Gavin Ortlund  

It's really difficult to give Gavin the benefit of the doubt anymore. He's been caught too many times cherry picking and misrepresenting the Church Fathers in ways that just don't come off as honest mistakes

00:27:10 - I really liked the explanation of the difference between dogmatic and systematic theology. God bless you!

I get a sense that they want to be "catholic" without becoming Catholic.

You know, I used to appreciate the “gentle” approach of Protestants like Gavin or even Austin but over time, I’ve started to see it as a sort of passive-aggression. & whereas Catholics can point to numerous sources for their arguments & criticisms, these types of prots say things like, “yeeeah, I’m just not convinced.” Not an argument.

As a former Protestant it's basically Christian relativism. To say as a Protestant, "this is Orthodox, this isnt" is really arbitrary because there's no way to universally bind the faithful to the correct doctrines; you just hop to the church that fits your preferences/theology... The biggest problem is the epistemic issue within their paradigm.

He is doing a bunch of interviews on protestant channels about his book, someone should have him on to provide some pushback

Great analysis. The ever reforming part of his belief could prove his current stance invalid in future. Even the ever reforming view will result in low bar relativistic equality that we all have Jesus so we’re all in which gets closer to universalism. How do we know that Joel Osteen and the prosperity gospel isn’t the ever reforming part that trumps Gavin’s beliefs and that Osteen isn’t akin to a modern Luther? The “beauty” of sola scriptura will be each groups ability to deny any true reforming part of Protestantism while claiming it’s also an authentic part.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to read the Bible so they can join the denomination that best agrees with their own understanding.”

One need only compare the simple explanations of apostolic succession in St Ignatius, or St Clement, with the tortuous opinions and arbitrary distinctions of Gavin Ortlund.

I enjoyed this

Really informative! Thanks Chris! Just two questions. You say at one point, more or less, that the Catholic Church doesn’t try to solve all the “tensions”. Her genius is she just lets all these passages be without trying to build a system that forces them to mean something they don’t, just in order to make the system work. However, from my experience, as a convert, the Catholic Church (plus her defenders and teachers) were able to give very technical and nuanced (as well as reasonable) explanations, as to how all these “tensions” and apparent contradictions in scripture actually do fit together and make sense. So while she (the Church) rightly says “yes, yes, yes” as you say, she has, in having to counter the errors of the Protestants in their theological systems, resolved these “tensions”. Would you agree or not? Or would you say the tensions still exist, at least in part? Examples might be the distinctions the Church makes, in her theology, with the three types of merit (condign, congruent and strict) where Protestant theology might have none; or the distinction between concupiscense and sin where Protestants make none; or between works of the law and good works where Protestants have historically conflated the two; or the distinctions between initial, ongoing and final justification where Protestants have typically only recognised the former. I could probably go on, but you get the idea. Thanks again.

Needs part 2! Good analysis

Ephesians 4 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call- 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Philippians 2 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. John 17 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Ortlund is against all of these verses. Division is not what the faith teaches.

There is no strong case for classical Protestantism; it is baseless. This is why classical Protestantism has collapsed into liberalism, fundamentalist-evangelicalism, spiritual-but-not-religious-ism, and atheism-or else reversion to Catholicism.

The norther kingdom is more akin to papalism because of the clear golden calves and invented man made religion in papalism as opposed to sola scriptura of the reformed

Hell is listening to gavin go on about how his nondenom church is really a part of the one true church

Very insightful.

80% of Gavin’s arguments are fallacy of incredulity. He essentially flips the script because he at some level knows his case is weak, so he tries to put the burden of proof on Orthodox and Catholics by defaulting to an argument that amounts to “Well I just can’t believe the Church would ever be a single institution”. Which is why he keeps using that word. He’s using it constantly to further emphasize this framing. He needs to be called out on it moving forward.

He refuses the Church established by Christ. May God have mercy on his soul.

I see channels like this make similar claims about Gavin not making a strong case for protestantism. But I truly disagree, I think the case is actually really strong and his book is a driving force. I converted to catholicism in my twenties and then just left 2 years ago after being catholic 6 years. I find his arguments about marian assumptions, icons, and sola scriptura very convincing. I will admit here that this comment is just making claims, not arguments, but i urge people to take Gavin much more seriously than they do. After reading Feser, Pruss, Levering, Akin; Horn, and countless catholic answers articles, im really left with the fact that Protestantism is more convincing in most areas. I think Orthodoxy is harder to deal with than Catholicism but still falls short. Just one mans journey. May we all seek the truth with every fiber of our being.

The Church is Mt Zion and the highest of all mountains; the Gentiles go to her the New Jerusalem to learn “Torah” and know the living God. Jesus’s Kingdom is here and it has no end. (Isaiah 2, Daniel 2, Luke 1-2, Hebrews 12, Rev 21). My challenge to Gavin when he talks about “the church”… Where is THE Church and what does she believe? Please give examples of local churches/parishes in 300AD Carthage, 500 AD Rome, 1000AD Asia Minor, etc? Who can bind and loose for the entire Church? How does someone fall into heresy or schism from the Church? We must evangelize Protestants too It would great to have a 2hour convo with Gavin to really press him on this, right @Chris Plance?

Any who reads Ignatius's Letters to the Churches, written 70 years after the crucification of Christ, will stop being a Protestant very quickly.

Results in 44,000 Protestant denominations. Well done.

Hey brother, just a few quick notes on the opening (I'm sure there will be plenty of comments from others). First, I do greatly appreciate that you are being respectful in tone, even if there are disagreements. A respectful tone is much needed in these discussion. 1 - So in some sense, your statement "what would be a positive case" is something we'd agree with. However, the criteria put forth is something Gavin does hit across many videos, and more importantly is not Gavin's intention in this video. So sure that's good criteria, but doesn't really address this video or Gavin's work at large. 2 - You say you think it's a misrepresentation to say that Roman Catholics & Eastern Orthodox limit the Church to one institution. Well that's not really true. It is true not of Rome or the East do this, but many do & historically that was universal position of both groups for almost a full 1000 years. And Gavin using institution to mean papacy or apostolic succession. Across his work, he means what the word says. The Roman Catholic church officially, is a single "unified" institution. Where for us Protestants we are not. Baptist are a separate institutional group from Methodist, and so on. 3 - "He wants the authority of the lay person in his local congregation to be recognized as having the same authority as the men the apostles chose." This is just not true, nor does Gavin ever say or hint at this in any of his work as far I'm aware. Gavin does have a genuine respect can at multiple points over the years has even called out the Western Church (as in western culture, such as here in America) for not enough respect for Church authority noting how historically the Protestants have did. And to be fair in many non-American places, this respect for authority is still very much in place, and for many in the American church at large this is starting to return to how it has been historically.

His theology and belief depends on his job as a pastor. If he accepts the TRUTH he will lose his job, friends and his church. Mostly Pastors teaches half truths to people that didn't know Church Father's teachings.

Its interesting in a way that Gavin wants to assume that the catholic faith isnt the correct form of faith but then seeks affirmation from the historic catholic understanding of the boundaries of what constitutes the church to validate his own church.

I'm an Anglo-Catholic (The English Expression of the Catholic Faith). I once was an Evangelical but was persuaded by the Early Church and the Apostolic Tradition that Protestantism is false. However, Gavin has been one who has come to come to the same conclusions as I have, that Rome has made innovations to faith and morals which are not in line with the Early Church.

Gavin makes excellent points, if you aren’t consistent with the early church, and your dogmas are accretions. YOU do not have the faith of the early church. Simple as. And if you bind peoples consciences to apparent accretions, why should we be intellectually dishonest and submit to false teaching.

Yeah, there were Protestants at the Last Supper with the followers who didn't accept the Body , Blood Soul, and Divinity of Jesus.