say, “We don't base our doctrine on these other books.” So that's very relevant for how we respond to an issue like that. I think another one that immediately comes to mind is just the fragmentation of Protestantism. That's a powerful and fair appeal, to some degree, that can be made against us.

33. Gavin Ortlund

    And there's again where I think we want to be convicted about the truth, but we also want to be humble and be able to acknowledge, “Well, yeah, where do we have flaws?” In the book, I give a metaphor of a divorced couple, where one member of the former marriage might be innocent with respect to the cause of the divorce but might still be diminished as a result of it. And that's a metaphor for asking, where has Protestantism fallen into shallowness at times, fragmentation, splintering too much? So we need to give consideration to that. But it gives a lot of appeal—not always fairly, but it gives a lot of appeal—for those who are trying to pull Protestants into one of the other traditions.

34. 20:28

    Adriel Sanchez

    And one thing that I think pastorally is helpful here is being able to acknowledge at least the strength of the argument in one sense, right? We don't like the fact that we're fragmented, that there's so much division. There are questions that we can have as we're studying church history. And I wonder if pastorally understanding that—as people are coming to you in your church and they're wrestling through these things—if you just dismiss the arguments, or if you just say things like, “Oh, well, Roman Catholics worship the Virgin Mary,” that kind of—I've heard that. And I've heard people be pushed further into Roman Catholicism because they think, “Well, what I'm hearing from these apologists is different. It's more nuanced,” or “I can feel the weight of the divisions that exist in Protestant circles.” And so being able to say, “Oh, yeah, no, we feel that too.” I think there is a great sorrow. You think of Jesus's high priestly prayer, praying for the unity of the church.

35. Adriel Sanchez

    I think we ought to lament the sins and the schisms and the brokenness that we see, while still, I think, having a clear view of church history. And ultimately, like you said—I appreciate that you started with this—a firm grasp of the gospel. It's interesting to me that so many times, as I've had conversations over the years with people who are drawn towards Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism, it typically isn't that “I'm more attracted to their doctrine of justification.” Usually, it does have to do with this sense of ecclesiastical authority, or maybe it's the aesthetics and worship—this sense of the heavenly experience that they're having when they go to an Orthodox liturgy: “Come and see and come and experience this.” But a lot of times the conversations aren't where they were focused during the time of the Reformation, which is on doctrines like the doctrine of justification specifically. And I wonder if sometimes that doesn't get brushed under the rug for some of these other things that are also important.

36. Adriel Sanchez

    But getting back to that peace that we can have, that our sins are forgiven, that we truly have been accepted into the family of God through Christ—yeah, I appreciate the centrality of that in these discussions.

37. 22:37

    Gavin Ortlund

    Right. No, and I think you make a great point about the importance of not overstating our case or dismissing concerns from the other side. That does actually facilitate people leaving Protestantism, because they hear that and they think, “Well, that's the best argument that they have.” But I think making a relentless focus on the gospel is key in all apologetics efforts. I like to do a lot of general Christian apologetics as well. And there also, I want whoever is listening—whether it's through a video or in a conversation—I want them to feel something of the kindness of Christ through what is presented, because Jesus is the most wonderful person you could ever encounter.

38. Gavin Ortlund

    He is perfectly righteous. He is unbelievably compassionate. And he's attractive. If a sort of despairing person truly hears from Christ, they're going to think, “Wow, I want more of this.” And so in all that we do, that should hopefully be the undercurrent to everything else we're doing.

39. 23:41

    Adriel Sanchez

    I wonder if it's—hopefully not too far from the subject—but thinking about the initial Reformation and some of the key things that were at the forefront of—like the doctrine of justification—of why the Reformers felt like there needed to be this renewal within the church. It seems like one thing that everybody understood at that point that people today don't understand is this idea of there's this great God who is holy and just. And in one sense, the Reformers lived under that sense, that weight, and they were looking for that peace that you're talking about: “How can I find peace of conscience?” You think of Luther, you think of so many others. “We feel the weight of the holiness of God through this medieval system. But the penance, the sacraments, it's not cutting it in terms of granting us peace of conscience.” And so you get the doctrine of justification, a renewal, recovery in one sense. That's something that a lot of people—it doesn't seem like they grasp a sense of God's holiness.

40. Adriel Sanchez

    We live in a different context, right? Where you talk to most people on the street today, and it's like, “Holy God exists? I don't think so.” So, I'm curious, with your apologetic work that you're doing right now, what do you think we need to be communicating to people? What do we need to recover in terms of getting back to that place where people are drawn to even their need of the gospel?

41. 25:08

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah, I think about this a lot. And I share the same kind of passion for this and curiosity about this. I think most people today, most modern people, more secular people, people who maybe have some awareness of Christianity, they're not asking Luther's question, “How can I find a gracious God?” They're not terrified of Judgment Day, although I still think their conscience is probably working on them at levels that they may not be as fully aware. But there are those dynamics that play out differently for many people. So, I don't think that problem has gone away in the human heart. But it is experienced a lot differently. Sometimes I'll think of it like people are in more of a Kierkegaardian place than a Lutheran place—Lutheran in the sense of Martin Luther himself as a man.

42. Gavin Ortlund

    There's tremendous anxiety, a tremendous sense of dread, uncertainty, instability. So, what do we do about that? I think we're like Paul in Acts 17, not like Paul in Acts 13. So, we're not in the synagogue. In Acts 13, Paul just quotes the Old Testament and says that Jesus is the Messiah—repent. That's one way of preaching the gospel. That makes sense if you're in a context where there's already some background beliefs that make Jesus the answer to those background beliefs. If you're in Acts 17, in a pagan context in Athens, Paul preaches totally differently.

43. Gavin Ortlund

    He starts way further back with the doctrine of God. He challenges their idolatry, and he basically talks about God and creation for a long time before he gets to Jesus. And I think that's really where we're at today.

44. 26:50

    Adriel Sanchez

    Yeah, we have our work cut out for us. It's very much—it's like, would be nice if it was back in Acts 13 instead of Acts 17. But there is, I think, more groundwork that needs to be done so that people can even have that sense of the justice of God, my need of his grace, my need of his forgiveness.

45. 27:07

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah. Oh, absolutely. No, we have our work cut out for us. I think evangelism is way more difficult in some respects right now, but also, in some respects, more joyful and exciting. Because there's nothing more wonderful than getting to shepherd someone to—imagine someone who's uncertain about the most fundamental questions, like: Is there an afterlife? Is there objective morality? Is there meaning? Is there happiness? And we have the privilege of telling people the most wonderful gospel, that there is a God. There is.

46. Gavin Ortlund

    He is actually a little terrifying, but he is gracious. [crosstalk] [He has] made a provision through Christ and so forth. And that's a good message. I'm so thankful that the message we get to share is good news.

47. Gavin Ortlund

    But people need that right now. And I do think also right now, there is also a little more hunger. I sense right now a little more spiritual openness among the younger generation. And I don't think I'm alone in that as I talk to people around the country. It's exciting to see Gen Z, for example—a lot of young men are going to church. A lot of people are asking questions right now. So, in the cultural upheaval, there is an opportunity right now, I think, to be bold, to speak the name of Christ, to tell people about the hope that we can offer them. So, it's challenging.

48. Gavin Ortlund

    I think we have to start further back, build some categories. But I also think we have opportunities right now.

49. 28:35

    Adriel Sanchez

    So, thinking about this attraction to tradition, I like that you said—even earlier when you were mentioning—we can approach this from two ways. We can go on the offensive and critique certain traditions, but we can also say, “Hey, there are things in our own tradition that can also be critiqued. We still need renewal. We still need reformation in our own Protestant traditions as well.” But what are some of the dangers in wanting to recover that tradition, that right view?

50. 29:02

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah, this is something hopefully we can sort of pastor some of our younger viewers with this topic, because what I see is tremendous hunger for historical depth right now, liturgical and aesthetic depth in worship. I think that's basically a healthy desire. And I think we should try to feed that, encourage that. And that's wonderful. But I also see sometimes it feels a little postured. And I'll know young men who identify very strongly with a particular tradition, but they don't actually attend a church of that tradition on Sundays. And this is a whole thing now where you kind of work your way towards something theologically, it's not really an authentic reality throughout your life.

51. Gavin Ortlund

    And so one basic thing I would like to say to everybody is, actually—this is going to sound really obvious, but I think it needs to be said—the most meaningful aspect of your church identity is your local parish membership and service and use of spiritual gifts there.

52. 30:03

    Adriel Sanchez

    Yeah, I can say amen to that as a pastor. This is obviously what you want to see more than anything, because it's there that you're going to grow, hopefully, in the grace and the knowledge of Christ and in a true love for the people who God has called you to live the Christian life side by side with.

53. 30:20

    Gavin Ortlund

    Yeah. And I would just say one other thing on this: there's a desire for a kind of masculine, deep Christian expression right now. And again, I think that's basically a healthy thing. These young men are really wanting a Christianity that is robust, and that's good. With that, sometimes there's a downplaying of gentleness, and there's a downplaying of balance in our thinking. And I see a lot of extremism. I don't know if it's social media or just the internet in general, but I see people becoming very, frighteningly extreme.

54. Gavin Ortlund

    In various ways—conspiratorial thinking at times, extremely odd, outlandish historical views, fundamentalist tendencies in one direction, very strong progressive in the other, and so forth. And I just—amidst everything else we need to say about that, keeping the character of Christ himself as our model, I think, is so needed, because he's the answer. He's going to give us that robust personality. But he also has the beauty of the full-orbed righteousness of Christ. He is—a gentleness and a compassion and a way to relate to people that draws them. That I think just keeping that in our vision right now seems important.

55. 31:45

    Adriel Sanchez

    Gavin, I think that that's something that you do well. I want to encourage you in that and appreciate again your ministry and your work. And I love—earlier you mentioned with your videos, you hope that they'll be “wonderfully predictable.” Is that what you called it? I feel like that's how every sermon should be, right? Wonderfully predictable. We're in the text of Scripture, expositing it and leading people to grasp the beauty of Christ and his work for us in the gospel. And so may the Lord continue to bless you and make all that you do wonderfully predictable. And God help us to live in that.

56. 32:21

    Gavin Ortlund

    Thank you so much, brother.