Gavin Ortlund Wants You to Become (or Remain) Protestant

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Gavin Ortlund
So many people are looking for something solid right now because the world feels so shaky. And I think part of the way people can try to meet that need is even looking into history and even looking into searching for something ancient and stable and so forth. And so I want that my main message is, I want to direct people straight to the gospel and say Jesus Christ and His gospel is the answer.

Collin Hansen
I hear people describe themselves as Christians. Sometimes I hear people describe themselves as evangelicals, but I don’t hear many people describe themselves any longer as Protestants enter Gavin ortland, the prolific YouTube apologist, president of truth unites and theologian in residence at Emmanuel, Nashville in Tennessee. His new book is what it means to be Protestant, the case for an always reforming church published by Zondervan reflective now Gavin commends Protestantism as a renewal of the gospel in the church, a return to the authority of Scripture and a removal of historical accretions. You might wonder if it’s possible to commend Protestantism without inducing great anger and historically speaking, even violence, but have no fear, as Gavin is an apologist known for his clarity and charity, his willingness to learn from critics, even as he offers direct arguments against them, just like we hope for all of our fellows. With the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, Gavin reaches for the head as well as the heart. In his book, he writes this quote. This is the single greatest contribution of Protestantism to the Christian church. It’s insight into the gracious heart of God revealed in the Gospel, by which God offers to us as a free gift the righteousness we cannot attain through our own efforts. Well, Gavin joins me now on gospel, bound to discuss the best arguments, indulgences, persecution, and I’m expecting a lot more. Gavin, thanks for joining me on gospel bound.

Gavin Ortlund
Hey, thanks for having me. Looking forward to it. Alright,

Collin Hansen
let’s just start basic. Who’s the audience for this book? Are you hoping some former Protestants are going to come home?

Gavin Ortlund
That would be one benefit. But the main person I have in mind is the Protestant who’s struggling with what I call ecclesial angst, and that’s a phrase I use to describe someone who’s maybe they’ve grown up in a evangelical context that doesn’t have a lot of connection to church history. They’ve maybe become a little bit disillusioned with evangelicalism for various reasons, and then they hear arguments for Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or one of the non Protestant traditions, and they’re suddenly filled with anxiety about not being in the one true church that may go down to the roots of even wondering about salvation, or it could just be worrying about missing out on the fullness of the faith. And I actually have been staggered and amazed at how many people are there right now. I had no idea. I did not theoretically get here by thinking about this. I just, you know, felt this need as I’m on YouTube and I’m seeing how many people are struggling with these questions. And it’ll be fascinating to talk with you and explore why that’s going on and what’s going on. But that’s the primary audience that I’m writing for. I want to help struggling Protestants. I do hope it will encourage those on the outside looking in. Maybe it could persuade someone to become a Protestant. That would be terrific. That’s that’s a secondary goal as well. And then even here’s another demographic that’s kind of fascinating, even non Christians do show it more interest in these conversations than I expected. I hope they’ll experience Christians talking to one another in a way that makes them more interested in the gospel, not less.

Collin Hansen
Is this movement away from Protestantism a YouTube phenomenon? Is it a an increasing trend that you see? Because I don’t know if I’m exactly where you are in terms of that experience, but I can’t say this is something I see a lot of day to day. So is this happening sort of in the digital underground, or just help set the stage for us? Yeah,

Gavin Ortlund
it’s very difficult for me to get sort of hard data on that, and it’s probably true that I’m more sensitive to it because of what’s playing out on YouTube, to the extent that I can see things when I look at the global picture, more, for example, Roman Catholics are becoming Protestant than Protestants becoming Roman Catholic. But when I think about the YouTube picture, I have to say that this is a significant demographic. I mean, this is a huge number of people, social media and podcasts. I mean, this influences people pretty profoundly and so, yeah, so I don’t have hard data on how exactly big of an issue it is, but I will say that it’s enough people that it’s worth caring for them, trying to shepherd the sheep. I mean, I get emails all the time. Time from someone. They might say it might be a mom whose son has gone off to college, he’s become Eastern Orthodox, or he’s attending an Eastern Orthodox Church, and she’s saying, I know nothing about Eastern Orthodoxy. What do I do? And unfortunately, sometimes, because we’re not as aware of church history, we can be kind of low hanging fruit for the apologists of these other traditions. And you know it this is actually really in my heart too, because of our common love for cultural apologetics. You know, I actually think engaging church history is important as a part of that effort. And I also think once we, if we persuade people of Christianity, an immediate question that will come up is, which church do I go to? Yeah, what kind? Yeah. Jordan Peterson, right now, I don’t know where he is exactly spiritually, but I understand his wife may be Roman Catholic. I understand some of his friends are Eastern Orthodox. It’ll be interesting how that shakes out. But there’s lots of people like this that they may be sort of exploring Christianity, and these questions come up very quickly. So it’s a really important conversation. I think there’s enough people struggling that I think we need to try to try to help them.

Collin Hansen
Could be also Gavin That at the popular level, there’s much more movement for to toward Protestantism. But that that picture looks more balanced when you consider the kind of people who are looking for apologetics on YouTube. You know, more educated audience and just more interested in ideas and inclined toward answering these questions. Let’s talk to some of those people now. They may be listening, watching us, feeling like they want to become Roman Catholic, or at least they don’t have any good reasons why they shouldn’t. What’s your primary message to them is it don’t compare the worst of your Protestant experience with the best of what you see from Catholics, which I think is a good thing to say to people in that situation, or is it something else

Gavin Ortlund
that that is one very important point that I do try to belabor, but I will say what my what’s deepest in my heart, of what I want to share with people, and I’ll try to say this in a way that wouldn’t be that wouldn’t come across as condescending. In other words, I wouldn’t say this that this applies to everyone equally, but I do think that I want to say to many people that the answer to that ecclesial angst actually is not found through really technical theological and historical searchings, where you are going to finally find the answer after seven years of working through apostolic succession, and now you know where the boundaries of the true Church are, those theological issues are all important. But I actually think it’s a basic heart issue, an existential reality of resting in Christ. And I love to try to encourage people toward this without minimizing the differences, as though every disagreement always funnels back to this. But I do think a lot of people are here that they really need the testimony of the Holy Spirit to their heart, like our Puritan forefathers would speak of. They need abiding in Christ, and they need to know he through union and communion with Christ. That is where that deep sense of existential certainty will come from. So many people are looking for something solid right now because the world feels so shaky. And I think part of the way people can try to meet that need is even looking into history and even looking into searching for something ancient and stable and so forth. And so I want that my main message is, I want to direct people straight to the gospel and say, Jesus Christ and His gospel is the answer. Now from there, we also have to get into the particulars, and that’s why I’m trying not to minimize those. But that’s the main message. And then from there, you know, I think the three things you mentioned at the beginning are what I love to go through. I love to push against the idea that Protestants have no historical basis. I love to get into church history, and I find it fascinating, and I think church history is not a defeater for Protestantism. I love to celebrate the centrality and primacy of Scripture. I love the doctrine sola scriptura. I think it’s a noble and good doctrine and a true and healthy doctrine. And then I loved Protestants. Protestantism emphasis upon the wholeness of the church, not being restricted to one institution. So I think as Protestants, we can learn from Christians and other traditions, and I think we can recognize the church extending back through all 2000 years of church history in many different regions and places. I actually think Protestantism has a more capacious view of catholicity, catholicity, meaning the wholeness of the church, a more robust view of that. So those are three of the points I really hammer home. Well,

Collin Hansen
you argue that Protestants are more Catholic than Catholics. I think you should go ahead and explain what you

Gavin Ortlund
mean by that. Sure, Roman Catholicism in slightly different ways and with different emphases, claims to be the one true church. And so there is an what I call an institutional exclusivism. And that has changed over time, I think, in the modern era, especially since Vatican two, the Second Vatican Council in the 20th century, there’s been an over. Opening up in terms of the implications of that for salvation being found without and so forth. Historically, was much more shockingly restrictive in the medieval era, people are naive to this. Again, I want to you know, alert people to this. But, but still, there’s the institutional exclusivism for Roman Catholics, I have never had the Eucharist once in my life. You know, I don’t have a valid Eucharist because I don’t know. I’m not a part of a church with valid apostolic succession. So there is this institutional exclusivism that’s true for the other major non Protestant options as well, like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, they all have that restrictivism. Protestantism doesn’t claim that. And one of the things I try to do in the book is explain that the early reformers, they actually were pretty shockingly generous at being able to say valid sacraments salvation. They don’t just exist in my tribe or in my institution or in my group, but wherever Jesus Christ and His gospel is being celebrated, even if there are imperfections, there can there is the potential for a valid church. And I just think, especially today, looking back, that’s a much more compelling vision.

Collin Hansen
This question was prompted by a comment you made earlier, and I I don’t know if it’s fair, um, so we’ll see where it goes. When people convert to Catholicism, are they converting to the church or to Christ? I’m sure they would understand at some level. Of course, it’s both, but the way you’re talking about it makes me think that a lot of people are really drawn to what they see in the church, and that your response is, I really want you to focus first on Christ and then we’ll go from there. Is that accurate or not fair?

Gavin Ortlund
It’s difficult for me to evaluate, in particular cases, what a person may be searching for, but I do think that it is a temptation and something that we need to be alert to, that people can actually make one particular church tradition into an idol and put that in the place of Christ, and think this is what will deliver the ultimate this is when I’ll feel okay, like I’m really rooted, like I’m really okay. And Protestants, of course, can do this too. In the reformed tradition, we can think, well, I’m reformed, and that’s what makes me Okay, rather than Jesus or another tradition as well. So we can all do that. I think that does happen a lot, and I think we need to be alert to that. And again, it’s the wonderful, happy task we have to then tell people Jesus Christ and His gospel is enough for your every need, every corner of your heart will be fully satisfied in Him and in Him alone, he is all you need, and all Protestantism is for wherever it is a good thing is it is so situated toward that the things that I appreciate about Protestantism, historically and in terms of its doctrinal positions, are that, at its best, it’s really pointing us to the gospel with greater clarity.

Collin Hansen
These next two questions, Gavin, might be my favorite in the interview, if I might say so myself, what’s the best reason to be a Catholic, or perhaps the most compelling argument that you face?

Gavin Ortlund
I There, there. I could actually talk about this question a great deal, because as I’ve gotten into these issues, as I share in the introduction to the book, I’ve become more convinced that any kind of simplistic or dismissive attitude is really going to be unwise. There is, it is total sincerity in my heart when I say how much I respect many of my Roman Catholic friends. I learn from them, and quite frankly, their tradition does some things better than many of our churches, some of their positions on ethical matters, sexual ethics, contraception, procreation, even where I don’t agree with every detail, they have a robust tradition of thought that many evangelicals simply do not have in terms of liturgy and just the depth you know you think of the thomist tradition, with its rich tradition of philosophy, and how much they value these rigorous arguments for the existence of God and other philosophical arguments is very impressive. Some of the greatest philosophers in the world are are thomists and broadly Roman Catholic. And there’s just such stature. I mean, we’re talking about maybe the largest institution in the world, the Roman Catholic Church. It is over a billion people, and there is so much to it. And so there is this sense of grandeur that even just the sheer architecture of most Catholic churches, you get into it, not all, but many. There’s a sense that people get swept off their feet by the sheer grandeur and scope and size of this tradition and their historical depth. Their interest in church history is a strength, and again, one where probably, compared to American evangelicals today, they probably do much better in terms of just knowledge of church history, at least in many cases, though there are exceptions. So all of that combines to help us to recognize we’re dealing with a very serious and sizable reality here, and it needs to be treated with tremendous respect, with with an open heart, even while we cling to it. What I am trying to do in all my work in this whether YouTube videos, book conversations, debates, is try to find this balance of where we don’t sacrifice any of our convictions and we don’t compromise on truth, but we also show the requisite charity and respect that is honoring to Jesus Christ. Too often we have been dismissive, and actually is really easy to find terrible caricatures of Roman Catholicism among evangelicals, terrible caricatures. And we don’t honor Christ when we just lie about another tradition. So we want to try to speak accurately of them, even while we hold fast to our convictions. I said

Collin Hansen
it was my favorite two questions. So here’s the second question. I’m going to flip it around on you. Is there a Protestant argument where you think, I just can’t understand how anyone can disagree with this argument. This is such a clincher. How can anybody not see this?

Gavin Ortlund
Yes, there are. And I will try to state these. You know, try to think about that’s

Collin Hansen
another way of saying, what’s our strongest argument, but a more interesting way, because I will say I come from a very deeply Protestant family on both sides, Scandinavian Lutherans on one side and then the other side, a whole bunch of Methodists and Presbyterians. So I just there are people I do love history. You know how much love history? People who listen and watch this podcast know how much I love history. But whatever it is, I’m just not inclined. I’m the kind of person who, when I go to Europe and I visit Italy or France? I think the churches are pretty interesting. I’m just not drawn to them. So in some ways, I’m asking the question because, I mean, I wanted to ask the previous question because I want to know what are the most compelling arguments, because in some ways I don’t really understand them, and in other ways, I’m reading your book thinking, how can anybody disagree with this? So I’m just wondering if you had that, if you had that sense at any level. I’m just kind of trying to come clean as a reader of your book.

Gavin Ortlund
Yeah, no, I’m tracking with your thoughts totally. And I this is a regular experience I have where I have to ask, and you’ve been a great friend to me actually giving me counsel at times where I need to ask the Holy Spirit to really help me to grow in wisdom, to grow in my integrity and how I’m conducting disagreements. Because it is easy to become weary a little bit when you feel as though a particular point that you’re putting forward is being resisted unfairly and so, but, but what I one of the things that’s become important to me is to realize sometimes it’s really not the logic of an argument that is moving a person. They may they may have had a particular experience that is so profound, and or there may be social factors. And so that helps me to try to remember, to be patient in the process. The arguments are such a small piece of the pie, but the arguments that I find most compelling would be where there are what I call falsification events for the opposing side’s system. Yeah. So an example of this would be the seventh Ecumenical Council. And 787, if you just read through the acts of that council, they are, you know, it is absolutely unanimous in scholarship that those claims are just wrong. And I try to document that from the church fathers, the idea that icon veneration goes back to the to the apostles themselves. I mean, I don’t know anybody who really argues for that at a scholarly level. It just seems like an extremely laborious claim to try to justify. All the evidence seems against it, and yet, that’s a falsification event, because both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions hold nice. Year two is infallible. So that’s a real I mean, that’s an example the assumption of Mary’s another example I give where you have these basically a tradition is claiming infallibility with respect to certain claims that seem clearly erroneous. And to me, I look at and I say, This is why Protestantism is so great. We can admit the church makes errors after the apostles are off the scene and. Form ourselves according to Scripture, those kinds of events, to me, are very forceful.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I would, I would add there the Council of Constance. For me, it’s not falsifiable in the same way, but the level of depravity and immorality and division and mendacity is overwhelming to me, and that leads to my to my next point, which, of course, is the Reformation. The Protestant Reformation itself spent a lot of time in the book, perhaps a surprising amount for people looking into the book on indulgences in the 1400s and the 1500s and I’m wondering, why is it because Catholic apologists defend them? Just a note to readers, indulgences are still around you might you might want to explain that there, or is it just because you sense that readers don’t sympathize enough with the reformers and what they were actually dealing with in the church? Hence my comment there about the Council of Constance? Yes,

Gavin Ortlund
I think so. I so I do spend a lot of time on indulgences and on persecution, which was come up now here with your question, with reference to the Council of Constance as well, and for our listeners, they they will benefit from knowing that if they read the book, they’ll get more information about that, particularly in terms of the burning of Jan Hus. Let

Collin Hansen
me. Let me just go, because my next question was going in this direction. Let’s just merge them in here. I think it’s maybe the most controversial section in your book. Here’s a quote. What must be grasped is that Jan Hus execution was not a violation of medieval Roman Catholic theology, but it’s expression. This sounds shocking to modern ears, but it is true to history. So you can feel free to elaborate on that as well, but that’s where I was going, of course, with the reference to the Council of Constance. Yeah,

Gavin Ortlund
yeah. The basic concern I have in my heart here is as someone who wants to be charitable and generous and knows that it’s easy to caricature history. I went into my research about some of these topics, expecting that the truth would be sort of more complicated, and the good guys and bad guys wouldn’t be so clearly discernible. But sometimes you study history, that’s pretty obvious and and you’re confronted with evil that is so I’m going to use the word abusive. It is so abusive, both financially abusive indulgences I regard to be a form of financial abuse as they were functioning, especially as they were functioning in the late medieval West. Basically, this was a way of manipulating the laity of the church financially, and I explained that more in the book, but also for just physical abuse, physical violence. And I was, I’m a pretty sensitive person about those things. You know, anytime I talk about the martyrs, I end up getting choked up, and I don’t even fully know why a psychologist could explain that more than I could. I just really touches me the bravery of men and women who have been physically assaulted for their faith in Christ. Jan Hus is one of my great personal heroes, and I regard him to be simply a godly man, just plain and simple, pious, godly and theologically correct in his fundamental concerns against the Roman Catholic hierarchy of his time, and unbelievably courageous in his articulation of that. And I regard his opponents who tried and executed him by burning him alive to be treacherous and dishonest and malevolent. And so I think the reason I go into that in this book is I really think it’s easy to be naive and think, Oh, it wasn’t that bad. You know, it didn’t, it wasn’t really that bad. It was kind of some blame on both sides. And I think people need to understand just how dire the situation was. People will not appreciate why a a reform effort within the one true church, which is what I think Protestantism was an effort at reform, not at creating a new church, but reforming the church. Why that had to take place in the form of separation from the reigning power, namely the papacy in the West, unless they understand how much sin and violence was being defended at the highest levels of leadership. And so when I say, Who’s his execution was an expression of Catholic theology. I document that in the book in terms of the medieval theology of two swords. There’s the temporal sword and the spiritual sword. And basically, to put it plainly, the Roman Catholic Church claimed authority over the civil magistrate to and claimed a theology of the extermination of heretics. So basically, heresy is the worst thing. It’s worse than sin, and it needs to be stamped out. The body of sin must be put to death. That’s a quote from. Sermon the day of hoose was burned from Romans six. That’s how they applied Romans six, the body of sin must be put to death. So they they taught that heresy must be exterminated, and the the cruelty of it is is staggering, and so not out of I have no ax to grind really. I just want people to know what really happened. We need to know. We need to have historical information. And that’s not the things I’m saying right now are not really in dispute. They’re not really, you know, the scholarship is not 5050, on these things, they really happened. And I just think we need to know that today.

Collin Hansen
Now Gavin, we’re talking with Gavin ortlund here about his book, what it means to be Protestant the case for an always reforming church published by Zondervan reflective, I think Gavin, the most common argument against Protestantism I hear relates to Scripture. And Roman Catholics say that it took the church to recognize the authority of Scripture and select which scriptures were included in the canon. How do you respond?

Gavin Ortlund
Well, interestingly enough, I do. I have a video coming out on truth unites on Monday, in which I’ll be tackling this further. So I’ll give you a snapshot of it here.

Collin Hansen
It’ll be out by this as time. So if you’re listening or watching, go check it out right now.

Gavin Ortlund
Cool. So, so that might be of use if someone’s curious for a longer answer here, but what I recount there, and what I’ll summarize here, is that historically, Protestants have agreed that the church has a necessary role to play with respect to the Word of God, and that includes not only canonization, discerning which books are in the canon, but also protecting The Scriptures during times of persecution, proclaiming and translating the scriptures throughout the world. So the idea of the necessity of the church for the scripture, that is something we would agree with, but Protestants have compared that to John the Baptist as a necessary witness unto Christ. He plays a role his his act of testimony is important, but he is not of equal stature to Christ. And so likewise, the church is not of equal stature to the Scripture. She is subordinate under scripture, and she doesn’t actually need to be in order to fulfill that role. And so with respect to the canon of Scripture, you know, I give lots of arguments for this view. I argue that if you claim you have to be infallible to discern which books are infallible, then I think we can show that this may lead to some problems of an infinite regress of now, do you need to be infallible to interpret other infallible teachings? You know, we’re told we have a fallible list of infallible books, as though this was a great problem. But I think the same argument can be made for Eastern Orthodoxy having a fallible list of infallible councils, and I think for Roman Catholics, a fallible list of ex cathedra definitions from popes, because there’s disagreement about how many are actual ex cathedra statements. So they have the same kinds of problems in their system, I would say. But the deeper argument I make here is just from the history to show that basically no tradition had any sort of infallible mechanisms that were at play in the discerning of the canon. The Jewish people received the what we call the Old Testament, apart from any infallible mechanisms, and Jesus held the Jews of his day to that as scripture. And then in the early church, it was local councils and other events that sort of organically brought forth agreement about the New Testament over over a relatively short amount of time, totally finalized in the fourth century, most would say. But it wasn’t any infallible mechanisms. And so if someone says, no, no, you have to have some kind of infallible mechanism to determine the canon, I would say, here’s why. I don’t agree that that’s necessary. And then secondarily, I would just point to history and say, look, it just didn’t happen that way.

Collin Hansen
And a couple questions here with Gavin ortlund, this is a more contemporary question, though. It could go back to Constance and the Avignon papacy and three popes and that whole fiasco. How do Catholics account for their unity, which is a common apologetic explanation, the unified Church of Rome versus infinite permutations of Protestantism, you know, engaging in all sorts of embarrassing activities. But how Roman Roman Catholics account for their unity, when even their own reactions to the Pope today indicate the complete opposite of that?

Gavin Ortlund
Yes, I think this is a very fair point that we can make I do like to acknowledge that, especially contemporary evangelical Protestants, I do think we can acknowledge our own tendency towards splintering and fragmentation that’s a weakness in our tradition.

Collin Hansen
No doubt, no doubt.

Gavin Ortlund
But when we are told that an infallible Magisterium. Time is the antidote to that. I think it is fair for us to point out that even under the umbrella of an institutional unity, you find this vicious infighting and a full spread from sort of the arch conservatives to the progressives. And I think the current papacy is bearing that out and then even out, and then even people leaving the institution. I mean, the the huge rise of the of sort of state of a cantists or others. These are people who basically think that the church went off the rails with Vatican too, and so they’re like these ultra conservative groups that reject the current pope and so forth. That’s a huge phenomenon, massive phenomenon, and only one of several iterations of separatist groups leaving Roman Catholicism. So I think it’s just fair for us to point out, you know, actually the divisions that we see outside of Roman Catholicism are in kind, I would say, comparable to those we see within and even if we were to subtract Protestantism from the picture and just look at Christendom apart from Protestantism, I think we’d see all kinds and all manners of divisions. So having said that, I do think for contemporary evangelical Protestants, the primary posture to have on things like this is, you know, whatever we give the criticism, then get back to working in our own contexts, because we have a lot of work to do toward unity ourselves.

Collin Hansen
Last question, Gavin, where do you see the Catholic Protestant divide going next.

Gavin Ortlund
Fascinating to think about. I have wondered, you know, so just to sort of think openly with you, the current pontificate is perceived by many to have sort of liberalizing trends in and there’s a lot of anxiety. Most of the Roman Catholics I interface with are more on the conservative side of this, and so I feel the anxieties that that is creating. And I do wonder, you know, if that continues, what? What will that mean for the Roman Catholic Church? And it’s kind of interesting to think about that. And I think there, whatever, however that plays out, I think I will continue to do what I feel called to do, and that’s just give my life to try to direct people to Christ Himself. And so if we see, maybe, if we were to even see a further split within Roman Catholicism, it’s, I don’t think it’s out of the question to wonder if there would be another, you know, massive schism. It’s a big enough church, and it’s a church with enough tension, you kind of think of a big boat with a lot of weights on either end. You know that that could happen, but whatever happens, I think our task is to first of all try to engage charitably and seek friendship and have an open heart, and then to try to commend Christ and try to encourage people to put their their hope in Him alone, where so if that something like that were to go on, I think you’d it’d be an interesting question to wonder, how can we minister to those who are utterly disillusioned because they put all their faith in this system that ultimately, then lets them down and they see, I thought this was a divine institution. I thought this was the answer to all these problems, but actually, this is a man made system, and there, I think we need to direct people back to the Lord Himself and help people not, you know, discriminate between these human accretions that let us down and the true gospel of Christ, which is like a solid rock beneath our feet. So please jump in.

Collin Hansen
Well, I was going to follow up here. I’m wondering if there’s an inherent just basic tension within Roman Catholicism, which is the tradition and the universalism, the tradition of needing to be continuous, but the universalism meaning needing to be inclusive. I’m just not sure how you do both, not with a rapidly changing Western culture that the Roman Catholic Church obviously can’t control, nor can any Protestant churches control at this point in a post Christendom West. I’m just wondering if that’s tension that just simply can’t be resolved within Roman Catholicism.

Gavin Ortlund
Yeah, that’s a fascinating point. I think I share your thoughts about that. You know, one thing that comes to my mind, and this might be a helpful note to put out here towards the end, is the need for us as Protestants to be really engaging in church history. And I was just reading that the book that you guys very kindly at TGC asked me to review, called priests of history.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, from Sarah Irving-Stonebraker.

Gavin Ortlund
Yes, great book. But what, you know, my own personal takeaway from it at the end, was because I’ve been wrestling with, well. I’m I’m kind of more of my scholarly work is more in like historical theology, but I’m also interested more in apologetics. Been wrestling with that tension. But my takeaway from reading that book is those two fields are profoundly related. And I think engaging history, and I know this is something you emphasize as well, profoundly relevant for cultural apologetics, because so much of the modern world isn’t sort of of an anti historical posture, and there’s so many resources and that contributes to so many problems that the gospel then redresses. So we need historical retrieval and awareness to speak to the modern heart. So, you know, whatever is going on with Roman Catholicism, it’s a fascinating sort of example of how modernity is just completely changing the picture and but, but for us to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ in this context, I think we will do well, especially for people who maybe they’re converting to Roman Catholicism because they’re looking for tradition, because They’re looking for roots, and then there’s, I think, potential for disillusionment, but however we can reach out to those people. And basically what I want to say to people is the gospel of Jesus Christ itself is that ancient foundation for which your heart aches and yearns. There’s so much I can’t see, but that’s the one thing I know for sure.

Collin Hansen
The book is “What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always Reforming Church.” My guest here has been my friend Gavin Ortland. Check out the book and check out truth unites his ministry, and especially his YouTube channel, full of great stuff. And I think more than that is the YouTube channel that is most often commended and recommended to me, and that is a significant achievement, a great undertaking. Thanks for serving the church in that way and for writing this book. Thanks, Gavin.

Gavin Ortlund
Thanks a lot. Collin, enjoyed the conversation.