Podcast Episode 160
Audio - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1249781/episodes/16318121
Video - https://youtu.be/xBMXww3kSII
Today I'm going to start talking about Eastern Orthodoxy. And the reason I want to talk about it,
is because I've heard many, stories at this point over the last few years of young men being drawn to more kind of high church. When we talk about high church traditions, we obviously don't mean like Boulder high, like a weed church. There was one of those in Boulder for a while. We mean a high church, meaning a high, high liturgy rather than low liturgy. If you think of liturgy, I kind of on a spectrum, low liturgy is going to be more of the kind of either house church or in a Baptist. Not a lot of structure, but there is kind of a
Every church has a liturgy. They have a liturgy that it's just not as formal, whereas high church is going to be more Episcopalian, Anglican, get into Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, those kinds of expressions of worship. And so as young men have statistically become more conservative and young women are becoming more liberal, and this is just proven data at this point, there has been a draw for young men to find church home and more traditional expressions of worship.
And so I want to talk about what is happening, why it's happening, and why I'm making the argument I'm making, and then what we should do about it. That's kind of going to be how the episode flows. So the first, we're going to use Eastern Orthodoxy as a prime example, but we could also say this is true of Anglicanism or Catholicism, Roman Catholicism, and why people are being drawn to it, particularly young men. So I'm going to kind of reference an article. I'll put a link to it in the show notes from the New York Post.
I would share screenshare with you, but there's all these advertisements that make it look very, very ugly. So I don't want to do that to you if you're watching it online. But the article title is young men leaving traditional churches for masculine Orthodox Christianity in droves. Now, we'll get into if this is accurate or not. But they highlight a couple of stories, kind of an interview they do with someone who was raised Anglican and was wanting a more traditional faith.
And he realized that there was a lot of change. This young man's name is Ben Christensen. And, and so he grew up in the Anglican church and he kind of watched as a lot of the traditions went by the wayside, even in the Anglican church. So the robed choir was swapped out for a worship band. Lines were blurred on female ordination and long held stances on LGBTQ matters shifted. And so all that stuff for him was pretty changeable and
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it gave him a sense that the theological commitments are kind of changeable as well. So they go through his story and how he became Orthodox in 2022 at the age of 25. He said, it seems like most mainline denominations are hemorrhaging people. This is true. If you're still serious about being a Christian now, there really isn't much social status tied up in it. And you want something that has some heft to it. There's more of an awareness of Orthodoxy than there used to be.
So he converted when he was a younger man in his twenties. I actually just a side note here before I finished the article. So I was on sabbatical last summer in June and I got to go visit several churches in the area. I try to visit other churches just to see what's going on, see how God's working in different churches. I made a decision to go visit an Antiochian Orthodox Church.
I still feel bit conflicted on this. I'm going to get into the theology of the Orthodox Church later in the episode, and I'll explain a bit why there's a bit of a conflict there. But I had heard about this phenomenon. I just wanted to go experience Eastern Orthodox or Antiochian as it was, church. Some of my neighbors go there, so I thought I'd go see what it was like. And it was a very interesting experience. They're very warm people, hospitable. But in terms of how they approach their worship, there's very little like
hey, I hope you liked worship today, or, you know, here are the songs we're seeing in their own slides. There's literally like a 70 page handbook. No one tells you where you are. Some of it's done in a different language, but most of it was done in English at this particular Orthodox Antiochian church. And so they had a meal afterwards, almost like a Baptist potluck. They were very welcoming there. And I could understand what was going on, but there was iconography.
It was weird in the sense of it was very different than going to your local kind of mega McChurch. There's kind of a way that they carry their tradition that's very disinterested in like if you like it or not, it's like this is what the tradition says. And so in that way, a lot of the appeal for I think for traditions like Eastern Orthodox is rooted in a sense of like people feel ruthless and people want something that's just not going to change.
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So in an ever changing world, they're looking for something that's predictable, where they can go, this is way it's been done for thousands of years. I'm just going to stick with this, even if it's not like meeting me emotionally or something like that. And so kind of back to the article, they go through his story and how it feels more traditional to him. As the author of the article says, as more and more Protestant churches unfurl pride flags and Black Lives Matter banners in front of their gates, young men are turning towards more traditional.
forms of worship, survey of Orthodox churches around the country found that parishes saw a 78 % increase in converts in 20, in 2022, compared with pre pre pandemic levels in 2019. And so while historically, men and women converted in equal numbers vastly more men have joined in 2020. I'd like to see the total numbers Orthodox, the Orthodox Church in America still isn't that big. So I don't know, you know, how big and of course, they're they're kind of like
they call them fathers and patriarchs and that kind of thing. They're talking about, you know, it's massive. It's kind of almost this revival, all this kind of stuff. And it's it's a lot of men is what they're seeing. The person they interview Father Josiah Trenum, lead St. Andrew's Orthodox Church in Riverside, California. And he explained that
it's more it's a more masculine appeal to people. So the feminization of non orthodox forms of Christianity in America has been in high gear for decades. He explains, men are much less comfortable in those settings, the settings he's referring to being most churches that are more female centric, have emotional songs, swaying uplifted hands, eyes closed and ecstasy, all this kind of stuff. And they voted for their feet, which is why their minorities in these forms of worship, our worship forms are traditional and very masculine. And that's from
father, forget his names, kind of quote. Another 17 year old talks about named Elijah Wee. says Christianity in North America has become extremely emotional. He was raised evangelical. Going to evangelical worship services, I found it to be like an emotionally driven rock concert with the lifting of the hands. He said he was attracted to orthodoxy because it's more traditional and masculine. He said it appealed to him because of how orthodoxy is static and it was steadfast.
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I generally do prefer something that is more traditional and has an ancient feel to it. Another guy, they talked to no, it's still we modern. He says modern Christianity has become very watered down. People go to church on Sunday, they sing a few songs, they listen to an hour long sermon that feels more like a TED talk. And they go home and they just go on with their lives. And so the author goes on to explain he kind of connects Jordan Peterson to this. So it's a very interesting article.
Bailey Mullins grew up Baptist in South Carolina at 26. It's ritualized, it's dance, and it's not the words only, it's the architecture, the images, the history, you're participating in it. He began to have questions about religion in high school and college when he noticed many mainline denominations were getting co-opted by politics, fracturing into conservative and liberal branches, and getting distracted by cultural debates like LGBTQ issues. And so I wanted to be, he says, I wanted to be somewhere that was stable and wasn't going to change. It felt very ancient.
that was not something I experienced elsewhere. So this is not news to me necessarily. I mean, it was initially a new story, of course, it may be news to you. So what I want to do is kind of explain what's going on. Obviously, I kind of mentioned men are becoming more conservative, they're looking for more traditional expressions of worship. I'm more interested in why is it happening? What's what's going on there? They highlight some things these these young men and they highlight some observations they have.
But this is kind of within my wheelhouse of my research in terms of phenomenology and religious expression and religious experience. And so I wanted to talk about it on the podcast because I think there's a lot more going on than a lot of people are talking about. There's a lot of cultural factors that are that are pushing young people to look at more traditional forms of worship. There's a great deal of disenchantment as people feel more isolated, more disconnected from one another, lacking community.
there's individualism that's run rampant, where kind of the sense of self is lost, because we don't have a bound set of relationships, or we feel duties and obligations. And people are naturally God has put eternity on the hearts of men. And so people want a sense of the sacred and divine when they go to Lord's Day worship, when they go worship the Lord, they're not looking for something that's common.
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and it's the same thing they could experience at a concert they go to, they're looking for something that's other. The church in the last 30 years in America has been especially heavy on communicating the eminence of God, meaning God being close to you, being near to you, being your friend, but it has been poor on the transcendence of God, meaning God is other. God is not you, you are not God. And so as the church kind of
whether it's mainline or just evangelical churches in general have emphasized the eminence of God kind of Jesus being your best bud. They've they de-emphasize the kind of transcendence. Why? Because the transcendence is immediately gives people a sense of like judgment. And it can be off putting to people who are very therapeutic and want to experience pleasure in life. And so what's the way that they think to reach people with this kind of eminence framework that Jesus is is just like you.
He's your best bud, he can give you a sense of like, I'm a normal person. Whereas the transcendence emphasis gives people a sense of guilt, a sense of fear, all this kind of stuff. And as the church has lost the ability to articulate that well, and not just articulate it, but emphasize it even in their worship practices. A lot of people are turned off by it at this point, because they see it as just another kind of franchise model of the church. That's just kind of pandering to felt needs.
And so I want to highlight an article I wrote for American reformer called A &W Church. Now this title was not a reference to the root beer chain actually have great memories growing up with my granddad and going and getting root beer, root beer flows from A &W. But that's a story for a different day. It was not a reference to the root beer chain. It was a reference to a Lana Del Rey song called A &W, which stands for American Whore.
And the reason I titled it that is because Lana Del Rey is thought to be kind of this right wing figure. I have no idea if this is true. It's in the lore. It's in the literature out there in some niche circles. You know, I've tried to convince my wife of this, but she still doesn't enjoy listening to Lana Del Rey. But, you know, I titled it A &W Church. And so I wanted to read through this. It shouldn't take too long to read through. I try not to write articles that are too long. I was actually surprised that they published it as just the way it is.
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In fact, you'll sense my wow factor as I read it because it's fairly spicy. I expected them to kind of tone it down for me. But the editors at American Informer were very permissive with me on this one. let's read through this. The subheading is the American church has not resisted consumerism. It says starts, no strategy is more central to the leftist bleats, Craig.
than the deracination and destruction of the unchosen bonds such as family ties, our cultural heritage, and the common way of life of the American people. Once you alienate man from himself and his people, he quickly succumbs to the total state. He will believe lies so long as he can feel the cold blue glow of his pixelated screen. A fundamental way the left has accomplished the deracination and alienation of the American people from themselves and their roots is through mass-scaled consumerism. No.
In and out coming to your Texas town is not a wonderful sign of progress. It is a sign of just how bad things are. Rootlessness is the goal. In particularity is in the way. However, the average American consumer does not think this way. For them, the convenience of consuming foods and products from foreign cultures is very in vogue and cosmopolitan. This is the end goal of the left. A ruthless people free from unchosen bonds. No longer do we have regional cuisine.
go to your local Trader Joe's and eat the same beans as everyone else you rub. The average American's rootlessness has produced a sad state of affairs. Children move away to college. At best, they can find a spouse from a different location often and get a job in another location far from home.
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Then they can attempt to plant roots in this new local economic zone, but are frequently moved to another economic zone before any relationships can form. If statistics are to believe 60 % of evangelicals never returned to church after college. Before they know it, they've drifted far from home. Depression and anxiety are salved by mass produced happy pills by corporations spending billions of dollars, add dollars on the very same devices that promise freedom, but only make us more isolated and disconnected.
Rootlessness is now a blessing of liberty and the way of life for many young evangelical Christians. The church has not resisted this mass market rootless consumerism. In fact, it has simply given itself over to managerial Christianity. Now you can go to your local life Baptist church in 12 different states, piping in the same sermon and music.
You can turn on the radio and listen to positive encouraging music that your worship band will knock out of the park next Sunday during the worship experience. Did you miss church for the fourth week in a row because you just had to get brunch with the girls? Don't worry, catch the latest worship experience on your phone. In this religious climate, the youth are looking for something more rooted. The rootless American has tried to call us a mappolitan buffet and is still hungry. Many realize that this is no life. In fact, it seems the entire world is anti-life. Where can these rootless people find roots?
It is no wonder that younger generations are flocking to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Evangelical churches often have the temperament of a desperate woman or a pick-me church looking for approval from outsiders. The American evangelical church reeks of desperation. Like a prostitute on a street corner, they adorn themselves to look pleasing and for the right amount of attendance they aim to please. However, churches aiming to pass down the tradition have the cool indifference of a man who says, take it or leave it, this is who we are.
This is the self-assertive, unbothered posture of many high church traditions. You are welcome to come, but they care little if you like it. In fact, you may not even be able to sing along or clap your hands or kneel at the right times. There may be words you do not understand and remain unexplained by the pastor. That is not the point for them. The point is to transmute their tradition faithfully. They are aiming for rootedness. Unbothered by your ignorance or displeasure with their teachings, they will still welcome you so long as you don't mess with the tradition.
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A church that is hospitable and yet confident of its own identity and tradition is naturally attractive without trying to be. But even if it was not pleasing to degenerates, since when did the marketability of the gospel to the lost become the litmus test for faithfulness? The fact that we have conceived of the church in terms of its attractiveness to the world is, how do they say, problematic. On the other hand, a church that seems like it would change its very beliefs and traditions for you to join comes across as a desperate, needy,
and clingy church because they are. This is the disposition of the Pikmin McChurch that preaches on felt needs Sunday after Sunday in their next topical sermon you don't want to miss. The American evangelical church mainline or otherwise, whose reason to exist is more lost people, is more akin to a whore spreading her legs than the bride of Christ adorned for her betrothed. The American evangelical church has become an American whore. For the right amount of money, your only fans girl will make you feel a certain way.
After all, what is more important to the American consumer than feeling a certain way? Rather than resisting this descent into whoredom, the American church celebrates it. Go to your local OnlyFans church right from your phone. If anything bothers the youth of our nation, it is inauthenticity. You can smell a sleazy sales gimmick a mile away. For them, the church desperate for you to belong before you believe is not compelling. In fact, it's a major turnoff.
Churches constantly seek to pivot and perform just so that lost people will darken their doors. How pathetic! Where is our sense of propriety and decency? Are we that far gone? The lost are not looking for a church that is insecure regarding its own tradition. They're looking for something stable in a rootless world. They're looking for clear teaching that is timeless, applicable, and rooted in a particular way of life. What could be more compelling to a rootless people than a church that says, here, come and be joined to the vine?
The Church offers to all people to come and find life to the full, but first you must die. Fundamental to that death is our consumer mindset. There is no hope that these rootless people will find the true vine if we are ashamed of our own roots. Much of the Church's capitulation today is grounded in the false idea that the Church's primary purpose is evangelism or saving souls. This was seen most recently when Bruce Frank of the SBC said, and I paraphrase,
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We must care about saving souls more than our doctrine. When saving souls becomes the predominant mood of the church, younger generations see it as Wade Stotz puts it, a multi-level marketing scheme. The church no longer exists as a faithful bride, but as a platform for saving souls. No wonder the church caves left and right by seeking to maintain a market share. When the church is reduced to a platform, entering it
Entering into service in the great marketplace of ideas, it becomes commodified and weak. Rather than transmuting the particularities of the tradition, American evangelical churches will do anything short of sin to reach the lost. That boomer mind virus has run its course, and now we're left to pick up the pieces in the ruins. Yes, the church cares about the lost. Evangelism is important. Go and share the good news of Jesus Christ. But even more, guard the faith and make sure your children are raised in the nurture and admission of the Lord. We can do both.
But the grave error of the church has been front loading evangelism and keeping doctrine and tradition back in the warehouse. For our nation, the church must be unashamed of the truth of God's word. We should not be embarrassed about one jot or tittle. Instead, we should trumpet the word to the world. No more blushing about the Bible. Out with the sloganeering and gimmicks. Preach the whole counsel of God's word. Raise your children as confident Protestants, knowing the particular distinctives of their tradition. Give them roots.
No son, we're not just Protestants. are Baptist. Give your children the faith entrusted to you. Guard it fiercely. The world is starved for the word of life, the bread of life. They are starving for spiritual nourishment and commodifying your church is not going to give them the food they need. You'll lose both the next generation and the one you have. So obviously there's some spicy content in there that
I'm still surprised they put in there I stand by it. I think it's, you know, fun, and true, not just fun, but true. Because I this is the problem I see most churches will bend over backwards for a lost person to show up. And that includes changing their worship style, changing their tradition, changing their doctrine, muting truths in God's Word in order not to offend the lost. And so it's very disgusting to me, I find it very off putting. And it's no surprise that
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young people are off put by this as well. I think they they view it as kind of gross and commercial and like it's a it's a gimmick. People are tired of feeling like Christianity has been pitched as a bait and a bait and switch. A lot of Christians behave as if you know, they're just normal people like everybody else and they're just waiting for a crisis to hit someone else's life before they share the gospel and I feel that that's that's pretty cruel. And I don't blame people for feeling kind of preyed on in that way.
Because you would you would hope to be able to share the good news of Jesus before somebody reaches kind of rock bottom People can know Jesus before that and I I would hope that they would So the way I'm arguing about this Is that people are drawn to religious tradition less from doctrinal position precision of that religious tradition and more for what? We'll call certain vibes because most of us don't like aren't
raised in a sense of like a lab, where we get certain doctrinal matters kind of sorted out, and we reach certain conclusions. And then all of a okay, which of these options denominationally or church tradition, church tradition wise, matches my doctrinal kind of, kind of niche topics, most people are drawn to kind of churches based on relationships and vibes.
And so we could discuss this as a theological problem. And I think there are theological problems. We could do that another episode if we want. For example, we could get into the controversy between the Eastern and Western Church over the the Phileo clause, or we get into papal authority, we could get into kind of Eastern Orthodoxy and and kind of its emphasis on the mystic and why that that's a different than the Western Protestant tradition. But that's, like I said,
we could make that argument. I'm not that's not the main argument I'm trying to make right now. The main argument is I'm sensing that a lot of people are drawn to a certain vibe, to a certain experience. And so in a way, they're still kind of giving themselves over to an experiential thing. In the Eastern Orthodox, that's what they emphasize, they kind of emphasize the mystical experience of, of communing with the Lord, and that kind of thing. And so like, it's not necessarily wrong, but
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they're still behaving the same way. And that they're kind of leaning on that I don't blame them. They're looking for something rootless or rooted in a ruthless world, something that's unashamed. But there is a bit of a problem with that. They're looking for people that are hospitable, but not not to a point where they're like, open borders church where it's like we'll do anything short of sin to reach the loss. They're looking for people that are confident in their own tradition.
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And so the question becomes, what should we do about this? Okay, if this if you agree with me up to this point, maybe disagree with me, but let's say you do agree with me that this is a challenge today. This is going on today. And the church should kind of take stock of why it's going on, then what should we do instead? And so I'm going to make several suggestions. One, I think we need kind of a renewed sense of Protestant identity in America, we need kind of a robust, unashamed Protestant identity.
I saw this all the time growing up in the 90s, where churches would remove a Baptist from their logo left and right because it was seen as a turnoff to lost people. So there there has always been a temperament, especially in the last 30 years, to remove any kind of semblance of tradition and opt for more generic things about our faith. And intentionally, so kind of the deconstruction stuff that we see in a lot of places actually, many times starts in the church, where they're deconstructing kind of their own tradition.
Another thing that I just wanted to make note of Eastern Orthodoxy is very un-American. I'm not saying these people are not Americans that are my neighbors. I'm saying that the tradition itself is very foreign to the American story. And so it's odd. I view it as very strange. I respect it. I understand it. But it's definitely a foreign religion in terms of its tradition. It's not
natural to the American people. Protestantism is more naturally suited to the American people in terms of religious tradition. The other thing would be an emphasis on liturgy. think liturgy, like I explained at the top of the episode, all churches have a liturgy. It's just whether it's articulated or not, and how they articulate it. But I think there's, with liturgy, one of the benefits with a more articulated and more formal liturgy, meaning there's certain prayers we read together, there's maybe
standing or sitting or kneeling or reciting all this kind of stuff. There's ritual, there's going to be kind of a fight against a more felt needs approach to ministry. So a lot of pastors are taught kind of a more felt needs market share approach to ministry in order to either reach the lost or grow the church or anything like that. And by and large, most American Christians are typically easily
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convinced that things are good at a church if it's meet, baptizing new people and reaching new people they assume, well, you know, everything must be fine here. When it when it may not be. And so we typically because we're Americans were raised in kind of that consumer mindset, we typically see like, anything that's up into the right as a positive thing, when that may not may not be the case always. In fact,
that's that's just an indicator. It's a lagging metric of things that are upstream, more upstream of leading metrics. And so with liturgy, though, it provides some grounding and it provides a sense of rootedness where every Sunday, this is what I expect there's an even we don't necessarily do this at our church, we're Baptist, but there are other traditions that will practice the church calendar. So there's a sense of predictability with, you know, people's personal family kind of devotional life and also the church calendar provides that kind of rhythm of
of things and you as a church, if you're not Baptist or non-denominational, you can still incorporate a church calendar. Every church is going have kind of a church calendar rhythms. Hey, every year at this time of year, we do this. so churches typically have a church calendar, but rooting that in kind of our historic faith can be really helpful. And another one is just how we talk about our faith, how we think about Christianity, how we represent the Lord God in our lives by loving him, by obeying him.
is that we should just have a matter of factness about our faith that's, that's unbothered. I think that too many Christians are bothered by what people will think of them if they said what they believe. And you don't even have to be like, if you're scared of offending someone, you don't even have to think of offending someone just be like, yeah, we're Christians, we don't believe that. That's not even like saying, you should repent of your sins, which I think you should probably tell them at some point. But that's just saying like, hey, we as Christians, this is our
this is what we do as Christians. And they're going to call you mean names, they're going to call you all sort of bigot, you know, misogynist, all this kind of stuff. And it's like, yeah, just okay. And so I think it's important for pastors, especially to have kind of a cool calm presence about their own church, and their own tradition they're part of. If you're a non denominational pastor, which is typically just Baptist, but you don't have the word Baptist, because somehow, that's a bad word.
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then you should just own the fact that you're part of the church, like not just your church, but other churches, and you should seek ways to partner with them. I think it's good to do that. I think it's fine to have partnerships outside of your denomination and you can have fun fights amongst brothers. And so there needs to be a way we handle and carry ourselves with our faith, where we kind of assume the center, we assume that what is true, what God says is true is true.
And we assume that God's ways are normal and the world's ways are very abnormal and backwards and weird. And so there needs to be a sense of like, hey, like, yeah, why, why wouldn't you go to church? Church is great. Instead of kind of this more apologetic mindset of like, yeah, I'm sorry for what the church has done. This is very like blue light jazz. If you remember that book, this was a very common approach with Rob Bell and like new videos, always apologizing, always embarrassed. gross fundamentalism, all this kind of stuff. And it's like, no,
Like stop, stop doing that. That's disgusting. No one's attracted to that. And the only people that are attracted to that are people who are already on the path to deconstructing the whole project anyways. What you want to do is know your own tradition. If you don't know it, go read one of your church confessions. If your church doesn't have a confession, ask them why they don't have a confession and see if they recommend any to you. You can go read the Westminster Confession. You can go read the London Baptist Confession. There's all sorts of church confessions. You could go pick up a book of common prayer.
can be helpful in your devotional life. Actually, all of the marriage vows we use in marriage ceremonies in our day, well, not all of them, because there are many pagan marriage celebrations today. But those are historically rooted in the Book of Common Prayer. We can get into a whole topic of Book of Common Prayer and the historical controversy over its implementation in England. But my point is that it can be helpful devotionally for you. And so I would just encourage you to have a matter of factness about your faith that's not embarrassed. Stop being embarrassed about the Bible.
There's nothing to be embarrassed about. You belong to the Lord God, Jesus Christ. He saved you. He died for you. He rose again. He's seated on his throne. And so we have everything to be joyful for, to rejoice in, and we can be confident. We don't have to be braggadocious, but we can be confident. And we don't need to be embarrassed about any part of God's Word. God's Word is always true and reliable. It is good for many good things in this world. And so I want you to be confident in your own tradition, especially if you're a Protestant.
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and not be ashamed because they want you to feel ashamed. That's part of the point is they want you to feel ashamed. And so I think this is an issue phenomenon to discuss because obviously I've written an article on it, but it's happening. And I hope that churches will take this more seriously, not by kind of like LARPing as Eastern Orthodox. No, just living into their own tradition, being confident in who they are and having a better presence about themselves that young people aren't going to be so disgusted by because it is fairly disgusting when a church like
sells itself to whatever the latest light lighting trend, or screen trend or, you know, now you've got Saddleback Church, I think has VR church. I mean, this is all very gross. It's very abnormal. It's not cool. It's not leadership. It's it's just giving out. It's giving yourself over to the spirit of the age the church, when you come to Lord's Day worship should be a unique experience in a ruthless world. And so that's my hope. I hope we can see many churches like that.
many churches rooted in our faith and maturing together as we seek to glorify God and everything we do and seek the loss to be saved.