Pantheon and Pandemonium IV: Asynchronous Q&A June 2022

Summary

The Lord of Spirits Podcast

Episode: Pantheon and Pandemonium IV: Asynchronous Q&A June 2022

Date: June 25, 2022
Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen De Young

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Brief Overview

This special Q&A episode features the hosts tackling a wide variety of listener-submitted questions regarding the Orthodox Christian view of the seen and unseen world. Topics range from scriptural interpretation and spiritual practices to complex theological and contemporary issues—including the nature of prophecy, the concept of sin as a spiritual force, justice and blessing, the effects of curses and folk beliefs, gender and embodiment, and the development of Orthodox traditions and liturgy. The tone blends scholarly insight, humor, and pastoral warmth.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Scriptural Interpretation and Demonic References

• Leviticus 18 and Molech/Sin:

  • A question about Leviticus 18:21 (“you shall not give your offspring to worship a ruler...”) is clarified. “Ruler” is a mistranslation for “Molech.”
  • Molech, associated with child sacrifice, is a demon whose cult involved fertility rites (see 03:14–05:41).
  • The prohibition is not about a “Nephilim ritual” but about forbidden demonic worship tied to sexual immorality.

  “So, don't give your kids to Molech, who is the notorious specific demon...it's not talking about the Nephilim ritual but really talking about sacrificing children to this demon.” — Fr. Stephen (04:31)

2. Gospel Differences: Exorcisms in John

• Why no exorcisms in John’s Gospel?

  • John’s Gospel was likely written last and presumes readers are familiar with synoptic accounts.
  • Instead of repeating exorcisms, John “fills in the gaps” with stories not covered elsewhere, like the raising of Lazarus (07:35–13:24).
  • This highlights how different Gospels serve varying theological emphases without redundancy.

  “John’s Gospel functions as a kind of theological supplement to the other three.” — Fr. Stephen (12:02)

3. The Holy Spirit and Prophecy

• Spirit 'Possession' in Prophecy (e.g., Saul)

  • Old Testament language distinguishes the Spirit “coming upon” (temporary, overwhelming) versus “filling” (abiding presence).
  • When the Spirit rushes upon the impure or rebellious (e.g., Saul), the result may be disorder or suffering—akin to “torture by holiness” rather than blessing (16:05–22:19).
  • Cooperation with the Spirit is essential; passive yielding leads toward demonic possession.

  “The negative reaction...is based on the holiness or corruption...of the person encountering the presence of God in the Spirit.” — Fr. Andrew (20:57)

4. Sin as Spiritual Force and Demonization

• Nature and Origin of Sin

  • Sin isn’t merely moral failing but a manifestation of demonic influence; passions make us passive, and habitual yielding blurs the line with demonic possession (24:26–30:12).
  • There is a spectrum: minor sin <—> complete demonization.
  • Conversely, cooperation with the Holy Spirit produces virtue.

  “There’s more of a continuum between sinning and demonic possession...if you think about sin, the fathers call the passions...because they make you passive.” — Fr. Andrew (29:11)

• Is Sin ‘Mistimed Goodness’?

  • Certain passions are always blameworthy; not all sin is simply “good done at the wrong time.” (31:15–33:36)

5. Adam & Eve, Nakedness, and Human Nature

• Nakedness Before and After the Fall

  • Nakedness in Genesis is a symbol of innocence; after the Fall, shame arises from self-awareness and the loss of innocence (35:46–40:05).
  • “Garments of skin” are iconographically depicted as animal skins but theologically signify a change in human nature—mortality, not just clothing.

  “Garments of skin aren’t an answer to the problem of them being naked...the story is trying to tell us this is about their innocence.” — Fr. Andrew (37:52)

6. Justice, Wisdom, and Blessing

• How are Justice, Wisdom, and Blessing Related?

  • All describe aspects of right order:
    • Justice: Actual harmony in creation.
    • Blessedness: The experiential state of being in accord.
    • Wisdom: The apprehension and ability to enact that order (41:26–45:00).

  “Justice is everything in its place...blessedness is the state when a creature is in accord with the whole.” — Fr. Andrew (43:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Spiritual Passivity:

  “Passions are called passions because they make you passive.” — Fr. Andrew (29:11)

• The Limits of Ritual Protection:

  “If we enter into sort of that world and that way of doing things, then we're giving those things purchase in our lives...pray this prayer—Christ protects you from the demonic powers.” — Fr. Andrew (54:30)

• Clergy and Service:

  “All of us, when we approach serving the church, have to wrestle a little bit with our ego...that means I'm going to do whatever the church needs me to do.” — Fr. Andrew (69:58)

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Timestamps for Important Topics

| Segment | Time (MM:SS) | Summary | |------------------------|--------------|-----------------------------------------------------------| | Spirit, Molech & Leviticus | 02:34–05:41 | Child sacrifice; demonic interpretation | | John's Gospel & Exorcism | 07:35–13:24 | Why John omits exorcisms | | Prophecy and Spirit | 15:11–22:19 | Nature of prophetic possession | | Sin as Passions/Demonization | 24:26–34:33 | Demonic 'agent' model of sin, continuum to possession | | Nakedness & Garments of Skin | 35:46–40:08 | Innocence, shame, iconography | | Justice, Wisdom, Blessing | 41:00–45:20 | Theological connections between the terms | | Paganism, Curses, and Evil Eye | 48:51–59:56 | Orthodox approach to curses, supernatural protections | | Women and Ministry | 59:56–72:44 | Role of women historically and today in Orthodox context | | Marriage and Sacraments | 111:33–116:50 | Nature and function of holy matrimony | | Tradition and Change | 116:57–126:56 | How Orthodox traditions develop and adapt | | Gender, Body, and Identity| 127:11–146:44 | Sex/gender distinction, pastoral response to trans issues |

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Additional Highlights

• How to Approach Curses & Folk Beliefs:

  • The Orthodox position is not to become superstitious or paranoid; rituals/pastoral prayers are about directing trust to Christ, not magic (52:00–57:53).

• Role of Women in the Church:

  • Orthodox Christianity deeply values female sanctity and contribution (e.g., St. Cassiani, the Theotokos, abbesses, monastics). While priesthood is reserved for men, women’s spiritual motherhood and creative contributions are essential (61:25–72:44).

• Complexity of Sin & Addiction:

  • Sinful habits foster demonic influence akin to spiritual addiction—fighting passions requires both grace and continued resistance (28:27–31:04).

• Theology of the Body & Gender:

  • The sex/gender distinction, role of community in forming identity, and Orthodox anthropology are explained at length. Emphasizes compassion, not polemic, in response to current gender confusion (127:11–146:44).

• Tradition, Change, and Pastoral Reality:

  • Liturgy and tradition develop organically, not by committee or innovation-for-its-own-sake; change arises from lived experience, spiritual discernment, and episcopal oversight (118:12–126:56).

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Flow and Tone

• The conversation flows naturally, alternating serious theological reflection with playful banter (“Punishment continues as it will...” 03:41).
• The show maintains a welcoming, pastoral tone even on controversial subjects. The hosts push for nuance and charity alongside doctrinal clarity.
• Notable for its avoidance of platitudes and defense against reactionary or overly narrow readings on topics like exorcism, tradition, curses, and gender roles.

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Conclusion

This rich, multi-layered episode demonstrates the Lord of Spirits podcast at its best—combining sophisticated scriptural and theological analysis with practical, compassionate advice for modern Orthodox Christians. Mysteries of the spiritual world, human experience, and the ongoing life of the Church are explored with depth, humility, and a consistent focus on Christ as the center of all reality.

Transcript

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits, angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung host this live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Good evening. Giants Killers and Giant killers. But it's easy for me to say giant killers, Dragon slayers said giants killers. I think that becomes a football thing then. You are listening to Lord of Spirits podcast. My co Host, Father Steven DeYoung is with me from Lafayette, Louisiana and I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. We are recording live, but we're actually not going to be taking full phone calls tonight. That said, if you leave a question on our Facebook or ancient faith YouTube streams and we spot it, there is a chance that we could take it and respond. Anyway, let's dive in. So are you ready, Father Stephen?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. Yes. This is going to be an all Q and A episode, everybody. So we got piles and piles of questions from you. Lots were sent by email, but then also a lot were sent by voicemail. And since we got plenty of the voicemail variety, we're favoring that. Number one, because we love to hear your wonderful voices. But number two, it just makes for better radio actually. But so don't be discouraged though we still want to hear from you by email. You're welcome to send that in, but like I said, voicemail is better. So here we are. Lots and lots of questions today. So I'm just going to start us off with the first one. This one comes from, actually my old seminary classmate Father Christopher.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Leviticus chapter 18 deals with various and sundry forms of sexual immorality that the Lord commands the children of Israel not to do according to the way of life in the land of Egypt and Canaan, because this way of life.

Vexes the land itself. But one verse in this chapter stands out as very different. And on first reading, it doesn't look like it's dealing with sexual immorality. And that's verse 21. Furthermore, you shall not give your offspring to worship a ruler, nor shall you defile my holy name. I am the Lord.

My question is, is this verse actually talking about the Nephilim ritual? Thank you, fathers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There you go, right out of the gate with a giant question. Yay.

So, I don't. You know, my.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I didn't think the question was that long. Oh, wait, you meant the other way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. A good pun to start off with. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Punishment continue as it will.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It will continue no matter how morale does.

I mean, like my read on where it says, not give your offspring to worship a ruler. I mean, ruler there. Right? That's. That's referring to gods, right? Is that the idea? It's not talking about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, of course, you know, your local.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

God king is a God. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's kind of a mistranslation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, all right, take us in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, well, it's Molech.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, is that what it says, Literally, is Molech.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And someone read Molech as melech, which means king.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Wow. All right. Is that. I mean, I don't have my, you know, my Septuagint in front of me. Is that the Septuagint reading? Is that king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So don't give your kids to Molech, who is the notorious specific demon. Right, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, I mean, whose name is derived. It's. It's derived from the same root. Right. The same way that, like, baal. Right. BAAL means master or lord. Right, right, right. Molech kind of means ruler. So it's like kind of a mistranslation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That. It's not translated as a proper noun.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And, you know, notoriously, Molech is the one associated with child sacrifice in the Old Testament.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So probably not referencing the Nephilim ritual, but really talking about sacrificing children to this demon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. And the connection to the sexual immorality element is that.

This is related to fertility. Right. The practice.

So people would sacrifice a child to Molech. The idea being that would guarantee fertility and you'd have a bunch more children.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Counterintuitive. I know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, there's a weird parallel there to the whole prosperity gospel seed faith thing. You know, pay this money and you'll get a lot more money later.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, so this is a little darker.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Wait, yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like, I Don't think Rod Parsley sacrificing any babies. But.

Good old Rob, if you have information, I don't let the police know, but.

I'm pretty sure he's not. Yeah, so. But yeah, so that's the connection, right? That's the connection. And a lot of the commandments there in Leviticus 18 are bluntly talking about non reproductive sex.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. All sterile kinds of things that are against the basic commandment of be fruitful.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so this is related. This is related to that. They're all directed toward men because of course women at that time did not have the right of consent. So it was men making the decisions about these things. Yeah. And so it's restricting male sexuality from these various outlets. Right. Because men, for some reason in the past wanted to have a lot of sex without having a lot of children. They'd have to be responsible for it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Huh?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, go figure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And then also, I mean, you know, the pairing of idolatry and sexual immorality is ubiquitous in the Bible. Right? I mean, it's right everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right, well, moving on to our next question for this first half. This one is from Noah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hello, Fathers. I was wondering, what is the theological significance of the fact that in John's Gospel, Jesus doesn't exercise any demons, even though he's seen doing this in the other three. Thanks.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, so, I mean there's, I mean, number one, there's a lot of differences between John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Why is this? It's funny, actually, I had never noticed this before, but then when we got this question, I kind of looked it up. I was like, oh, hey, that's right. I can't remember any exorcisms in John's Gospel and can't find any. Is that true? Are there not any?

And if not, why do you think that would not be in the picture there?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So I have said that there aren't any in your presence before, so apparently.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, really? I can't remember.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Tune me out a lot of the time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Everything I say. You say a lot of things.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's true. But I also repeat myself a lot.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's true too.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

On the flip side. On the flip side, I say the same things over and over again a lot of the time.

But it is true that there are no exorcisms in St. John's Gospel. I mean, on one hand, this is kind of an unanswerable question in that we have to get into St. John's Head and say, hey, why did you put in any exorcism? But I'm not just going to say that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I personally hold to.

And I think there's good warrant for this. I mean, as an orthodox Christian, the iconography of St. John composing his gospel with a scribe always depicts him as an elderly man, for example. And so based on sort of everything the fathers say, all the traditions of the church, rather than my own conjecture, I'll leave that that St. John's gospel was written last.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And there's been some good.

Scholarly work published in the last several years.

In Johannine studies that makes a really good case that not only is St. John's gospel written after the synoptic gospels, the other three, but that it is aware of the other three.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Right. So he's like, well, look, you guys got this covered, so I'm going to focus on this over here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And there are places where he seems to be deliberately filling in gaps. Right. So, for example, talking about the raising of Lazarus, it's a direct connection to Christ's triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, big example. Because, I mean, the raising of Lazarus isn't even in the other three. Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We just see all these people excited to see Jesus.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Which just. Yeah. It comes out of the blue. Yeah. Like, oh, here he is, you know, welcome, you know, big crowds and palm branches and like, wait, who is this guy again? I mean, it doesn't quite make sense in those Gospels, but if you, you know, if word has gotten out that he raised this guy four days dead out of the tomb, people are going to turn out for that. You know, they're going to want to see this guy who can do that because no one's ever even heard of that before.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. And so there are a bunch of other examples besides the exorcism. Also, for example, St. John's gospel doesn't have the institution of the Eucharist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It has the foot washing and then it sort of skips. Right. It has the foot washing that the other Gospels don't. Right. And then it has a much more elaborated sort of final discourse of Christ to his disciples right after. After the mystical supper. But it doesn't describe the institution of the Eucharist. Rather, you have John six.

Which isn't that whole discourse is not in the other Gospels. You have that talking about the Eucharist, but you don't have the actual institution. The weirdest one of these, though, is that technically Jesus doesn't get baptized in, in St. John's gospel because it describes him coming to St. John, the forerunner, and then it skips to when he came up out of the water.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like, it skips the actual baptism part the same way it skips the institution of the Eucharist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So in a lot of ways, John's Gospel functions as a kind of theological supplement to the other three.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so it takes for granted, like, in those cases, literally takes for granted that you're aware of the contents of the others.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And so he can fill things in. He could talk about things that maybe he was privy to that other gospel writers weren't. Right.

And sort of expand on some of those things without having to just go through the same material again.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then the other three, I mean, you know, without getting into the weeds of. Of whether, you know, one of them is used as a source for the others or whatever, the way they.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You're just picking fights today.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm just letting you know I'm aware of that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They don't. They don't function this way. There's not like a. Well, you know, look, Mark had this covered, so I don't really need to include. Like, there's. They.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They don't reference each other.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. They seem to function as units on their own on some level, you know, like, they're. They're, you know, they're trying to be complete according to that particular author's vision for what a complete gospel looks like, you know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I mean, St. Luke, at the beginning of his gospel makes the reference to a bunch of people having written things before.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But other than that. Right. He makes that sort of general reference to the fact that I'm using source material.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But other than that, there's no specific. Like, I got this from this person. I got this from that person. Yeah. There are some hints at that in St. Luke's gospel in that he will sometimes name the people for, like, no particular reason.

He'll say, this was so and so, you know, the son of so and so or so and so, the brother of so and so. Right. Which kind of implies that may be who he talked to.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He just sort of assumes that the people who are his original readers at least, will know who that is or be able to ask them something or whatever. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But, yeah, beyond that, there aren't. Like, he doesn't say, like, as St. Mark wrote.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right. Exactly. And, you know. And you know, of course, when you're talking about the two of them in particular.

They were not present for the vast majority of what they're writing about. So they're all getting that from other sources. You know, they're talking to people, and maybe there's some other stuff written down that we don't have, but St. Mark's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Getting it traditionally from St. Peter.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Very interesting. All right, well, so the answer no is we don't really quite know exactly why there aren't exorcisms in John's gospel, but maybe he figured that had been taken care of already by the other ones.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But good catch. But, yeah, I mean, it's so prominent in the other three that he may have felt that that was covered.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sure. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

As he seems to have with some other things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right, we got one from Jesse, who has a question about Holy Spirit possession.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hello, Fathers, this is Jesse Crosby. I have a question about prophecy. As I've been listening to Lord of Spirits, and my understanding of what prophecy is and the role that it plays in scripture and in our lives has been expanded. I'm a little confused about certain areas of scripture where it talks about the Holy Spirit coming upon someone and they begin to prophesy.

Almost in an uncontrolled way. I mean, probably the most obvious example would be Saul, when the Holy Spirit comes on him when he's coming to attack David, and he begins prophesying and takes all of his clothes off. And it's almost like he's acting as if he has no control and is a madman, which seems to be something that we would associate with demonic possession, not the.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not the Holy Spirit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And we're never really told what they say. So I'm wondering, what does prophecy in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This sense look like?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What are they saying? What. What. What exactly are they. Are they just praising God? Are they speaking about something that's going to happen? Like, I'm trying to understand how to read these portions of Scripture. Thank you so much.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, this is a cool question. I mean, it's. It's. It's notable, and you've pointed this out before, that there are. It's not just like with Saul suddenly, you know, jerking around on the ground, you know, but, like, there are other cases where it seems like the Holy Spirit sort of takes hold of someone and kind of on some level, makes them do something. Right? I mean, what are the conditions? Why would he do that? I mean, obviously, we cannot know the mind of God, but you know what I'm saying, Like, there are clearly times when prophecy seems to be a much more kind of.

You know.

Synergistic thing, you know, like, I heard the word of the Lord or I saw him and he said this to me, and now I'm passing this on to you. Like, it doesn't seem like, you know, there's no point where the Holy Spirit functions as a kind of, you know, functions through someone in a kind of oracular way that I can recall. Am I forgetting something? But there are moments that he grabs hold of people and things happen.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. Yeah. Most of the time, when you see the phenomenon of Holy Spirit possession, whoever gets sort of possessed kills a whole lot of people.

I'll just even problematize it even more.

Like in Judges and in Joshua, that's like. That literally happens. The Holy Spirit came upon somebody like Samson. People love when I talk about Samson, and, you know, he kills hundreds of people. Right, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And I've noticed that the language seems to be different. Like, it's. He can't. The Spirit comes upon versus someone is filled with the Holy Spirit. Is that a real distinction?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. Comes upon and then departs.

Right. Whereas when we. When, you know, St. Stephen, when he's about to be martyred, you know, is said to be filled with the Holy Spirit and then he speaks. Right, right. Where that's sort of a quality of him. Right. That he's been filled with the spirit. Whereas. And like this Samson case or one of the other Judges case, it's the Holy Spirit just comes upon him, sort of seizes him, does this and then departs. Right. We don't get the idea that the Holy Spirit sort of rushed upon St. Stephen and then left.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Quite the opposite.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. He's filled with the Holy Spirit. I mean, this is who he is, you know, but this is a kind of a peaking, so to speak. Right, right. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And yes, prophecy is usually, as you said, kind of synergistic. Right. Because we see prophets who sort of cooperate. Then we see like Jonah, who kind of doesn't cooperate.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

For most of the book.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Although. And you know, in his case still, like, the Holy Spirit doesn't grab hold of him. He just has given so many opportunities for repentance.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Finally does.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. That he finally sort of cooperates and that is bitter about it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So. So, yeah. So we have to remember that the Holy Spirit, the way the Holy Spirit is talked about, and this is especially clear in the Old Testament, this is part of why we sometimes miss. It is as like the presence of God who's filling the tabernacle in the temple. Right. So it's presence of God himself. Because the Holy Spirit is God. Right. But as sort of filling. And that presence very much has this ambivalent nature, Right. In the sense that this is a blessing for Israel. Right. That God has come to dwell with them. It's also dangerous. Right. You have the whole death by holiness thing. Right. That is a potential there. Right. And so the way that that goes, whether it goes one way or the other in terms of the presence of God is based on, you know, the holiness or the corruption, the purity or impurity of the person encountering the presence of God in the Spirit. Right. And so a person who has repented, who's been made clean. Right. That's why. Right. Isaiah. Look at the calling of Isaiah. Right. Isaiah comes into the presence of God immediately like, woe is me. We'll say, right. The King James is like, woe is me. It is undone. Right. It's the equivalent of cursing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's like, I'm done. Right, right. Because of his own sinfulness. And then there's this symbolic purification with the coal.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then after the purification, he's then able to receive and. And go on this mission. Right.

So.

The negative reaction. We see a negative reaction like Saul. Right. Saul at this point has an unclean spirit dwelling within him. Right, right. And is out for murder, out of his own jealousy. Right. And anger. And so when he comes into the presence of God, that's not a good experience.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. It's. It's not death, exactly. By holiness, but getting there. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's sort of torture by holiness. Right. Madness as a result of it. Yeah, right. And so we don't obviously know the exact words that were coming out of his mouth.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But you know, we should think about, for example, when, you know, we're told that ultimately every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Right. So including the devil. And confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's not going to be a pleasurable experience.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Speak that truth. Right, right. So even prophecy is not necessarily. Right. Like a. A pleasurable experience. Right. And. And usually when you see somebody getting seized by the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit departing like that, it's because that person themselves has not been sort of purified like God is doing his will through them. Right. But.

This Holy Spirit can't abide there because he has been purified. And so that's. As we come up, as we record this, we're coming up on Pentecost. So this. This chain that St. Luke makes between the purification of the world and of humanity. By Christ's blood on the cross, then allows the Holy Spirit to come and dwell within people. Right. Continually. Right. That that connection is there. Otherwise the Holy Spirit couldn't. Because it would kill us.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right. You know, the other takeaway I have from this is that just because God makes use of someone doesn't mean that they are a saint, that they have to be obeyed or whatever. You know, there's that whole, like, within certain sectors of Christianity, that whole touch, not the Lord's anointed kind of thing, which is basically a way for allowing abusive church leaders to continue to not face any consequences. You know, like, look at his success. How can you possibly criticize him? You know, like. Well, actually.

Yeah, right, right, exactly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, so you can apply that literally. I mean, you shouldn't go around killing those people. Yes, that's what it meant. That was David refusing to actually murder Saul. Right. Usurp the.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There we go. Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You should not do that. But killing the worst faster. You should not murder them and take over the church.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? Yes, exactly. Usurping a kingdom. Killing a pastor is not the same thing as critic, criticizing him for bad things he's done or holding him accountable.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Bad behavior.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. Okay. Well, we've got another one. This one is from Travis, who has a question about sin.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Greetings, podfathers. I have a question about sin. What is it and how did it come into existence? In the past you've mentioned that sin is a spiritual being that seeks to dominate and master people like it did Cain. How did that spiritual being come into existence?

Also, in a sense, is sin a form of mistimed goodness? My understanding of creation is that God made everything good. I've also heard Father Seraphim Rose quote multiple saints saying that in the Garden of Eden, God eventually intended Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil. The problem was not eating of the fruit of the tree, but eating of the tree at the wrong time when God told them not to. As I've thought about this more, I've come to the conclusion that all sin on some level could be thought of as doing the right action at the wrong time. To commit adultery is to have sex.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A good thing at the wrong time?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not with our spouse. To commit idolatry is to worship a good thing. We were made to worship, but it's done at the wrong time. It's not directed towards God. Does this view of sin as a sort of mistiming, a sort of lack of kairos timing make sense? And fit into the spiritual understanding of sin outlined in the Lord of Spirits. Thank you, fathers. Have a blessed rest of your day.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, so it's two parts. Right. The first is like, where does sin as a spiritual force come from? But then also, you know, how does that connect with this idea of. I mean. I mean, like this second part, we see this kind of language in some of the monastic fathers especially talk about passions as being. When they become sinful, it's because they're misdirected. Not so much like a change in time, maybe, but I mean, a misdirection in time is a misdirection too. Right. Like, you know, I could stand outside in my backyard and turn in circles and swing my arms around, but if one of my children comes within arm's reach, I should stop that. Right. Because I could hit them in the face, and I do not wish to hit them in the face. So I don't know. I mean, it's a good question. I mean, I feel like I have some sense of both.

That sinfulness as a spirit, malevolent spiritual presence comes because of demonic rebellion. Right. That it's a force of actual. An actual personal force in the world that is fallen angelic nature. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And.

So, but, you know, the imagery that's used of sin, starting with Genesis 4, is of this demonic being. But we shouldn't think that there is like this one demonic being, sin.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And this other one, the devil. This other one. Right.

But the. The idea is very much. And.

This is not only Genesis 4, but this is how the New Testament, especially the Johannine literature, treats it. Is that.

And this goes into the monastic literature. Even before the monastic literature, I was. I was recently doing some work in the shepherd of Hermits. And it's spelled out there too.

That.

This is a question of a. A demonic entity sort of working through you. Right. So. And this is what in, like, first John is referred to as the works of the devil. Yeah, this goes all the. All the way back. So demonic entities aren't able to produce things in the world independently. Right. So sin is when one of these spirit sort of seizes control of a person and that person brings those works into existence in the world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Now, it's not necessarily like you use the phrase seizes control, but it's not necessarily like true possession in the sense of, like, you can't help it or whatever. Although.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That does exist. Right. But. But is, you know, I've volunteer voluntarily. I'm participating in the works of a demon. And so Therefore, the demon works through me. I become his agent.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Well, let me. Let me freak everybody out a little more, all right. In that there's more of a continuum between sinning and demonic possession than them being two different things.

Because if you think about sin, and you think about sin in the way the fathers talk about it is the passions. Right. They're called passions because they make you passive. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They control you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Rage takes control of you. Right. And leaves you passive.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or if you think about it in terms of addiction. Right. As an analogy. Right. There's a point in, say, alcoholism where you're not consciously choosing to take the next drink anymore.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. No, it just becomes automatic.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And so.

There'S not so much a line between, like one of the demon possessed people we see in the Gospels and me, quote, unquote, committing a sin as there is sort of this range of continuum, but that's sort of where the road leads if you continue on it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So a difference of without, without repentance.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A difference of magnitude more than of type.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so anytime we yield to the passions, we're yielding control of ourselves and our lives to.

To a. Essentially a demonic being, a spirit of evil. Right. Is. Is what we're manifesting and what we're. And so that produces these works, so. Right. Which are themselves dangerous and destructive. Yeah, right. In the world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And which Christ came to destroy according to first John. And the reverse is also true. This is how the fruits of the Spirit work.

Right. When we're following Christ and where we're keeping his commandments and doing good, we're manifesting the Holy Spirit, God himself. We're participating with God himself.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And you become gradually more. It doesn't become automatic exactly. But it becomes a kind of second nature. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because our nature has changed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Our nature is transformed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. You know, the thing I would say about this question of.

Is sin just sort of goodness mistimed?

I see where Travis is going with that, and I think that there's some truth to that. But I think that the problem with that image is that it sounds like the way when someone conceives of how they perform an action. Right. They think about their motives, they think about the process of beginning it, and so on and so forth.

But if it's. I'm just doing this at the wrong time, then that suggests that all that kind of led up to that action is the same. It's just. It's, oh, whoops, it's at the wrong moment, you know? But but the truth is, is that the. The kind of movement of sin is a different movement, right, Than. Than the movement of holiness. Even if the action itself, taken as a separate, isolated sort of datum, may not be evil, Right. It's not an evil thing to eat a steak. Right? But then the whole motivation that goes into putting that meat in front of an idol and praying to that God and having the desire and intention to share a meal with that God, that whole action is idolatry. It's not just the eating. Right? So it's not. It's not just kind of mistimed. It's an inappropriateness in a lot of ways. You know?

So. So I. Like I said, I think it's. It's an okay image, but I think it could be a lot fuller. You know, that's my sort of take on that. What do you think about that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, well, yeah, And. And you have to take into account the distinction that the fathers make between there are blameworthy passions and there are blameless passions.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, sure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So as humans, right. Like.

We get tired, right. We don't voluntarily get tired. Right? We get tired, we get hungry. You know, we. We even have the drive to reproduce. None of which are blameworthy in and of themselves, Right, right. It's when they're indulged to excess. Right. And in the wrong way. Right? So there is. There is. There is something there in that distinction. Right? But there are also just blameworthy passions.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Like, pride is never a good thing. Right. Greed is never a good thing. Sorry, Gordon Gekko. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. Those. Those ones, yeah. The idea of mistiming them, like, okay, I'll be proud. I'll be proud at this moment, and that's okay, but not. Or, you know, I'll be greedy at this moment and. But. And that's okay, but.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, yeah, it doesn't quite work.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's okay for me to be a little slothful in moderation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

You know, no matter how much any of us might feel that way, it's still true.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Or it may reflect our actual lives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's. I mean, there's a whole nest of issues here. We could maybe we'll do a show sometime on morality and ethics of that. Like, does someone's intentions even matter.

When we talk about voluntary and involuntary sins?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And that kind of thing. But that's for another time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, indeed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, so we've got one from. He didn't say his name, but it's Socrates or Socrates. I guess, if you're going to Socrates.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Socrates, yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's a callback to a lovely film from the 1980s.

All right, this is one from Socrates and he has a question about nakedness.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's always asking questions and never giving any answers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right, exactly. So here it is.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hi, Father Andrew and Father Stephen, thank.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You for the show.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

My understanding is that Adam and Eve had bodies, and then when they sinned, they now have flesh, which is what we all have. So my question is at the end of Genesis, chapter two, it says that they were naked and were not ashamed. So how are we to understand their nakedness in regards to the body they had before the fall? And also sometimes in iconography, we see them getting kicked out of paradise and they have these fur garments of skins or clothes look like made from animals rather than the human flesh we have now. So I was wondering how to kind of reconcile the information there. Thank you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So this turns on this question of the garments of skin. What does it mean to be naked before you have the garments of skin? And what's the deal with iconography that shows them literally wearing animal skins?

I think the second part is the easiest one to me. Just because you shouldn't take everything you see in an icon literally, I think would be the way that I would put that you should.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, how. Yeah, how would you depict that? Like, how would you depict them before the expulsion from Paradise? Yeah, if you're going to depict them as normal humans after.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. Or, you know. Yeah, or. Or like. Or another example is, you know, Christ in his post resurrectional appearances. We all recognize him when we look at an icon. We see him and say, oh, there's Jesus Christ. And yet I think no one who saw him after his resurrection immediately recognized him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, there's a lot of. Well, we talked about that. Yeah, in that one episode. But yeah, there's a lot of weird. Like, you know, no one dared ask him who he was because they knew it was Christ. Like, that's kind of a weird circumlocution.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Suggests that that was a question that arose in their minds. Like, who is this? Wait, no, this has to be him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, so, yeah, so that's kind of an odd thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So I. Yeah, like I said, I don't. You can't take it. I don't. I don't think you can just simply take it literally. And again, you know, this is.

This is a patristic image. The idea that the garments of skin represent a change in human nature.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You Know. And aren't just, here's some leather guys.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But that's an iconographic way of conveying that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And I have difficulty thinking of another one, let alone a better one, to convey that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And clearly other iconographers, clearly actual iconographers, have had difficulty in depicting that as.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, people far more talented and blessed than I in that regard.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So what does it mean for them to be naked and unashamed?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So the garments of skin aren't an answer to the problem of them being naked.

They had already, remember, gotten, like, leaves to try to solve that problem once they realized they were naked. Right. Or there's a whole exchange, who told you that you're naked? So the issue of them being naked and unashamed is that they're naked and don't realize that they're naked.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then after the knowledge of good and evil, they realize that they're naked. Right. So what is the nakedness doing in this? This is basically trying to convey to us the idea that they're innocent.

Right. Remember, the knowledge of good and evil throughout the Old Testament, every time it's referred to, later refers to maturity.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Toward being an adult. Right. And so this is them trying to circumvent. Right. Growing in the grace of God and the knowledge of God and trying to seize maturity. Right. For themselves.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, I mean, post haste.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And it's notable that when, you know, when the Lord encounters them after their transgression, they said, you know, we hid because we were naked. He said, you know, as you said, who told you were naked? And then immediately, wait, did you eat of the tree that I told you not to eat from? So, you know, it's connected. It's directly connected that their knowledge of their nakedness comes as a result of this transgression.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so think about. And this was true in the ancient world, too. Little kids run around naked all the time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, yes. Often prefer it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Put your clothes back on, please.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Little girls run around topless.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like. And nobody thinks anything of it. And they don't think anything of it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Yep.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's only later on, as they mature and come to know themselves more, that they develop a sense of shame and want to cover up. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And that becomes appropriate. So that's what this story is trying to tell us. Right. You know, is that this is their. Their innocence. Right. They're sort of childlike beforehand.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. All right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Okay. Well, we've got one more before we take our first break. This is from Nathan.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hi, my name is Nathan. I'm from Dallas, Texas. And my question is about the most recent blessing episode and how blessing relates.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To justice and wisdom.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because it seems to me that blessing and justice are practically synonymous since God founded creation on his wisdom, and his wisdom undergirds all of reality. If you're a wise man, then you live by that wisdom that God used by which God wishes us to live. Whereas justice is being set in proper order relative to creation, both in your interior man and in the external relations. So, you know, that's again, proper ordering.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In relation to creation and God, like wisdom is.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then blessing is that state of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Being properly ordered in relation to creation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So I don't really understand.

Is the wise man equivalent to the just man and equivalent to the blessed man?

I just. I'm not really understanding any sort of distinction between those three terms.

So as far as any sort of practical life is laid out.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So if you wouldn't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you could clarify that, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Thanks very much.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And God bless.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. I mean, I think it's a good question. My. My initial take on that is that it's to say that, yes, these are all pointing ultimately at the same thing, but kind of pointing from different angles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, wisdom is about the knowledge of doing the right thing. Right. Often gained through experience. And justice is how things are supposed to be. Right. And then. And then blessing is a way of talking about establishing justice, especially with regards to oneself, you know that.

It'S about putting yourself in that just state. But I don't know. I mean, is he. I don't think they're exactly synonymous in the sense that they're just all mean exactly the same thing. But I think he's right that they all kind of point in the same direction, but maybe from different, at least conceptual angles. What do you think of that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Yeah, sort of. Yeah. They're all related. Right. So justice, properly speaking, right. Is the order in creation. Right. The actual order where everything is in its place and everything is. Right.

And so that's directly related to blessedness. Right. Because at the end of the creation days, right. God blesses the things he created.

Right. That it's there, the text.

So blessedness is the state of part of the creation when it is. When it is in accord with the whole.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so I just.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Man and the blessed man is the same person.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And I. I just wanted to clarify, like you said, that God blesses everything after he made it. This is when he says. This is when it says. And God Called it good. Is that what you're talking about? That's, that's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, also he. Yeah, yeah, but he also, on humans, pronounces a blessing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And.

So, so the blessed man is the man who is. That also makes him a just man. Right. But again, it's two different perspectives. The just is everything is set in order. Right. The person is set in order. Blessed is the sort of, I guess, phenomenological side. The experience of that. Right. That state of blessedness that's reflected by. Right. And then wisdom has to do with the perception and understanding of that order.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's in creation and it's in human life. And so this is why in the wisdom literature in the Old Testament, like you read Proverbs and, you know, there's all this stuff about ants, right. Like different elements of creation and then drawing connections from that order to the ordering of human life. Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So wisdom is the ability to perceive that order, what is just and what is. Right, right. And that's why when we, when we get, for example, oh, we're going to show how wise Solomon is, we have him judging a court case.

Right. Because. Because he's able to perceive. Right. The truth of how things are rightly ordered. And because of that, he's able to resolve these injustices. Right. And correct them.

Because he's.

Aware of that order. And it's. The fool is the person who doesn't then understand how these things work.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, to be a fool is the opposite of being the wise man.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so this is what's going on with the fool says in his heart there is no God. Right. There weren't any atheists. Yeah, right. That's. That's not what this was about.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There is no God meant there's no consequences for what I do. I can live how I want and there will be no consequences.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Especially, guess what.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. That's not how things work.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Especially when you understand. Especially when you understand this basic notion of God as ruler, as God, the one who establishes justice. You know, when he says there is no God, it's more like saying.

You know, no one is watching me. There's no one in charge here. You know, it's not just, I don't believe that a God exists. It's like you said, that he's saying, I can do whatever I want, you know?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And those consequences will find him out anyway. Right, right. But he's a fool because he doesn't understand and he doesn't see them coming and he doesn't act accordingly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, that is the first half of this pre recorded episode of Lord of Spirits. We're going to take a little break and be right back.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Are you curious about the Orthodox Christian faith? Do you have questions about Orthodox Christian Christianity that you can't trust strangers in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Internet forums to answer? Are you an Orthodox Christian looking for a reliable first place to send your interested friends?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Do you need help finding an Orthodox church near you? My name is Father Paul Hodge. I serve in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

My name is Father Joseph Lucas.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I serve in the Orthodox Church in America.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

My name is Father Anthony Cook. I serve in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick, chief content officer of Ancient Faith Ministries and a priest of the Antiochian Archdiocese. And we're the Orthodox Intro team.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you're looking for a first stop online to get an introduction to the Orthodox faith, a place to get answers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To questions from qualified Orthodox Christian clergy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

A place to send your friends friends and not just toss them into the chaos of the Internet, a place to.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Get help finding an Orthodox parish and get plugged into an actual Orthodox community. Then point your web browser@ orthodoxyintro.org Orthodoxintro.org is a free service of Ancient Faith Ministries and made possible by our donors. It's an Orthodox on ramp to the Christian Life. Again, that's OrthodoxIntro.org.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Welcome back, everybody. Like I said, we're not actually taking calls tonight, despite what you just heard the voice of Steve say. But we are taking your questions. We've received a lot of pre recorded questions and so we're just kind of running through them shotgun style and giving responses to them. So Father, you ready for the second half?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. Okay. So for our next question we have Father Vijay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hi, Father Andrew and Father Stephen. This is Father Vijay. I'm a priest in the Indian Orthodox Church serving in New Jersey. Thank you so much for your podcast. Very much. Love it. Prior to listening to your podcast, I would look at paganism and Hinduism as nothing to be concerned with. There's nothing behind it. And yet after listening to your podcast, then I realized that we should be concerned, we should be worried, and we should be careful. Then going to your blessings and curses episode, it felt as if you were very dismissive of the curses and that there shouldn't be any concern. And so I wanted to clarify and actually a good soundbite to give to the orthodox Christian that is, you know, concerned with.

These curses. And we don't, in, in our jurisdiction, Indian jurisdiction, we don't have.

The, the, the, the, the evil eye. We have the black tongue and we have something called Ravagalam, which is like the hours of the day that if you start something new, it will be cursed. And so, you know, I think all of our communities have, all of our jurisdictions have this concept of our faithful are.

Going towards this. But if you can just speak to it directly and say, how is the orthodox Christian to handle these, these curses? And, and in what way they should be careful or not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's really interesting to me. I mean, number one, I'm kind of surprised, actually. They apparently did not have the evil eye tradition there in India, whereas it's like, I mean, it's all over the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Everywhere.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, it's everywhere.

So I'm gonna have to look into that. But they've got the black tongue, which I've never heard of, that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sounds like a tribe of orcs.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The black tongue.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Yeah, I kind of love it.

Yeah. So, I mean, he's referencing the blessing and curses episode where we talked about those things. And I think that the thing that was said about cursing was if you are a baptized Christian, you know, living a faithful life, then you kind of don't have to really worry about that. Like, it's not something that can, can take over. Right. Yet nonetheless, like if I, for instance, some of the, the, the book of needs, the priest, you know, prayer book, whatever, it gets translated as that you have. They have like a prayer against the evil eye. Right. So, I mean, is it a thing or not a thing or is it something? Is it a thing that we don't need to be worried about? But even though it really is a thing or, you know, I was interested that at the beginning he said, you know, I used to think that this is, you know, we didn't have to worry about paganism. Whatever, whatever. But, but after listening to your show, I realized there actually is something. There actually are spirit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Now I am deeply concerned.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right, exactly. And it's, I mean, you know, and so he's from the Indian tradition where they've, you know, their community has the presence of Hinduism, especially if you're in India. But I'm sure that here in the US Indian Christians probably know a bunch of Hindus as well. So, I mean, that's a live thing for their lives. So, I don't know, I mean, is it nothing. Is it nothing but nothing to be worried about? I mean, what's going on with this?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

So.

I've been, like I said, I've been fiddling around in the shepherd of Hermas. So you're going to get some more shepherd of Hermes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That there's a statement that the, one of the things that the angel tells Hermes is that you shouldn't be afraid of the devil.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because he's powerless. Right. Because he's powerless. He's been made powerless by Christ. But you should be afraid of the works of the devil.

And the works of the devil here is not, as we kind of mentioned in the first half, not stuff the devil might cause somebody else to do to you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's stuff that you would do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because when we yield to sin, we thereby give the devil.

Influence in our lives. Right. And so this is why I think the church has always pushed back against. So the, the temptation with the evil eye, or I would presume the black tongue or any of these things is that.

There is also some kind of folk means by which to ward them off.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right, right. The little blue.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So like when we talked little blue.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Bead or the little, the little eye amulet or. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And like when we talked about that Ugaritic death curse, the, the, you know, putting the evil eye on someone is immediately followed by doing another incantation to protect yourself from the evil eye in case it rebounds or the other guy throws a bag at you. Right, right. And so if we enter into sort of that world and that way of doing things, right, then we're giving those things purchase in our lives.

So my presumption would be the purpose for composing a prayer. Remember, prayers aren't to change God, and they're not magic incantations. Prayers are to change us. So writing a prayer against the evil eye.

Would, I would think, be a pastoral thing to give the concerned person something better to do than entering into folk magic or whatever themselves.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But say here, pray this prayer. Right. This prayer will remind you that Christ protects you from the demonic powers. Christ protects you from these things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Take solace in Christ through prayer. Rather than whatever technique is suggested. Right. By the world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there's kind of a whole matrix of, you know, exorcism bound up with the priesthood as well, you know, and so I think especially, like some of the prayers against the evil eye that I've seen are largely to be said by priests, but I think there may be as lay ones as well.

You know, and of course, there's lots of. There's lots of prayers that talk about protecting us from the attacks of the devil and of demons. Right, Right. And I. I guess the idea that people have with this is that someone could, through their own malevolence or whatever, do a thing that can then make bad things happen to somebody else through sorcerous means. You know, whether it's the evil eye or the black tongue. I have to imagine that anti black tongue folk magic has got to be like amulets shaped like a black tongue. Right. I mean, that only kind of. I don't know. Father Vijay, I have to know more about this. I'm really interested in this now to write and tell us. But, but, but, yeah. I mean, there's. The truth is we're always under assault on one level or another by demonic forces. Right. They're always trying to drag us into their garbage. But I don't. I think this idea that one person can.

Sort of shoot a sort of demonic magic missile, you know, at somebody else. I don't know. I. I mean, is that a. Is that a thing? I mean, what do you think?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, it's not that different from the physical.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure. Like someone can come and punch me in the face or, you know, stab me or burn my house down. Right. Like, so I could become so terrified of that that I become sort of violent and militant and paranoid myself. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or I can. I can. I can trust God and I can follow Christ. Right, Right.

The same thing is true spiritually. Right. Like, yeah. Hypothetically, you know, and. And if you're both people who are essentially worshiping demons. Yeah. The idea that one person can sick a demon on another person. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, but in the same way, do you respond to that reality by becoming paranoid and suspicious and superstitious.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And thereby destroy yourself? Or do you follow Christ trusting God to protect you from that, just like all the other kinds of harm that we face every day.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Which, I mean, you know, as you were saying that especially, I thought, wow, that's so applicable to a lot of things in our lives right now.

The massive spread of various kinds of theories about bad people wanting to do Bad things. I mean, I. You know, when someone presents me with one of those theories, whether it's true or not, I mean, there are actual conspiracies in the world, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

People get together and decide and plan to do bad things together. Right? That happens.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Exactly. That is. That is a thing, you know, and so, you know, maybe a given conspiracy theory is true or not true. But even if they're all. This is what I always say, people, look, even if they're all true, even if the things that are being described in these are actually all true, our task as Christians in the world is still the same as it was before. You know, it's still be faithful in the midst of this. Right. It's still trust God for his protection. That's still what's going on. Sometimes I think there's an attraction to the idea of having achieved some kind of knowledge about what's going on in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that becomes a kind of addiction to itself. You know, when you see evil everywhere, constantly, right. I mean, it's not that evil isn't everywhere, but when that's what you're focusing on, when that's what your whole life is about, then like you said, it's this sort of addictive anxiety and.

Failure to trust in God, really. You know, people become very, very nasty often in response to feeling like they're. They're surrounded by hostile powers. You know, if that's. If that's their whole deal, right? The emphasis and the turning of the attention towards what is evil rather than the focusing on what is good and being faithful in the midst of a difficult world. So, yeah, fun stuff. Okay. All right, well, this next one comes from Kenzie.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Father's Blessed. My name is Mackenzie Jean Romero, but my friends call me Kenzie. I'm recording from Colorado Springs, Colorado, and I am a Bible college student with kind of a difficult question, but I sense not only strength and intelligence in you two, but also great kindness. So even though this is kind of tender and a tricky issue, I have confidence in you guys. I grew up Wesleyan Armenian, and for a long time, my family also attended various Baptist denominations. And both of those traditions have radically different teaching on women and their role in the church. Now, I personally have a huge heart for the ministry. My great grandpa, who I'm named after, was a preacher. My dad is a pastor. And I remember I had a passion for the ministry from a young age. And I was sitting across my, at the time, beloved Baptist head pastor. And over a meal, he looked at me and said, if I were to pursue those goals. I would be a Jezebel. The Jezebel spirit, you know, is so huge in the Baptist church. And what I want to know is, what is the Orthodox perspective? Is there room for someone like me who is a passionate poet, thinker, writer, artist, and minister at the Orthodox table? Is there room for me there? And, yeah, I guess that's it. Thank you guys so much for the show and everything you do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. It's a good question.

You know, my initial response, the first person, actually, I started thinking about when she, especially at the end, she was kind of describing herself. I started thinking about Saint Cassiani, who.

A number of those adjectives could be used to describe her. Right. You know, the thing that she's most remembered for, of course, in the history of the Church is as a hymnographer. And in fact.

Probably the greatest piece of Byzantine music in the whole tradition of Byzantine chant was written by her. And it's the famous hymn of Cassini that's sung by on Holy Tuesday evening during Holy Week.

It's so beloved that actually, in many cases, if you look at the Holy Week schedules for a lot of churches, it'll say, you know, Sunday night Bridegroom Orthros, Monday night Bridegroom Orthros, Tuesday night, Hymn of Cassiani. Even though it's Bridegroom Orthros, but including that hymn. But that's such a feature that becomes the thing that people are kind of going there for.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

For.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And if you. If you. But that's not the only thing she ever wrote. She wrote lots of hymns, actually.

And they are. Even in translation. They are stunning pieces of work. Like, this is real theological poetry. You know, it's really.

Delightful and profound and moving. I mean, there's a reason why the Hymn of Cassini is so, so popular. And it's not just because of the kinds of musical settings that are attached to it. Right. It's because of just the great, great depth of what's being expressed in that. And certainly.

There are other examples of that within the life of the Church, both historically and, of course, in our own time.

And, you know, especially considering this old saying of the one who praise truly is the true theologian, you know, we tend to think of theologians as people who write books, you know, people like you, Father Stephen, or like me, God help me. But I wouldn't describe myself as a theologian, you know, that that's what a theologian is, or a professor or something like that. But, you know, there's a great truth to this saying that theology is really about prayer. And if that's really true. That the person who is really advanced in prayer is the sort of the real theologian on some level. Then the number one example of that is the Lord's mother, you know, the highest of all the saints is a woman. That the ministry that she gave, not just to us, although that's really important, but to the Lord is above all other possible ministries. You know, like you can't achieve something greater as a human being than what she did. Right. And that's not a cop out response. You know, I recall.

I can't remember which episode it was, but we were having a conversation about.

I think it was in response to a caller who called in and had a similar question about this. If you remember, Father, you know that, and you gave a great answer about mothering and how motherhood is not. Is of course the number one way people think about it and should think about it is about bearing children and taking care of them. But that there's mothering that all women engage in whether they have children in the flesh or not. Right. That, that's, that's the, the what, what women are in their, their telos is, is motherhood. And this is.

This is built into the creation from the beginning. And I think our modern world tends to denigrate that so much that it's like, well, that's second prize or whatever, you know, but it's really not. And I think that the Christian tradition, especially in the person of the Mother of God, emphasizes how much it's really not. Because again, this is the highest possible place that a human being can have, is the one that she has more honorable than the cherubim, you know, and so forth. But I mean, I would simply say, Kenzie, that, I mean, it's true, right? You didn't ask about this, but it's true that the Orthodox Church does not ordain women as priests, you know, as clergy.

And for, I think for a good take on that, Father Stephen wrote a great blog article on his blog, the whole Council of God blog, called Priesthood and Masculinity. And it's a really good piece and it talks about how priesthood is integral to masculinity, not just for ordained men, but just for men in general. Right. So it's true, yes, we don't ordain women as clergy, but I think that a huge part of the problem that we have is that.

We'Ve identified clergy with power and we've identified power as the highest thing that people should have. And so therefore, if you don't give it to some People, then it's because you're trying to keep them down. Now, you didn't say that, Kenzie, and I appreciate that, but I thought I would just kind of put that out there. But I would say that, you know, based on the things that you say that you love and the. The talents and skills that you have that, I mean, all of that can be put in service to Christ. There absolutely is a place for you at the table of the Lord and the Orthodox Church. I mean, every person is integral to the body of Christ. It doesn't matter whether they're a hand or a foot or a spleen or whatever.

We're all needed and we're all required, really. So that's some of the thoughts that I would have about that. I guess the other thing I would add is simply, is that I could not live as an orthodox Christian without the ministry that women within the church do. Not just sort of in support of the parish, whatever, but in my own personal life as well. So, I mean, absolutely critical, absolutely.

You know, irreplaceable. Right. So, Father Steven, I don't know, did you have anything you wanted to add to that or whatever?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, I just add. I mean, there is a lively tradition of female monasticism that often gets left out of these conversations.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There are spiritual mothers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There are abbesses. And a lot of the activities they do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Our understanding of ordination is less about activity. So this is a comparison, you know, based on the background that the caller said she was. Was from. Right. They tend to define ministry in terms of certain activities. Right. So like standing in front of the church and.

Giving a homily. Right. They would say that's ministry. That's reserved to these people. Right. But abbesses of convents, for example, frequently give homilies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, sure. To the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

To the female monastics there. There are female monastics who are blessed to hear confessions.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yep.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They don't give the absolution again, but they hear the confession and they give advice, and then the person goes back to their usually parish priest and just receives the absolution.

So. And that's a good example. Right. Because the activity there, most of the activity, other than reading the prayers at the end, most of the activity there is being done by the female monastic. But the role, the role of delivering absolution is reserved to that priest, not to mention to presbyters.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And bishops, because bishops are still presbyters. Right. But deacons can't do it, Laymen can't do it. Right. So that is a role that is reserved to specific people who are chosen from among the men of the church.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And not even all presbyters, not even all presbyters are given a blessing to hear, to, you know, to. To give absolution, to hear confessions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. And lay male monastics can't. Right, Right.

So, yeah. So it's based on this particular role. Right. But the overarching thing, and this is a thing that's not directed at the collar in particular, this is directed at everyone. First and foremost me, is that all of us, when we approach serving the church, have to wrestle a little bit with our ego.

Right. Because the reality is, if we're serving, if that word means anything. Right. That I'm here to serve the church, then that means I'm going to do whatever the church needs me to do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It doesn't mean I'm going to do what I want to do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Servants don't show up to the master and say, so this is what I'm to do. Going to be doing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The servant goes to the master and the master's Christ, you know, goes to the master and says, what do you want me to do?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So if, if.

The church tells me that what it needs me to do is scrub toilets, then I need to go and scrub toilets. Yeah. Even if I'm an arch priest with a PhD.

If what my parish needs me to do is go clean the toilets, then that's what I need to go do. Right. And so we can't ever approach the church with.

I, this is. I'm confident. These are my gifts. This is what I'm going. This is what I want to do. And will this church let me do it? Well, if not, then I'll find someplace that will. That's very dangerous.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And I don't. I don't get the sense that Kenzie was saying that, but there are.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, that's what I said. It's not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Do that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's not directed at her.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Men and women. Men and women. I've known men that I've had men approach me and say, you know, I'm especially. This is actually fairly common. I'm ordained in this and I want to join the Orthodox Church, but I want to make sure that I can be clergy. I'm like, you need to give up on that. If you want to be Orthodox, be Orthodox. But you can't just say, look, I'm coming here because I'm going to be clergy. Like, ah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And there have certainly been people in the Orthodox Church, men who Wanted to be ordained to some office and couldn't get it, and so have left and gone somewhere else where they could. So this is not directed at her or even at just women. All of us, right, have this tendency we have to fight with our ego. So we have to always keep in mind that all of this is service. And that means we do whatever Christ and his church need us to do at any given point in time, whether it's something we really love doing or something that. Like cleaning toilets or walking around after liturgy on Sunday, throwing away used coffee cups that people left laying everywhere or old. But now I'm going on a personal rant. Yeah, right. But that's it. Right. You know.

That'S part of the reality of being an ordained ministry, is you do a whole lot of stuff other than, you know, liturgize.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Indeed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's not always fun and enjoyable, like paperwork.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yep.

Not me, man. I got out of that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. You never have to do paperwork at all.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Ever. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. All right, well, thank you very much for that question, Kenzie. That was. That was. Thank you. Thank you. All right, this next one comes from Lane, who has a question about atonement.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hi, this is Lane in Ocala, Florida, and I had a question about the word atone. So in the atonement episode, you guys said that to atone just meant to cover. And so that got me wondering, not only how did. How did something so simple get so theologically complicated, but more so there. There are lots of places in the Bible where things are covered like Noah's covered up in his nakedness. You know, stuff is covered up all over the place. But are. Are those also atonement? Are they like a different kind of covering? What's. What makes this kind of covering get its own special word and those not?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or maybe they do.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thanks. Love the show.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Right. So that was actually one of my favorite episodes, was the atonement episode. It's been a while since we did that now. I feel like it was over a year, maybe. Yeah.

You know, we talked about the day of atonement and how that is fulfilled in Christ ultimately. And I think that the short answer to what Lena is asking is.

That, you know, this word covering, right. Is just a general word, just like it is in English. Right. But if you talk about covering in a particular context, then it takes on a greater meaning. Right. But of course, the word. The English word atonement was actually coined to be a translation for this. This word. Right. And so becomes a translation that has a specific theological purpose.

Within the English language. But if you're just simply reading it in Ancient Greek, then, or in Hebrew, then it's just a general term. Term. But you see, it's used in this one, one particular context. And I think the reason that it gets so complex in the way that Christians of various stripes talk about it is that it's such a key moment in salvation history. Right. That of course there's going to be just a huge amount of reflection on that. And when you have big sea changes like the Reformation's ideas about what salvation means, then you are going to, you know, it. There's going to become debate about it. Right. And of course. And so then that, that complicates the, the whole matter. Right. But I, it doesn't mean that the, the more general uses of the term no longer apply or that every time you see the word, you know, that, that Kfr isn't a Kfr root. Is that what it is?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, roughly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Roughly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you, wherever you see that root, you should think, oh, this has to do with the atonement of Christ. You know, it, it, it may not. It may just be the COVID on your Tupperware.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or the Ark of the Covenant.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or the Ark of the Covenant. Exactly. It could just be that kind of COVID But, but also, I think a lot of the significance, of course, comes because of the Day of atonement. Right. That, that it's the day of covering, the day of, you know, cleansing and cleaning up and, and, and doing all that. So, I mean, that's kind of my, my hot take on that, Father.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So. Well, slight, actually.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That it's not actually a normal Greek word. The Greek word seems to be kind of a coinage.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, that's right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's to separate. That's right, yeah. This, this type of covering from other general types.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's particularly related to sacrificial usage. In terms of the complications, I think we can all blame Avril Lavigne.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But that ageless Canadian.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right. So really, honestly, the reason why you get. And you don't. You don't have a similar history of theorization about the atonement in the East. You just don't. Right. You don't have people proposing atonement theories. You don't have people arguing them against each other.

It just doesn't happen to these. Now, some particularly Protestant apologists like to argue that's just because we never figured atonement out. We're just like a bunch of primitives. Like, we did figure out atonement we didn't figure out soteriology, right? But that's because they basically bought into our 19th century German friends that all of these things have evolved in the church, right? And so we're just stuck. Get this earlier phase. Whereas, you know, German Protestantism in the 19th century is the pinnacle of all human religion, right?

So, but, but in the, in the west.

It really gets so complicated because you have a series of, as, as theology is being worked out, you have a series of questions, get that get asked. Each one is sort of engendered by.

The ways, the expressions of previous tiers of theology, right? So for example, with, I mean, this is a very rough and very quick genealogy. But for example, St. Augustine ends up kind of smushing together the coming of death upon humanity and sin and guilt, right? He kind of, he kind of webs those together, right? And so as the west being unable to read Greek post St. Augustine.

Are reading mainly St. Augustine, that gets carried on. Well, that starts raising questions, right? Because in the east, for example, where we have a separation between death and sin, right? It's these two different things. We could say that, for example, Christ's resurrection redeems everyone from death, but it does not redeem everyone from sin, right?

Those are dealt with separately. Whereas in the west, where if, if those start to get smudged together, you get, well, wait a minute, so then why doesn't Christ's sacrifice redeem everyone from sin? And so you get Peter Lombard comes along and makes this sufficiency, efficiency distinction, right? Where he says, well, Christ's sacrifice is sufficient to save everyone, but it is only efficient, it only actually saves the people who do xyz. Right?

And that basic distinction ends up being the basis for basically the Protestant Reformation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is the argument over, well then what is the xyz, right? How does it, how and when does it get applied? Right? And then things move on from there, right? So, so if you say, well, it's sufficient, but it's only efficient for these people, like what's the sort of mode or means of transfer? And so you get the idea of merit. You get the idea. And then that gets broken down further, so it all becomes more elaborate because people are asking questions, but the questions they're asking were really engendered by the solutions to the previous problem.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so in the east, where we didn't face those same problems, we didn't come up with answers because we didn't face the questions. And so then those didn't raise the further questions. And so you have this whole Thing, the West.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, it's. It's built up on a. Frankly, on a foundation that we don't share. Yeah, yeah, right, right. It's like saying, you know, why don't you have the answer to this English language riddle that was written 50 years ago? Like. Well, because we're not speaking English, you know. You know, as a sort of analogy to that. So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. So if someone comes to an orthodox person who understands orthodox theology and says, are the merits of Christ's sufferings imputed or infused into a human being. Right. We don't have an answer to that question. Right. Because we don't have all the pre existing superstructure. Right. That leads to that question.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, well, this next one is from the same Travis that we heard from earlier.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Greetings, podfathers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So my questions have to do with theosis and demonosis. My understanding is that everything we say and do either draws us closer to God or draws us closer to the demons. What I'm left wondering is, can what.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Other people say and do lead to theosis and demonosis of others? For example, if a priest blesses me, is he an instrument of theosis in me?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

By the same token, can act performed to someone lead them to demonosis, apart.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

From them consciously sinning?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Also, on the far ends of theosis and demonosis, are there certain things that need to happen for one to become.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

A saint or a demoniac?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Clearly, becoming a saint requires outpourings of grace from God in a unique way. Has someone that becomes a demoniac undergone a similar process in the opposite direction? Are there particular sins we should avoid if we do not want to become a demoniac? And what are some of the things we can do if we really want.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

To become a saint?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Warm regards, Travis. So, you know, my response to the second part is that my understanding of both sanctity and demonization is that the difference between.

Like, what a saint is and what, you know, the very good man in my parish or even the pretty good man in my, you know, or woman who's in my parish, whichever, is really not so much a difference of kind as of degree that there's not like. I wouldn't necessarily say that there's a unique outpouring of grace that turns someone into a saint, whereas they weren't before. Right.

Now. Certainly there are some people who are canonized, which is to say that there was a process that the church went through to recognize someone as a saint and to publicly venerate them in an organized way. But that's not what makes Someone a saint. There are plenty of people who truly are holy people, actually saints that don't have any church services written for them. And maybe we don't even know their names or that they ever existed, you know, for whatever reason.

So I don't think that there's like a line that you can cross and like, oh, now I've made it, now I'm a saint. Right.

So I mean, my response to this question, is there a thing that you can do to truly to become a saint or some sin you should really avoid to become a demoniac? I mean, it's really just a matter of that faithfulness to Christ. It's not like, oh well, if I engage in this one kind of faithfulness, then that's kind of the shortcut to sanctity. I don't think there's any shortcuts to that. There are some. I wouldn't say it's like it's magic to become deeply sinful, but certainly there are some extreme sins you can engage in that do radically disrupt figure the human person. Right. You know, not all sins, all sins are bad, but some sins are worse. You know, like having suddenly an envious thought and accepting and entertaining it for a few minutes is definitely not as bad as going and murdering someone. Right. These are not the same degree of evil. Both, you know, both are, both are demonizing, both are, can push someone further in direction of evil, but they're not the same thing.

So. So yeah, I mean, there might be shortcuts to hell on some level.

But it's not like if you do this one thing versus this, then that'll definitely take. I mean, someone could become a very dark person, but have never done anything like illegal or some extreme act, you know.

So I don't know that that's my take on, on, on that part of it.

Yeah. I don't know. And the first part, I don't know. I mean, you know, whether you can. Yes, I do believe that the things that we do can.

Affect other people, but I wouldn't say that they do it apart from their, especially if it's someone who's a baptized Christian, apart from their, their participation in it. Right.

But I don't know, you know, especially when you're talking about the world of outside of Christ, then that's probably a different ballgame. I don't know. Father, Father, what do you had to say all that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of the way people think about.

Canonization now is, is this weird nominalism where.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like somehow.

To be something you have to be recognized as that or being recognized as something, being validated by someone else as something is what makes you that thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So, I mean, if someone sees me and recognizes me as a priest, that doesn't make me a priest. Right. I was already a priest. Right. But in our modern world, we have this nominal thing where, well, no, if no one else recognizes it, then I'm not really that thing. That's like the cause of some kind of suffering. Right. And I need to be validated. Right.

So, yeah, we. We recognize saints. They're already saints before we recognize. Even if the church never recognizes them, they're. They're still saints. So, yeah, it's. It's a question of. Of.

Well, again, more of a spectrum.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Of in terms of other people affecting things. I mean, obviously in both cases we're talking about cooperation. Right. So if I'm cooperating with demons in rebellion and you come and cooperate with me. Right. And join me in my sin as I'm joining them in their rebellion, then I mean, I guess then I would be the mediator of. Right. Demonization to you. Right.

And this is why being like an arch heretic or cult leader would be a very bad thing to be. And this is, this is talked about in Scripture. Right. Temptations are bound to come, but woe to him through whom they come. Yeah, right. That, that it is. It is more serious to lead others into our sin than justice in ourselves. Right.

And then vice versa. Right. If. If someone is cooperating with the grace of God, then. And you cooperate with that. Right? So if you're, if your, your priest is cooperating with God, working in your life, right. By speaking to you, preaching to you, teaching you something, advising you in confession. Right. And you cooperate with that. Right. Confession might be a good example.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He says to you, here are some things you can do to help you in this struggle. You can now cooperate with that. You can now do follow through and do those things. Right. And continue to struggle. In which case then, yeah, that priest will have sort and, and that act and confession will become a means of grace for you. Or you can reject it or ignore it or rebel against it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But the key factor there is still your own cooperation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. I mean, he gave the example of. Of a priest giving a blessing. I mean, to receive the blessing, you have to receive the blessing, you know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Father, bless. You know, like, you know, I mean, I. It's. It's something I think about sometimes. Like, for instance, if I drive by the house of somebody I know. Then I may, you know, as a priest, I may give a blessing in the direction of their home. That's not a magical act. It's a prayer for them. And God may well send them good thoughts or something helpful for them that day in response to that prayer. But it's not like that. I just put a magical word on their house, you know, or on them or whatever. They still have to cooperate with it. It doesn't make them holier because I gave them a drive by blessing. Right.

So. All right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, yeah. Do you do that a lot?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, drive by and spray blessings.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In neighborhoods.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, I, you know, where I live, actually there are a number of other people who belong to the parish that all live in this, in my little town. So, yes, I do give drive by blessings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But you don't bless the people who don't go to the parish. You leave them under the curse, apparently. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I also throw blessings at ambulances with their lights on.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And police officers, regardless. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I mean, how am I supposed to know?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. Thanks for calling me out there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No problem. It's part of my job.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's right, it is. All right. Okay, so this next one comes from Nikolai.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Father Andrew and Father Stephen. This is Nikolai from Austin, Texas. I can't adequately describe my gratitude to you both for the great work you're doing on this podcast and your other publications. Thank you very much. And my question is, I'm very interested. You mentioned a few times how spiritual and material reality are not necessarily separate. I'm very interested to understand more about how.

The union between the spiritual reality and the physical reality. It's a concept that I can't quite grasp. Not sure it's graspable, this life.

Entirely, but I. I know you two will have more to say about it if you care to add some color to it. Thank you very much.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. All right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So those, those, those were kind words and it sounded like they were uttered from the bottom of a mine shaft.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. I know. I don't know where he was.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I hope everything turned out okay for him.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's definitely pretty.

In the audio world, we call it a very live room. A very live room.

I don't know. I don't know how to respond to this. Like, what connects the spiritual? I guess my initial response would be that.

We tend to think in terms of categories of material and spiritual. But my sense is that at least. And the pre modern.

Way of thinking tends to think more in Terms of seen and unseen. You know that there's not a physical stuff and a spiritual stuff. There's just creation and some of it's seen and some of it's unseen. I don't know. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's just a lot of stuff.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, just so much stuff. All this stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Piles and piles.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What's ancient Hebrew for stone stuff? I don't know. Is there one?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, dabar can mean a thing.

Deborah, I guess would be things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, the fun thing, as it were, about the English word thing is actually originally meant a meeting. And like we're having a thing like people use.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, that's the correct usage.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right, exactly. That's the ancient usage. That's the old English usage.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So there you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It existed in Norse too. Ting. It meant the same thing later it becomes about, you know, a thing, as we. As we put it now, an object or whatever.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But yeah, originally meant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So Ben Grimm is the ever loving blue eyed meeting.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. He's basically sort of walking committee.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay. Of rocks. That kind of works.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's right, Exactly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Kind of works.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He's a rock committee, a rock group, as it were.

We haven't had enough pop culture banter in this episode for people, so we had to throw it. Oh, yes. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So connective reality, do your thing. Anyway, that's digging in the crates.

So.

Yeah. So the thing is on.

Probably intended that.

We have kind of a sensory processing disorder.

And what I mean by that is. So the original meaning of the term common sense was a way to refer to the way in which our. Our senses, our five senses are naturally integrated to each other. Right. When. When we're. When as a human we're functioning normally. Right. We don't have like vision and hearing and taste and smell and touch as like disassociated stimuli. Right. But from them we have a quote, unquote, common sense that sort of constructs a world out of all that data taken in by those various senses. So we associate a smell with something that we see, right. Or taste or feel than a sound with something we see. But when it comes to the noose, which as we said, is a sensory organ that's aimed at the spiritual world, probably because it was blind for a good chunk of our lives. Right. And we're as Christians, just beginning to use it again. Right. At least I am the saints. Much better. But.

We don't really have it integrated with the other five. Right. So we have the five that we're used to using to engage with material Reality. And then maybe we're starting to get the beginnings of some kind of very shadowy and dim spiritual perception, right? But not only is it shadowy and dim because we haven't exercised it much, but it's not integrated with the rest.

Right? So when you. When you read stories from the lives of the saints and even stories, I mean, we referred to Elisha and Gehazi a bunch, right? Because it's a obvious idea, right? You have saints for whom these. These things are integrated, right? And they will just see angels and demons and spiritual realities, right? And. And principalities and stuff. And. And that's integrated with the material world. It's not that sort of. They block out the material world and go into some spiritual realm, right? Where they see these things, right? And then they return to the material world where the rest of us live. It's that they're seeing the whole of reality and they're seeing elements of that that we can't see. So it's like if we lacked one of the five senses, right? So if we were like, you know, the man born blind whose gospel we read not that long ago as we record this, you know, we would have no concept of what color is. We would have no concept of. Of, you know, what vision is or how it works, right? We'd have our other four senses, right? And we'd understand how those work and they would be integrated and everything, right? But we wouldn't have. We wouldn't have that one. And so in the same way, it's sort of. And I obviously am not a saying, this is obvious to anyone who's met me or heard me talk or knows who I am.

But, you know, so I can't. It's not like I have this, and I'm now trying to explain it to you who lack it. It's. I don't have it either, right? I'm reading accounts from people who do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ancient people and saints of the church and reading their attempts to. To describe it to people who don't have it. And then I'm trying to pass that on secondhand to other people who, like me, really have it.

So the key thing in terms of how they're related is simply that they're related in the same way that. To further this analogy, the same way that smell and taste are related, the same way that hearing and sight are related, right? These are just elements of the created order that we can or can't experience, right? All those colors a mantis shrimp can see, right? The way those are related to the colors, I Can see. Right. So it's part of creation in the same sense. This is the really hard part to get over. Right. Is that we could say, yes, they're part of creation too, but we still have. Well, but kind of in a different sense. Right. Because it's higher or different or. Right.

But no, it's in the same sense. An angel is a creature in the same sense that I am a creature. We're just different types of creatures.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Same sense that a badger is a creature. Right. Different types.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. This kind of distinction occurred to me a little bit this morning when I was reading. So today when we're recording this, this is a secondary feast of Saint Theodore the General. And so I was reading, you know, the brief account of his life this morning. And.

You know, when he was headed towards his martyrdom, he was tortured. I mean, all kinds of horrible things were done to him. Right. Disfiguring stuff. And. And then. And then just simply says, you know, like the next morning or something, he was found whole. And because of this, many people believed in Christ. Right. And so they're mentioning the authorities, behead him. And it struck me once again, like. Like, well, what is it? What would that. What was that like when that wholeness happened? What. What was it like when people saw that that's what had occurred?

I'm pretty sure there probably weren't like some explosions and sparkles and, you know, like there was nothing. There was nothing woo woo about it. It was just simply like, whoa, he's. Hey, what do you know? He's healthy in every way.

You know, that there was not, like, we expect, quote unquote, spiritual things to have some kind of special effect attached to them. Right. And yet you never like it when. When miracles, for instance, happen in the scriptures.

You know, like, you know, the healing of the blind man. It doesn't say that. You know, suddenly everything went hazy and he opened his eyes and whoo. You know, it was just simply that he could see. Now he can see. I was blind, but now I can see.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, there is that one instance where he could see men walking around like trees first.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, his perception, which is a great phrase.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I see men walking around like trees walk around.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Or like, wait, how do you know what a tree looks like? Yeah, that's the other question I asked. That's what he thinks they look. I mean, maybe what they feel like. But, you know, so obviously for him, you know, he. He went through a transitional experience before he truly had sight again. But, I mean, there's no indication that anyone else saw magical sparkles in the air or something when. When this happened, you know? Yeah. You know, there was no signs of sorcery or anything like that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Light shining from the sky.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. It's not that those kinds of experiences never happen, like Moses's face shining or this kind of stuff, but it does not always happen or even often happen such that we should think that that's sort of the signal that there's a spiritual thing happening. You know.

It'S just part of the warp and weft of. Or warp and woof. I can never remember if that's. I think they're both right.

Of the way that life is, you know, and people simply receive. That I think about. For instance, I've probably mentioned this before on the show. Saint Nikolai Vlimirovich has a. A homily where he says miracles are. You know, God gives many gifts, and miracles are just simply some of God's gifts at which men marvel.

That's what he says. He doesn't say that they have a. There's a separate unique thing to them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, that's why they're wonder workers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Those are the Americans. Yeah. But. Yeah, it's the most. I know this is gonna be disappointing to a lot of people, but the most common way God heals people is like rest and their immune system.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. That's the action of God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's what he uses most of the time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then next is probably medicine.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

A big problem is just the problem of interpretation, that we tend to interpret things as in the wrong way, you know, so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, but yeah, and we've got this. This barrier. Right. This barrier between God's action or angels and demons and the material. Right. No, Right. God heals people using their immune system.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Yeah, Right. Which is a.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which is a material thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, exactly. Okay, one last question before we wrap up for our second break. So this is from Father Aaron.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Why did Christ give himself to us in the form of flesh and blood, such a provoking act.

Was it necessary to say, eat my flesh and drink my blood? This would especially have been a setup for the chosen people, the Jews, his own flesh and blood, because he had established strict laws against consuming blood and against. Against consuming unclean flesh.

Psalm 105. They sacrificed their daughters, their sons and daughters, into demons. They poured out innocent blood. Certainly drinking blood would have been associated with pagan sacrifices and gross things and demonic things. So was all this demonic sacrifice in the collective memory of the Jews and was The Eucharist meant to heal all that.

The Jews were forbidden to drink blood, whether sacrificial victims or any other. So why does Jesus introduce this practice which is so likely to scandalize and much more akin to pagan practices than to Jewish ones?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's a cool question. So it's kind of the.

Cannibalism, pagan sacrifice, Eucharist thing. Like how do they relate to each other? Why does Jesus give us his blood to drink and his flesh to drink, even after all of those commands against doing exactly that kind of thing? What's that all about, Father?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, first of all, the flesh part is relatively easier than the blood part. Right. Or not easier. But these are two separate things, Right. They just brought out of the question.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. They've been eating flesh as part of sacrifices already. But human flesh. Human flesh, right. Yeah, not human.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And this is. Right. Eating is the way you participate in a sacrifice. Right. That's. That's the way you take part in it. Right.

And then sort of the human part I'll deal with here under the blood part. Right. So I mean, that's. That's the first immediate thing. So the idea is that Christ sacrifice is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, and therefore we participate in it. Right. Then we do that through the Eucharist. So in terms of the blood, so the commandments against blood.

If you go back to where they're first stated and where blood is first talked about, blood is representing the life of a creature. We have to remember that before the flood, there's also man was not permitted to eat meat in general at all.

The killing of animals. And so what you have with the consumption of blood, because it wasn't. They weren't just prohibited from drinking sacrificial blood.

They weren't allowed to eat meat with the blood in it. Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Completely outside of sacrifices. Right.

So the blood had to be drained or drinking blood in any context. So the blood being the life of the thing. Right. Then.

Directly consuming the life. Life, Feeding on life. Right.

Was sort of symbolic of man as predator. Right. We talked about this when we talked about werewolves.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And this is what cannibalism is associated with, too. Man becoming predatory.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And Adam and Eve, obviously, in the garden are not predatory.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The language that's used there is they're eating the fruit from trees, which means they're not even killing plants.

Right. It's only after the expulsion for paradise that Adam has to bring forth food from the ground with sweat. Right.

The fruit is, you know, was the, the trees offering it themselves to him. Right.

Sort of cooperatively. But so predatory nature is then sort of the, the opposite of that. Right.

And so what we see with Christ then giving his flesh and blood to us is an inversion. This is the exact opposite of predatory.

Right. Christ does not say, you know, to murder him and eat him. Right, Right, right. To murder him and cannibalize him. Right. But he offers himself. This is why St. John's gospel is so clear over and over and over again that no one takes his life from him, but he lays it down. Right. And he can take it up again. So Christ offers himself to us as food. And a lot of our prayers say.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Saint John of Damascus in what we sing in place of the cherubic hymn on Holy Saturday says that. Right. That Christ is offering himself to us and that includes his blood, which is his life, which is the life of God.

Which is immortal, which he offers to us to share in it. Right. So it is the inversion of that kind of predatory sacrifice that culminates in sort of human sacrifice and cannibalism and werewolfism. Right. Christ's self offering is the exact inverse of that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right, well, with that we're going to go ahead and go to our second and final break. And we will be right back.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-ADIO.

New from Ancient Faith Publishing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Welcoming Gifts, Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian Life by Jeremy Davis. You'll find surprising answers in this book.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You'll learn that sacrifice had a very.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Different significance for ancient people than it does for us today. You'll hear how it drifted away from this ancient significance into a fundamentally different meaning in our modern world. You'll discover how Old Testament sacrifices were gifts from the heart, only tangentially related to killing and death. You'll see in Christ's cross the ultimate gift that ushers us into communion with God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And you'll find inspiration to offer your.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Own gifts alongside Christ's inviting God into your life. Welcoming Gifts, Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian Life now available in paperback, ebook and [e-mail].

Yeah, there's that crunchy metal theme. Thanks a lot once again for that, Rob. We appreciate it. And it's the third half of the Lord of Spirits on this pre recorded episode. So once again, don't call in. We're not here to talk to you today, but we are talking to you because you sent in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You could, you could call in and just see what happens.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You could call. I mean, that is always an option.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But who knows, somebody might be there, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. But anyway, so. All right, well, we've got six more questions and then we'll wrap it up for this pre recorded episode of Lord of Spirits. So this first one comes to us from our friend Emiliane.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Greetings, fathers. Later this year, God willing, I am going to marry my fiance. So in light of the topics covered before on this podcast, could you talk a bit about the holy sacrament of marriage and specifically about what it does accomplish? I hope this question isn't too broad. I am sure a series of episodes on the Holy Mysteries is on the way, but I'd like to know more about this particular one at this time. Thank you for your excellent work.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I love how he says he's sure that a series is on the way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He thinks that, like, he thinks that, like I plan things in advance. That's hysterical.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Anyway.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Maybe so.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, number one, Emilian Lamunzani, congratulations on getting married later this year, if I remember. I think Emilian is from Romania.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You. So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, great. Good for you, man. Good for you. I, I mean, I think the main, the main way to answer this question is, you know, sit down and read the, read the wedding service like it tells you. I mean, I'm not trying to say that to be glib, but cop out.

Good night, everybody.

But I, you know, it's, it's, it does say it, you know, Right. It's about yoking people together for the sake of their salvation, to bring glory to God, to bring forth children into the world, to be raised in faithfulness to Christ. Right. And there's even some cool theosis language having to do with the saints, like, you know, that the couple will shine like the stars of heaven. I love that line, you know, and of course, as a lot of people point out, there's this theme of martyrdom there as well. But I mean, as with all the sacraments that kind of take you from one mode of life to another, right. So baptism does that. Right. Ordination certainly does that. And I know a lot of people wouldn't consider tonsure to monasticism as a sacrament, although I think that some of the fathers do call it that. A holy mystery. I mean, we're not bound to the number seven, I don't think.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, stop numbering sacraments.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, please, Latins, come on.

I mean, it's okay. If you need a number, it's fine. You know, all of these things that take you from one mode and of course, marriage, you know that one mode of life to another mode of life is to equip you to be faithful in this new way. Right. Because being married is a different kind of faithfulness than the life of without a husband or a wife beforehand. I mean, certainly the overall mode of faithfulness is the same, or the overall trajectory, I should say, is the same. But the mode has shifted a bit. Now it's about.

Serving Christ by serving your husband or your wife and then, God willing, eventually serving those children.

That becomes the first place where you're supposed to love Christ is with those people that are in your house.

So, I mean, that's what I would say that the sacrament of marriage does, that the actual wedding service does. Although it's an interesting question I had someone ask. I can't remember what the context was. Someone asked me this recently. They say, is the sacrament of marriage the service or is it.

You know, the whole life together? And, you know, I loved to kind of response with yes. I mean, there's definitely something.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Porc de lo stoves. Yeah, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There's definitely something going on in that service that is the transition. Just like baptism is a transition and ordination is a transition, but then it has to be lived out throughout the rest of life ever after. I don't know, what would you want to add or actually, or enrich or whatever?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, just in terms of the relationship between the two, between the life and the wedding service, the thing that happens on that day, what ultimately gives it meaning is the life that's lived after it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So if you're baptized and then never darken the doorstep of a church again. Right. And go out and live a life of sin and wickedness. It's not that the baptism didn't do anything. I mean, the baptism will maybe stand up against you at the judgment, but like, it. It's not doing you any good. Right. Same thing with ordination. If you're ordained and then proceed to be a wicked and. And foul priest or deacon or. Or bishop. Right. The story is consecration as a bishop didn't, you know, count, except maybe against it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And so the same thing, the same thing really is true of the wedding itself. What makes that meaningful? What happens there in a positive sense is the life that's a faithfulness that's lived thereafter. Right. And if that doesn't follow from it, then again, that wedding service may stand against us. Right. We've been unfaithful to it. But if we want it to be meaningful in the positive way, if we want it to be, promises that find fulfillment, come to fill up our lives, then it has to be joined with faithfulness thereafter.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, well, this next question comes to us from Carlene.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hello, Fathers. This is Carlene calling from California. I'm a recently illumined new member of the Orthodox Church. I came in with my family in March, so I'm pretty green, so bear with me and give me lots of grace. As I asked my question, I wanted to know something about the traditions of the Church. One of the things I love, love about Orthodoxy is that it is the bastion of the ancient faith and that the Church is rife with tradition and change, if it comes, comes very slowly. This gives me a great sense of security, and I love the wisdom and weighted care with which the Church approaches any shifts. So can you talk to me a little bit about how do changes in the Church occur? How does something like St. John Chrysostom, some homily for Pascha, become part of what the Church always does? How does St. Cassiani's hymns move into something the Church uses? How do shifts like this occur?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And maybe you can give me kind.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Of a zoom out view on. I realize the Church does make tiny changes and shifts, so how do those happen and still respect tradition and make sure that these are wise and careful changes? Thank you so much.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I love that question, and it's a good one because you have this idea that some people have that the Orthodox Church never changes. But of course, that's just historically untenable. Right. If they mean by that we do things exactly the same way that we have always done them in every possible respect. That's just not a thing. But what's interesting is that there is also, and she didn't mention this, but there's also this problem where people might acknowledge historical change but have the sense that that's over now. You know, that there was kind of some point in the past at which, for instance, especially like liturgical change.

Was completed, and now, you know, there's no possibility for it after that. Right. And I think part of what's bound up in that is there's often this kind of reactivity, a reactiveness, reactionariness that a lot of folks have, especially in light of the fact that the world is often chaotic and is addicted to innovation. And so then they see the Orthodox Church and say, ah, here is the place where I am going to be free of all of that. Right. And I certainly agree with that in the sense that the Orthodox tradition is not addicted to innovation, but there is change and there is creativity, and there continues to be creativity. Right. Like, you know, she mentioned the Hymn of Cassini. There was a point at which that was not written, and then there was a point which Saint Cassini wrote it, and there was a point in which it was probably just used in her, her monastery. And then, I mean, I don't know the history that the spread of that particular hymn, but it must have started local and then eventually spread.

You know, there, there are hymns that the church uses in particular liturgical practice that in many cases are maybe not even a century old. You know, some, some, some of them are, are newer. Right. There's certainly feast days that are new, you know, because there's a new saint or other kinds of feast days sometimes are brought up. But I mean, she asked about the kind of mechanism by which it happens. Largely, it's bishops making pastoral decisions that they feel that are appropriate.

Most of them are relatively minor, but sometimes there actually is liturgical reform on a moderately large level. Like.

You know, we can think, for instance, of the, the Niconian Church reforms in Russia, which are, were of course, hugely controversial, but basically did stick. I mean, that's essentially the form of Russian Orthodox liturgical life. Now, were those. Those reforms from several centuries ago, but, you know, even before that, St. Philothius Kokinos, who is the Patriarch of Constantinople, who canonized St. Gregory Palamas, he was a liturgical reformer. Now, the kinds of reforms that they did were not some massive replacement of the liturgical tradition, but there were still changes. Right. And of course, we can think of canonical shifts that happen. You know, early on, canonical uses of Scriptures, there was more variation probably than there is now.

And I think sometimes seeing those kinds of consensuses emerge is what gives people the temptation to think the change stops. In some cases.

I doubt there's going to be any changes in church canons. But what happens if the Church of Greece and the Church of Russia get together and say, hey, let's go ahead and have the same Old Testament canon, even though they don't currently, if they made that decision, if the Greek church said, okay, we'll take 4th Esdras, I don't think that would be a problem.

But I mean, but largely it's pastoral stuff like that.

It'S ultimately in the hands of the episcopacy. This is their job.

They can be creative. They can bless creativity.

Sometimes you see changes happen because one parish has a practice and another parish doesn't they think it's cool and they go ahead and adopt it?

They find it meaningful and good, and then it spreads and it becomes a thing. Right. So I don't know. I mean, there's. There's. There's a lot of ways that it happens. I would not say that it's always very tiny and incremental because, like I said, there are sometimes programs of liturgical reform. They're not usually like, on the level, frankly, of that we saw in the post Vatican II era in the Roman Catholic Church, almost never. I. I mean, I'm not a liturgical historian, but from the liturgical history that I know, you don't see that level of change in the Orthodox Church.

But there are sometimes fairly systemic changes that do occur. And the question then often is, well, how does that get received? Is it just rejected? Does it become incorporated to the life of the church? And sometimes it does. I don't know. Father, would you want to add all that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, I think the key thing is that.

What we're talking about when we're talking about the truth is we're talking about Christ himself, right? Who's a person who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we're talking about.

Faithfulness. Right. To him. Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The question that's not just like once a generation, but continually asked and, and is the task, again, really, of the bishops is what does it look like to follow Christ for these people at this time in this place?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And.

In. In the broad contours, that's not going to change.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So it's not like, well, now I think murder should be okay. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's not gonna, you know, forget that whole, you know, one husband, one wife marriage thing. Right. That. That kind of stuff. Yeah, it is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not gonna change. Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right and wrong is not gonna change. We're not gonna start putting steak on the altar.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right. So, I mean, the broad contrast, now, this is gonna change, but I mean, people living in an agrarian world, right, in the, in the 13th century.

And people living in an urban environment in the 21st century, 21st century have very different ways of life to start with.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So there are going to be differences in their family structures. There are going to be differences in.

The, the. Their relationship to their work. Right. And those kind of things. And so the same faithfulness to Christ is going to take subtly different shapes, Right. When your work is spending 14 hours a day working your family farm to feed your family, or if it's going and punching a clock and Working in a cubicle farm.

And then coming home to be faced with various entertainment options. Right. It's not going to be radically different. There's not going to be things that are horribly sinful for one and that are the road to theosis for the other. Right. But, but they're also not going to be identical.

So that's what's sort of continually being asked. And continually there are adjustments being made. Right. And continually there are. And things being tried. Because every bishop is also not infallible. Right? No bishop is infallible.

And so sometimes they're going to say, hey, this seems like a way we could go. And then that's going to have unintended consequences in the life of the church and they're going to draw back from that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or sometimes something one bishop does and tries, the other bishops will say, I don't know if that's a good idea and it won't spread. Or other times, other bishops will look at it and say, hey, that seems to be working well for, for the people of that local church. We should give that a try as well. Or we should try a slightly different version of that. Right. And so that's sort of how these things happen.

Because you, you can't just.

You know, to every culture, to every time, to every place, just come up with a list of rules, just do these things. Right. And then you will find salvation.

And that's because, you know, Christ is incarnate.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And history is real.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, well, this next one comes from Moses and I think this is a tough one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hello Fathers, My name is Moses Reese. I'm from Portland, Oregon. I have a question about the body and gender. In your episode God's Body, you define the body as a nexus of potentialities. In the recent episode Profit Motive, there's some references made to individuals accessing spiritual forces from the liminal between gender state or sometimes being thrust out of a gender state as a result of exposure to spiritual forces. In my work as a professional counselor sometimes talked with trans and non binary individuals who describe the experience of their internal sense of gender being incongruent with their body to some degree. They describe grabbing energy, craving a different sort of body. And this incongruence can be mild or extreme, but centers on how they experience their bodies. So then, what is the potentiality of a male body versus female body? And is it strictly or primarily reproduction? Or is there more? What is the essential nature of man or woman? Is the essential nature of man or woman that they have particular genitalia or is the essence of manhood or womanhood something deeper and intangible? And if the essence of gender is in fact connected to particular genitals, then what does that say about the overall nature of a person? Is our central nature bound up in organs of elimination and reproduction? And is this possibly reductionistic? More so, if the essence of manhood, womanhood is bound up in the genitalia, then what does this say about the nature of God? On the other hand, if the essence of gender is not specifically tied to physical genitalia, but rather something internal inherent in transcending physical flesh, then what is actually problematic about a true trans or non binary persons experience journey and physical alterations to their body? That's my question. Thanks so much for the show. It makes being a Christian a whole lot more fun. Peace.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. Well.

Yeah, I think this is a tough one because there's so many potential minefields and pitfalls, you know, that that can go along with it.

And I think often, and I appreciate the spirit with which Moses, you asked this question because, you know, you're concerned about the care of people, right? Whereas a lot of times when people ask questions related to now this very, very hot question of gender, it's about justifying.

Frankly, sexual immorality or all kinds of other very problematic behaviors. I mean, we've talked many times on this show about this question of.

Identity becoming one's personal identity. I'm different from everybody else for the following list of reasons that together make me unique as being a very problematic way to live. And that at least is some of the way that I think about this stuff. But I'll be honest.

I don't have a lot of really big form thoughts about how to understand this. I have very clear thoughts about.

The right kinds of behavior, you know.

But I don't, I don't, I don't yet have fully worked out ideas about necessarily how we get there. So, Father, I'm just going to kick it over you and I want to hear what you have to say about this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, yeah, this is not a question of Father Andrew being chicken. To really delve into this is that he does not share my reckless abandon.

Because I'm about to get everybody mad at me.

But we'll see, we'll see. If you, if you, if this actually makes it out onto action, face airwaves and you listen to it and, and I have not made you mad in any way, send an email. I'll be curious to see if there's anyone out there.

So, yeah, so part of Again, we have to start by interrogating the question a little because as we said before, sort of the way you start an inquiry is going to shape the results you get. Yeah, Right. And so there's something that happened, right. There were important distinctions that were made in the late mid 20th century that have kind of been lost now and are part of what's causing a lot of this confusion.

And one of the big ones, and here's where I'm going to tick off a bunch of people right off the bat, is that there's a difference between biological sex and gender.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That those, those aren't the same thing.

So biological sex, right. Is all organisms. Right. If, if you're into the evolution thing and humans are higher primates, Right. They come in two biological sexes.

Male and female. There are also intersex people.

For various reasons, genetic issues, other things. There are people who physiologically don't conform to one of those two. Those are people who have their own set of issues they face and struggles they face. And I frankly find it kind of offensive when they're used as like a political football in these arguments. So the existence of intersex people literally has no, nothing to do with transgenderism.

Because this is a question of biological sex, and transgenderism is about gender, which is a different thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So respectfully, out of respect for them, we need to leave them out of the rest of this discussion. Right. And. And when those people are in our churches and that kind of thing, we need to treat them with respect and help them with their struggles the same way we would anyone else. Right. But so that's. That's a separate kind of issue.

So gender then. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And part of this gets confused too, because we're speaking English.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In pretty much every other language I've ever studied.

Language has gender.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So different words are masculine and feminine. It has nothing to do with biology whatsoever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And there's even. People don't think tables are women.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. There's even neutral gender. And I think some languages have more than three, actually grammatical gender, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And English doesn't have it. And so that makes pronouns radioactive now, because that's the one. That's the only part of the English language that's really gendered is pronouns. Right, Right. And we've all forgotten that we used to call ships she. Right. You know.

But so again, language, gender is not related to this.

So it's commonly called gender in these discussions is basically this is. I'm going to use another word. It's going to make another group of people mad at me. It's a social construct, meaning it's something that is constructed by a society in terms of this is the way males should dress, present themselves, speak, appear in public. Right. And this is the way females should dress, present themselves in public. And obviously that's different in different cultures and different times. Right. Like most of the earth's history, men did not wear slacks or pants or jeans. Right. That's now we consider masculine attire. Men didn't wear that for most of human history. Right. If you saw someone dressed as Louis the 15th, you would not say there is a hyper masculine person. Right.

So that has changed. Right. The founding fathers of the United States used to wear wigs and stockings. Right. And high heeled shoes. Men don't do that anymore in our current. Right. Cultural conception of gender.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There are people who are men or women biologically who at any given point don't feel comfortable with the way their society tells them they should dress and act and present themselves. Right. We didn't used to make a big deal out of this. Lots of women were tomboys in some period of their growing up, right. And they liked things that our culture associated with boys. They liked sports or they liked playing with what we considered to be boys, toys, not a big deal. That didn't make them a boy. It didn't make them a man. Why? Well, because that's just social construct that has nothing to do with biology.

Right. We were very clear this person is biologically this. Right. They, they happen to like some things that in our society are more commonly liked by the other sex. Right.

So the other, in terms of ground clearing, the other issue here, and this even came out in the question a little bit.

Is that. And the questioner at least sounded like, you know, we're not allowed to assume anymore, but sounded like a man. And so he talked about genitalia.

For men. It's very easy to talk about reproduction in terms of genitalia because that's how men are involved in reproduction. But for a woman, most of what's involved in reproduction is carrying a new human being in their womb for nine months.

And so the, the, the reproductive structures of the body, Especially if.

We, as best I can, because I'm not one look at it from a woman's perspective, is much more involved than just their, their organs of reproduction and elimination.

That there is more involved here. And that's not sort of the end of physiological differences between men and women. And so.

When we say that a body is a collection of potentialities and powers. Right? So obviously, there are some of those that are different. Right. A big, glaringly obvious one is that men don't have wombs.

Right. They. They can't conceive and carry a child for nine months. Right. That's a potentiality. That's a power that they do not possess and that women do possess. Again, that doesn't mean that every woman. Right. Possesses it because we're. We're in a fallen world where there are disorders of the body, righteousness, there are disorders of the soul, there's disease, there are problems where things don't work. But the structures, the physiological structures are aimed at that possessed by women and not. And not by. Not by men. We've also said and tried to make clear that your soul is not a thing separate from your body. Your soul is the life that is in your body. You are your body. The resurrection is physical. After the resurrection, Christ is still a man.

Right. His body is still a male body. A male human body. Yep.

So that is. Right. Those structures are. Our physical structures are not sort of ancillary. Right. We have to get past this is a Plato brain thing, that our real self is this spherical thing inhabiting our body, and our body is coincidental. Right? We are our body just as much as we are our soul.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. I feel like there's a Cartesian backing to a lot of this question, right? You know?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. And so.

In order for the transgender narrative to function.

Right, you have to take gender and make it not a social construct and make it rare, real.

You have to say if. If this person.

This person is biologically male, but they like Shira better than he man, so they're actually.

A. A girl or a woman. Right. Meaning there is something essential about this cartoon as opposed to that cartoon. Right? There's something.

And so you have to essentialize these things in a way that just does not work. Right? That just does not work. That would be to say George Washington was secretly effeminate because dressing wearing high heels and stockings and a wig is feminine no matter what.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And makes him a female. So that. That. That doesn't work. So when we're. We're talking to someone who identifies as trans, this isn't a person we should hate. This is a person who's confused. Right. And part of the reason, frankly, that they've gotten confused is our modern sense of identity. And we have a whole generation of people now, really, two generations of people now, whose first sexual experiences, whose only experiences of community have taken place on the Internet, Meaning they're disembodied.

And we haven't taken into account what having all of a person's sexual experiences be disembodied does to a person when they're first developing their concept of sexuality and identity. Yeah, but we're seeing it play out, right? Because if you don't form your sense of identity in community.

Right. Then your identity, if you're just talking about yourself, is a black hole. You end up in nihilism.

Because by ourselves, we aren't human. We aren't anything. Aristotle knew that. Right. If you're gonna live by yourself, you have to be a beast or a God. And Nietzsche said, porque no los dos? But that's kind of a. But you can't be human by yourself.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So the solution to this is not to degrade people and insult people, insist on calling them things they don't want to be called in public to make some kind of point. Right? That's not the solution. The solution is we have to work to rebuild communities.

So that people who have grown up without any concept of what it even is start to understand what community life is. And once you're in a community, your identity gets formed because you have a role within that community. You have gifts and abilities that you share with that community. And then in return, the community places certain responsibilities upon you. And you contributing what you can and fulfilling those responsibilities gives you a sense of self and a sense of self worth and a sense of being appreciated, and that makes for a healthy person.

Right. But we can't argue at people out of this while they're sitting alone in their room in front of a computer.

No matter what you post on Twitter, you're not going to convince anybody of anything and you're not going to help them. And I know most of the people doing these things don't care about helping them because they've identified these people as the enemy.

In some kind of culture war. Right. But our goal as Christians should be to help these people find salvation. And they're only going to find salvation in a community, specifically the community of the church. And that's why that's where we start building these.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So there. Now everyone's mad at me.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm happy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Actually. I'm good with all of that. Oh, well, yeah, I know, I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You can answer the hate mail then.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, I will.

You know, I.

Have to be careful how I say this, but I've had experience with a young person, so a teenager who.

It's like you said, this person was.

Raised basically in front of a screen and came to.

And came to say, I'm not the actual sex, that I was born. I'm the other one.

And I thought about. I looked at that person's life and I thought about, well, okay, so in this case, it was a girl.

Who said that she was a boy.

And I thought about. I looked at her life and I thought, well, she's never had a dad. Dad was out of the picture from a very, very early age and has been at home for.

Either in public schools where a lot of those things are. Let's be honest, a lot of public schools these days are totally happy with. If someone says that kind of thing, to say, okay, we will help you and support you to be that way and to help. Help you go down that path as far as you want to go. You know, that's just reality.

And not getting. Not getting anything different at home.

And.

Sort of realizing like, okay, this person actually doesn't even know what a man is. And they think. And, you know, she thinks. Think she is one, but there's nothing manly about her. You know, like, literally there's nothing, man. Not even. Not even this kind of, you know, gender stereotyping stuff. Right? It was just sort of like an identification, like a switch was flipped. You know, it's not like she started dressing differently or anything like that, you know. But I think you're right. I mean, from my experience, there's the. This is the result of. This is the result of the frank fragmentation and the breakdown of human communities.

And the place of sanity has to be the church. And like you said, that it can't be that sanity is not simply giving people lectures about how they're wrong about stuff, but actually creating a community that they can plug into and enter into that web of relationships where who they are as God created them to be, is meaningful and is something that they can actually connect to because in many cases they haven't been able. And I'm sure there's a lot of different kinds of experiences. The one that I happen to have interacted with, with this, this young lady is not universal. I know. You know, but. But.

The cure for this kind of stuff is. Is a scene, community where someone can plug into that and be. And be part of it. It's always, you know, it's always in isolation that we often in isolation, I should say that we really, really go off the. Off the deep end and get in danger waters. So. All right, well, I hope that's helpful to you, Moses. In Your work. Okay, so this next one comes from our friend Kyle from Ireland. He is called into the show on multiple occasions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hi, Fathers. My question is about the second coming.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is the second coming of Christ an.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Event which will happen in material time at some point in the future? Or is it something which happens on an individual level in one's personal experience.

During one's life, meaning that the second coming of Christ has already happened for.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Some people throughout history? Or is it a way of describing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What happens to everyone when they die so they enter into judgment? Or the second coming of Christ?

Or is it all of these? Or is it none of these?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Anyway, thank you very much. All right. It's a good question. So how about a father? What exactly is, as he put it, the second coming? I know you don't like that phrase, actually.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

Yeah. Well, yeah, because it's, as I've said before, it's kind of deceptive. We're not that far as we record, at least we're not that far past the Ascension. And, yeah. Fighting back against the idea that Jesus went away somewhere.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Therefore is coming back. Right. And so second coming in return kind of give that. It's not that they're horrible translations, just they give a connotation. Right. So there's other language from the Bible, like Christ, glorious appearing, or just when he appears.

That I think conveys the idea that he is still very much with us and in our midst. Right. Even though we don't sort of see.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Him directly, he'll be manifest in a way that he isn't right now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. To us. Yeah. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, there is going to be an end of material time or there's going to be an end of this age. Right. And. And what time will be like in the age to come, we don't know.

And by what it will be like, I mean how we will experience it Right after the resurrection, we don't know.

Likewise, how time is experienced.

When someone is separated from their body, we don't know. Right. So I can't answer, at least at this point.

What that's like. Right. Whether they experience it as waiting for a long time or.

You know what I mean, whether the intermediate state is experienced as an extension of time or not. Right. That's the only way we can talk.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is in terms of time and space. But.

That I would. I would suggest at the very least would apply differently to someone who is not in a body. Right. Or not embodied with a material body.

But what that means I can't say. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So if you ask the question, has someone experienced it already?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Already.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I can answer that. No, because the already means from our perspective.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not from their perspective.

So I could say from our perspective, the last judgment hasn't happened. That's why we continue to pray for the departed, among other reasons. Right. But I can't answer from their perspective.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. We can't project ourselves. I mean, this is the bat thing again.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We can't project ourselves out there and say, ah, yes, I know what it's like to be, you know, departed from this life. And I know I could tell you I'm here at the Second Coming, and we're looking forward to you joining us. Like, we don't. We don't know that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. And even. Even to phrase the question right, what is this person who has departed doing right now? Well, the now me is now time for my perspective.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So now for me and now for them might mean two completely different things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So, yeah, that's.

Probably unsatisfactory.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's what we got.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Kyle from Ireland always asks good questions. So it's a good one, though. Okay. All right, well, we got a couple more. And this one is from Phil.

Hello, Fathers. My name is Phil.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm up in Canada. First, thank you for such a great show. I absolutely love it. God continue to strengthen you in your great work. I'm also really thankful that I get to speak. Pipe in and send a question. So my question is as follows. In Second Corinthians 2, 14, 15, we.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Read that Christ's work on the cross.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Quote, canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them triumphing over them in him. End quote. In this passage, we not only see.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What we talk about often on the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Show, that is that Christ put the beat down on the devils, but also that salvation is not just healing, it is a debt. It might even be called a legal vision of salvation. I bring this passage to your attention because often in orthodox circles, we see salvation as healing. Talk of salvation as debt or other legal terms is usually derogatorily referred to as Catholic or Protestant. As the above passage illustrates, though, there is something clearly more going on. I know that on the show we've talked about justice as being setting things in their right order, and I can see how this is related to healing, example, placing bones back in their joints, but I'm not sure how to make More sense of the passage than that. So my question is, is there a more authentically orthodox version of salvation as a legal concept? Can you please just riff on this idea? Thank you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's a good question, I'm gonna guess.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's from Manitoba.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Based on his accent, maybe Winnipeg. Yeah. He has the same accent as Chris Jericho.

Wow. That's what I'm going by.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Wow. That's, that's fun. Who is, you know, someone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Someone. Tell me if I'm right. At some later point.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We just learned a little bit about your interest in Canadian American wrestling.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, well, and here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm. I'm going. I'm maybe looking at going all Henry Higgins about Canada, which would be a weird, Whole weird thing. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. All right.

So, yeah.

I'm not sure that I've.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thrown you off completely.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right. Exactly. Where are we? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I. So he said Second Corinthians 2, 14, 15. But I think he might be quoting something else. I'm not sure, though.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's the handwriting of our sins.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Right. So.

Yeah, because that's not what's there in that passage. But in any event, that's in Colossians, isn't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, he was.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, Colossians 2.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think that's what he's looking at. So anyway, I knew what passage he was talking. Yeah, no, I mean, I knew it. I was like, I don't think that that's right. But, but yes, there's reference to indebtedness and this sort of handwriting and, you know.

Like a, you know, like, I'm looking at the net Bible, for instance, right now. It refers to a certificate of indebtedness expressed in decrees opposed to us. Right. Second Corinthians 2, 14.

Yeah. Which is very kind of legal, kind of language, financial kind of language.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But those are, those are, those are two different things, though.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's true. Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's part of the problem with the question is that debt and legal are two different things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. I mean, we tend to, in our modern experience, they, you know, debt is a very legal experience.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, we don't have debtors prisons anymore.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But I mean, that's true, I suppose. But, but, you know, the law can get involved based on your, you know, and there's contracts that you sign.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Get a judgment, you could get a judgment against at a civil court. Right, Maybe.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, yes. But, but also, like, if you sign a contract that has legal force, you know, that's Enforceable.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It becomes force of law, you know, and, and, and indebtedness is a contract that you sign. Right. So, yeah, I mean, that, that kind of stuff is there, but I, I think, I mean, I, I, the way that I read this that makes the most sense to me is that, you know, debt is so, so much bound. I mean, you made mention of debtors, prisons, but I mean, debt is so much bound up, especially in the Roman Empire with the institution of slavery.

Which is another very, very common image used in the New Testament for our relationship to sin. Right. That it's slavery and it's slavery to demonic powers, which is of course then referenced in verse 15. Right. Disarming the rulers and authorities. He has made a public disgrace to them, triumphing over them by the cross.

And so then this indebtedness that we have for Christ to pay that debt or to tear up the debt as it is in this particular passage, or nailing it to the cross. Right. Is to release us from that slavery that's gone that way. And I mean.

My take is that legal language and find, you know, indebtedness language, whether they're bound up together or not, like that stuff is in scripture. The question. And he made mention of how a lot of orthodox people will say, no, salvation is healing. It has nothing to do with this sort of other kind of language. But I think that that's a problem, that when orthodox people talk that way, it's a problem because it's throwing out some biblical language in favor of other biblical language, which is the problem with the other side of the question that says, no, it's practically primarily a legal issue is it's throwing out other biblical language in favor of that biblical language. And so you get this truncated view either way. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I think you're trying to be overly charitable.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, okay. You know.

Since this is an episode where you've decided you're gonna go ahead and make everybody angry. So go ahead, you know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Yeah. Again, reckless, abandoned. No.

So. And I could tell from your answer that you read the section related to this passage in Religion of the Apostles. Anyway.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Everyone buy it. It's stored on ancientfaith.com.

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So there are a couple things with interrogating the question. Right. First of all, at least on this show, we've never said that salvation is primarily healing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, no, we haven't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Let alone only healing. I haven't even said primarily. Yeah, that's way down the chain. Right. So being set free from bodyless powers, being raised from the dead and Being purified from sin and its effects.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's what we talk about salvation being on this show. Now, the purification of sin and its effects, you know, healing covers part of that. Right. But when we talk about atonement, right, The. The purification from sin and its effects is so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, with the presence of God. It's the beginning of theosis and transformation. Right. In a positive sense, not just healing. Right. So, yeah, all of that is way watered down. So in answer to the final form of the question, well, yeah, it's a lot more than healing, and that's what we've always said.

But yeah, and then the other thing with this wiggle between debt and legal. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm going to assume this is positively motivated. I know there's a certain mindset that says, hey, we need to throw our Western brothers a bone. Right? Brothers and sisters, right. And you know, we've got Western, right. Orthodox people, some of them are friends of mine, and sometimes they feel the need because they're using Western liturgical usages to also try to defend bits and bobs of Western theology unnecessarily. And so we want to try to throw people bone. And so using a legal is sort of this broad category that covers 12 things that we could say, well, yeah, we think there's some legal imagery there. Now, by legal, we mean something totally different than what, say, penal substitution area atonement or satisfaction theory means. But it's still legal, so we could be friends. And to me, that's. That's just paper papering over actual differences. Right. So as you mentioned, that the word there in Greek actually refers to a promissory.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And this is connected to St. Paul's common imagery. Wages of sin is death. Right. So we have brought this upon ourselves. Again, it's not a death penalty. Right. And that's proved, by the way, St. Paul Elsewhere in Romans uses the term wages, right? He said if salvation was wages, it would not be grace, it would not be the work of God, it would be something you earn. Right. So when he says the wages of sin is death, that means death is something we earn, not the action of God, apart from our own actions, meaning it's not a death penalty.

St. Paul Straight says that, okay? So this is. And if you read Hebrews, which is at least Pauline, even if you don't want to call it St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, which I'm comfortable doing, but even if you're not, it's at least Pauline, it talks about how we, through the fear of death, have been enslaved our whole lives by the devil, who holds the power of death, who Christ came and defeated.

So as you said, this is about freedom from slavery, right to.

Sin and death, which Christ accomplishes on our behalf. And that's not, again, a legal matter. It's not that there's a court case between the devil and Christ, and Christ, like, wins the civil case.

And therefore becomes the holder of our debt and tears it. Right.

That'S not the imagery that's being used. Yeah, right. The imagery is, is Christ saving us from the consequences of our actions, which we've richly earned. Right. But that are part of the natural consequence of what happens when we give ourselves over to sin and rebellion and, and follow the demons. So, like, I don't, I just, I don't feel the need to find a way to agree with Anselm. I don't feel a need to find a way to partially agree with John Calvin about penal substitutionary atonement. I just don't, I just don't. I don't need to be free.

And I'm sorry if that upsets people who do agree with them, but just, I don't, I don't see any, any positive to it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, I mean, we don't, we don't need to, like, we don't need to be there. I mean, just to put it bluntly, they're not orthodox saints, so, like, we don't need to figure out how to incorporate them into what we're doing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, it's not serving a purpose for us. It's not answering a question that we don't have an answer to otherwise. Like, yeah, it's just, I mean, it's, to me, it's like the lamest kind of humanism.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, God bless.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just like, hey, let's pretend we're. We agree more than we do, you know, and why.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right, so on that note, we have one more question. This comes from Jonathan.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, podfathers, my name is Jonathan Harris and I just recently joined the podcast and the Facebook group. And I ended up asking a question the other day about ancient Near Eastern cosmology and what you guys believe about that. Do you agree with.

Scholarship of the day that sees a three tiered cosmology with a, with a hard sky and all of that stuff? Or do you disagree? And if you do agree, what do you think that means for inspiration and biblical inspiration and how we read the Bible and understand it and all of that stuff that's been really on my mind lately. So it'd be great if you guys could speak to that a little more in depth. But thank you so much for the podcast and really enjoy it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right, thank you. I feel like I heard seagulls in the background of his recording there. He's coming to us from the beach. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or he's going Tippy Hedren and they're about to attack.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, yeah, actually I want us eventually to do a whole episode about this question about cosmology.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, I thought you were going to say the birds.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay. Yeah, no, that's a much better.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not the birds.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Much better.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, I can't handle even mild horror films like that. I can't do it. I'm just a total pansy in that regard. Yeah, so I guess like, the way that I would sort of restate his question would be. Okay. It seems in the Bible the cosmology that's presented has got three levels. You've got the heavens above us, you've got the Earth that we live on, and you've got the underworld underneath us.

I should point out, by the way, that the middle part is referred to as middle Earth in pre modern Germanic literature. Just putting that out there.

Midengyard. But. And then, you know, and then now we've got, you know, we live long after comparison, Copernicus and all that kind of stuff. And we know that that's not the way that things are shaped.

Do we actually believe that that's what's presented in the Bible? If that really is the case, then what do we do with that? The fact that we know now that that's not how the world is actually arranged.

So here's my understanding of that. My understand understanding is that.

You actually do in some cases in the ancient world. You get people who seem to hold to more than one cosmology at a time. Right. On the one hand they sort of will say the Earth is. Is round, which a lot of them had figured out, like with the use of. Of geometry. Right. They could tell that the Earth was round and then at the same time also describe the Earth in three tiered cosmological terms, which suggests that they didn't see them as contradictory models, that they're essentially describing two different sets of experiences that are related to the same reality, but are two different ways of kind of talking about it. But it's also my understanding that you do get, at various points in time, certain people who.

Very much push a kind of a total, even materialization of the three tier version of Cosmology and say this is the way that the world simply is laid out.

For my part, I have no problem believing in both at the same time that the three tier cosmology describes something like what we would describe as a spiritual experience. And it's not about an empirical material measurement. And then you can take an empirical material measurement and see, you know, planets that are basically spheres going around the sun, which is itself part of a galaxy and all that kind of thing, and that both are meaningful models and both apply. Right, both apply to actual phenomenological experiences that people have.

I know that that's, that's my understanding of it. And I, and I would say that I don't think, even if it is the case that the Bible teaches only a three tier cosmology. And I have to say I have to defer to you on this, whether that's all that's said there, Father. But even if it does teach that, I don't see that that's a problem for believing that the Bible is inspired. Because the Bible isn't trying to answer material empirical questions about planets and astronomy and so forth. That's not what it's purpose is. Instead it's talking about the actual experiences that people have and their experience of God within that and of the world and so forth. So that's my set of thoughts that I have about this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So there's a bunch of things that make this complicated. One of them is the concept of spiritual geography that we've talked about before.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So overlaying Leviathan swallows, Jonah swims down beneath the pillars of the earth. Right. Like.

No one was claiming, there are actually pillars there supported by nothing supporting the earth. Right. That's sacred geography. How those things, how those things that overlap though with real geography or material geography, I should say.

So there's that that complicates it. There's also, as we talked about in the how to and how not to Read the Bible episode, the fact that the Bible does not make scientific claims ever at all. Right. So trying to read it from the perspective of modern science is fundamentally cattywampus, Right? And that's not saying science is bad. Right? Go to science. Right. But like, if what you're really into studying is ancient textiles, great, go get your PhD in history, study ancient textiles. But if you try to read the Bible from the perspective of textiles.

You might have some interesting insights here and there.

Be willing to hear. But on the whole, you're not really going to get the thrust of what the Bible wants to Teach you.

The same thing. If you try to read the Bible from the perspective of astrophysics, you might have some interesting insights here and there, but you're not going to get right the thrust because it's not making claims from that, that perspective. That's not the discourse that's taking place in, in scripture. And then of course, there's, you know, what, what would you expect God to say to Bronze Age people?

Right? So we all have a little bit of 19th century German in US where we have this assumption that we stand at the pinnacle of history and that includes science.

So we've got this all, or pretty much all locked down, right. In terms of science. And so if God were really going to speak, he'd communicate in our scientific terms because we're at the pinnacle of human history.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And so the fact that he talks to these Bronze Age people about the world as if it's the way those Bronze Age people thought it was, that's a problem. Right. The reality is if God actually explained the world to Bronze Age people the way it actually is, we still wouldn't understand it. Right. Because if there's a humanity in this age 2000 years from now, we will probably look at today's science like, like we were a bunch of idiots. The way modern people look at, you know, medieval science and alchemy. Right.

There will be all kinds of things that we think are horrific and stupid. Right. About our current science. So that whole chain of argument is based on this sort of modernist hubris and doesn't hold up and make a lot of sense. Right. So the reality is God had things that he wanted to communicate to Bronze Age people, and so he spoke to them in a language that existed at the time and in ways using metaphors and descriptions that they would understand so that he could convey to them what he wanted to convey.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And it's still meaningful for us even though, like, those models are still meaningful for us even if they're not what our scientific textbooks are talking about. About.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And our current models will seem equally quaint.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In a thousand years. Right. To the people of that time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, all right, well, that wraps up this big Q and A episode. Thank you very much for listening, everyone. If you didn't get to catch us live in one of our previous episodes or in the future, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email [e-mail] you can message us at our Facebook page, or you can leave us a [e-mail] LordOfSpirits and.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Join us for our live broadcast on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific. Except like not today. So like the next actual live one will be like the second week of july, second, second Thursday and if you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Are on Facebook you can like our page, Join our discussion group, leave reviews and ratings everywhere. But most importantly, please share this show with a friend whom you know is going to love it or even someone who's kind of eh about it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com stroke support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters. I'm gonna go ahead and say all of them stay on the air.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Thank you, good night and God bless you all.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.