The Mapp
Life is a journey, and every journey needs a guide—or at least a good story. Welcome to The Mapp, hosted by Michael Pursley, where we navigate the messy, beautiful business of being human. The podcast's name is a nod to both Michael A. Pursley Podcast and the "maps of meaning" that help us find our way in life.
Born during the stillness of the COVID-19 lockdowns, The Mapp emerged from Michael’s hunger for understanding. Inspired by long-form conversations that spark insights and refine ideas, Michael dives into deep, authentic dialogues with curiosity and humor. From life’s profound mysteries to its absurdities, nothing is off-limits.
Each episode unearths the treasure of human stories: wisdom, laughter, and moments of profound connection.
At its core, The Mapp is about the human story. It’s a place where problems shrink, purpose grows, and laughter and revelation often arrive hand in hand. For Michael, the podcast is more than a platform—it’s a mission. It’s an effort to create a space where wisdom is shared, ideas are tested, and hearts are healed. Whether through a profound insight or an unexpected laugh, Michael hopes listeners walk away from The Mapp with a sense that they, too, are part of a bigger story—one that is still being written and, in the words of another great storyteller, echoes through eternity.
The Mapp
Becoming One: The Ancient Path Through the Modern Church Maze in the Age of Noise and Neon.
What if the end of faith isn’t merely obedience, but union — not just serving God, but becoming one with Him?
In this soul-stretching conversation, Tim Churchward returns to walk with us through the wild, often tangled forest of Christian expression. We speak not of buildings or brands, but of ecclesia — the called ones — and what it truly means to gather in Spirit and in truth.
From the tender, flickering intimacy of house churches where hearts are known, to the colossal machinery of the megachurch, pulsing with production yet prone to drift from the breath of the Spirit — we ask: when did church become performance? And what is lost when succession becomes nepotism, when presence yields to programs?
Our path bends eastward, into the deep wells of Orthodox Christianity and its ancient vision of theosis — the transformation of the self into divine likeness. This isn’t salvation as transaction, but as transfiguration — a lifelong pilgrimage toward union with the divine. A journey not of striving, but surrender.
Set against a world racing toward artificial intelligence and transhuman dreams, we ask whether these longings echo a deeper truth: are we trying to become gods without God? Is this our Babel moment, or a misfired hunger for the sacred we were made to reflect?
This episode is for the wanderer, the faithful doubter, the weary churchgoer, and the mystic hidden in the pews. If you’ve ever longed for a church that feels more like a fellowship of the broken than a business of the saved, come with us. There’s grace in the questions. There’s God in the longing.
Thank you for joining The Mapp. If this resonates with you, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with others who might find it meaningful. Subscribe, leave review, and follow us on social media to stay updated and join our community of explorers. Together we navigate life’s pathways.
Hello and welcome to the map, guys. One thing I want to say before I dig in here is, if you've been listening to this podcast, there's actually a way for you to influence the kind of content that we're putting out. If you like it, great. But if you say, hey, I'd like to hear you guys talk about this topic. On the website the podcast website there's actually a place where you can send text messages and comment on what you want to hear on it, and so if you see like a social media post on Instagram or Facebook or wherever about the podcast, you can actually say, hey, love this, would like you guys to talk about this and this and this and start a dialogue. So I give you permission, feel free.
Speaker 1:So there's something deeply human about trying to make sense of where we came from and where we're going and, whether we realize it or not, our questions about faith and identity and church and even technology are really questions about what it means to be human and what it means to be made in the image of God. And in this conversation I'm joined again by my great friend, tam Church Ward, and together we're exploring the landscape of faith, not from a place of certainty, but from a place of honest inquiry. We're also looking at the tension between ancient tradition and modern expression, at strengths and blind spots of the protestant imagination, and at the beauty and the theological weight of orthodoxy, where salvation isn't merely just an event, but it's a transformation, a a becoming. And so we touch on the structure of church, house churches, the Orthodox Church, megachurches and everything in between, and we ask what happens when nepotism shapes leadership and when structure ends up replacing the Holy Spirit, and when intimacy collapses into insularity. We wrestle with a question that echoes throughout history what is the church meant to be? What is the church meant to be doing in this generation?
Speaker 1:And this isn't about ecclesiology, it's also about ontology. We talk about theosis, the idea that we're called not simply to obey God but to actually become one with him. And in a world that's fascinated with AI and transhumanism and the promise of engineered transcendence, a Tower of Babel 2.0, going to the stars, whatever it is, that question how close can man come to God takes on a new kind of urgency. And so this conversation is not merely for spectators, it's for those willing to think deeply and question a bit boldly and walk humbly in the pursuit of truth. So if you found yourself caught between liturgy and the live stream, between tradition and innovation, between ancient and the artificial, this one is for you. Let's in, welcome to the map. We're live, we're back. Hello, it's uh, hold on, it's the whimsical and magical powerful. Another adjective church ward.
Speaker 2:Whimsical.
Speaker 1:I say you're whimsical because you're an identical twin which twins always freak me out Identical twins Because it's like you literally, genetically, are the same person, but you're a completely different person. It's just a weird concept of like.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's completely true. I apparently that's what I grew up thinking that monozygotic or identical twins were the exact same dna, like gene pool. But apparently there are. There are differences in our DNA yeah, I mean like, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess, like genetic testing has not caught up to to if, for example, you guys, uh, hypothetically, were sleeping with the same woman, we wouldn't know whose baby that actually was. But, to your point, epigenetics has told us that hypothetically. But epigenetics, have you ever seen twins that marry twins? I find that odd. Identical twins that identical twins that marry identical twins it's like I I've seen that okay, well, anyways, uh, it'll just be weird man, because I would.
Speaker 1:You know you're not so. You know in the ten commandments you shouldn't covet after your neighbor's wife. But your brother married the exact person you married, in a sense like optic from aesthetically, I mean me and my brother.
Speaker 2:We didn't um, we didn't marry the same woman, but they're both called jess. They're both the same height, they both have brown hair. They both look similar.
Speaker 2:They could be sisters like it is really interesting, um and we and one time we were out and uh and I accidentally slipped my hand into one of into her hand and, um, turned around we both looked at each other in absolute disgust. You know, it's like I can't believe that almost love passed through the hand. It was a rejected either side anyway. Um, so that does happen. There's real, real life, real times. It is whimsical and it is weird and it is freaky, and being one is even worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well to your point, though. Twins, uh, they did do a study with epigenetics and they were like they're twins and one would present with uh diabetes and the other one wouldn't. One would present with an autoimmune disease, and they couldn't figure it out for the longest time. But what they figured out is like, even if you have like a similar genetic makeup, environmentally things can contribute to like switching certain genes on.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and so yeah, your thresholds might be similar but a little bit different.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but we also have incredibly different interests and my brother grew up doing geography, um, like geology, particularly maths, physics, I did philosophy, ethics, history, english, and his degree is in um, environmental geoscience, followed by a master's degree in soil, soil remediation, which is looking at the pollution in levels in soil, which to me looks more like shooting myself in the face. But then I did my first degree is history and philosophy, then my second degree is my master's is psychoanalytics, with social care. I've got a postgraduate diploma in systemic therapy, or systemic thought, rather, I'm doing a PhD in the theology of culture. So we are genetically very, very similar, but we, our trajectories, have been entirely different. He's a very rich banker, I am a impoverished religious aspirer not impoverished, not at all.
Speaker 1:all my books what did you study, tim? Well, I studied about people and god. What did your brother study, dirt?
Speaker 2:stuff, random material stuff, you know. Anyway, it's fun yeah well thanks. Actually is really interesting because I studied everything to do with the breath of god and he said everything to do with the dust that was made from. So if you think about the dust and the breath we, as the same or nearly the same person we actually have got, we've, we've walked a journey of prioritizing the study of different elements of mankind.
Speaker 1:It's powerful yeah, do you feel like you and your brother would just tag team a ted talk at some point, or?
Speaker 2:ted. He's boring, he's just, he's just, he's just. No, he's not boring, he's, he's just, he's just a banker. You know, like he's, I like him just just, a banker jokes.
Speaker 1:If he is this, I'm joking, not joking well, thanks for for hopping back on, but we uh people were were super pumped on the last kind of conversation we had.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to kind of just close the loop on some things that we were talking about in terms of like structure with church and like all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So we'll kind of close that loop and then there's some things that you want to talk about more in the vein of thought with orthodoxy, and we can kind of hop on that. But the one thing I just want to start off I'll I'll start off and then throw the baton to you is that you know, in any kind of model of how we're going to choose to meet together, this is going to be a game of of trade-offs, and nobody's really cornered the market on that. And any direction that you're going to push in, it's just going to be a game of tradeoffs of, like, what you're going to give up to gain something, and that's not a failure. That's just the reality of how things are structured. You can't optimize for everything. When Paul said be all things to all people, he didn't mean that you could be everything for everybody, and so the whole we do church differently thing is not something actually to brag about, like everybody's been trying to do that forever.
Speaker 2:Unless you're Orthodox. They kind of maintain the same theology since the 8th century. I'll talk about that at some point later. Actually, it's really important because they, they, they see the um, the dogma of the doctrine and liturgy of the church as the safe haven that keeps everyone together. And you can embrace difference in the base, on the basis that they um are in the liturgy in the church, in the doctrine, in the dogma, and so, instead of it being an individual person going after the individual thing that God has said that they are called to do, and therefore it's hard to embrace difference, because if you embrace difference you have to almost dilute the call of your individual persona. That doesn't exist in the Orthodox Church, because you can only ever do something in the context of the Orthodox Church. So it's just fascinating how that all works out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that, even like you know any kind of like great schism or protesting Catholics that emerged like leg as we move down the line, if they're saying, oh, we're doing things differently, the big question is, what does your difference actually do? What fruit is it producing? What's the substance of that? Albert Einstein said that sometimes progression is like somebody. Progressivism is kind of like somebody riding a bicycle without a chain, like the things are in motion but you're not actually going going forward.
Speaker 1:And so if you see like things kind of reductionary well, I don't say reductionary because it's kind of where things started but if you look at like house, church movements, like a lot of people in in those kind of movements or structures are like very anti-establishment, anti-institution and they're like this is the way and you know there's a lot of intimacy and they bring smith, the classic smith wigglesworth prophecy to bear in there, which is, after the traditional church has died, there will be a move of god, um, in in the houses, or whatever, and then, after that has died, there'll be the true revival to come, or whatever the specific wording is.
Speaker 2:It is interesting that lots of different people, who have lots of different views about how church should run, use and utilize the same prophetic word to justify the thing that they are doing damn.
Speaker 1:Yeah well people, people are worshiping like the I think sometimes the the model and and having a wrong kind of value system towards the model itself. And at the end of the day, it's just a vehicle to carry people and to carry the gospel as a message into the world. And so if you have a house church movement, you'll get intimacy. Kids can run around so you're not shushing them and having to segregate by age.
Speaker 2:Anyone can get a flag and they can wave it in your face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but obviously the trade-off is that sometimes there can be theological inbreeding or incest, because there's no cross-pollination, there's no outside input and cultish kind of mentalities can arise out of that. People are just recycling the same ideas.
Speaker 2:Very few people that come into church who are not christians. You, you sheep steal for your growth.
Speaker 1:That's generally what happens in the context of house churches yeah, yeah and and uh, it becomes very insular in terms of like, yeah to your point, it's just like very like inward, inward focus there. And if we go on the other, in a spectrum of like yeah to your point, it's just like very like inward, inward focus there. And if we go on the other end of the spectrum of like what's going to emerge in the States of, like mega churches, they're these big slick machines, they'll be, do big shows, they get big numbers, like obviously they're. They're reaching more people, like I think I gave the example of my Haitian friend who back in the day this is back in like early 2000s he was like saying Joel Osteen, I don't know anything about how he manages money or anything like that, but he gives an invitation for people to know Jesus.
Speaker 1:Every single message and that's kind of God's responsibility of where they take it from there.
Speaker 1:And if people are genuinely seeking God, god says you'll genuinely find me.
Speaker 1:And the promise of Jesus was if you ask God for a bread or egg or you ask your father for a bread or egg, he's not going to give you a stone or serpents. How much more will your heavenly father give you good things when you ask the Holy Spirit. And so, basically, god's ability to get you something good and right if you're actually seeking it, is bigger than the devil's ability to trick you or give you something wrong or for you to like mess it up and like just be stupid completely. And so that was his take of like okay, if you're presenting people with an invitation to a relationship with Jesus, but like we know that behind the curtain there's this massive infrastructure that you have to maintain the building, the staff and then all the fundraising that goes with that, and at some point the energy really shifts to maintaining that as a kind of business. And then, if it's built around a personality, once that personality dies there's not really a passing baton. Sometimes you'll see a passing of a baton Ironically it's within the family.
Speaker 2:You'll see somebody with. So it's like dies or falls. There's two options in that mode.
Speaker 1:Scandal yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So you die and you hand it to your kid kid and it's successful. But you can't hand it on to anyone else, or you have a fall and then it was like, oh, mark driscoll, where's he gone, you know, like. And then he goes and does this other thing, using the same model. It's incredibly successful again, and it's like actually there's something, there's something there to to take account of, really.
Speaker 2:And what also says is that each one of these church expressions, from house church through to orthodoxy, through to catholicism, through to the expression of the ecclesia, the ecclesia, actually what, what we have to be aware of, is not just how, um, how good or bad they are, but you have to analyze them as tools and as vehicles for the gospel, which is what you're saying. And if you and if you can analyze them not on the basis of your preference or if you can analyze them not on the basis of their excess in certain arenas, then what you can do is you can actually begin an analysis of the success measure of how much they bring the gospel, as opposed to how much you like or dislike them. I think that's a really important thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it, just being objective about that it can be a vehicle to move things. And I I to be honest, I don't know like cause I can argue both ways. You see, house churches in China have thrived and really driven the movement and growth of the church there. But then in South Korea, the megachurch model in cities because the cities are so condensed and that they're open to Christianity that model has kind of driven growth there.
Speaker 2:And they're not persecuted. That they're not persecuted is the reality, so actually the house. Church movement is easy to keep on the ground than like some 2 000 person church and I think that there's there's the cultural dynamic there as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry yeah, I think like this is like a, like a side thing that I always I I think it's. I'd love to give your feedback on this. But if somebody let's say like my is like a side thing that I always I think it's, I'd love to give your feedback on this. But if somebody let's say, like my dad was a pastor or like somebody my parent is in some kind of like leadership role within an assembly, that child to go out and be part of another community of people, maybe even in a different stream, just to kind of test themselves and their ideas and their preconceived notions and what they've been taught through the lens of somebody else. Approaching my reasoning behind that is, within Germany, when I lived there, they have an apprenticeship model and specifically with carpenters, you'll be driving down the road and you'll see these guys wearing these like black leather, like almost bell-bottom silky, like satin looking bell-bottom pants and then a black like little vest on with a white shirt with like the kind of frills on it, and it's a kind of costume that carpenters wear.
Speaker 1:But there's a rule that when they, when they finish the apprenticeship, they have to go out from a certain radius of the village that they were in. They can't do business with anybody from the villages that they ran like a certain kilometer radius and they can't ask for. They have to. I think it's for a year or so, but they have to live off of their work. So maybe that's like hey, I need a place to stay, okay, you work for me for X amount of time. Hey, I need food and you of course get money to or God chose to put Jesus under the care of a carpenter was that you have to stand behind your work. If you make a real crappy chair and you try to sit on the chair, the chair is going to break. The table is wobbly. You have to stand behind the work that you're doing in terms of the aesthetic but also the functionality of it. You can't fake it until you make it, but also the functionality of it. You can't fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1:And so I always appreciated that kind of tradition that they had there within their culture. And so I think with people because there's a stink of nepotism that if my dad was like, let's say, I was in a church and my dad's a senior pastor, it's a big church and he's up there at the mic, he's like I'm passing on my mantle to my son. It's like the family business it's. It's it feels gross and I'm not trying to like, throw shade or diminish anybody for that, but I'm just saying that's. What rises up initially in me is like this is nepotism, this is gross, like, and have you ever been part of any other uh congregation where you're not the pastor's kid or whatever, where people can just openly confront you or like poke holes and like stuff that you're saying or whatever? I'd love to hear your, your thoughts on that yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2:I think I think nepotism works really well in business. I just think so. So one of the big things about nepotism uh, if you don't know what that necessarily means, it is the handing over of the reins of something or other that you are in control of to a son or daughter technically, but mainly a son is that what happens is is that your kid gets the culture so much better than anybody else because they live with it. So if you, if you've run something for a long time, then your child will be the best person that you could think of to hand over to, because they understand the thing that you've built and they'll continue building it in the way that you think it should be built, which means this it means that there's a, that there's not going to be a decline, there's going to be a continuation, because you'll do things exactly the same.
Speaker 2:The negative of nepotism is that if that child that is raised can't do it and I mean there's this really interesting story around Bethel, of course is that Eric Johnson felt that he couldn't stay there, so he left and did his thing. So where next? And it's like what happens when that desire to hand over to the sun doesn't work. But also one of the big things about leaving your dad's house is that you've got to learn to be polite. In your dad's house you can like say what you want, you can go to the fridge when you want, you can try and figure out um like what, what you can get away with or whatever it is, and you have the relationship with your dad to be able to do that. But as soon as you leave, here's and here's, here's the key thing that you know that the, the, a son, um, isn't able to leave. His father's provision is that they can't finish anything. So they they start something and finish that. They can't finish it. They start something and stop it half a through and go home.
Speaker 2:I know people that do this. So I've got, I know, a guy whose kids cannot finish anything. They leave and they come back. They leave and they come back and they don't finish anything. They do this part of a degree or this half of this course or this half of this or whatever, and they cannot survive outside of their father's house. Not only that, normally they're majorly attached to their mother, which which is a major issue in marriage, but we can talk about that at a different point, but I think, in the context of the church especially, I think that you have to experience different streams in order that you can understand the value of them, as opposed to what most people do, which is stay where they're comfortable and believe that this is God's given and ordained church.
Speaker 2:So, whatever we say, whatever anybody says I don't care what anybody says whether you think it's a cult or not a cult, whether it's as big as Hillsong or as small as a house church, most people don't think in the mentality of the kingdom of the church. Most people think in terms of the locality of the church, and so what they think is this church is what god has put here. That's why every church has a prophecy that it's a resource church. Every church has a prophecy that it's a it's going to be a host of nations. Every church has a prophecy that it's going to be the center of revival for their local area.
Speaker 2:And we have this really interesting narrative of church that comes from the idea that we don't want to embrace the other spheres or understandings of what the church is. And if you look that back around to the kid thing, as in the nepotism thing, I'm like the reason why you need to experience the other streams is to experience the dysfunction of the thing that you're in, or understand the dysfunction of the thing you're in, because then, and only then, can you grow and improve it, as opposed to maintain it. That's what I would say, but I mean, I've said a lot. You can come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's always funny, like the prophetic words of always like doing big stuff. What if we get a word? It's like Tim, if you're radically obedient, you're going to change the world. You'll never see it, you'll never feel it, you'll never be able to measure it and nobody's going to remember your name. That's your word. Awesome, thanks. Not saying that over you. I say like if somebody like it's always like you're going to make impact, we're going to transform the city. Everything's going to be different because of you guys, and it's just like what it's like. You're gonna lay the foundation in the in the road work. Uh, people are gonna hate you. They're gonna give death threats. One of you, or two of you, might get your house burnt down. You're not really actually gonna see the fruit because you're planting seeds and, as we know, like trees need a little time to grow. But if you're obedient, cool stuff's going to happen. Are you down? Screw it.
Speaker 2:And that's why no one wants those words right, Because everyone wants the immediate gratification of seeing the numbers.
Speaker 1:then Dude, there's a video I saw. This kid goes to sit down in the chair. It's like the man of God's going to give a word and he's like, yes, you're the one who. I see that you're looking for a wife or something. And he's like, yes, yeah. And then he's like, yes, the Lord is calling you to a life of celibacy. And the kid tries to jump up out of the chair and other people are pushing him down into the chair just to take it. But it's like, yeah, we really, we really want to reverse engineer something that's going to like fit within the scope of our life.
Speaker 1:And I really struggle, like my parents really challenged me because they they've given themselves away, uh, so much into the in the things that they're serving into. I mean, you had conversations around this, but when your physical health starts to be compromised and a lot of things start to get compromised, there's this text where Jesus said I guess there's kind of a theme that people talk about living in wholeness and making sure that you're whole and healed, and there's a hyper-focus on that. But there's this other side of living your life as a living sacrifice and there's these texts where you know jesus says it you have to love me more than your mom and more than your dad, more than your sister and your brother like basically bury their own dead, bro, that's crazy passage yeah, well, and so uh, like the, the sacrifices they made, the cost of their own, you know, own health and relationships and things like that like there.
Speaker 1:There is like a respect, uh to it, but it's not, definitely not attractive, definitely not what people would want for their life and for me it's a really like.
Speaker 2:It's another example of the polemic right. It's another example of where you have to have one or the other so. So if we take examples of big churches, machine churches, it requires your life to run that machine. If you don't want to give your life, you're not willing to sacrifice enough, even if you get sick. So, for example, I've had feedback from someone where I've been sick for like six months really trying to like do what I need to do to keep this machine running, and he, the comment he gave me was this well done, you pushed through the last six months, well done. And I was like, yeah, kind of actually kind of well done for for pushing through, but you didn't see the impact on my family, the fact that I came home and I couldn't talk to anyone. You didn't see the impact on, um, the rest of my life. I don't have any friends, like I don't, I was too sick to go out, I like whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And I think this is really interesting and and hopefully I'm not speaking from her, I'm not trying to do that but there's this interesting polemic where it's like either you have to be completely and utterly lost in the glory and everything is really easy. Or you have to be so freaking dead that that is what Jesus wants you to do, and I'm like no, you have to live a life of individual understanding of what that means, given the season that you're in, and you also have to do that in relationship with people. And so if you want to be part of a church that is a machine and be involved in that machine, you will die and be a body in that machine. It just is what it is, that's what you're, that's what you're committing to, and for some people yeah, maybe that's their call it's like you know what? I'll give my whole life to this, and so so they, they share everything on social media or they're the ones at every single meeting or whatever it is, and actually their kids come to everything or whatever. Like I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm saying like that's the decision.
Speaker 2:But if you don't want to do that, you find yourself erring towards like a smaller house, community church, which is like hey, we'll meet around your house, like once a week we'll have dinner together, we'll all text each other like across the week, we'll do that with the 10 of us over and over again, and that can be church, and the reality is both are church.
Speaker 2:It's just how you create the story of the church, the ecclesia, which is community, and the machine, because I mean, antioch would have been pretty epic to run, so would Ephesus, so there had to be structures in place there. But it's how you build those together, without the polemic saying with one you get small and with one you get big, because for some people their success is measured on smallness and intimacy and other people they're measured on bigness and numbers, and actually both are right. But how do you celebrate the other in the context of the church to become the, the, the, the greatest expression that you can possibly be, without people getting lazy or people getting sick because it seems to be one or the other?
Speaker 1:You know. You know, one of the laziest things that I don't like is unspoken prayer request. Just keep it to yourself. Then Like either like if you're going to ask me to approach the creator of everything that exists as your brother. So we're going to, we're going to, you know, I'm going to come up to the throne of God with you and be like hey, we're asking you, I'm petitioning for you to help my friend, tim here out, my brother, but I don't know what you're asking for. Hell, no, hell, no, I don't know what you're asking for. You might be saying, hey, the pastor's wife is a witch and he needs to divorce her so I can marry him. I'm not going to go up to you, sally, and pray for that. I need to know what are we praying for. Or just say just pray for me as the Lord gives you, you know, as he leads you, fair enough, but don't say prayer request unspoken. You already spoke it. Now, we don't know. It's weird, it's shady.
Speaker 2:And it is spoken technically, because you are speaking some sort of like deception into the air, as you say, bro, it just breeds speculation.
Speaker 1:It's like God bless her heart. I wonder what's going on. Is she? Is her marriage okay? Is her finances okay? Is her health okay? We don't know. We're spiraling now, mary, yeah, just tell us what you want us to pray for if it helps.
Speaker 2:Anyway, like, I just don't spiral, I just like push people over. That's, that's my, that's the holy spirit jam. If, like, if I don't know what to do, I'm just not going to push you and make it seem like it's good.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just talking for a sec, if you like, I grabbed like this small, like 40 person country church in the middle of nowhere. So in someone in the church, like they like does anybody have a prayer request? And it's just like man, what's going on there? I'm just joking, but seriously. So yeah, it's all valid points and so like I mean kind of to wrap up and like this will be the segue into talking more about orthodoxy, because I know that's kind of the meat of the conversation we're going to have Is you have these like two streams of the Catholic Church and orthodoxy and there's a lot of things that like kind of get trampled over as like people have just fractured out of that of like the liturgy can be really beautiful.
Speaker 1:There's a long memory with that liturgy, like there's something valuable of like a song, like you sing a song some of these songs have been around for like hundreds of years and like you're fostering that tradition within your family. Again, if we look at the church like a family, like I'm standing on the shoulders of giants that came before me the space that's made for sacraments and the meanings that's attached to sacraments, versus like picking and choosing what sacrament is going to be purely symbolic, but this is like something really spiritual, but like making the space for that and like getting people up to speed, building things. That last there's something to be said about that. Uh, of like we talked about, this movement's going to live and die with this guy who has a gifting or is charismatic or whatever, and it's boom, it's, it's like a freaking vapor in the wind, but having something that stands the test of time, there's something to be said about that. I would say that I and I'm not trying to like rub you in the wrong way I have, like friends who are Catholic and some friends who are Orthodox.
Speaker 1:I lean more towards the Orthodox side for a few reasons. One is what we said earlier. They're trying to genuinely maintain something they didn't build into their theology, a way to just like, with no parameters, like change things as a Catholic church is, and the sentiment I get a lot of times from Catholics is like Protestant people a lot of times would be like it's all about like the Bible and they go like sola scriptura's all about like the bible and they go like sola scriptura things. And the catholics are well, you can't do that, but even if you did, we're the only people who could interpret the scriptures. You can't even interpret them and we gave you the scriptures and I'm, like you guys fractured from the orthodox church, like you guys like had a specific disagreement on, like you departed from the thing that they're still maintaining and you build in a theology in yourself that lets you change, but then you criticize Protestants for fracturing and I just find that it's a little bit hypocritical and that's why I'm not trying to like isolate anybody, I'm just saying in a broad-stroking statement, and so there's this implicit message that the Holy Spirit isn't really speaking to me as an individual believer if it's outside that hierarchy, and I find that just to be idiotic, to be completely frank, and that can come off. It basically just comes off not like confidence, but it comes off as control and a lot of other weird feelings with it. Because I can totally embrace the beautiful parts of what we're talking about, but you have to acknowledge again what we're saying. These are just vehicles, like people we all know, like the Sunday school thing. The church isn't the building, the church isn't the steeple. Open up the doors, here's the people. Like it's the church, it's people.
Speaker 1:And so I adore the beauty when I go into these churches. Now it can look kind of. I remember I was younger I thought this is gaudy, this is like awful. But now, after living in Europe and seeing cathedrals, being in the Middle East and seeing cathedrals, the attention to detail, the beauty of the architecture, the beauty on the inside, and then I come to America. No offense America, but we do not. We have a beautiful country in terms of landscapes, but our cities suck. Our architecture sucks. This modern, brutalist architecture sucks the quality of the materials we use and then the aesthetic of it sucks. And I don't I mean that in the most endearing way, because when I go into still when I go into these cathedrals and these cities that were made to be lived in and people would literally like just throw money and time and labor to make it as beautiful as possible, the attention to detail, um it, it's, it's fantastic and it's like I don't know and it's last. And that's the other thing that it lasts. It's not some like abstract digital thing that we put in. It's gonna last because it's digital and I feel, feel like what's happened?
Speaker 1:The spirit of America, I'll say it like this what's unique about America is that we're a bunch of criminals and rebels, that the people who are over here, who are wealthy, like well-to-do, they're the rebels and then everybody else are indentured servants that got sold and then everybody else who came after were basically like, okay, we could stay here or we could get on this boat powered by the wind and go over this other land mass that they call the new world and they give us land if we find land that nobody has. There's a ton of land there and it's created this spirit that I love that. I'm american, I'm from here, I love that.
Speaker 1:But like what our media kind of injects into us, like through Disney and and all that is this, this mad dash chase of novelty and self-expression, and like there'll be this, this some kind of plot. There's a little village boy, his name's Tim, and he just doesn't understand why we always have to do this tradition. But he, he, tim, can build a flying machine that nobody else thought of, and tim's ideas are going to completely that one person will completely transform the entire village, and the reality is it just never happens, very rarely would you have like one idea that's going to like do that. And it's like fostering this thing of like, almost like marxism, where you're the hero for being a rebel. You're a hero from bucking the institution or what's like ancient. It just feels oppressive because it's been there forever and you're like the newest thing ever.
Speaker 1:And the reality is like God has seen the entire scope of humanity. He's seen every person that exists ever, and I mean this in the nicest possible way. I'm saying it to myself, but everybody listening. You're not that special. You are special in the sense that Jesus said the love that the Father had for me before the foundations of the earth he has for you and you're going to feel it in your hearts when you read through John. Jesus said that. So what does that mean? It means that when God only had one son, the love that the creator of the universe had, all of that love that he could point towards one son, he pointed at Jesus, and Jesus wants you to be a participant in that. But that's as true for everybody who's existed ever as it is for you. So you're not that special and your ideas are not that impressive to God in the grand scheme of life.
Speaker 1:And so when we try to be this non-conformist prophet that comes to upend the tables and we're Jesus in the temple and we're going to flip tables and whip people with a whip. It's just like we're probably not that person in the story. We all think that we're David fighting Goliath, but reality in the story of David, we're all probably Mephibosheth. We're the crippled. Somebody dropped us down the stairs and we've been begging and then, because of who our father is, we have a seat at the table, and I mean that in the nicest endearing way, because there are some people who are innovators and you're brilliant, keep inventing, but you're not building a new foundation, and so global models work differently. Tim Churchward, razzle-dazzle us with your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, we went from orthodoxy to globalization, which is pretty powerful. I am just on the america thing um, one of the things that I love about america is that is, paul mammering says, um, that you can get off a plane in new york and think you can do anything. Um, the only flip side is that you, that you can't, and so there's there's this really interesting story. There isn't there, which, which is where anything is possible as long as you orientate yourself towards the thing that makes it possible, which, of course, is God. And so I mean I was talking to Paul about this but the thing with Donald Trump and Elon Musk being in the White House, whatever your political points of view are, they are mavericks. We have mavericks running the most powerful nation in the world and, whatever you think about that maverick nature of who they are, um is a very interesting time. Politics is no longer politics. Um, the, the most ironic thing to know. This might be controversial, but the most ironic thing to me about the republic is that it's created a monarch. But the most, the most fascinating thing to me about the, the, the, the, the setup of the republican uh, sorry, the republican but of the republic of america, was that we did not want a monarch representing god to us, except now you have got one. His name is donald trump, and it's very interesting, anyway, blah, blah, um. So, and he acts like a king definitely acts like a king, don't? He has a kingdom and he puts levies on people who who he thinks are his enemies, and anyway, blah, blah, so. So I think there's this really interesting narrative. If we, in terms of america, I think, if we, if we just go back just quick, can I start from the beginning of orthodoxy, is that right? So yes, so yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna go like, um, like, I'm just gonna.
Speaker 2:People don't understand the, the, the nature of the church. There was one church up until 451, um, ad, um. That church was the orthodox church, um, they were followers of the way. What happened is is that there was a council of chalcedonia in four is it gonna be really boring for some people, but it's really important? Council of chalcedonia in 451, and what happened is is that you now have the, the, the chalcedonian orthodox, and then the non-chalcedony, or the anti-chalcedonian orthodox, um, and they're like the syrian um, the syrians and the syrian orthodox church, or the coptic egyptian coptic church, for example. Those are those guys, then you have so, but they're quite fringe, they don't really exist out of in community with anybody else, it's just themselves. Orthodoxy continues to grow. It spreads all the way through, particularly to Eastern Europe, all the way into Rome, of course, all the way through to Britain. But what happens is that in 1054, I think that's the number 1054, there is the Great Schism. And that happens over this dogmatic. Is it schism, great schism? And that happens over this dogmatic is it?
Speaker 2:schism or schism. I say schism because I'm English.
Speaker 1:I'm right, but I think that there's you invented the language, we just perfected it, tim that's right.
Speaker 2:You've ruined it, bro. We forgive you and we will see you in heaven, but we will not high five. But when we talk about the great schism, or schism I say schism um, we need to understand that it's over this concept, concept of the filioque, which is, which is this um really quite um specific thing, which is does the holy spirit proceed from the father or does the holy spirit proceed from the Father and the Son? And the Catholic Church that splits believes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox think that's heresy, by the way, and they believe that the Holy Spirit only comes from the Father.
Speaker 1:So, to elaborate on that point, the reason why they view it as a heresy is because it automatically paints the Holy Spirit in a picture of inequality in terms of like his personhood, that he's subordinate to the other two. It creates a weird hierarchy versus the Trinity being one entity. Anyways, continue.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, and the idea that the Holy Spirit can proceed from the sun is as in the Son almost gives birth, almost. In that sense the Holy Spirit is just not right, but the Father as the creator. That is his dominant characteristic and so therefore makes it so. That's what they thought, but then obviously in 1517.
Speaker 1:We could do an entire podcast just on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just on that idea but go ahead, go, oh no. So I think it's. I did. I'm plucking the numbers out the air just in my head, but I think it's 15, 17. Martin luther pins his 95 theses to the door of wickenberg castle 92 feces 90, 95 theses it's your it.
Speaker 2:Sorry the way you guys pronounce the TH sound continue sorry, my bad, I'm just messing with you by the way, nepotism is one of the issues on his 95 theses, to go back to that point. But also, protestantism is born in England. It's born slightly differently, because Henry VIII doesn't like his wives and wants to kill them or divorce them, so he basically creates his own church. You've got another divide there, which is why you have the Anglican Communion outside of the General Protestant Communion. Then you have Luther, you have Calvin, you have Zwingli. Then out of those guys, by the way, luther is a massive anti-Semite. Calvin orders people from Switzerland to go and kill the Catholics in France.
Speaker 2:So we've got these very interesting people who are in charge of this movement, but brilliant minds. But then we also have this very interesting narrative there where, because it's Protestantism, there is a protestation against many, many versions of itself, which is why you then have Baptists or Methodists or Lutheran or whatever it might be, and they're cultural reflectivities of, or cultural reflections rather of the places where they grow up. But there's lots of divorce, there's lots of Protestant protesting against the hierarchies that be to the point where basically the most successful forces in churches have been house churches, because they have gone from completely um subjects to the traditional established church to being subject to no one except themselves, and not just um, not just um scripture. So so there, but also um holy spirit speaking to me, and I will guide these people as the self-elected or democratically elected, sometimes leader which we know that the, the, the churches, are not democracies, they're theocracies. God puts people there anyway.
Speaker 2:So we have this big, long history and what I'd say is that, um, there's, there's a very interesting story for me in this, which is where I actually see pentecostalism, charismatic pentecostalism, as the natural heir to original orthodoxy. Um, that's what I view it as, in fact, my phd is going to be about this, particularly in the arena of worship. Um, and so I think that pentecostalism is actually re? Um refinding liturgy, just in a very modern way, and what's really interesting to me is that is that, as you think about how orthodoxy runs, the liturgical nature of the church, the divine liturgy that takes three hours you're not allowed to sit down in orthodox churches, there are only, there's no pews. You have to stand for three hours in those services and you have to go on the journey. You go to church two or three times a week. You have to celebrate the feasts. You're absolutely in the church.
Speaker 2:What the orthodox church would say is that charismatics sorry, catholics, protestants of every denomination are not the true church. They're not real. So the only way that you could be saved is in the orthodox church, which holds to the true teachings of christ that has been handed down from the apostles and through the early church fathers into the mid-church fathers and to us now. And so we have this really interesting thing where orthodoxy is preserving the the it perceives to be the reality of all of the teachings of Christ, and outside of that you cannot be saved. So they wouldn't believe we're saved. For example, most orthodox people wouldn't believe we're saved.
Speaker 1:Until we go through confirmation and take First Communion within the what's their protocol? That's a Catholic protocol.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what they say is you're a catechumen. So, if you want to, it's called a catechumen, where you get catechized by the church, by the Orthodox Church, and what that means is which, by the way, is absolutely wonderful, it's a wonderful, they teach you very, very deeply. It's not like hey, come give it. So if you just imagine this, our church backgrounds are come to the front of church. Give your life to jesus. You're fine, you're in congratulations. Crack on with your life, for the participation trophy straight absolutely.
Speaker 2:You could go to a four-week course. They'll tell you the difference between the chapter verses uh, verses of the bible and you will be fine. And whereas the orthodox church are like that isn't salvation, orthodox Church are like that is not being saved. Salvation is a process, not a moment. So they would say salvation and sanctification are part of the same journey, because they would believe that salvation, sanctification, perfection and becoming one with God are all part of the same journey. So you have to start that journey off by being catechized into, not your experience of god, although that is a major part of orthodoxy it is into the teachings of the church, because in the teachings of the church is the logos incarnate, the word incarnate which will change your life and save you. And so what they believe is that then, after a while, you go through a process of Christa formation and then you go through baptism. In the Orthodox Church they baptize you three times. They go one, father, two Son, three, holy Spirit, because the Trinity is equal and they're very clear about that.
Speaker 2:The Orthodox church spent the first 700, 800 years of its existence fighting for the trinity, and so in the orthodox church it's very clear the trinity is, is the most is. The is the central doctrine of how you worship after the baptism. It is the beginning of your journey of perfection. It's the beginning of your journey into theosis, which is becoming one with god, becoming as god. So athanasius. So athanasius said god became man so men could become gods. So it's a very important theology of theosis that you actually become with god, you, you, you, you. You become one with him one with him, yeah, one with him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't become god himself, you can't participate in his essence because he's transcended, but you can participate in his energies, his activities, and that's how we become divine. Um, so so they would believe that we have divinity in us. So everything that we create, everything is a cultic expression of who we are as human beings, has divinity in it. The purpose of christianity is not to stand against something. It is to reorientate something back to its original foundation in christ and in god. So protestantism is the exact opposite of this. We stand against this and this and this and this, and this is why orthodoxy says unless it is very, very clearly demonic, which they obviously believe in, we are not interested in standing against culture. We are interested in reorientating culture. So, for example, let's take transgenderism or even transhumanism. So the idea that we want to become more like God is divine. It's a divine and innate desire within every single human being that we want to become like God, what they are. So, from orthodox perspective, what they are seeing in the transhumanism, the creation of AI, this understanding that we are creating a new form of intelligence, the robotic consciousness, is the poorly directed desire to become one with God and create and co-create with him. Why? Because that's what Adam did when he named the animals. When Adam named the animals, he was given the task by God to co-create with God by calling the telos the purpose out of the animals. So it's really important we understand this. So, instead of standing against something the Orthodox Church will say, it is the church's job in the teachings of christ, because this is what christ did. He didn't stand against anyone, he reorientated them. He said you have heard it and said I tell you. He said he takes what is true about the law, what is true about the jewish culture, and redirect it towards the truth of who the father is. And so we have this re-expression of the idyllic ideal, because there is perfection in walking with god. And so I've said a lot there and come back. I'd like to hear some of your thoughts on it.
Speaker 2:But when we think about the church, we have to understand that the american, british version of church is so, um, very esoteric. Very few people across the world believe that it is a correct version of church. Now, what? In terms of its expression, especially in terms of its salvation? And I'd say that actually there's something very important for us to understand there that we think because we live in this world of the same streams, the same charismatic, the same Pentecostal stuff. We see this really interesting narrative where we have the truth, the Orthodox and the Catholics and actually the Anglicans, but also, more than that, the various Eastern understandings. The way of Eastern thinking does not believe that in any way.
Speaker 2:It's also one of the reasons, just so you know, protestantism is one of the reasons why secularism is such a massive deal, because protestantism, at its foundation, um, made the and the enlightenment humanism, and then um the rise of the, of the scientific revolution in the enlightenment. It made the the thing that we worshipped, the deconstruction of ideas to prove or disprove them, and Protestantism did this as well, and so it opened the gateway to secularism. And now we are seeing fewer, fewer, fewer people in church because we opened the door to this is the Orthodox belief, and I mean, I think there's some truth in it to the door not just to questioning but to rejection and deconstruction. And so I think there's something very important to acknowledge that we are in the position where we are in in the west because of the process of reformation. It wasn't all bad, but it is a, it is an. It is a unconsidered outworking of the process of reformation.
Speaker 2:And so we find ourselves where we are, because in the orthodox church you like Church, the decline in numbers in the Orthodoxy aren't because people are disbelieving or deconstructing the Orthodox Church. It's because the Orthodox Church is too rigid or whatever it might be. So they're leaving to find other expressions, but they're not leaving God, as in the West, they're just leaving the church. It's very, very different. Anyway, I've said a lot there. Michael. You carry on, tell me what you think, anything that you pick out of there which is like oh wow, I didn't think of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you unpack a lot, I guess like I mean, I have conversations with individual people, so it's kind of anecdotal, but uh, I guess like hearing, because when I was in in germany I had to go a lot of these uh conferences where there was orthodox priests there and catholics and like nuns and um, we like are coming in. It was always like a strange atmosphere because we were coming in as like leaders, uh, from different streams and um, like, for example, the catholics were like, hey, we need, we need help like running events or we need help like like they would have like a like a free church, bring their we call. They don't call themselves protestants, because the connotation is like you're protesting something, there's like, no, we're just free, but but anyways, free church like worship band would come and like worship, like for the catholics at the catholic event for like for them. And then we had we hosted like an event where they would uh, I just laughed at it the entire time because there's this big archbishop that came. It was a big deal like they. They had this big like beer, like oktoberfest kind of tent and this guy came and uh was a big deal for them, like an archbishop in the catholic church. He gave his like little preach.
Speaker 1:And then the guy who I was working with like gave his like little preach and then, uh, he was the guy who I knew was like talking about unity and then I guess, like after the thing, like backstage, the arch, the bishop, like grabbed him by the arm, was like kind of like throttling him a little bit about what he said, because he talked about unity and the Catholics then served the Eucharist. Well then there's all these priests who go out like little minions to give everybody the Eucharist but they said, if you're not Catholic, we need you to cross your arms across your body, like this. So we know you're not Catholic and we're not going to serve you, but we'll pray a blessing for you. So it's like this whole talk about unity but then we can't even like uh, partake of of the, the body of jesus, together, and so, anyways, there was always, and maybe it's just like the roots of catholicism within western europe versus like the orthodox church has like stronger roots on the eastern side of Europe.
Speaker 1:I didn't get this. I'm not trying to offend anybody, I just didn't get the feeling of arrogance from the Orthodox Church. So it's interesting for me like I got it from the Catholic Church and that's just like the individuals who I dealt with. Those are like I could go off on a lot of different scenarios. There is a weird like bias towards like looking like we're I don't know looking down or like like patronization. I didn't get that from the orthodox. What I got from the orthodox is we don't have time for your like little games.
Speaker 1:It's like we're just trying to find god and like one guy was telling me, um, the holy spirit started ministering to him out of like some psalm and so he just felt like, hey, I won't move past this. And so for years he was just studying the psalm For years and he would just like refuse, because the word of God is eternal. And so for him he's like we just want to consume and consume and consume, and we want the new thing and we worship knowledge and the consumption. He's like what if I would just stay here with God? And do I think that there wouldn't be anything to learn after two or three years? Do I think that? And so like it's just a very different mindset or a way to like embrace, and the Western mindset is very much about consumption and regurgitation, but not really like what will god do to me and teach me if I'm here?
Speaker 1:And I think it was um rich mullins once said he's like the guy who wrote the awesome god song. He said I am not what I believe, I am what I believe is doing to me, and I feel like that's a very like orthodox thing, kind of to say uh is and and you're, you're, you're when you like. Talked about theosis. I mean this is a lot of these ideas have been very central to my journey. It's just I didn't have some orthodox person like over top of me like guiding me through. It's just like uh, I would read through, like uh. Authors like Brendan Manning and there's some other people who they talked a lot about mysticism, which was always this kind of. When I think about mysticism, I think about like the mummy, the movie the mummy of Brendan Fraser and like something like magical or whimsical is happening Just really quickly on that point.
Speaker 1:The Orthodox are definitely mystics and mystics and I think that's why Pentecostalism is the inheritance of Orthodoxy, because I think we're all mystics. That's what we're called to. What I found is initially being introduced some of the stuff that Bill talks about of the way he's unbelievably Orthodox in some of the things he does initially, I got introduced to some of the things he was teaching back in 2008 and I just never heard anybody.
Speaker 1:Some of the things he was teaching was back in 2008. I just never heard anybody talk about the gospels like this. So I like was. And then as you get into anybody, like anybody who's a teacher, a pastor, author, whatever they open the door for you. So, like I got into Lewis, but Lewis actually opened the door to me for Tolkien. Or if I start listening to Jordan Peterson, he opens the door for me to Carl Jung. So these people open doors. And so as I go down the rabbit hole, uh, where I got hyper fixated on was in john 15, 16, 17, where there's a really peculiar kind of theology that jesus is giving to the disciples before he goes to the cross. Paul, uh, builds off of that theology. It's always fascinating for me.
Speaker 1:I know people personally who hate Paul. They think that Paul hijacked Christianity as a movement and that his theology is bunk. He was a self-hating Jew. Some people even believe that Paul intentionally hijacked it. Basically, he's like oh, if I can't stop this movement, I'm going to get into it and manipulate people. If I can't stop this movement, I'm going to get into it and manipulate people.
Speaker 1:They have really fascinating theories where they just don't want to accept that what Paul was saying about our identity, theosis, what you're talking about, wasn't a Paul idea. If you believe that, then you'd have to reject what Jesus is saying when he said I and the Father are one, as I and the Father are one. When you see me, you see the Father because I'm in him and he's in me. And as the Father and I are one, you're going to become one with us. When he talks about when I be lifted up, I'm going to draw all men to Myself. When he talks about wanting to reconcile creation as well to God, reconciliation means to break separation and to restore the form of relationship. So there's this Protestants would accept okay, I'm a servant of Christ, I'm the bride of Christ, I'm a friend of Christ, maybe, and I'm a son of God, daughter of God, something like that. But what Jesus is pointing to here is what you're saying is a oneness with God, where you're actually sucked into it, like Protestants would say something like I accepted Jesus into my heart, which Orthodox people would freak out. They're like what does that even mean? But it's like Jesus saying the Trinity, not just Jesus, but the Trinity is going to suck you into themself and so I'm going to absorb you into myself. And so, like, when you read through that, that's what was being laid out.
Speaker 1:And so for me it created a crisis, because I was always in, uh, performance and relationship maintenance mode and a lot of it had to do with my relationship, my parents, fundamentalism and a lot of this. But it's like keep this, keep this, keep this. Okay, we're, I'm good with god. Oh, I messed up, I messed up, pray a little bit and then get back on this level and it's like I was trying to maintain something that, uh, basically, if I, if, if I could never, if I was never good enough to save myself, I could never be good enough to maintain it in the essence of like, uh, the way that I was trying to to get to it, but, um, but, and also there was no understanding of grace or no understanding of identity.
Speaker 1:It's kind of peculiar to me that you said that the orthodox people just think if you're not basically confirmed within the Orthodox Church, that you're not actually saved. And I say that just because, if I look through the progression of the corpus of the Bible, that there's like this faith that Abraham and them are maintaining before we get the law of Moses. When we get the law of Moses, it gets transmuted. It gets built upon, but transmuted into something different.
Speaker 1:And then we see the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and there was another group of religious leaders at the time I can't remember the name, but me and Johnny were talking about it where he said they didn't believe in animal sacrifices, and that's where John the Baptist comes out of. They saw the peculiarity of the animal sacrifice, but they were baptizing people and Jesus was in that school of thought. So you see these emerging schools of thought there, and if you just glossed over you would see that Jesus is embracing what was there but building upon it in essence of like. Paul would say like you know, if I make an agreement with you, a contract, but you die, then my obligations to the contract is fulfilled. The contract isn't. It's fulfilled, and so you move on. And so it's peculiar to me that the Orthodox takes the standpoint of like if you're not under this umbrella, god couldn't possibly move there. When we see God moving under different umbrellas, I could argue both ways.
Speaker 2:No, so just to speak to that. I mean I don't necessarily agree with that. What I'm saying is that the Orthodox believe you cannot continue on a pathway of salvation unless you're in the church. So let me ask you this, let me ask you this so salvation is not a momentary experience where you receive Jesus, so it's a very different version of it. Salvation is your journey as far as you can get to theotic expression of oneness with God. It's all one thing.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the way I and, like, you're schooling me a little bit, because some of this stuff this is the first time I heard some of this stuff but, like, from my understanding, it's like when scripture says the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all iniquities, it's in perfect tense. It means it was happening, it is happening, it's always going to happen, it's happening 24-7. It's a perfect tense thing. And so when I look at the scope of scripture, for example, it says the lamb who is crucified before the foundations of the earth. What does that mean? It means that this happened outside of time, space and matter. God brought time, space and matter into existence and then, in time and history, we can point to a place where God was incarnate. He died on a cross and resurrected from the dead to show us, to demonstrate to us, but it's always been happening to us.
Speaker 1:So, in that sense, when someone says I got saved back in 1934, it's like that's when I became aware of what has already been happened. That's when I was able to accept that I've been accepted and so, yes, I'm as married as I'll ever be. I can't get any more married than what I am, but that dynamic is changing. As we like, go through life experiences together and I am perpetually becoming somebody different. I'm always me, but I'm perpetually becoming somebody different. So this, this union that we get sucked into, uh, for me it's kind of like Dad's like oh, you want to do life with me, I do.
Speaker 2:And that's why Adam and Eve are the great examples of marriage. Sorry.
Speaker 1:But I guess my question to you is because the Catholics would just say you can't accept Christ and not his church, you can't separate it. And what's implied or inferred by that is you have to come under the submission of another person who is in this institution, who is going to tell you what to think. And I think that's where the rub is. It's like we would say anybody who's following Jesus, who's like seeking Jesus as Lord, would be a believer. They're saying like the Catholics would at least make the concession Tim, you could be saved, but you're probably going to go into purgatory. Some of them would say that You'll go into purgatory probably, uh, maybe not, I don't know like it just depends on the catholic talk to, but just to outright say oh sorry, I'm just thinking out loud yeah, so, so, so, let me, can I start from the beginning?
Speaker 2:so so, let's just go so so adam and eve um, they're created. Oh man, I don't know where to go with this. Uh, there's so much stuff here, because the other thing about the Orthodox Church is that symbolism is a major part of their understanding of theology. So Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1:let's start here. God says to them Do you know an Orthodox person who we could bring on here? Yeah, sure, if they'd be open to it. I'd love to bring somebody on who's like, because I just feel like if I was an Orthodox person, I was listening to us talk about this. I'm like, oh my God, these guys, you know, like I said, some of this stuff it's first time for me.
Speaker 2:And I think the real issue is the definition of salvation, of salvation before us, but. But yeah, in terms of that stuff. But I think, um, I mean, if you want to listen to, if you want to listen to this podcast, there's a there's a podcast called the orthodox ethos. You'll find a lot of this. I've listened to a lot of that. So, first off, on there, I mean, you're right, probably it's like some guy who's been orthodoxy all his life. Um, because I'm coming at it from an academic perspective, because I'm studying for my PhD, as opposed to an experience that lived part of it.
Speaker 1:There's like several Instagram accounts I follow, like Orthodox dudes, and it's always like kind of critical stuff that they're saying, but they have like all the good insights. But that's basically what he said. He said a lot of people will come like hey, I want to learn about the service, but we're coming like give us data, give us theology help me, help me so, and that's what's massively different.
Speaker 2:Because, because, because we would approach orthodox church and say how can you help us understand you? And they're like no, no, we, you, you have to come and experience. So, for the orthodox theology is not an academic pursuit, it's an experience. You cannot be a theologian unless you've experienced god, and which is powerful. Let me just, let me say this just on the theosis bit. Is that right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, sorry I keep interrupting you, I'm just excited yeah, yeah, straight, and and I and I think and hear me like I might come back to you in two weeks time ago, oh man, you know, I read something else and actually, like max was the confessor, I misunderstood what he he said, and if we do that, I'll come back to you. But I think one of the big things around the theotic nature of human beings is number one you have to understand that we're created as man gods, right so Adam is created from dust and, by the way, adam means mankind, not man, human man, it means mankind, so male and female exist within him, so not within him, within adam, right so? So when god creates humankind, he creates humankind from dust and glory, from dust and breath, and so we are not created the same as just because the animals are created simply from matter, but we are created from matter and divinity. So we are God-men, we're man-gods in that sense, like if you're a Protestant, listen to this like your alarm bells are freaking, buzzing so hard right now, and I completely get that. But in essence, we are man-gods, like we are called to participate.
Speaker 2:I didn't know you guys were Mormons. Yeah, that's right, and actually what's really interesting is that the Mormons have a heretical teaching on this aspect of theology, which is why I mean I could talk about that if you want to. No, no no.
Speaker 2:Another rabbit trail for another time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:But basically that's why adam, as as representative of all humankind, male and female, um, not yet disunited, but together um, he, he actually speaks the names of the animals we said this earlier on and what he does is that he speaks out the telos, the purpose of those animals, and he co-creates with god. In other words, god trusts him not to create ex nihilo, as god did, but to create from within creation, the purpose of creation. So, so, that's really important. I mean there, yeah, I won't say that, um, that's really important to understand. So then, there's no, there's no helper, um, which is, which is, I mean, it's, it's fantastic. So, um, so the there's no helper found suitable, there's no partner found suitable for adam among all the animals. So god takes him, god takes woman from his rib right and she's called eve and she's called etzer, um, something like called gade or something like that. It's two words, etzer, and then another hebrew word, and that literally translates as the one who helps in meeting you in opposition, right? So the idea is that she is the creation that points out all the places where the human man can't see. So she brings to consciousness something that has not yet been conscious in adam. Okay, that doesn't matter too much.
Speaker 2:But then what happens is is that they are told you cannot eat from the tree of logic and evil. We could do any tree in the garden, but not to the logic and evil. Now what's really interesting about that is is that the serpent comes and says did god really say that? Blah, blah. And and what's interesting is is that is that eve says yes, otherwise we might die. And the serpent says this is the great lie of the devil, which you perpetuate in our culture over and over again. You will surely not die, um, but if you eat this fruit, you'll become like god.
Speaker 2:Now the protestant way of thinking about that is and you have heard this before is that that's the first lie. It's the first lie that we believe that we were not like God because we were like God already. But actually that might be true. But there's also something a bit deeper here, which is that number one the devil is casting aspersions on God's character, not just on our identity. In other words, god is a patriarch, he's controlling you, he's manipulating you, he is the oppressor, the anti-institutionalism, all this feminist talk about patriarchy all stems from this moment. And what's really interesting is that what the devil actually tempts Eve with is not the lie that she's not really like God, it is that she can shortcut how she can become more like God by eating from the tree of old good and evil.
Speaker 2:So here's the original purpose of humankind that we were meant to walk in the cool of the garden with the father to become like him. He wanted to teach us his ways, teach us his thoughts, subsume us into himself. But the human will desired not to go on the journey of transformation but to get immediate gratification for the transformation from a human into the divine. And so what happened is is that Eve rightly perceived that the fruit looked good to eat and having eaten it, her eyes were open, she knew she was naked, she gave it to her husband, etc. Etc. And then they hid from God. So what's important to know here is that Eve's desire to become more like God was divine. It was not put there by the devil, it was divine. So what the devil did was that he convinced her that the way to become more like God was to short-circuit the relationship that they could have had with him walking in the corner of the garden and instead will themselves, as Nietzsche would say, to power. This is why Nietzsche is such a phenomenal prophet mind, although he's very dark and nihilistic. The will to power is exactly what's happening here, the will to become like God, and of course we know that's what Lucifer wanted. He failed to usurp God and as a result of that, he now wants humanity to usurp God for him, on his behalf and destroy humankind.
Speaker 2:So we think about theosis, this understanding that we become one with God. The idea is that we become one with God through God's rule and law and relationship with him, not through what we can create ourselves to become more like him in our own will. And so theosis is this foundational story of what we are created to do and be, which is become one with God. So when we think about salvation, we think about it in terms of becoming one with God. We are saved into that process. We think, in terms of Protestant mind, that we're saved into heaven. That's not orthodox mindset whatsoever, at least in my understanding of orthodox mindset whatsoever, at least in my understanding straight. It's actually that you're saved into being heaven on earth and becoming as heaven did, which is why jesus said be perfect as my father is perfect. It's why 1 peter 4, he says partake in the divine, be partakers in the in the divine nature, because actually our purpose is forever to bridge the gap between heaven and earth.
Speaker 2:But we couldn't do it. So who did it? Jesus christ, the incarnate word logos, who died on the cross. That represented the joining of heaven and earth and the joining of man and man, or, if you would like, man and woman back into the full creation of who God called us to be. So the theosis is now made. Becoming one with God is now made possible by the incarnate Christ, by the incarnate Logos, who died, took on all sin, who went to the depths and then is resurrected and ascends to glory. So outside of Jesus, you cannot fulfill your purpose of becoming one with God, who went to the depths and then is resurrected and ascends to glory. So outside of Jesus, you cannot fulfill your purpose of becoming one with God. But not only that you can't fulfill your purpose of becoming one with God unless you also go through sacramental procession and sacramental transformation.
Speaker 2:Because, for the Orthodox, baptism is not symbolic, the Eucharist is not symbolic, the eucharist is not symbolic. Baptism is your gateway yes, I mean, I'm here gateway into the reality of salvation, and not only that. Um, the eucharist and the not. There's the eucharist, the transubstantive eucharist, the eucharist that becomes the body and blood of Christ is what you need to engage in heaven, on earth and continue your participation with the divine, and that is how you encounter theosis, that's how you engage in theosis.
Speaker 2:It's a very, very powerful theology, very, very different to Protestantism, very attractive to someone like me who is a bit more mystic than they are rational, although obviously I'm trying to process mysticism through a rational mind and put language to it. But I think there's something for me there that's foundational, because actually, in the Protestant world, we are told that our, that what, what our purpose is is. Our purpose is to bring people to know Jesus and to extend, of course. But our real purpose is to bring people to know Jesus and to extend, of course, but our real purpose is to reflect Jesus so perfectly that anybody that comes to us will meet him, anybody that comes to us will encounter him and actually creating disciples through that, by taking them through the journey of baptism, the Eucharist, marriage and in the church. It's very, very interesting. It's very fascinating, and so for me, I'm trying to re-navigate the entirety of my theology. Just studying for three months of a PhD. It's crazy. But in answer to that question, I mean I don't know if that answers the question, I don't know if that gives you any sort of understanding of that, but that, at least at this point in my mind, is my understanding of where we're up to.
Speaker 2:And I think the other thing is is that within the context of that creation story, we find the narrative, and I mean the details, are insane. So when Adam is first created, he is told that you can eat of every tree and plant bearing fruit that has seeds in it. But to the animals, you eat the plants of the field. Why is that important? Because we are the ones that can ingest life and recreate life as heaven, recreate the life of heaven where we go, recreate it, recreate how God wants to create it, recreate how god wants to create.
Speaker 2:But then the curse or the curse, the consequence of sin, is that now adam doesn't adam, god says you will eat of the green plants. So all of a sudden, outside of god and this becoming one with him by walking with him in the garden, we now no longer, until christ, are able to participate in consistently making life heaven on earth. Without, without him, we can't do it, which is why we now we eat the same food as the animals, and it's very, it's. For me it's fascinating. It's just, the symbols are very, very deep. Sorry, I've said a lot. Yeah you, what went off in your head?
Speaker 1:well, I, I well, I was just thinking about you were talking about, like bridging the gap, bringing heaven and earth whatever, which is what Bill Johnson bangs on about.
Speaker 2:It's what Pentecostals are banging on about. The whole point about Pentecostal worship is that you ascend the hill of the Lord, you meet with God in your death, in the death of self, in the worship of the King of Kings, and you come back down the mountain and you're released in the heavenly realms to go and change the world. It's come back down the mountain and you're released in the heavenly realms to go and change the world. That's.
Speaker 1:it's the same principle in the pentecostal worship saying I believe that the pentecostal worship is the reformation in modernity of the orthodox eucharist, but we can talk about that a different time yeah, well, I think the the expression sometimes gets hyper fixated, hyper fixated on itself, like it gets too, and like even Bill said, like the more Christianity interest in itself, the more relevant it becomes. And I think it's about a hyper, a hyper focus on certain expressions. But, um, uh, no, I was just going to say like and I have to wrap up here, I have a meeting I have to jump into, but I have like friends who are, who are Jewish, and I always like kind of stroke their egos a little bit, like, yeah, you guys are God's chosen people. You were chosen to bring heaven to earth. That was your whole deal. You had to bring heaven to earth. And they're like, yeah, and I was like thanks for giving us Jesus, so they brought heaven to earth.
Speaker 1:But to your point, then he's like as the father sent me, I now send you, and so I was a dispensator Of. You know, we see that the heaven was rendered open, the holy of holies, with the curtain was split from the top to bottom. There was a dispensation. I'm not, I'm not a dispensationalist, I'm just saying there was a dispensation, a pouring out of of another dimension and an invasion. There's an invasion of another dimension that's layered on top of our dimension and it peers straight through, and so Jesus is a bridge to your point of like. There's a plane of existence heaven, there's a plane of existence hell. There's a plane of existence earth, and we're spiritual beings that can bilocate into places and Jesus is opening up our awareness of that, our pathway to do that, and then we just become little dispensators of that as we walk around and reflections of that, which is what the guys in AI are trying to do.
Speaker 2:They're trying to open the door, they're trying to rip the door and bring in alternative life, to bring in an alternative intelligence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tower of Babel 2.0, dude.
Speaker 2:Straight 100%. And it's the desire to become God without God. It's the desire to usher in a new existence of intelligence and consciousness without God, and it's the replacement.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine? The second coming of Jesus has to happen and he has to come back as a warrior to help us fight synthetic robots like Terminators that would be a bit epic.
Speaker 1:Well, dude, it makes sense like, and he has to like, bring a whole army of hosts. Like he just rips a dimensional portal, cause, like there I do have to wrap up here, but like, whenever Jesus is meeting with and moses, there's like this theory about it that when moses was seeing god face to face, or like the burning bush, whatever he actually like it was jesus standing there talking to him. Uh, there, and same elijah is like, because jesus is timeless, like, yes, he was incarnate, but he just basically ripped a dimensional portal, was talking to him. So in the second coming, it says uh, behold, he comes right in the clouds, shining like the sun. Uh, at the trumbull's call, and every eye will see him, even those who pierce them.
Speaker 1:And so it's like this simultaneous exposure to this event that transcends time, space and matter that the people can you imagine? You're like, you're crucified, you're the guy with the spear, like poking his side, but all of a sudden the heaven just ripped, like, with heaven got ripped up with a crucifixion, right, imagine like, boom, he's not on the cross, he's up in the sky and like everybody's like witnessing it simultaneously. He's never existed, ever. And then he's like and then what's also not talked about is jesus. There were saints that got resurrected from the dead during the resurrection of jesus Like we just passed Easter, but there are people who resurrected from the dead with him walking around Jerusalem. But just imagine that that was like a foretaste. He resurrects all these people from the dead and he's like now we've got to go fight AI robots, guys, because they Anyways. This has gone like way off track. I think, like Orthodox people are probably upset with us, but we love you guys. Like to hear more.
Speaker 2:Please don't throw stones at us If we've got anything wrong, like tell us, like we 100% From our understanding. Like I'm just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:I just lost them, dude, any like kind of small shred of credibility or interest that they had as soon as I talked about Jesus fighting a holy crusade, war against AI robots, that like they're like. We're done with these guys. They're cooked. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, dude, we'll do another one, because we have to like kind of close this loop in a thought, but let's try to find somebody.
Speaker 1:Let's do transhumanism next time and let's try to find an orthodox person as a third wheel. Let's try to do it alright. Love you, buddy, love you, bye. And let's try to find an Orthodox person as a third wheel. Let's try to do it All right. Love you, buddy. Love you, bud, bye.
Speaker 1:May you remember the truth is not always loud, but it is also weighty. May you walk with the courage to examine what you inherited and the humility to see what still holds eternal value, and may your faith not only survive the complexity of this world, but be deepened because of it. If this conversation gave you something to think about, something to carry into your week, then I'd ask you to do one small thing Share it, send it to a friend or someone who's wrestling with the same questions, or someone who you think is going to be provoked by it. And another thing I'd ask is subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening whether that's on Spotify or Apple, apple or wherever and leave a review, if you can. Why? Because this trains the algorithm on who to show this to, and so it gets in front of people who are like you and who are like me and, most of all, stay with us.
Speaker 1:There is more to come and we are just getting started. I'm going to start multiple series with with people I have johnny gunta and tim church. We're going to start another series where we're going to unpack themes throughout. Like I said in the beginning of the podcast, give us some feedback, let us know, push back on some of the things that we're saying. It gives us more content to create and kind of wrestle with ideas that are relevant to you, the listener. Until next time, walk wisely, stay honest and don't stop asking great questions. Love you, guys, peace.
