#164 | The Thrill of Orthodoxy, Pt. 1 | Trevin Wax

We live in a culture right now that prioritizes whatever seems immediately practical over what would be seen as doctrinal. You can say, love God and love your neighbor, but you have to at least ask the question at some point. What does love mean?

You've got to ask the question, who is my neighbor?

It's watering time, everybody.

It's time for Apollo's Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations.

Do the specific things that Christians believe really matter? I mean, lots and lots of people want to reduce faith. Follow Jesus, love one another, follow Jesus, love people, right?

As long as we have God, it's okay. Just God. Let's just talk about God. And, you know, while these statements about follow Jesus, love one another, let's follow God.

They are true statements, and in many ways they're very biblical statements and statements that the entire church, regardless of denomination, time or place, have agreed to. But the question is, how do we live them out? And who defines what we mean when we talk about Jesus, about love, and about a host of other issues?

Does doctrine even matter anymore? Or do the specifics we believe about who Jesus is and what he has done matter in our everyday real world?

Or are they just those boring things that we have to agree to so that we can get to the important stuff of having a better life? Or is it something just for the theologians, but it's not for us?

You know, lots and lots of people and lots and lots of Christians think that way, even if they would never admit it out loud. So how do we know where to go to understand Christian truth? How do we make it fresh and real for our everyday lives today?

I want to welcome back Trevin Wax to the show, who has written a book called the Thrill of Orthodoxy. And yes, you heard that right. It is the thrill of orthodoxy.

Now, orthodoxy means right belief, or as Trevin so succinctly puts it, what has been believed everywhere, always and by all. Not exactly something we normally think about as thrilling, even if we think it's important.

But Trevin tells us why it's both important and thrilling in today's conversation.

How we define it, how it connects to everyday life, what the heresies of today are, how Christian orthodoxy fits every culture, making Christianity the most multicultural faith there is.

So let's dive into the Thrill of Orthodoxy and if you want to partner with us water thirsty souls around the world to make sure that this type of content gets out to people, then we are looking for watering partners, those who want to bring the water of life to those thirsty souls around the world. And we want you to join our watering team. And it's as simple as that.

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Now, without further ado, let's get to my conversation with Trevin Wax as we discuss the thrill of orthodoxy. Happy listening, Trevin Wax. Welcome back to Apollo's Water.

Glad to be here.

Oh, you say that to all the podcasters.

Yeah, but I mean, I. It takes a little bit of courage to come back on a podcast.

Oh, okay. That is. You're very courageous to come back.

I mean, a little bit of courage. It depends on the podcast, but it's one thing to accept the first invitation, it's another thing to accept the second.

So have you ever had a third?

You know, I don't know. I. I think maybe, Yeah, I think. I think I've been. I think I've had a. I think I've been three times on Shane Morrison's podcast, the Upstream podcast.

Okay, okay.

Several years ago, and then the last couple. Last year or so. A couple of times. So, yeah.

Okay. Okay. Well, then, I mean, not that I wanted to be the first, but I appreciate the courage, I guess what I.

Should say, and I'm. I'm honored to get invited back because it's. Oh, well, always a sure thing. You're going to get invited back.

Have you ever just had people go, well, that was a failure. Have you ever had that?

No, I've never had anyone tell me that. I mean, I'm sure there might have been someone who muttered that under their breath, but I've never had that actually happen in the podcast itself.

So how many podcasts do you think you've done?

Oh, goodness. Wow.

I mean, over the years, if I'm thinking back, like the last 10 years or so, if you put podcasts, I mean, I guess if you include radio in that, too, I mean, it's gotta be more than a hundred. I mean, maybe more than that. I don't know. That would be an interesting thing to go back on my calendar and just.

Try to figure that out.

I don't have time. I'm doing podcasts too much.

I can't chronicle the podcast because I'm.

On the big podcast.

Okay, well then let's get to the fast five. You know the drill. Are you ready for the fast five?

I'm as ready as I'm going to be.

Here we go. First question. My go to restaurant is Subway.

Subway, yes, yes. And I get mocked for it mercilessly. But it's true.

It's just I'm one of those people that goes regularly to the same place and gets the same kind of thing because then you don't have to make the decision. So I can save all my decision making skills for the big things and I can just. Yeah, so my go to is Subway. Yes.

Are you like, are you like Steve Jobs to wear the same clothes every day?

No, I'm not to that level, no.

Okay, but is it the same exact thing you get every time?

No, I usually get. I usually know when I'm going what, like they have a particular meal of the day and I like four out of the five or six or whatever they have.

So I wind up. I, I wind up if I go, I, I just generally am going to get what's on the menu for the day, so.

Oh, all right.

Sometimes I'll mix it up, you know, get a piece of bacon on there. I have a cousin getting really, getting really courageous.

You know, I have a cousin who goes to the same restaurant every single day and gets the exact same thing every single time. I just don't understand it. I, I don't know that I get it, though. You want to.

I mean, I've heard people say, hey, let's preserve brain cells so I don't have to think about my choices. I just want to just like what I like.

There is something to it. There's a science to that. But I mean, I, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, too, it, it's, it's a healthier option.

So it kind of keeps me from overeating because, you know, restaurant portions are pretty massive these days, so.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. And that's surprising considering how the economy is and everything's more expensive.

But anyway.

All right, next question number two. One place in the world that you've never been but you want to go.

To is where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in.

Oh.

So my son has been there and I have never been there. What good parents we are that we sent our son on a trip for his senior year in high school and he has been to Israel and we have not.

But at some point I do want to go to the Holy Land.

So, okay, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is cool. I've been. But every place you go to, it's like, we think he was here. We're not exactly sure because they build a holy site there.

Right?

You know, and that's the one disappointing thing. You're like, darn it is. Well, you can't fake the lake. The Sea of Galilee. Lake Tiberius is what they call it. It's like, right. He can't fake this.

This is what it is. Because everywhere I went, they're like, we think it was here. We're not exactly sure. Anyway. All right, number three. My biggest pet peeve in my job.

Is my biggest pet peeve in my job. I don't know that I would say this is in my job unnecessarily.

Just, it's just my biggest pet peeve over the years is that when you're given responsibility and don't have the authority to carry it out sometimes, I mean, even in, you know, in well oiled, machine running organizations. But that's like one of the things that I, I struggle and I mean, another pet peeve is just personal. Personal.

I'd much rather people be direct when there's issues than light beat around the bush. So pet peeve is like, we're going to pretend like everything's great when it's not. I just, I much more want to know.

I've got too much work to do to not know where I stand with people or where they stand with me. And like, that's how I am with all my, with all the people I work with as well.

If we've got challenges, let's just, we gotta hammer this out and work through it, you know, so.

Oh, I get that. All right. Number four, my preferred fashion style would be called.

I mean, it's not my preferred, but I don't know. Business casual. Business casual? Yeah. Or like, I mean, I don't know.

When I was, when I was a teenager I was called a preppy because, you know, I would have, like, I went to a school where we had to wear collared shirts and khaki pants every day. Like you, I mean, whether you wanted to be or not, that's what you were.

So, you know, I mean, I'm definitely more of a, you know, a jeans and T shirt guy now, but. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know that I'd have a Fashion, style. And maybe that's a good thing. I almost.

I almost worry about any man who too quickly answers that question. My fashion style is.

You know, I had Alan Noble on, and I asked him that question because he is into fashion. He is.

I've seen the hats and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, what did he say? Like 40s and 50s, I don't know. What a classic. He didn't name it because we were trying to come up with a word for it.

But he's like, that's when fashion died, basically after that. That's when men ceased to be men.

Because he wanted that, like, the tweed, the tweed jackets and stuff. Like, I mean, that's cool. I mean, if he wants to look like CS Lewis and I mean, that's, you know, totally fine.

Well, actually, I just had a conversation with Malcolm Guy the other day, and Geit was like. I don't know if you've ever read his wiki, but it's the funniest description. It's like, if Jerry Garcia. What was it?

If CS Lewis went by way of hanging out with Jerry Garcia through San Francisco and took fashion cues from Bilbo Baggins on the way to Middle Earth on the back of a Harley, and that would be him.

That is a great description of Malcolm, actually. That's fantastic.

I was like. I was like. And, you know, he's sitting there with a pipe and he's drinking a pint. I'm like, okay, what is going on here?

All right, number five, here we go. How about this one? If you were a style of architecture, what style would you be and why?

I mean, I don't know what style I'd be, but I definitely love classic architecture. Gothic cathedrals, soaring arches, vaulted ceilings, like, there. I mean, that's.

I mean, we're talking about a book in a minute called the Thrill of Orthodoxy, and I compare orthodoxy to a castle. So you can kind of get. Like, that's.

That's definitely my preference as far as, like, just space to, like, feel swallowed up in and, like, transported. But I don't know that that would be me. You know what I mean?

Like, if I were a style of architecture, it would probably just be, like, you know, something much, much more boring than that.

Functional. It's the khaki equivalent. And a concert shirt equivalent. Exactly.

Subway. It's subway.

You know, you're the second person, though, and I know I asked that question all the time, but you're actually the second person to tell me subway. But you gave a much better Answer. I actually had Craig Keener on, and that was his answer and his. But he changed it because I was like, come on.

And he's like, basically, that's all that's in Wilmore.

He's like, oh, that's true.

There's Subway and a Chinese restaurant. That's all I have. It's my choices. I was like, okay, whatever. Let's talk about the book Thrill of Orthodoxy.

You must have been working on this last time that we hung out.

You know, I think it was. It was basically done by then because, you know, they get the books done quite a bit before they come out.

But, I mean, yeah, I feel like I've been working on this book for years. So it was about a year of intense writing process, but it's been cooking for me for more than five years now.

What was the impetus behind it?

I mean, several things. First of all, I love people that help me see Christianity afresh. That's one of the reasons I love G.K. chesterton and C.S.

lewis and Dorothy Sayers and those British writers who just had a knack for turning things on their head so that you see things fresh. And so a part of me wanted to aspire to do that for another generation, to show the beauty and compelling nature of orthodoxy. So that's been.

I mean, that's something I've just. I've wanted to do for a decade or so just because of my inspirations. But I think more recently, it's been.

It's been the sense that culturally, we're in this moment where there is so. There's so much going on, there's so much uncertainty, unsettledness. There's so many different cultural winds blowing.

There are so many voices out there. It's just a cacophony of voices. And so.

And I feel like there's a lot of church leaders and thoughtful Christians that don't even know really what to think about everything.

If you take, like, the political situation, racial unrest, then you look at, like, the pandemic and whatnot, I think there's a lot of believers that are, like, struggling to figure out, okay, what does faithfulness look like?

And so I really have a burden in those moments where a lot seems up in the air and you don't know exactly where to land on every particular issue, and you're, you know, going to get grilled for taking this position or that position on matters that are more of prudence or political posture and things like that rather than actual principle theology and stuff. I just have this burden to say well, in moments like that, we just need to go back to the basics.

Like, like, go back to the, like, go back to the bedrock of the faith. And you can, you can, with confidence, plant your flag there. Because Christians have been planted there for, since the beginning.

And if the Lord tarries, a hundred years from now, Christians will still be standing and confessing these same truths. So, you know, when there's just a whole bunch of stuff where you don't know what to think, just go back to the.

I mean, it's important, I think, for us to regain our confidence in the foundations.

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So for the purposes of this book, I'm going back to the, to the ecumenical consensus of the Church through the ages that is summed up in the. The three creeds that are basically agreed upon by all Christians everywhere for the most part.

So I'm thinking in particular the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. These are the foundational statements about who God is and what he has done. It's the trinitarian core of the faith.

All wings of the Church agree on this.

So you've got, you know, you, if, if, if, if the church is like a tree, you've got your Eastern Orthodox branch and your Roman Catholic branch and you've got your Protestant, you know, evangelical branches and whatnot. But the, this is the, the, the, the, the, the roots of the, of the tree. That. That give nutrients to the whole. So.

So, yeah, I wanted it to be a mere Christianity kind of book with a lot of evangelical emphasis in it. So I was just clear about that.

I was clear about that up front because I know I've got, you know, Catholic friends and others who are going to read the book and probably roll their eyes at some of the emphases.

But.

But for the most part, in defining Orthodoxy, I think that was the best place to go, is just to say, okay, like, what has been believed everywhere, always by all, when it comes to Christians? And that was the quickest place to go.

There are so many questions that I have when it comes to orthodoxy.

I was on a cruise once on the Nile, and I was talking with this Presbyterian pastor, and he was talking about how he was a PC USA pastor, and it was going through all this turmoil, division with LBGTQ stuff going on before. The initials were all the initials. As we were talking, this Egyptian guy comes up to us and he goes, are you talking about religion?

And we said, sure, yeah, talking about it. And he said, what religion are you? We said, well, we're Christian. He goes, what kind? And we said, well, we're evangelicals.

And he's like, what is that? He had never ever heard of the term. So I'm like, okay, going back. I'm like, okay, the step back would be Protestant.

So I'm like, okay, we're Protestants. He goes, I don't. What is that? And I was like, well, we're not Roman Catholic. And he leaned in.

He goes, they were wrong from the beginning because he was Orthodox. He was Coptic.

So it was one of those things where I realized that my categories of Orthodoxy and what delineates or determines the difference between me and someone else is very much focused in my own cultural milieu. Do you think that your creation of this or your.

Your idea of defending Orthodoxy, it's to those creedal groups that you said, those cre that are there, but do you find that in our culture today that we differ on Orthodoxy, within evangelicalism, on what's Orthodox and what's not?

Oh, sure.

Well, but I mean, there's.

I'm sorry, but there's one more thing I want to add to that, because today we're seeing the whole LBGTQ thing, and that wasn't addressed within the creeds. How do you go about that?

I don't know. I'm not sure I would say it's not addressed within the creed explicitly.

Explicitly.

Explicitly. It's true, but it's. There's a, There's a. There's a fundamental. The way the creeds have been interpreted over the years is that there's a.

There are, there are implicit truths that flow from the, the creed.

So, you know, for example, when Augustine and Pelagius had their, their battles over the nature of humanity and is humanity born in sin or is humanity born, you know, in, in innocence and things like that? The, the debates that they had, it wasn't. Augusta didn't say, well, you know, these creeds don't mention the stuff that Plagias is talking about.

So I guess. I guess there's no orthodoxy here. Like, the, the. In the Church councils didn't look at it that way either.

When they condemned Pelagius and then later Semi Pelagianism, they weren't necessarily saying, oh, this is because it's explicitly spelled out in the creeds. The creeds don't cover every area of Christianity. They cover the basic foundation and the structure.

And then the confessions generally come in and fill in the details like the blueprint of a house. I do think that implied in the creeds are some particular things.

Like when we talk about God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and we talk about him being Maker, that implies something about God's power. It implies the goodness of creation. It implies, you know, the, the. The goodness of being made male and female. So you wind up like you, what.

You're just, you know, just steps away from understanding, like how this actually works out into ethics. And so, and, you know, this is another thing I think you gotta. We gotta pay attention to. Even the way the Bible talks.

There is a certain understanding that orthodoxy is connected to morality in a lot of ways. Like, I mean, the Old, the New Testament talks about obeying the Gospel. Paul, when he's talking about the generosity of the Corinthians, is.

It talks about obedient to their confession. You know, so proclaiming Christ as Lord implies the, the desire to submit and to obey the, the Lord's commands.

So there, there's a sense in which you could say, yeah, orthodoxy is what we believe. But then we can all just debate about what the Christian life looks like.

Well, at some level, the Christian life is going to look different from culture to culture, but I think we got to be really careful not to split orthodoxy from ethics, because I just. I just don't think you can do that. I mean, child sacrifice is not in the creeds either.

So does that mean that we, you know, we say, oh, yeah, I guess we can agree to disagree on that?

No, like there's, there's certain things, there are certain ethical aspects of Christianity that are taught by Jesus and the apostles that, that I think we've got to identify with the creeds, especially those things that have been agreed everywhere, always by all.

When you reach the point of no return, when you feel like you've had enough, there's an angel who sings and.

A voice that is leading you home.

I had Alan Yeh on, he wrote a book called Polycentric Missiology and we were talking about how orthodoxy is always defined when it encounters heterodoxy. And so we have this orthodoxy that we have agreed upon in the first few centuries of Christianity with these creeds.

And even then he actually got into the debate on which Nicene version of the Nicene Creed are you going to go with? I'm in agreement with you.

Just so you know, as I go into this, what I'm trying to say and I'm trying to figure out, as we're interacting with this greater culture, orthodoxy to me gets expanded. It has to, because we're always encountering heterodoxy. How do we go about that in our very divided culture today among these issues?

How many thoughts are you going to be? The evangelical Pope?

Yeah, no, I mean, there is a sense in which orthodoxy gets defined when, when heterodoxy or heresy winds up showing what shows up. But at the same time, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to say that orthodoxy comes as a response to heterodoxy.

I think orthodoxy gets defined and clarified as a response.

That's a good point.

The orthodoxy is already there. It's there from the very beginning.

The fact that, you know, the Church Fathers put a lot of time and effort into the way, the language, the grammar of the faith, the way that we would talk about the, the Trinity, for example, or what it means to confess Jesus Christ as both God and man. That's not something necessarily, that is, it's not something they were inventing in response to Arius and the heretics.

It's something that they were seeking to clarify and unearth from the Scriptures in response to those heretics. So I would say orthodoxy is already there.

It's digging deeper into and coming to a fuller understanding of orthodoxy that takes place sometimes when heresies arise.

So to give an example now, I think some of the heresies that are plaguing the Church now tend to be not Christological first and foremost, but anthropological. That means they, they focus on our doctrine of humanity. What is a human being? What does it mean to be Made in God's image.

What does it mean to be made male and female and things like that?

It's very possible that 100 years from now, Christians will have a more robust understanding of our embodied this and what it means, what the significance and meaning of the human body and what that actually means for marriage then people 100 years ago had.

Not because people 100 years ago were completely off base or they didn't understand or they didn't, but because the particular heresies and heterodoxies that are coming about about what it means to be human today.

We're not present then, so we will have it likely a fuller understanding of humanity and marriage and Things like that 100 years from now than we even do now, because we're having to define and clarify the Christian understanding in response to innovations and errors that have and revisions that have recently come about. Love is true Love is kind.

Love.

Waits when you're out of time.

It.

Won'T fail, it won't cease.

Love can hold all the hope you need.

I really did appreciate how you even titled the book the Thrill of Orthodoxy, as opposed to Dry Dead Orthodoxy, where people are saying that it has no connection to my everyday, my daily life.

Well, people wouldn't have bought that book if I had called it Dry Dead, I don't think. I don't think it would have gotten very.

Well, you're going to say ordinary Orthodoxy. You know, I mean, ordinary Orthodoxy. But then, I mean. I mean, even employing the term Orthodoxy can't, depending on who you're talking to.

I mean, the Orthodox Church could be like, oh, wonderful. He's writing a book about the Orthodox Church. Wow. This guy comes from a Southern Baptist background. Oh. Or you get that.

Where even they will be sorely disappointed.

Well, I mean, I still hope they.

Buy the book, though.

Why the Thrill of Orthodoxy? Apart from just getting the title, getting people to buy it, how is it a thrill? Let's just drill down to the very basics. How is Orthodoxy a thrill?

Because most people don't think that way.

No.

And most people don't think about what a thrill it is to think about the fact that a massive ball of fiery gas millions of miles away is necessary for all human life and gives us light and warms us even from that distance, and, you know, can either burn you or give you an ice tan, depending on. People don't really think about the thrill of that, but. And yet what. Where would we be without it?

And so I feel like the why Orthodoxy is thrilling, ultimately is because it's defining and describing as much as can be described in human language, the God of the universe. It's like, you know, staring into the sun at some level or looking at the world in light of the sun. The thrill is with the encounter with a.

An actual living God. Not necessarily. And being able to have a checklist of all the right. Of all the right doctrines or all the right statements.

I, I think it's when orthodoxy gets disconnected from our encounter with the living God that it just becomes something wrote routine, a dry and dense list of doctrines or whatever. If we're talking about getting to know the One who made us and the One who has saved us and sustains us, well, then, then it's different.

What more thrilling subject could there be than God himself, who we will never fully understand in all of eternity because of his infinity, all of eternity. We will be growing in our knowledge and never coming to an end of the knowledge completely of who God is and how vast and amazing and immense he is.

When you're thinking on orthodoxy, we're contemplating this idea. You mentioned how it looks narrow on the outside, but when you get in it's actually broad.

I thought you were going to drop an illustration of Doctor who and the tardis, because that's what it is, right? It's this small little thing on the outside that you see and you get inside and you're like, wow, this is much bigger than I anticipated.

Most people that I encounter, though, they don't want to talk about orthodoxy because they don't believe that it's relevant to their everyday life.

How do you show people that this is connected to their everyday life and it is much bigger and more grand and more wonderful than they ever anticipate.

Yeah, I think, I think the reason a lot of people think it's disconnected is because it seems like dry, arcane, you know, theological disputes that don't necessarily connect to just, you know, loving God, loving people, you know, or whatever.

However we sum up the, you know, the day to day Christian life, and I would be the first to say there are some aspects of theological precision and study and whatnot that really I don't think are necessary to fully grapple with in order to understand and to be able to live well, the Christian life.

You know, I mean, there's a reason why certain pastors and theologians are called to be pastors and theologians, in part is because, you know, some of the deeper details of that task aren't necessary for everyone.

But I would say that I think we live in a culture right now that prioritizes whatever seems immediately practical over what would be seen as doctrinal and not recognizing how doctrine informs and influences practice. So, yeah, you can say love God and love your neighbor, but you have to at least ask the question at some point. What does love mean?

Like, what is love? You got to ask the question, who is my neighbor?

What it does the shape of Christian love look like for this particular neighbor in this particular circumstance? You know, people say, oh, I just want to, you know, all it's important is for me to follow Jesus and, you know, live on mission, share the gospel.

Okay, but at some point you've got to define what is the gospel you're sharing. Who is the Jesus you're following? Jesus himself asks his disciples, who do you say that I am?

In a sense, all Christian theology is an answer to that question. So, like, you've got, like, are you following a Jesus of popular cultural understanding?

You know, the Jesus of, you know, just whatever your particular preferences may be, are you making a Jesus in your own image? I mean, we see all of this taking place in society and then the same thing with a mission. Like, well, what is the mission? What is it just evangelism?

Is it also serving the poor? Is it serving the needy? Is it a broader mission, a more narrow mission? Like, all of these are questions that directly impact our practice.

And if you say you don't need to grapple with any of that, you just need to keep it simple and do the thing well, okay, but at some level, you are adopting a theology and a doctrine. That's all there, whether you recognize it is there or not. That's the challenge, I think, that we've got to pull together.

Spent days and nights right here thinking about the meaning of life in love and why my heart is beating. In the moments where I find my point of view are the moments where I think of you.

As new challenges come into the church. As you mentioned right now, anthropology is one of those.

But as we also become much more global, we're encountering cultural viewpoints that many of those orthodox statements probably did encounter, but for whatever reason, didn't feel the need to articulate it, like going to Africa or going to India. The questions that are most preeminent on a Westerner's mind are not preeminent on those in those other cultural context. Mind.

How do we keep then orthodoxy firm? But yet, I don't want to say free, like you said, there's freedom within it.

But understand that the lines that we have or have been created for us, let's say, are still somewhat not nebulous, but they're, and I don't want to say expanding, but they are, the contours perhaps are changing slightly as they're encountering viewpoints and other interactions. So how does that orthodoxy help shape us? How do we help our other brothers and sisters? Like I had a church with many, many Africans in that.

And a lot of the ways that we are articulating the faith meant nothing to them, just that their cultural didn't take it, not that they weren't important. I am firm agreement that orthodoxy is really the script, as Kevin talks about, that we perform in front of.

But as I encountered their cultural worldviews, I found that much of the emphasis that I had on my theology was experientially not where they were. So how do we maintain these lines that are firm, trustworthy, secure, true, keeping us on the right path and yet incorporating and moving?

And there's an ebb and flow to that. How do we do that?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the good news is orthodoxy is really expansive.

There's all sorts of room within orthodoxy for different cultural expressions of what that might look like and how that might be experienced or felt.

In fact, I think the encounter with other cultures and Christians in other cultures can lead us to a place where we recognize what's essential versus what's not.

Because you recognize this person believes the same things about Jesus, worships the same Jesus, is seeking to follow Jesus, and yet their life looks different culturally than mine does. And it helps you understand. And they may have different views on any number of things.

I mean, I did a post recently of why in certain places, like in Africa, for example, in, in, in a, in a different context, getting a tattoo is seen as more egregious a sin than adultery.

And the reason is because of the connection in, in that particular culture to being marked on the body with like, particular ancient African practices and whatnot. And so it has this a complete different connotation. Whereas adultery can be something to be forgiven and moved on.

Like the mark is something that is, you know, damaging long term and permanent. I'm not saying tattoo, I'm not saying tattoos are sinful or that tattoos are worse than adultery.

I'm simply saying it's one of those things that in encountering the, the church in other parts of the world, you suddenly recognize the way that they're thinking about and living out the faith may look different in, in particular circumstances, but that's because orthodoxy is not a, an extraordinarily confining Constraining only one culture kind of a thing. I mean, it's one of the main differences, I think, between Islam and Christianity here.

One of the reasons why Christianity has become the most diverse, it's undeniable, the most diverse movement ever to exist on the planet when it comes to the amount of cultural expressions and different cultures that it has pervaded and influenced and people from all over the world in different places and languages and whatnot. One of the reasons why that's the case is because Christianity is for all the world.

And the orthodoxy that we, that we adhere to, that we recognize, is that that bedrock of faith, it's so expansive when it comes to the expressions. So I don't think it's that our orthodoxy is adapting to those realities.

I think our orthodoxy is better clarified and understood as to what's essential versus what's not when we come into contact with, with believers in other parts of the world.

Trevin's book is a great introduction for people to understand why what we believe matters, how we are prone to lose our wonder at the truth of the gospel and the common errors we tend to fall into. You know, it's in confusing times like ours that some are abandoning the faith altogether.

Whether they're deconstructing, they see the faith is outmoded. I mean, others just want to reduce it to say, oh, it's about how you live, not about what you believe.

And still there are even others besides that who are looking for some sort of compromise. They want to keep what they like in the world and they want to keep what they like about the gospel.

And if those two contradict, well, it doesn't really matter because it is what I make it. I get the essence of it. Or at least that's what people think.

You know, some have so identified even certain cultural things with the gospel that any change to the way that they've always done it feels like a betrayal or a compromise of the truth. But as we talked about today, what we believe really does matter. It's more than just our opinion or our preference.

It does have consequences for the real world. I, for one, really appreciate what Trevin is doing in his book.

He helps us to wrestle with the questions we face today and how really, as he says, the way forward is to reach back. I couldn't agree more. To find renewal in something old. These foundational truths tested by time.

A fount of goodness that refreshes and satisfies long forgotten beauty from the past, that lists our eyes above the suffering and sorrow of the present. Hmm. The foundational truths of our faith, what we believe about God, creation, who we are, actually have profound impacts on the way we are to live.

And they shouldn't be dull or dry to us because those truths, as Trevin explained, helps us to see God.

I particularly love how he helps us to see that Christianity is the most diverse faith on the planet because orthodoxy transcends every one of our cultures and. But always addresses the issues we face. You know, there are always going to be difficulties and tensions. We can't avoid it.

It's always going to be there. You can't avoid it, no matter how hard you try. By not making a decision, by not addressing it, you are taking a position, even if you don't want to.

By not addressing it is a position all of us have to face. The fact that we have to deal with these things. So that leads me to ask this.

What are the questions that you have, the things that you don't understand or that you find difficult? What would you like for us to talk about on this show? Let us know and we'll try to address those issues in future episodes.

Next time Trevin and I continue our conversation, we will be discussing the differences between primary and secondary issues in the Church. How do we know which is which and do those secondary issues really matter? What about calling something a heresy?

And how and when do we legitimately seek to correct someone? What are some of the common everyday dangers that we face? All that and more in the next episode of Apollos Watered.

I want to thank our Apollos Watered team for helping with Water the World. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollo's Watered. Stay watered, everybody.

Sa.