From Evangelical to Eastern Orthodox, with Mike Maharrey

Welcome to the show that gets Christians thinking about faith and politics.

Get ready to challenge the status quo, expand your imagination, and tackle controversy head

on.

Let's stand together at the intersection of faith and freedom.

It's time for the Libertarian Christian Podcast.

Welcome to another episode of the Libertarian Christian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian

Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network.

I am your host, Doug Stewart, and I have Mike Mahari with me.

Mike Mahari is a returning guest.

In fact, he actually has a show on the Christians for Liberty Network called Guard Archie

Podcast.

He's a reporter and analyst for Money Metals and National Communications Director at

the 10th Amendment Center, so he's a bona fide.

I mean, he's been in the Libertarian Movement for quite a while, and he's been on this show

several times we've had discussions about a lot of different things.

So, Mike, we're here to have you on to talk about a little bit of your personal journey,

and I really appreciate you coming on, man.

It's good to see you.

It's great to be honest, great to see you, and I feel like that you kind of just called

me old.

So, there's that.

Oh, man.

Man, we're already getting off to a jolly start.

Well, yeah, let's let's be honest.

I am, in fact, old, and I have, yeah, it's funny, I got into the Libertarian Movement.

I was kind of old at the time, but yeah, and I feel really old.

Well, at one time, jokingly called you Boomer, and you're like, I'm not a Boomer, and

you're not a Boomer.

And you proved it, and I was like, all right, well, then I can't really call you old,

so.

I'm not a Boomer.

I'm close, but I'm not.

Well, the, the, the, okay, so this is a really good segue.

I'm glad you brought that up in good humor, because, you know, the whole phrase, go West

Young Man, I was thinking, well, we could call this episode go East Old Man, because that

is what we're going to talk about, and you just called yourself old in some weird way.

The journey that I'm referring to that we're going to talk about, and depending on how

the title of this episode ends up, because we always decide that, pretty much after the

fact, is your journey into, from basically evangelical Protestantism into Eastern Orthodoxy,

and, and you've remained faithful to your belief in the non-aggression principle and your,

you know, fundamental beliefs in, in liberty.

And so I, I know that there are a lot of libertarians out there, especially Christians who have

struggled with what does their libertarianism, how does it match well with their faith,

in what ways does it, where does it conflict, and there's a lot of, there, there's enough,

enough to talk about there that I think listeners would be really happy to hear your journey,

hear what you were wrestling with.

I have questions for you as well, but why don't we get started with just, you know, give

us kind of a set us up with, where were things going for you that made you look this direction?

Okay.

Let me, first off, maybe it would be helpful if I give people a little bit of a timeline,

kind of of my spiritual life, and then that'll put things into a little bit broader context,

because I was a raised in the Episcopal Church.

So up until I was probably 16, 17, I was, I was an Episcopalian.

And so I have some background in liturgy, and that made probably the jump to Eastern Orthodoxy

in some way a little bit, a little bit more seamless for me.

My wife, totally different story, but, so when I was 18 years old, I had kind of the,

the born again experience that a lot of folks have had.

It was at a Christian concert, I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart, and pretty much

abandoned the Episcopal Church much to my mom, Shagrin, and began attending a Baptist

Church, and was, I guess, I never really have had this strong, denominational identity,

like I never saw all of them a Baptist, but that's pretty much what I was, was involved

in Christian music ministry for about a decade, and then in my 30s, my entire life blew

up. I walked away from my faith for a while.

I experimented with atheism. I was the world's worst atheist. I told people because I kept

going, arguing the Christian position with other atheists. And then I really want to ask

you about that, but that would take us too far, if you go ahead.

Yeah, that's a bunny trail, for sure. That's a whole nother show. But yeah, so then in

the early 2000s, I kind of started to come back and ended up in the Methodist Church for

well over a decade with my wife. And folks that are in the Methodist Church will understand

very quickly why we were struggling a little bit with our church situation because the Methodist

Church has been going through tremendous turmoil over the last, really over the last decade

or so, but it's really come to the head over the last couple of years where the denomination

is effectively split. And that was part of a big pile of things that I was struggling

with in terms of just being very discontent with where I was spiritually and looking for

something that was deeper. And that's probably the theme that would come out if we were

kind of distilled down what drove this change for both my wife and I. We were looking for

something deeper and more meaningful. You know, having been in evangelical circles for

gosh, you know, what I was 18, so 18 to in my 50s, I started to look and realize that,

you know, beyond that, that salvation experience, I really wasn't that much farther along any

kind of spiritual growth than I was back then. And that's not to say that, you know, I was

backslidden or living in sand or anything like that. I just, it was just kind of this,

Christianity was almost this background noise in our lives. And I felt like that there

had to be something that was a little bit deeper. And I do remember one very specific incident

that kind of started to draw me toward Eastern Orthodoxy. And for a little bit of context,

my mom and my grandfather and my stepdad all converted to Orthodoxy in the early 2000s.

And I pretty much ignored them. And quite honestly, it's one of my regrets. I was talking to my

wife the other day and just saying, I wish I had talked to my mom more about her journey and

experience, because I really don't know anything about it. And because I didn't care then. But,

so I have this, this little bit of a sense of what Orthodoxy was about. But the thing that really

kind of drew my attention to it was back during the, the heyday of ISIS. And there was a church.

I believe it was in Syria, although it might have been in Iraq. I can't remember which country it

was in. But during an Easter service, or at least during an Easter week service, I don't remember

for specifically Pasca, but a bunch of ISIS folks showed up at this church and murdered everybody

inside of it. And the priest had happened to be in another place at the time and survived. And

I saw a message that he did on YouTube calling for forgiveness, calling for the, the Christians

of that region not to allow their anger to bubble over into violence. And it was such a powerful

moving message. And it was one of those things where you look at this man and you think,

this is something beyond just, you know, this guy has a strong personality. There was something very,

got it done something in this man's life to enable him to preach forgiveness in a situation like

that. And so as we were getting this kind of discontentment and frustration and I'm kind of

interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, I picked up a book. And the first book I've ever read really

relating to Orthodoxy was by, he's known as the ecumenical patriarch. And the Eastern Orthodox

Church does not have a pope. So if you have like the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox

Church, the Orthodox Church in America, all of them are basically separate in their leadership.

They have a bishop over them. And then there's kind of an ecumenical patriarch and he's considered

the first among many. So he's not like a pope where he gets to command all of the other bishops,

but he does have a lot of prominence. And so I read a little bit about him and read his book,

kind of talking about the Orthodox way of thinking and it was very appealing to me.

And the depth of it and in the fact that there was still some mystery there,

you and I were discussing off air, I have this struggle with arrogance and I think it was a part of

me that kind of thought, you know, I've pretty much learned everything I need to know about the Bible

and Protestantism. I've been doing this for so long and I've got all this down. And no, I did not.

So yeah, so I read his book and then I actually picked up a way to your book that was Orthodox

theology. And as I began reading through it, I realized that the vast majority of the theological

position is held by the Orthodox church already held. And so that was kind of enlightening to me.

You know, there was always some things about this theology and evangelical Protestant theology

in general. I was always kind of, I don't know about that. And in Eastern Orthodox, he kind of

filled in some of his places. Now, don't get me wrong. There were certainly some challenges

because there are some things in Eastern Orthodoxy that are very convenient to Protestantism.

And I'm still working my way through those things. It's probably going to be a lifelong journey.

Having been comfortable with kind of the theological position, I just said to my wife one day,

it's like, would you be open to going? Yeah, it looks good to a service and see what it's like. And

she's like, all right, you know, whatever. And so we did, we went to Saint Andrew's, Saint Andrew,

the first call to Orthodox church, which is about 20 minutes from our house. And we both walked out

of that first service. We got in the car and probably for the first 10 minutes, we didn't even say anything

to each other. You know, it was, it was such a moving and deep experience. And even not knowing what's

going on in the liturgy being completely lost through probably two thirds of it, there was

something present in that congregation, in that church, in that service that just, we're like,

this is where we belong. And it was almost from that very first day. It was mother's day two

years ago, almost two years ago in May. And so then we, you know, we attended services for a few

months and then decided we wanted to be catacumans. And we both decided, made the decision to be baptized.

That's a whole different story. We don't need to get into all of that. But that was in January

last year. And so, yeah, here we are. So that's kind of the short version of a very long story,

which is probably a lot of things we can flesh out within that.

Well, I know that I know that it was true of you, because you've said this to me, and you may

have just recently mentioned it here, that the untangling of Christianity with American evangelicalism

or American-focused faith, which we are witnessing in such awkward, weird, and almost definitely,

I'll chew out the words escaping me, sacrilegious ways. It's always been present. LCI has always

pointed out that the patriotism and rah-rah America is very unlikely compatible with, you know,

Christian faith in a certain way. That was true of you, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Was there something in particular that was just like, you do say there were some things,

something like the Baptist theology and stuff that was a turn off, but there was, if I'm not mistaken,

there was a lot about the Eastern Orthodox experience that is about experience. And it isn't about

the beliefs on paper, the bullet points and checkmarks that you say, yeah, I affirm this, yeah,

I affirm this. It is some of that, right? But it is the experience. And yet, as much as evangelical

Protestants in America, especially want to talk about belief and dogma over experience,

they do have a certain experience. And there are, some of those experiences are pretty distasteful

to people like you and me, you know, the waving the flag across the stage on Fourth of July,

Sunday, kind of stuff, all the way, you know, from that, all the way down to simply saying the

pledge at your Christian school or something, right? What was it for you or were there some

things for you that were just, just kind of always were distasteful and did that sort of,

I want to say the word catapult, but did that help you look the other way in these from Orthodoxy

in any particular way? Yeah, I think definitely so. So I mentioned that we had been involved in

the Methodist Church for many years. And we actually left the Methodist Church before we ended

up in Orthodoxy. So for about about a year, we were going to a, it's a mission church basically

that's very close to our house. They're still meeting in the, in a school. It's a great church.

It's, they don't advertise themselves as Baptist, but the, the pastor is, is from that background.

And yeah, there was some of that. So is it like the official non-denominational thing?

Yeah, it's, it's a non-denominational, but really we're Baptist. It's what, what? Yeah, yeah.

And definitely getting some of that flag waving and the, some of the stereotypical things that

evangelical Christianity has kind of grafted into itself, some of the, the mentality towards women

that that can be a little bit overbearing for a woman. There was some, there was a little

bit of tension for my wife because, well, it's just, I'll just be blunt. It was a very, very white

church. And to the point that there was some, some things that happened that made my wife a

little bit uncomfortable. So there was some of that as well. But yeah, the, the flag waving and then

for me, being very anti-war was always a struggle for me in, you know, American Christianity.

Anything that resembles what looks like a Baptist, yes, that would, that would be a struggle, yes.

Yeah. And so there was a great deal of appeal for me because orthodoxy does not embrace American

empire, right? And so that was very appealing to me because so much of evangelical American

Christianity is wrapped up in American empire. American exceptionalism, we're an American nation,

you know, and, and then that gets into the whole Israel thing. And I'm just like, oh, and so

that was a big appeal to orthodoxy that you're not going to see an American flag, generally speaking,

in an East-Northodox, at least not in the worship area of the church.

And so that was, that was appealing to me. Now, you know, now that I'm into it, that has its own

problems because as I've already alluded to that the church is organized based on national,

you know, kind of national structure. So you do get, like in the Russian Orthodox church,

you're going to get problems with the Russian church being embedded in the state and in the

Greek. How does the Eastern though? Like I guess understand, you know, like Coptic and Russian

and Greek, but Eastern seems broader than that. How does that fit? Yeah, Eastern Orthodox is

usually considered to be the Russian church, the Greek church, Antioch, Romania, all the Eastern

European countries. So it's always an umbrella term for that. Yes. And then you have the

Coptic churches which are the Ethiopian church, the Egyptian Orthodox church, the Syrian Orthodox

church. There are some administrative differences in those churches and there's actually some,

some a little bit of tension between the view of some of the church councils. But by and large,

if I walked into a Coptic Orthodox church, I wouldn't find this service itself to be fundamentally

different at all. And that's the interesting thing to me. Now you've got all of these ethnic

national churches. You've got a Greek church, you've got a Russian church, you've got the American

Orthodox church, you've got Romanian churches. I can go to a Greek church. And although it is

might be in Greek and there will be some differences in the way they do things, some of the stylistic

things, the literature is going to be the same. The literature is the same in the Orthodox church,

whether you're in the Orthodox church, Greek church. And that's kind of cool to me.

Yeah. So you were talking about the appeal of being not into American exceptionalism and

American dominance and empire, which I know is kind of a touch point for libertarian Christians,

right? American empire is not good. We can say what we want about, say, the American founding,

and the principles of liberty, you know, it's right in the constitution. But the idea of American

empire abroad is like that's anathema to libertarians, at least it should be. And so that I

could see that there's an appeal there from from that perspective. Do you, did you find any other

similarities to what you believed as a libertarian and some of the principles that you hold and

that are more compatible than the quote-unquote Baptist-ish church, the not Baptist but Baptist church

you were attending? You know, the honest answer to that question is that and I think in a lot of ways

orthodoxy is probably less friendly to libertarianism. In the way the Orthodox church views its role

vis-à-vis the state. In America, you generally have the mindset that the church and state should

be separate, right? I mean, we don't play that way, but that's that's the philosophy. We are

separation of church and state. That doesn't exist in a lot of the Orthodox churches. In fact,

the Greek Orthodox church is the state church in Greece. The Russian church is very much tied

to the state, especially was during the era of the Zars. Obviously, the Russian Revolution

changed that whole dynamic. So there is a much more of a willingness in orthodoxy to inject itself

into politics and people in a lot of orthodoxations don't have a problem with that. It's just a

different mentality. They don't have this this kind of philosophical view that church and state

should be separate. And orthodoxy is a very holistic religion or I shouldn't call it a religion. It's

a very comprehensive way of looking at the world and there's very much this train of what I do

matters to you and what you do matters to me. We're all winged together and there's very much an

emphasis on the corporate nature of the church and less of an individual emphasis. So in American

Christianity, it's all about me, right? I get saved. Have you said the prayer? Have you been baptized

and orthodoxy will ask those questions as well, but they're also going to ask, are you involved

in the church? How is what you're doing relating to other people? And so there's a much less

individualistic worldview there. And so therefore libertarian, which is much more of an individualistic

political philosophy, it's kind of more difficult to reconcile in there. And I'm still

honest with struggling with how my political views fit in with with my orthodoxy.

So I'm going to I'm not here to I'm not here to push in or push back together. I mean, you're

saying here, but I do think that probably no, no, it's fine because I mean, I'm I'm not here to

question where your journey is going. The critique of the individual as a libertarian is one thing,

but I would venture to guess that most of the friends that you and I have at LCI and I will speak

just for myself. But I would say they probably agree here that the kind of church that I go to

is one where the question of how are you doing in church community, whether it was one question

you asked, there was another one that the the communitarian aspect of what it is to be part of

faith should be present. How are you involved in church? How are you connected with those who are

in the body of Christ? The idea that one can be this sort of atomized individual Christian

outside outside the obvious thing of like, well, this is your choice to make. You have agency

any good Christian American Protestant, even evangelical church will will push in on that with

any individual Christian. Is that something you weren't getting or is that just you contrasting

that with libertarian mindset of individualism? Well, I think that in my experience and you know,

obviously my experience is limited to whatever churches that I've been to now I will say this

when I was doing Christian music ministry, I was in a lot of churches over over a 10 year span. So

I've been exposed to pretty much the breadth of evangelical Christianity from Pentecostal to

pretty stodgy Methodism. And to me, yes, they would talk about you know, Christian can't be

on an island. You need to be in church, but still to me the focus is always was always on the

individual. Let me kind of give you an example that maybe we'll help folks wrap their heads around

how that this might that the American mindset might be different than say a Russian or a Greek

orthodox mindset. Now let's take something like drugs, right? And actually to be fair, this would

probably be true of conservatism. This is where it kind of runs up against libertarianism now.

As a libertarian, I would say you do drugs that's your business, it's your body, it's your choice.

And orthodox person would say what you do with your body is impacting your kids, your wife,

everybody around you. It's ultimately impacting the church itself. All of these things matter.

So therefore they would say that there is a reasonable argument to be made that this should be stopped.

Whereas as libertarian, we would put the primacy of the individual above the corporate,

they would flip that over and put the corporate well-being above the individual.

Let me ask, can I ask you this little point of contention here. If somebody, if you told people in

your parish church, I don't know what it's called in your parish that you're going to start

doing drugs and they would come at you and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Mike, don't you know that this

is going to affect your wife, your kids, your this, your that's going to affect your groups,

can affect your neighbors, can affect your wit, whatever it is that they would say,

are they not appealing to use an individual to make a choice that is better for you as an individual?

Yes. That's how my brain processes the appeal to go and send no more.

Well, not that saying smoking drugs is sin. I don't mean it that way, but I'm saying that

the choice to do that is affect it like I process this as an individualist, right?

Western individualists, very much so here, but I process that as well. Yes, it is my body,

my choice. I am allowed to do this, but something else that affects my body is how well my kids are

doing, how my wife is doing, how well, whatever else, my physical body, if I'm doing something that's

actually bad for me, of course. And the appeal to me to say, hey, Doug, you need to think about

how this affects those around you isn't appealed to me as an individual.

Yeah, yeah, I get that totally where it would start to diverge, though, is that you would say,

and I think that all of most Christians would agree that if you're involved in a church,

and that church is saying, you know, you need to stop this sin or there's going to be constant,

well, I think we would all agree that that's an appropriate role of that church. Sure.

I most Orthodox would tell you that it goes further that they should try to influence

the government and the greater society to make drugs illegal, because it is such a disaster for

our society. So that's kind of what I'm getting. And I guess probably as I'm talking, I'm conflating

libertarianism and Christian because... No, I understand. For me, and let me back up a second,

because when I started to really examine my political worldview, is at the same time I really

started getting more serious about my faith again after that little foray into atheism,

that was the abject failure. And so at that time, I really started to look at my political

worldview and try to put it in context with my Christianity, because realizing that my Christianity

should filter to everything. And so for me, that really came down to the idea that, you know,

God doesn't force his well upon us. And so therefore, nobody has the right to force their well

upon somebody else. That's kind of where very simplified form. But if that makes sense,

that's kind of where I was. And it's just a, it's a shift in emphasis, right? As Americans,

generally, and as libertarians specifically, we put the individual kind of at the top of the pyramid.

And that, that we should recognize that individual right of person to make decisions above everything

else. I think a lot of orthodox would disagree with that and say from a societal standpoint,

the society needs to be restrained and structured in that government is part of what does that.

Does that make sense? My brain is going to misfire here because I think of that. And I think,

here's what I think. Sorry, here's what I picture when I hear someone say that. And again,

you're just sort of representing the best you can there. My picture of that is, well,

if that means that the government should help dictate that yada yada yada,

what happens when the individuals in government have their own sinful agenda?

Now you're dealing with one individual versus over everybody else. So

individualism wins that point. I guess I don't know. I think that's where I go.

Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because the church would say that when that individual

goes off the rails, it is the duty of the church to put them back on the rails, right? So

the orthodox church is very much more comfortable with political engagement than I think even,

well, I don't know today, the evangelical church has seemed to be very interested in political

engagement. But yeah, I get it. But, but you know, so there's a saint in Russian. He was known as

a holy fool because he was, he was willing to go and the left east today, he spoke truth to power,

right? He went to the czar and basically was calling out one of the czars was pretty awful.

And so that the, he has venerated because of that and because of his willingness to stand up

to those government powers. So it's not that they, it's not that we would accept the government

powers. Absolutely fine. And whatever it does is, you know, yeah. But it is that I think that

orthodoxy gives government a lot more positive credit than most libertarians would be comfortable

with. And again, no, I mean, just from the outside, I can see, I can see that being the case.

You also have to understand that I'm, I'm somebody that's really only been in orthodoxy,

you know, for, for less than two years. And one of the things that I've learned,

this is a little bit of that, you haven't fixed them yet. Is that what you're saying?

And I'm not going to shunt you. Just kidding. One of the things that, though, that I'm learning

in my wife and I were actually talking about this yesterday is that, you know, orthodoxy is,

it's a very encompassing worldview. And you, over time, you learn to think orthodox. I don't

think orthodox. I still think Protestant. I'm carrying 50 years of Protestant. I don't want to

don't want to say baggage because that sounds like I'm being negative. But I have all of these views

of Christianity that are filtered through, filtered through this American evangelical lens. And

so learning to think spiritually and entirely different way is a challenge. And so you're talking

to me in a very beginning of a journey where I may very well sound like I don't know what I'm

talking about because I don't know what I'm talking about, right? I don't know how my political

worldview is ultimately going to fit into this thing, the dysorthodoxy. But what I do know is that

I believe that orthodoxy is leading me closer to Christ. And therefore, I'm going to follow that path.

And if it leads me somewhere else politically, that's okay. My devotion to libertarianism

is nothing compared to my devotion to Christ. And I don't think this is going to happen,

but if I were to go through this journey and decide, well, I need to take a very traditional

view of Romans 13. Well, then we're going to do it. I would do that if that's where this

again. Well, let's transition to something because I will tell you that I don't believe that

your commitment to Christ will ever lead you to to violate the non-aggression principle.

At least that's how I would see it. So how has your how has your you said you've gained a

strengthened appreciation for the for the nap, the non-aggression principle, although you were

sort of a close pacifist, but now maybe not so much anymore. How does that play out in things?

Yeah. So that's been a key aspect of my spiritual journey for a long time. And folks that

listen to the God-Archie podcast and followed what I was writing over at God-Archie when I was doing

and it's all still there at GodArchie.org. If you want to check it out, anything down.

The the our the place of violence in the world after Christ has died on the cross is something

that I've been wrestling with for years. You know, what is the acceptable on using air quotes

around acceptable use of violence? Should we can we use violence to make people do what we want?

Can we use violence to defend ourselves? Should we never use violence at all? And I was leaning

very close to never using violence at all. And I'm not going to say that I'm absolutely taking any

any position at all right now. I really honestly think that it's one of those things that's just

probably not a black and white answer. And everybody's going to have to work out where those

lines are for themselves. For myself, I've really come down as the nap is a very good

biblically based and of course in orthodoxy we hold tradition to be very high. And even within

the context of orthodox tradition, I think that the non-aggression principle really kind of

is the best structure that I can put around the role of violence at this point that it is

permissible to defend myself or other people even using violence to resist violence.

But that I should never use violence as an aggressor. And that is pretty solid to me. I read a

really interesting book. It was by a Russian author and I can't remember his name. It's behind me

on the bookshelf. I could get it if you want me to get the guy's name in title. But he wrote about

Christian violence from orthodox perspective. And he was really critiquing Tolstoy. And a lot of

folks here might be familiar with the fact that Tolstoy wasn't an artist. He was Russian obviously

and he was part of the orthodox church. He was actually excommunicated from the orthodox church

because he didn't have much regard for the church hierarchy or the traditions of the church.

And so this author was actually critiquing Tolstoy. And his argument really made sense to me that

we have a duty as Christian to try to restrain evil. And sometimes that requires using physical

force to do it. And it was interesting the way he framed it because he put it like we should never

do it gladly. And that if we do, we need to repent because ultimately, it's not God's will for

us to pull the sword. But sometimes we have to if that makes sense.

Reluctance. Reluctance is the only posture toward this.

Yeah. And there actually is some there is some process that soldiers go through in the orthodox

church because they have killed that they have to go through in order to be still in good standing

in the church. But yeah, the non-aggression principle still really, really fits. I think it fits

biblically. I think it's I'm not going to argue with our with our friends who are absolutely

pacifists because I think I can understand how you can come to that position. But I also think that

I can't fault somebody and say, Oh, they were in this deep sin because you know, they punched

somebody in the face who is trying to grab their wife. You know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The nap is just for that. I think there's a lot of grace for those kinds of gray areas that

that we ought to we ought to get to one another for sure. You know, the other thing too,

and this is kind of a difference between probably Eastern and Western thinking to some degree. But

you know, I think that that in in orthodoxy, we have a lot more room for gray. Western thinking

tends to be very black and white. And this is true even in Catholicism. This is the really the

biggest difference between Catholicism and orthodoxy. The Catholic Church has really tried to

explain everything, right? So they have these these doctrines and these lists and all of this stuff

because that's how we do Western thought. And Eastern thinking is a lot more like,

that's just the way it is. That's okay. It's a mystery. And so orthodoxy is much more comfortable

saying, you know what? You're going to have to decide based on your your relationship with Christ

in the situation, what you're going to do in this situation. And it may or may be may or may not

be sinful depending on all kinds of things. Yeah. And that kind of ambiguities, I think uncomfortable

for a lot of evangelicals because we like our list. We want to check off the list. I did this

thing. Yeah. I got my ticket. I'm going to heaven. And that's not to say though, that's not to say

though that I know this about Eastern orthodoxy that they're relatively like I wouldn't maybe

I'm wrong about this, but it's been my impression from the books that I've read because I was sort of

been like 2019 2020. I was just interested from a basic standpoint of like, what is this? And so

I read a few books. And they're relatively conservative from a social like behavioral standpoint.

So when you say, I can imagine people hearing you say, well, you know, it's kind of all these

different factors as to whether or not one particular thing is a sin or not. Sounds really

liberal if you're thinking in the Western, you know, Protestant versus mainline, even gelatmanline

churches in America. But it's really like they come down on a lot of more socially conservative

topics generally. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's very true. Yeah. And when I say that that just

there's there's there's definitely dogma and orthodox theology is great dogmatic. I mean,

it's very yeah, it's very set out. It's and you know, it's it's I think it's a very strong

theological system. Now, you know, our our communist friends are going to disagree vehemently

about a lot of those dogmas. But I mean, I'm not even Calvinist and I would disagree with them.

So you can we don't we can we can right. Yeah, we can jab for all kinds of reasons.

Exactly. But the and see now I've totally lost my train of thought of where I was going with that.

So within that dogma, though, there's room for mystery. So I'll give you an example. We believe

in that that when you take the Eucharist that it is the body and blood. Okay. As do Catholics.

And if you go to a Catholic, they actually have an explanation to call it transubstantiation

and they have this whole like you can read about the theory of how this happens.

Yeah, orthodox don't try to give you a theory about how it happens. It just is. It's a mystery.

We actually call it a holy mystery. So within that very structured dogma, there's there's room

for mystery. So within what is a pretty conservative view on social issues and whatnot, there is room

for situational kinds of things. And you know, there's also a very deep recognition that we're all

sinful. So I can't really judge you no matter what because I've got my own plate full of stuff that

I need to deal with in my own life. But you're right. You're not wrong in that very conservative

worldview. And I'll give you an example that might amuse some people. I think it was, I think

it was in Georgia, not the state, but the country, which is which is the orthodox country. It was

either Georgia or Bulgaria. I can't remember which country it was, but they had a gay pride parade

in the country and the priests went out after with tanks of holy water and sprayed the streets.

So there is no tolerance for homosexuality in the orthodox church.

Got it. So I want to, I want to go back to the, the, we can use the, the Eucharist.

They talk about it as a mystery. We don't need to debate over what is, what does it mean to say is,

when it says, this is the body. There's two, there's two ways I can imagine responding to that.

One is, one is a little more cynical. And I would love to hear you explain this one. A cynical

version of that is, well, they're just telling you just to not ask questions and just do it.

Like, it could, that could be a really bad reading of that experience. My guess is that that's

not really the way it works when you're, when you're inquiring and asking questions about how this

works. The, the nonsynical version of that is, where is their room for curiosity and how long

are you allowed to be curious? Like, because honestly, that's one of the, one of the benefits of

Western thought and enlightenment is that we're allowed to have a curiosity, which leads us to

find different ways of explaining things so that we can understand and comprehend whether it's

nature or whether it's theology or whether it's anything, anything that we are confused about.

And so for, for someone to say, well, what do you mean it just, just believe it? And that's,

you know, it is the body. Well, what do you mean by is? And does that mean that it's physical

blood? Does that mean it that way? And like, there's all kinds of answers to that. I know that the

Catholics do have those answers, but is there room for, I mean, this is, maybe, maybe I don't

really have a question. I'm just pointing out that it seems like the Western mindset privileges

curiosity at any rate, at any, at any speed. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I'm,

I'm trying to fact, keep looking up at the sky. I would have a hard time not being allowed to

be that curious. Even if there is that, like, well, it's a mystery because at some point to,

to bring up our Calvinist friends, there is a bit of a mystery in their theology about

free will and predestination, right? There's a mystery there. We can't understand it. We're humans.

Right. That's, that's what, but maybe they wouldn't call it a mystery. Maybe that's just, I don't

know, other people call it paradoxes, but there is that you can call some of them as something a

mystery. And it's not just a shrug of your shrug of your shoulders and throw up your hands and be

like, wow, it's just a mystery. That's not, not everybody is that cavalier. There is mystery in

the Christian faith for just about every tradition. Sorry. That was a side point. I wanted to kind

of clarify there. No, that's a really good point. So, and that kind of opens the door for me to go

down a path that I was, generate, stack, keep looking at the sky because I'm trying to figure out a

way to frame this because I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to offend anybody. I don't want

to, I'm not trying to debate anybody here. I'm, I'm going to try to just frame this from my own

experience and, and why I've come to the point that I have with a lot of those issues because you

are right. Now, I've never run across anybody that I've talked to in the Orthodox Church. It is

said, well, you just have to believe that could ask me questions. That is not the environment.

Not many of your experience. That's not at all. That's not to say that that doesn't happen. I'm

sure it does. It also happens in any, any denomination. I'm sure, you know. And honestly, I think

any Christian who goes to a church and that is the attitude of the leadership they should leave.

Yeah. That's, that first of all, it's not Christian and second of all, it's just

antithetical to curiosity and growth. So, you know, so like with the Eucharist,

it's perfectly promise how does this happen? And there are theories and, and that discussion

is allowed. But ultimately, what they're going to say is that it comes down to this is what

the apostles taught through tradition and church history and through the scriptures.

And so that that is why we believe this. And, and you know, we could sit down on all kinds of

subject, not just the Eucharist. We could look at baptism. We could look at any number of things.

Well, how does salvation work? Right? We could look at any number of these things and we can sit

down with the scriptures. And as we have seen, we can come up with wildly different viewpoints.

Now, if you sit down with a, with a Calvinist and you go through, what does the Westminster

Confession? Is that their kind of their, their document? And I don't want to misrepresent anything

here. So, but broadly speaking, we can go through that confession and I'm sure that a, a good

Presbyterian or, or reformed theologian can make that case. They can go to the scriptures. They

can point out, you know, why that they believe that this because the scripture says this and this

word means this and in this, you know, we can all do that. And yet here we are in the United States

and we have how many denominations, how many different views of the Bible. And for me,

when I went into orthodoxy, there is a great deal of comfort to me, to have a church that believes

that through the church, God has, has brought these, these teachings and, and the way that we should

believe through all of these periods of time. You know, I kind of alluded to the fact that you have

the Greek church and the Russian church and, and all of these different churches. And yet if I go,

the liturgy is going to be the same. Even though there are completely different jurisdictions,

there has this, there's this consistency through organ, yeah, now it may be because it's only wrong.

That's, that's a fair point to make. But for me, we have to say, okay, where do you get that? Well,

most people say with the Bible. Okay. But we, as we see, we can all interpret the Bible a million

different ways. So whereas I think a lot of Americans look at, well, I don't want this church hierarchy

telling me what to believe. That's a very American mindset. For me, it's like, thank goodness,

I have this rich 2,000 year history of others in teaching that I can go to. And when I have

these questions, I can say, what have the church fathers? What does the church teach about this?

And I've learned that there are a lot of things in my own Protestant upbringing that I just

didn't know that are amazing to me. Symbolism, prophecies in the Old Testament that carry

through to the new that I never imagined existed. Context, you know, much of early Christian

worship evolved out of Second Temple Judaism. Second Temple Judaism is much different for Judaism

today. So you really kind of have to understand Second Temple Judaism to understand some of the things

that Paul is talking about, right? So for me, the fact that I have a church hierarchy that

tells me what to believe is somewhat comforting because I'm not relying on my brain.

In my own interpretation of things or somebody else's, we're all relying on somebody else's

interpretation things, right? I was just going to say that's the irony, whether at least you're

aware of it, right? Like you're aware of the tradition there and you're able to appreciate it

for what it is. Right. So let's scripture. Okay. I get it. The Bible is going to be our soul

source. Where did the Bible come from? Church tradition. Now, Mike, you're picking on people,

make a lot of emails. I'm sorry, but that is the reality. I mean, people do need to think about that.

We all we all believe in church tradition to some degree, even though we say solar scripture,

because all of our scripture is being interpreted through these various theological frameworks,

which I'm churches and people. So yeah, I'm not going to sit here and say that I absolutely

believe the orthodoxy is right. And if you're not following orthodoxy, you're going to hell and

you have to be orthodox. No, I don't. And a lot of orthodoxists don't believe that either.

Quite right. Now, some do just like some Baptist, you know, but I've found that that by and

large, there's a lot of grace in the orthodox church, especially when it comes to our Catholic

and Protestant brothers and sisters. We believe that God's mercy is big enough that even if you're

getting things wildly wrong, God's mercy is still is still there and God is still going to

is going to honor our efforts. However short they may fall because we're all falling short in our

efforts no matter what those are. So I'm trying not I don't want to send somebody in anybody out there

because we all have to we all have to take this journey. This is where my journey is taking me.

Other people's journey to take them different directions. And I respect that.

What's been the maybe you've already mentioned it and just to sort of highlight and kind of end

to cap our conversation here. What's been the most personally rewarding aspect of this journey for

you? It has created a spiritual life for me that I never could have imagined exist.

There is a lot of there are a lot of demands for lack of the better word in orthodoxy. We fast,

right? Arlington fast. We don't eat. We're basically vegan for 40 days, right? I don't like being vegan.

So that's hard. There is a very much we pray morning and night. You know, there's there are

set times for prayer. There's a lot of there's a lot of things that I think a lot of people will

consider legalistic. And I have found that it's not framed in a legalistic way. These are tools

to help us with our spiritual life. I was one of these people that I've always been really good at

Bible study. Like I would sit down virtually every day, my journal out, read my Bible, study,

meditate, say a few prayers. I sucked at prayer. Not good at it. Can't concentrate. Actually having

a set time before when I get up in the morning and before I go to bed that I'm going to pray and

I have this prayer book with these prayers and I have this routine. It's helped me actually

pray, actually pray for people now. I'm praying for things and I'm seeing that fruit in my own

spiritual life. And the other thing is that I feel like this happened to me and I feel like this

can happen in a lot of evangelical churches. We get saved, right? And we talk about the importance

of discipleship and a lot of churches are really good at discipleship. A lot of them aren't.

But we kind of leave people on their own, you know? And there's this constant emphasis in orthodoxy

on taming your passions, right? Learning how to control your anger, control your appetites,

control your sexuality, control all of these things that are trying to separate you from God.

And so for me that personal emphasis on trying to become more holy, trying to become more like

Christ has really changed a lot. And you know, like I said in the beginning, I kind of had this

arrogance about my Christian. I was a very good Baptist. You know, I could go into any church and

people would, I knew people would love to have me because I'm a musician and I know my theology

and I can leave Bible study and I'm just going to suck at being orthodox. And that's your standard,

right? Yeah. And that's a good thing. And there's so much that I'm learning. And it's really

forced me to plumb the depths of my own, my own spiritual life and my relationship with God. So

excuse me. And I also, along with that, I also find the worship to be very, very rewarding. I

never really got into going to church. And for both my life and I had to kind of come like,

oh, we're going to find where there's good music and a good sermon. And I'll tell you a story.

I know maybe we can wrap it if we're getting close to wrap it up with it. I mean, I don't need

to wrap it up that I don't want to, I mean, I can talk about it all day. But so we were baptized

in the end of January of last year, so a little over a year ago. And not too long after that

are priest and his wife separated and are now going through a very nasty divorce. And I,

you know, no reason to get into all of the details for that. It's a tragedy from from every side.

And I remember when that happened. I looked at my wife and I like this church is going to explode

and fall apart. And it was so, so disheartening because here we are, we're in the beginning of

this journey and we're really excited about it. And, you know, we really feel like we're finally

on this path that we need to be on it. And now we're going to end up in this church. It's just

going to die, right? It didn't die. And very few people left, which was shocking me. I mean,

I would say, I mean, we're not a big church. Okay, maybe maybe a hundred people on a Sunday

morning. I'd say maybe we lost 10. I mean, I could be off on the nose. It was shocking to me.

And my wife and I had this discussion a couple of months ago. It's like, you know, I really

expected something different because of my experience. I've been through several church splits and

several incidents where, you know, pastors fell. And I'm not saying that our priests fell. I'm

not saying putting in one. You're jumping to a different description. I get it. But, but yeah,

so the church has held together and thrived without a priest. Like we basically had, you know,

there's a huge pre-shortage in Orthodox church right now. So we've had a lot of Sundays,

no priest at all, or we would have a deacon who would come in there. They're limited in what

they can do in the service. And then we'd have visiting priests. And it's just priests are

important than a congregation, just like a pastor is. And yet this church has sustained like that.

And that was a really, it was a really neat thing for me to recognize that these people are in

this church because it's their church and not because of this person. And I've been in so many

churches that are personality driven. And when that personality retires or falls or whatever,

the church just kind of goes into ethos. And that were all different things. So, so for me,

the depth of Orthodox worship, the theology, the music, oh my gosh, the the harmonies in the

choir, we don't use any instruments in Orthodox churches. So it's all vocal harmonies. It's absolutely

gorgeous. And I would encourage anybody, you know, even if you're not at least been interested

in being Orthodox and you know, I would encourage anybody to go to an Orthodox church service at

some point and just sit there and absorb it because like I said, my wife and I left who were just

both like in this this state of awe because it's there's something happening there that is beyond

this normal human emotion and in performance. And it's it's it's very it's a very cool thing.

Now that's really great. I'm going to warn you if you do go visit the orthodox church,

you're going to be weirded out because people are going to be kissing pictures and stuff. So that's

kind of odd for us. I think yeah, I think that would I think that would be a lot. That's that's

fine. So I know there are a lot of libertarian Christians who might be listening who could be

disenchanted with their church, with their faith. As you trends transitioned from one way of thinking

about your faith to another, do you have any advice, words of wisdom, you know, to to share with

those people who who are thinking of of alternatives? Not necessarily as a picture Eastern orthodoxy.

I know you're not going to do that, but just as a as a I've been through this. I can help you

kind of way. Well, I think and you and I touched a little bit on this as we were talking before we

came on the air. And that is the fact that resist the temptation to make your libertarianism like

your holistic philosophy, right? Right. It has to be underneath the faith option, not above it.

Right. Libertarian is a political philosophy, right? It informs us on how to do governance to

maybe a broader extent. It informs us a little bit of the proper and moral and ethical use of

violence, enforcement, society. I think that that libertarian has a very important role to play in

that. But you know, there are things that are allowable in libertarianism that I wouldn't advise

as a Christian, right? So I don't want to make libertarianism my whole worldview, right? As a

libertarian, I would say, you know what? If you want to inject heroin into your arm, I'm not going

to use force to stop you from doing that because I don't think that's a proper use of force

under the non-aggression principle. But I am going to say as a Christian, you probably shouldn't

shoot heroin into your arm. So libertarian is a part of a worldview, but it can't or I

think shouldn't be the whole whole part of your worldview. So I would just encourage folks,

get your spiritual house in order first, find that place where you can connect to Christ,

where you can connect to God, where you can worship, where you're in a community of believers,

and you can serve as a Christian. And then figure out how your political philosophy fits into

that. And I think, personally, that libertarianism is very, very compatible with Christianity,

you know, as in many flavors, yeah, in many flavors, in most flavors. And the extent of your

libertarianism, like, you know, in libertarianism, we have a wide range of views, right? We have

minarchists, we have anarchists, we have some folks that really just want a smaller budget,

right? That have libertarian instincts, right? It kind of runs the range. And, you know,

I would probably have considered myself an anarchist before my Orthodox journey. I would probably

consider myself more of a minarchist now, not because I think that minarchy is a better philosophy,

but I think minarchy is more realistic in the world that exists today. But that's really my advice,

focus on your spiritual life. And then the political aspects are going to fall into place.

But I would caution against why I need to find a church that is compatible with my libertarianism.

No, no, no, no, find a church that gets you close to Jesus. And then, you're worrying about your

libertarianism. That'll make you believe it. You probably do believe it. Believe it or not,

we get that question a good bit here. Probably, I would say, I wouldn't say maybe monthly,

but we have people write in and say, Hey, you know, I want to, I'm really frustrated because

my church doesn't seem like they'd be very compatible with libertarianism. And I'm like,

so like, that's not it. I actually did an episode with a friend of mine. This probably was pre-COVID.

I don't know. His name is Chuck Goodinson. I don't remember the episode number. I'll top my head,

but there's I can add it to the show notes. He wrote a book called Church Worth Getting Up For.

And this is the perfect example of the kinds of things that you can look for in a church that

don't require to be a libertarian church or that your pastor is libertarian. And there's going

to be things that will throw it off. Like, you know, if it's if your if your pastor is Robert

Jeffress or something like that, you know, probably probably not going to, you know, exist very well

as a libertarian, but there are a lot of ways in which your libertarianism can be expressed

in a number of churches. And in fact, to be to be sort of tease out something here over the course

of this year and into next year, which would be 26 and 27, and LCI will be coming out with some

resources that will help people with this kind of thing. So I will tease that on my end. Mike,

is there anything that we haven't? Well, there's a lot of things we've left unsaid.

Anything you want to leave us with? And is there anything that work people can find you at your

organizations? Well, I think that I think that folks who are libertarian is libertarian. Good

grief. What word did I just make? Folks who are libertarians, I think that you should be,

you know, be bold in making our libertarian arguments among the faithful that you're surrounded

with. And, and, you know, even as even if you're in a more structured environment, such as orthodoxy,

there, it's not like orthodoxy. This is the way it is. And there's no room for debate or opinion.

There's a wide range of views on a lot of things in the orthodox church, right? It's not this,

it's not monolithic. And so there's certainly room in the orthodox church for discussion and debate.

What is the proper role of the church vis-à-vis the government? What is the proper role of the

government vis-à-vis society? You know, how should those things work? Those aren't set in stone

anywhere that I know of. So be, be willing and, and, and make the case, but also be aware of,

you know, be respectful to your church leadership and whatnot. And, you know, I think I don't want to

downplay. I think some people might come away from what I've said and like, well, I don't be

orthodox because that's not very libertarian. No, I mean, that's not, that's not true at all.

There's room for discussion. There are, there are people on the right. There are a lot of people

on the right. There's to be conservative people in orthodox church. There are people on the left.

There's a very strong views on Israel in orthodox church. And folks who get frustrated with

American evangelicals, constantly lauding in Israel might be pleased with the orthodox churches view.

Yeah. So, you know, there's, there are, there are, I don't know, there are things that you're going to

do. I don't know where you go. There's going to be things that you disagree with and things that

aren't going to be comfortable. You have to find that place most comfortable for you. And so for

me right now, orthodoxy is that place? That's excellent. Mike, I'm glad you found that. And I

think you're for coming on and talking to me about this. We've been chatting about this possibility

of this conversation for about four or five months now. And I think I'm really glad that we made

the time to do it. So yeah, thanks, man, for coming on and hopefully we'll get to have you on

again soon. Yeah, be happy, teaming. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Libertarian

Christian podcast. If you liked today's episode, we encourage you to rate us on Apple podcasts to

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