Disagreeing Without Losing Your Soul

Dan Doriani: Hello, friends. I want to open this episode with an important announcement. Our podcast, Working, has been growing steadily and will soon take a big step forward. This September, we will join The Gospel Coalition network of podcasts. Hear more at the end of this episode.

Dan Doriani: Hello, and welcome to Working with Dan Doriani, a podcast where we explore faith, work, culture, and the way believers can make a difference in their corner of the world.

Hello, everybody. Today my guest is Dr. Gavin Ortlund, whom I’ve known for close to twenty years, somehow. He was a student of mine at Covenant Theological Seminary, where he has returned to give guest lectures. He’s not a professor by occupation, although he does lecture on campuses. By occupation, Gavin, you’re a pastor, author, speaker, and apologist. In case anybody’s wondering, that doesn’t mean he goes around apologizing for things. It means he makes the case for Christian orthodoxy in a variety of public settings. When I look at you, I can see the slightly younger you, and it makes me think of the fact that you have five wonderful, adorable children and a lovely wife. That’s very important.

But you’re also known for other things. You’re president of Truth Unites and theologian in residence at Immanuel Church in Nashville. You’re perhaps best known for about nine books, and I’m sure you’re working on another one. What It Means to Be Protestant won Christianity Today‘s Book of the Year award in 2024, and we’ll talk about that book among others. You also have a YouTube channel with a lot of subscribers, where people listen on important topics, including how Protestants and Catholics navigate their differences—how they agree and how they disagree. We’ll focus on that. And you promote the gospel, assurance of faith, and theological depth. That’s a long intro. What did I miss? What would you like to add or subtract, Gavin?

Assurance and Joy in the Gospel [02:25]

Gavin Ortlund: It’s such a joy to be talking with you. Thanks for the opportunity. I don’t think we need to add much, except maybe the heart beneath my ministry, which is to create assurance and joy in the gospel. As I’ve gotten to know Gen Z especially—my YouTube channel isn’t just for Gen Z, but I have a real heart for younger people; I really love the younger generation—I find that many people have spiritual anxieties. I long to give my life to serve them: to point them to Christ, to the Holy Spirit’s testimony in their hearts, and to rational reasons for faith, and to do whatever I can to serve people. That’s the driving heartbeat of what I want to give my life to.

Dan Doriani: That’s terrific. Let me ask it a different way. I think your oldest child is around twelve?

Gavin Ortlund: Just turned thirteen a little while ago.

Dan Doriani: Just turned thirteen. So how would you tell a twelve-year-old what you do for a living, given that you have something like seven to nine jobs?

Gavin Ortlund: That’s a fun question. For that age group, I’d probably go to the purpose underneath it and explain that not everyone in the world knows who Jesus is. Lots of people may be searching for spiritual answers or may never have heard about Jesus. And actually, a lot of people even in our culture, where Christianity has had such a history, have grown up without being exposed to the gospel message.

Dan Doriani: They hardly know anything, sometimes.

Gavin Ortlund: It’s really true, and I think that’s related to the anxiety in our culture. So I’d explain it by saying that through every medium I can, I’m trying to convey the gospel and the joy and peace the gospel brings to the human heart. That would probably be the starting point, and if they asked questions, I might follow up and explain what some of those mediums are.

The Art of Disagreeing [04:10]

Dan Doriani: Depending on what the twelve-year-old is interested in. For a lot of people, you’re known as the guy—the PhD—who engages in conversations with Roman Catholics. And you’ve written a little book, which I’ll hold up, that I read recently. I’ve read other works of yours before, but for this conversation I read The Art of Disagreeing, a delightful short read. It’s one of those books you like because you can finish it in about 89 minutes—it’s about 89 pages—and it has all kinds of good points. Not that I finished it in 89 minutes; I kept putting it down and jotting notes. Tell us about the art of dialogue, because that seems to be a big part of what you want to do: dialogue well and constructively with people. What’s the difference between a conversation and a dialogue, or a dialogue and a debate? Give us a sketch.

Gavin Ortlund: This isn’t a topic I ever anticipated getting into in my ministry. You know how it is in ministry: things you don’t expect pop up, and you’re drawn into certain areas. The same is true of the Protestant–Catholic–Orthodox conversations; I never set out to get into those. But over the years I’ve observed—and the internet and social media are factors in this—that we seem to be getting worse at disagreeing in a charitable way and in a clear way. I’m very concerned about that. Online you can see Christians speaking of each other with contempt and malice, and we have such polarization. Another danger, of course, is to avoid disagreements completely and not have enough courage.

That book really comes out of my own pursuit of saying, “Jesus, teach me. Help me be the kind of man…” I have my own personality limitations and blind spots, but I want to grow into the character of Christ, which has both boldness and gentleness. I want to be the kind of person who’s willing to apologize, change my mind, listen, and have an open heart. I also want to be courageous and have the boldness of the gospel. So I’m searching for those things. The publisher pitched the idea, and I thought, “That really is a needed topic right now.” Those of us who know Jesus and want to advance the gospel have good reasons to think hard about how we communicate—with the non-Christian world, but even within the body of Christ.

Kindness in Dialogue [06:55]

Dan Doriani: There’s no doubt about that. Your book accents things like kindness in conversation; courage, meaning a willingness to enter into debate; and listening. To me, listening means hearing the person so well that I can state their argument in terms they would consider fair and accurate—not a caricature, not a misreading, not distorting it just a little so I can make my points later. But what does kindness in dialogue mean? Certainly kindness doesn’t mean simply agreeing all the time, or letting people talk and talk. If you really love somebody and think they’re making a mistake, of course you have to say something. I know the book covers this, but give us a two- or three-minute summary: what does kindness in dialogue mean, and how is it connected with candor and honesty?

Gavin Ortlund: One illustration I think I used at that point in the book comes from one of Dostoevsky’s novels: a young man named Alyosha, who comes to mind as we’re talking. He has a simple, sincere love for others, and as I read the novel, I remember how that plays out. He’s not contemptuous. He’s not lording it over others.

On the internet I get involved in formal and informal debates, dialogues, and discussions exploring differences. It’s been really interesting to think through why it’s so hard to do that. What is it about human psychology that makes it difficult to disagree with someone and still keep a positive relationship? For whatever reason, it’s challenging. On the internet especially—though not only there—our flesh gets involved, and that escalates things. We want to win. We want to show the other side, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Part of that can be good, as you’re saying: we care about the truth. But it can so easily become about our ego—”I want to be vindicated.”

So part of kindness in disagreement is to say, “I’m not trying to win in the sense of my flesh and my pride. I want Christ to win. I want the truth to win. And I care about you as a person in this conversation. That means I’m not going to try to embarrass you. I’m not going to try to ‘own’ you”—

Dan Doriani: Right.

Gavin Ortlund: —as people put it. “I’m not going to humiliate you, or dunk on you, or make it seem like you’re dumb. I’m going to keep an open heart, which means I’m willing to make course corrections based on what I’m hearing back.”

Dan Doriani: I’d love for you to comment on this. I can’t find the page at the moment, but in your book you say that a real, kind dialogue would include the capacity to say things like, “Oh, now that you’ve explained yourself, I think we actually agree,” or, “Having heard you, I see that I may be wrong about this.” You’re not going to say you may be wrong about the Trinity, but you’re willing to say, “I think you’ve won me over.”

Gavin Ortlund: Oh, yes. I think an honest engagement, given enough time, will sooner or later probably have you saying something like, “Oh, now I understand what you’re saying,” because we don’t always understand right away. There’s an old saying: “You’re not really listening until you’re willing to be changed by what you hear.” I think that’s a good reminder. I’m not saying it in a spirit of wanting us to be wishy-washy; we can be committed to the fundamentals while we do this. But interpersonally, it means being open to really hear—trying to understand a person’s presuppositions, and asking, when something seems strange to us, how it makes sense to them.

Above all, one particular thing I’ve learned and would encourage people to think through is: what experiences stand behind this person’s convictions? What suffering may they have been through? What pain may be behind some of this disagreement? Factoring that in doesn’t mean we won’t disagree or won’t seek to persuade them. But it helps us come at things in a way that’s more human and more likely to be productive.

Dan Doriani: That’s absolutely right. I think one issue you glanced at for just a second there is that people often receive disagreement as an attack. It’s not just “you’re wrong,” but that you’re somehow defective—you haven’t thought carefully, you’re biased, and so on. When I’m talking with friends, and in churches and leadership conversations, I try to say over and over, “It’s okay if we disagree. If you think I’m wrong, you need to tell me.” Gavin, I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve been an interim pastor a number of times, and especially as the interim pastor of a large church, there’s a vast amount of information you don’t have. So I say, “You’ve got to correct me. Your job is to keep me from making foolish decisions or saying things that are false. There’s no problem here.” Truth-telling and truth-gaining are a team sport. You have to correct me when I’m wrong, because nobody cares who said what when. The question is whether we’re advancing together in the gospel and proceeding together as a church. I have a feeling you’d say something similar, but say it your own way.

Wishing Well on Their Soul [12:35]

Gavin Ortlund: Absolutely. One thing that came to mind as you were sharing, which I’ve found so helpful, especially when the temperature is rising a little—

Dan Doriani: Yes.

Gavin Ortlund: —and that’s easy to happen. We can just admit that sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s awkward, and it can be bracing to hear someone say something so different from what you’d say. A frustration can arise instinctively in our minds. We want to be reflective about how to deal with that in a spiritual way. We don’t want to just vent, but we do want to pay attention to it. One simple thing I’ve found so helpful is to keep thinking about eternity and to remember that this person I’m disagreeing with has a soul. Like Alyosha, I want to wish well upon their soul, even if the conversation gets to a point where I may need to withdraw.

Dan Doriani: Yes.

Gavin Ortlund: That can happen. I’ve actually had to toughen up a bit over the last five years and learn to deal with more aggressive people. There are times for accountability and for boundaries against harassment and other things that happen. But even there, I don’t want to wish ill upon their soul, but to pray for them. I think our Lord’s words in Matthew 5 and 6 are challenging, but I keep coming back to them. We’re to pray for people when they persecute us. We’re to rejoice when we’re slandered. My wife has told me so many times, when I’m struggling with something, “Remember Matthew 5. Rejoice.” Our Lord commanded us to rejoice, and we have solid reasons for rejoicing when we’re slandered. That helps me return to the mentality of wanting to wish well upon the soul of the other person, whatever else is going on. I find that intentional act of charity is at the nerve center of doing this well.

Dan Doriani: I appreciate that. Could I pick up on your thought of rejoicing when we’re reviled, cursed, and abused? First of all, if you’re reviled, it means at least somebody’s listening to you. They may not be hearing you perfectly, but they’re getting some kind of idea. They wouldn’t bother with you if you weren’t saying things well. We don’t refute three- and five-year-olds; we just let them talk. And if somebody’s completely ignorant, we usually don’t bother to correct them, though once in a while we have to. So the fact that you’re being attacked indicates that at least people are taking you seriously, yes?

Gavin Ortlund: I think that’s part of it.

The Man on the Cliff [15:20]

Dan Doriani: I want to go to something else. I’m going to hold up a picture, since maybe a quarter or half of our audience watches us sometimes. I’ve got a picture from page 52 of your book. Do you know this picture? Can you see it clearly? If you’re only listening: it’s a picture of a man hanging from a cliff, about to fall. There’s a man on the edge of the cliff extending his arm to keep him from falling. But there’s also a snake getting ready to strike the man who’s in danger of falling, and there’s a boulder on the back of the man trying to hold on to him. You make a simple point: you can’t always tell what people are battling when you talk to them. The falling man thinks, “This guy isn’t holding on to me very well. He’s wiggling. That doesn’t make my life easier”—because a snake is about to strike him. Why on earth did you put that in the book? Why is it worth page 52 and various comments?

Gavin Ortlund: It’s a reminder I’ve often needed in my own work in this area. In that illustration, one person is saying, “Why don’t they just pull me up? I’m about to fall”—and sometimes we feel that way—but that person can’t see the boulder. The other person is thinking, “I’m getting crushed. Why aren’t they climbing already?” and that person can’t see the snake. The principle is that we often underestimate the amount of pain, or other experiences, influencing a person in ways we can’t see. Boy, I have to say, right now I think there’s a lot of despair. I mentioned anxiety earlier: a lot of anxiety and depression. Many people are just getting through the day, and remembering that helps us.

I’ve learned that what we experience as hostility sometimes actually involves fear. What we experience as someone being hostile may, in their heart, be, “Oh no—what if they’re right?” They’re not going to say that, but the fear leads to hostility. So the illustration encourages us to pay careful attention, listen, and remember that we don’t always know what the person on the other side is going through, or has been through, that leads to their current behavior and convictions.

Dan Doriani: So, as you say in your own way, sharp disagreement—or even an attack on something we just said—registers to us as hostility, but that doesn’t mean it is hostility. They may simply be trying to protect themselves as best they can. One example: “Oh my goodness, there may actually be a reason to believe God exists, in which case I now have to reckon with God. I hate that idea. It’s so unsettling that I’ll become angry, or attack you, maybe ad hominem: ‘You’re only saying that because you can’t stand life in this world.'” But that apparent hostility, you say, is quite possibly self-defense—at least that’s their intent.

Gavin Ortlund: It may be their intent, and it may be subconscious; they may not realize it. What gives me compassion is that I’ve had moments in dialogues where something I took for granted was challenged, and it knocked me off balance for a moment. I was rethinking things and saying, “Wait a second. What if they’re right?” In that experience, it’s easy to push back and become aggressive or belligerent, rather than saying, “Wow, okay, I’m working this through.” So that helps me. I think C. S. Lewis once said something to the effect that what we experience as a flat-out collision of ideas, the other party may come back years later and tell us, “That really influenced me.” So it’s good to keep an open mind, not make immediate judgments, and not assume we can see everything the Lord is doing in any particular interaction.

Dan Doriani: Sometimes when people recoil the hardest, it’s because it’s closest to home. It addresses something they’ve assumed but never really examined.

Persuasion, Tact, and the Workplace [19:55]

Dan Doriani: Somewhere in your book you talk about the art of persuasion, and you quote Gregory the Great, who, by the way, was great in so many ways. He has comments about persuasion, and so do you. This is a faith and work podcast—you know that—so I’m going to invite you to apply what we’re talking about. I know you’re a theological discussion partner, but I know you also know the wider world to some degree. How would you apply the principles of disagreeing well—kindness, courage, listening, and your wonderful little chapter on persuasion, including Gregory the Great’s notes on how to correct a proud man, which I found so interesting—to disagreement in the workplace? It’s a very different environment, of course. Work is mandatory activity. You have to reach decisions and proceed as a team, which isn’t the nature of theological debate. Give us some of your big ideas.

Gavin Ortlund: My mind goes to, for example, a boss overseeing employees, giving feedback and instructions on how a task needs to be done—or even a parent. This applies to all of us. I’ve learned that it’s easy to underestimate how important it is simply to be tactful in the way we communicate.

My recollection of Gregory is that many years ago I read his Book of Pastoral Rule, and I was really struck by its wisdom—his ability to distinguish between different kinds of parishioners and persuade them differently. He talks about the hard-hearted and the soft-hearted. If you speak to a hard-hearted person as you would to a soft-hearted person, it doesn’t go well. And if you speak to a soft-hearted person as you would to a hard-hearted person, you can really crush them. So you have to listen to where the person is coming from and then speak tactfully and persuasively in response to that circumstance. As a pastor, I’ve certainly found that to be true.

So with tactful speech, we’re thinking through how to get the message across with minimal embarrassment, so they don’t feel defensive. How can I help them save face if I can? There’s an old illustration: say you work at a shoe store, and someone’s trying on shoes, and you tell them, “Your foot is way too big for this shoe.”

Dan Doriani: That’s a great way to sell shoes.

Gavin Ortlund: That’s one way to come across. The other way would be, “Oh, this shoe is too small for your foot.” You’re saying exactly the same thing, but one is more tactful. It doesn’t put the focus on them, and they’re less likely to feel like a deer in the headlights. Giving instruction is a chance to think about how to help someone not feel so pressured that they’re unlikely to be able to receive what I’m saying. What was so amazing about Gregory is that he’s a pretty stern, serious man, and yet he goes so far as to talk about giving a degree of flattery and praise to people to help win them over.

Dan Doriani: To soothe their ego so the medicine goes down.

Gavin Ortlund: Exactly—so you can then persuade them. I thought that was such an interesting and shrewd comment.

Dan Doriani: You touch briefly on something that’s almost a life principle of mine: when you want someone to do something for you, don’t just come out and say, “Please do this,” or order them to do it—unless you have to, which is occasionally necessary. Ask whether they’re willing to help you. When I’m dealing with some difficulty with a company and get somebody on the phone who might help, I say, “I’m just wondering if you can help me with a problem.” A person answering the phone at a customer service desk probably isn’t getting a lot of dignity or agency. When you ask, “Can you help me?”—as opposed to, “Your product stinks. How do I return it and get my money back, you bad company person, you?”—they so often just melt. They’re delighted to come to someone’s aid using their powers, whatever limitations those powers have. So in the power of persuasion, you’re not manipulating them. I don’t think it’s manipulation. You’re honoring their agency and assuming the best.

Gavin Ortlund: Right. I gave each of these chapters as a talk at our local church, Immanuel Nashville, and for that chapter I was so grateful that someone raised the concern about manipulation. It helped me think about it more sharply. When I wrote the chapter, I tried to be careful to distinguish persuasion from manipulation, and I think a big key is our posture of heart: we’re not trying to get something out of somebody as much as we actually want the best for them. The illustration I used in the book is a common scenario for many leaders: you’re leading a group, and one person dominates the discussion—talking and talking and talking. One way to address that is to say, “Hey, you’re talking too much.” That’s not usually the most winsome way to say it. A more tactful way could be, “I’d love your help drawing some of the others out more.” Depending on how you do it, you could do that manipulatively. But there’s a way to do it that, as you say, honors the person, and it’s more likely to lead to a peaceable, edifying outcome, which is the core value here.

What It Means to Be Protestant [26:30]

Dan Doriani: Do you mind if we switch to the other book I want to talk about?

Gavin Ortlund: Oh, please.

Dan Doriani: I’ll hold it up: What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church. I read it with substantial interest, if I may say so, and we have to be tactful about what we say next. I’ll set some things up, and you can tell me whether we’re on the same page.

I want to talk about official Roman Catholic theology, which you do in the book. Official statements should be taken seriously. The Council of Trent makes some very definite statements about doctrine, including anathemas, which declare a doctrine cursed and heretical. Vatican I, in 1870, also makes such statements. Then there’s the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is variously described—for reasons I don’t understand—as promulgated in 1999, 2000, or 2001, depending on the edition you pick up. That’s also a papal formulation of Catholic theology for the church—not that the pope wrote all of it. And if I read it correctly, it could also be a way forward: if Protestants would agree more with what it says, we could move forward together. We have to take these documents seriously, because a body of church leaders articulated them, and they stand. Nobody has ever said, “What we wrote at the Council of Trent—we’re not serious about that anymore.”

On the other hand, there’s also popular theology. And Vatican II, which began in 1962, did back away from the harsher statements, especially the anathemas that declared Protestant ideas like justification by faith alone to be cursed—strongly implying that someone who wholeheartedly believes them will be damned. So we don’t want to ascribe the content of those documents to every Catholic theologian we meet; that wouldn’t be fair. And we certainly don’t want to ascribe it to every Catholic we meet on the street. There’s a huge difference between popular theology and official theology. And yet you take the formal statements seriously, and so do I. Help us understand that. Why is it important to study formal theology, and also important not to assume that everyone we read believes everything in the formal statements? The formal statements would seem to cut off dialogue, and yet you and I believe dialogue is possible. How can that be?

Gavin Ortlund: That’s a great question to get us into this whole topic. I regard it as a very Protestant way of thinking to treat people based on their own relation to Christ—their doctrine and the existential reality of their receiving Christ—rather than merely on what institution they’re under, though that matters too. Protestants don’t restrict the church to one single institution. People have probably heard the term denomination for the different Protestant traditions—Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and so forth. For the most part, Protestants haven’t looked at one another and said, “We’re the true church, and you’re not.” The differences matter, but they’re not so serious that there’s a hard ecclesial cutoff between what is the church and what isn’t.

In modern times, Roman Catholic views have broadened, as you mentioned, at Vatican II, for example. But historically they’ve been very restrictive: there’s one particular institution, one particular visible hierarchy of governance—

Dan Doriani: And which one is that?

Gavin Ortlund: Well, actually, multiple bodies make that claim. It’s not just the Catholics. That’s part of the challenge: we also have our Eastern Orthodox friends, and the Assyrian Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox churches, in their own way, have an institutional exclusivity, though it works out a little differently. Historically, in the Middle Ages and so forth, you find the image of Noah’s ark as the church: if you’re not on the ark, you’re out in the water. Salvation is within the one church, and the one church is an institution. That evolves a bit in the modern era.

But Protestants don’t view it that way. When I’m relating to people, I first want to ask, “Tell me about you. What do you believe?” Because, happily, people are sometimes inconsistent with the errors of the institution they’re under. Someone might not even know what their institution teaches, and that creates space for dialogue. As you say, we want to talk about the formal teachings, but it creates space to ask, “Where is Christ at work? Where might this particular person and I have more agreement than their formal theology and I would have?”

Dan Doriani: The formal theology of their body, which they may never have read—which is true of Catholics and Protestants alike. We don’t necessarily read our creedal statements very much.

Gavin Ortlund: Absolutely. That’s true for all of us, I suppose.

Dan Doriani: My optimism in a dialogue goes something like this, and you can comment. Number one, if someone is reading the Bible with faith, or the Holy Spirit is beginning to nudge them toward faith, the Bible will inform them more than a formal doctrinal statement somewhere on a church’s website. If we keep reading the same Bible, our views will come closer together. Take the discussion between Arminianism and Calvinism. If you say, “I’m a Calvinist” or “I’m an Arminian,” you may have an argument on your hands. But if you say, “Isn’t it beautiful and wonderful how clear the Bible is that God is our Father, that he oversees and superintends our lives, and that he calls us to himself by his free grace?”—especially if you drop the word sovereign—you’ll find your Arminian friend glad to agree with you at every point, especially if you start quoting Bible verses. If you start quoting John Calvin, it may not go as well.

Gavin Ortlund: Exactly. That’s a great dialogical strategy with our friends from whatever church tradition: “Let’s read the Scriptures together, and let that be the center of gravity for our conversation.” We could encourage listeners toward that.

Best Positioned to Be Catholic [33:35]

Dan Doriani: Absolutely. So I want to be a little edgy. Are you ready to be a little edgy?

Gavin Ortlund: Oh—sure.

Dan Doriani: In your book you cite Philip Schaff, who lived from 1820 to 1893. To paraphrase a little, Schaff said that Protestants have the best chance to be catholic in the proper sense of the term. You have to understand what catholic means and what Roman Catholic means. Let me give a quick summary, and you can comment. Catholic means universal. Protestants are the most likely to promote the universal church and bring all Christians together, because they have principles like semper reformanda—always reforming. In principle, Protestants are open to learning and doing better. They also say their creeds are not infallible. The Bible is infallible and inerrant; our creeds are not, so we’re always willing to reform them. Therefore, in their deepest principles, Protestants are willing to be corrected and to move toward other Christians if they’re persuaded that those Christians hold views more biblical than their own. In that sense, Protestants are perfectly positioned to be catholic—not Roman Catholic; we’ll talk about that in a minute. You ascribe that to Schaff, a brilliant man. Walk us through it in your own words.

Gavin Ortlund: Sure. The word catholic has a long pedigree. Going back to the early creeds, the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, we find references to the one holy catholic and apostolic church. As you say, it means universal. The catholicity of the church is her wholeness across time and space. I absolutely agree that Protestantism is best positioned for catholicity. That doesn’t mean every Protestant lives it out well. But, as we were saying a moment ago, Protestantism positions itself as a reform movement within the church. The Reformers didn’t hold that the lights had gone out entirely, that the Holy Spirit had left the church and everything had died. They affirmed that there were Christians and ecclesial life, but they said there was great corruption and error that needed to be reformed.

I’ve been really interested in Luther’s and Calvin’s relationships to some of the Eastern traditions, and in later Protestants, where you see this. They don’t anathematize and condemn all these Eastern traditions. An Ethiopian deacon came to visit Luther and Melanchthon, two early Lutherans, and they related to one another. Luther and Melanchthon affirmed this man as a Christian even though they had disagreements with him. They didn’t say, “You’re not part of the church,” because Protestantism doesn’t make the same claim of institutional exclusivity—”We are the one true church.” It recognizes that the church is currently fragmented, which is a bad thing, but it’s better to recognize that for what it is than to say only one piece of the church is the true church.

And even though Catholics have softened a lot on salvation issues and speak of Protestants as “separated brethren” and that kind of thing, when it comes to valid sacraments like the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper, it’s still the same: we don’t have a valid Eucharist.

Dan Doriani: Walk us through this for a minute, because it causes confusion for many people. I had this conversation literally this morning with a woman who grew up Roman Catholic and is now Protestant. “Why is my Catholic baptism accepted by the Protestant church, but if my husband and I went to the Roman Catholic Church”—which they’re not about to do—”they would make him be rebaptized? Protestants don’t make me be rebaptized. Why do Catholics say my husband has to be?”

Gavin Ortlund: It’s fascinating. When you get into granular, street-level practice, I’ve observed more variation from one person to another—

Dan Doriani: You’re absolutely right.

Gavin Ortlund: Officially, Catholics affirm all Trinitarian baptisms as valid. The Eastern Orthodox are a little more rigorous and restrictive, though even there, practice varies. I’ve known of many places, in Greece and elsewhere, where Trinitarian baptism isn’t accepted and a person is, quote-unquote, “rebaptized” when they go from evangelical to Orthodox. So it varies a bit. But the valid Eucharist is where there’s very clear teaching. The nullity of Protestant Eucharists is pretty clear in both Catholic and Orthodox teaching.

Dan Doriani: Nullity means nothing happened.

Gavin Ortlund: Yes—as they understand it, we’re not actually feasting on Christ. It’s not a valid Eucharist. So that institutional exclusivity is still there, and Protestants don’t have it. Some of my Eastern Orthodox critics will say, “Then you’re acting like a universalist.” Not at all. We have parameters, but they aren’t limited to one institution. We’re free to make those evaluations on the basis of doctrine, fidelity to the gospel, and where the Holy Spirit is at work. So if Muslims in the Middle East start having dreams about Jesus, respond, come to know Christ, get baptized in the name of the Trinity, and gather for worship, we don’t require a bishop who had hands laid on him by another bishop to be in contact with them before they’re part of some institution. We’re free to recognize that’s a valid church to the extent that they have a valid gospel.

Private Judgment and Church Authority [40:20]

Dan Doriani: Right. Now, a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox person might say, “Ah, Gavin, you’re such a nice man, Dr. Ortlund, and so learned. But this is your Western individualism showing. We’re much more interested in the body of Christ and the organic life of the Christian community than you are. You’re describing the seeds of the splintering of the church: private judgment, where everyone can make their own church. No wonder we now have thousands of denominations and splinter groups. You need to respect the God-given hierarchy. God gave us bishops and overseers and a pope for a reason, brother.” What would you say? Now, don’t misunderstand—that’s not my critique of you, if you’re listening. Gavin knows I’m not critiquing him. But that’s what we hear from people who see Protestants as individualists, and the splintering of the church as the inevitable result of private judgment and of failing to receive the authorities God has provided in the church. How would you answer?

Gavin Ortlund: I do agree that Protestants should live under their local church’s authority. The New Testament—Hebrews, for example—has a lot of language about church offices God has instituted. But an initial point of clarification right at the front end is to ask, “What institutions and offices did God set up?” I’d say the particular authorities our Roman Catholic friends require us to submit to don’t actually go back to the New Testament. I regard the papacy as a historical accretion that came about over time.

Dan Doriani: The word accretion means a slow addition to New Testament teaching, yes?

Gavin Ortlund: Yes—a slow buildup over time. So we should submit. And it’s true that some Protestants act as though private judgment means it’s just you and your Bible deciding everything. That’s not Protestantism at its best. Protestantism at its best does involve submission to church authority. There is private judgment in the act of deciding to become a Christian and follow Jesus. But what we say is that Scripture is the supreme authority—the only infallible authority—and we measure other authorities in its light. So it’s not radical individualism. For example, if I rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, my church would bar me from the Lord’s Supper. My church has a statement of faith, and I submit to it, but we don’t regard it as infallible or on the same level as Scripture.

That’s the main point I try to emphasize in these discussions. Protestants can become too individualistic in how we operate, but that’s not really a fair criticism of Protestantism itself. What our friends in non-Protestant traditions tell us to submit to, we’d say doesn’t have God’s authority behind it. With all love, we can’t yoke our conscience to something that claims to speak in the name of God but doesn’t have a foundation in divine revelation. That would be the concern.

Dan Doriani: It may be the voice of considered human judgment, but it’s not God’s voice. It may be worth pointing out something that’s official in Catholic theology—there’s no debate about it. Catholics say the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible, but they don’t affirm the sufficiency of Scripture the way we do. They say we also need the teaching authority of the church—the magisterium—and the traditions God has led the church to over the years; the church has slowly found its way to more truth than is found in the Bible. We’d say some traditions are good and strong, and some are not, because they’re human traditions, and they disagree with each other, so they can’t all be valid.

Gavin Ortlund: Right. The caricature that comes against us is that we’re throwing out all tradition, which isn’t fair. We’re not against all tradition. We want to set it under Scripture, so that Holy Scripture is at the top of the pyramid as the infallible rule of the church. Then my church’s statement of faith, which I do submit to, is a subordinate standard beneath Scripture.

Dan Doriani: And one proof of that is that we can change our statements of faith—not that we do so often. The Westminster Confession says councils err, and when it says that, it’s talking about itself. I think that’s a stroke of total genius. They’re saying, “We could be wrong about some of the things we’re saying here, and if so, we’ll change our views, because we’re not the authority.” Westminster begins with Scripture first—the formal principle.

Conversation Pointers for Catholics and Protestants [45:40]

Dan Doriani: Let me ask you two more things. First, give us a few conversation pointers for when Catholics and Protestants are talking about the Catholic Church. Maybe the Catholic says the Roman Catholic Church is the true church, and a Protestant says, “How can you say that?” Carlos Eire—E-I-R-E—wrote a book called Reformations; I’m guessing you’ve read it or at least heard of it. He’s a professor at Harvard and an observant Catholic. He says the term Roman Catholic is an oxymoron, because catholic means universal and Roman means of Rome, and you can’t have both. If you say it’s the Roman church, you’re excluding the churches of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and so forth. That can quickly become an argument, even though the Protestant says, “I’m quoting one of your own authorities to you.” The Catholic says, “This is your mistake,” and the Protestant says, “This is yours.” How can we have peace and a helpful conversation with neighbors and friends?

Gavin Ortlund: These are difficult conversations, and a lot of caricatures can accumulate over time in both directions. One simple thing is patience—really drawing the person out. It’s not a sign of weakness to ask questions: “Tell me what you believe about this. The Catholic Catechism says this—how do you interpret it?” Really listen and give space. One dismaying thing about the state of dialogue is how quickly it moves from “that person is wrong” to “that person is acting in bad faith; they know the truth and just won’t submit.” Sometimes real misunderstandings go deep, and patience helps bring the different terminology to the surface. A great example is the term justification, which is used in different senses. So you want to ask, “What do you mean by that?”

Another thing—and this is to defend Protestants a little—is encouraging Catholics to look at historic Protestant theology. Many Catholics go by what they’ve seen on TV or experienced at a particular evangelical church that may or may not be confessionally Protestant. So they think Protestants have no high view of the Lord’s Supper at all, or they don’t really understand the doctrine of sola Scriptura, which is caricatured a lot. So I’d encourage both sides to drill down into official standards rather than going by anecdote. For Catholics, let’s look at your councils and at ex cathedra statements from popes. For Protestants, let’s look at historic Protestant standards. You mentioned the Westminster Confession of Faith—an amazing document. Drilling down into those helps the discussion, because a lot of contemporary Protestants’ confusion results from not knowing our own history. We’ve really fallen away from some of our roots. So a lot of my work isn’t just defending Protestantism but encouraging Protestants to do what we’ve always done—reform in light of Scripture—including going back to our own doctrinal standards to see what the original Protestants believed on this or that point. I find that helps the discussion.

Where Catholics and Protestants Agree [49:40]

Dan Doriani: Absolutely. I think you’d probably also agree that it helps to pull back a little and list the many foundational points on which we agree. For the sake of our listeners and viewers, would you name some of the crucial ways Protestants and Catholics agree? It’s a long list, but give us some key matters.

Gavin Ortlund: There is a lot. I’ve found that in the trenches of social action, Catholics are some of our best allies. Catholics and evangelical Protestants can stand together on lots of social issues, such as upholding a biblical view of marriage. We have doctrinal agreements, too. I’d identify the incarnation and the Trinity as areas of real, deep agreement, and even of learning from one another. One area where we can learn from Catholics is the theology of the body: what does it mean to live as an embodied person? A lot of smart Catholic theologians have really led the way on that question, and I find many Protestants haven’t thought about it as much. Those are just some things off the top of my head, but as you say, there could be so much more.

Dan Doriani: It would be a long list, no question. When we say the Trinity, we mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, fully divine in all three persons. We share convictions about the doctrine of Christ in all its details. We all call Jesus Lord and Savior. We believe in his return to judge the world and call his sheep to himself—and many, many other things, even if we formulate them a bit differently.

Lessons for the Workplace [51:30]

Dan Doriani: Let me ask one more time, since this is a faith and work podcast: what would you apply to the workplace from what you’ve learned about Protestant–Catholic dialogue? You’ve learned how things go well and how they go poorly. Can you instruct us for when two people disagree about whether to build the oil refinery here or there, or whether to support this advertising campaign or that one? I’m not sure you’re exactly ready for this, but what principles, honed in these conversations about differing theological views, might help people learn to get along, listen well, and come to agreement throughout life?

Gavin Ortlund: I’ll mention something very practical and human. It may not seem the most profound thing, but it’s what I’ve found helpful. In a long-term relationship, have the patience to step away from areas of disagreement and just hang in there in the relationship. Build a charitable friendship or relationship with the other party. We don’t need to fix every disagreement right away. Then, over a long arc of patience, we revisit the areas of disagreement without a pressurized sense that we have to resolve them all immediately. That could become so lackadaisical that we’re not talking enough—that’s a danger in that direction. But so often we expect a problem to be solved in two months that may have taken years to create, and that isn’t realistic. It puts too much pressure on us to solve something we may not be able to solve right away. In a work setting, I’m thinking of differences of perspective that accrue over time, which may be complicated and take time to untangle.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus has the idea that you never really understand someone until you see the world through their eyes. That’s profound when you really think it through. So over time, I’m patiently listening and asking: How are they seeing it? If we disagree, what does it look like to them? And can I steelman their view—articulate it in a way they’d recognize and say, “Yes, that’s really what I believe,” as opposed to a caricature? That moves mountains.

Dan Doriani: Just to clarify, steelmanning is stating someone’s position in the strongest possible terms, as opposed to strawmanning, which is stating it in the terms easiest to attack.

Gavin Ortlund: Exactly. And sometimes, as we try to steelman a view, we realize we didn’t actually steelman it, because we didn’t fully understand it. Making that effort exposes that, and it helps us. I think those principles can help in any disagreement.

Dan Doriani: Let me summarize what you said, and then I’ll ask one closing question that kind of fits and kind of doesn’t. When there’s an ongoing disagreement on weighty matters, hang in there in the relationship. You may take a break from the conversation, but don’t take a break from the relationship. Have an arc of patience, carefully waiting until the time is ripe. Trust the other person. Revisit the issues without pressure. And state the other person’s position as well as you possibly can, in its strongest terms, taking the time to do that so you truly understand it—so you’ve seen the situation through their eyes or walked in their shoes. Those are great pieces of advice, and I think they apply very widely.

Hope for the Next Fifteen Years [55:35]

Dan Doriani: One last question. Are you ready?

Gavin Ortlund: Sure.

Dan Doriani: Say five or seven years from now—or even fifteen, since you’ve mentioned patience—you’ve kept working on dialogue and improving conversation. What would you like to look back on? What might you pray: “Lord, fifteen years from now, I would love to look back on all these conversations I’ve had with people who don’t agree with me and see…” What would you want to thank the Lord for?

Gavin Ortlund: What I pray for most is revival and renewal in the church today. I think one piece of that would be not only a slackening of the—unfortunately, I need to use a strong word—vitriol we sometimes see in Christian discourse, but its replacement with a Holy Spirit–created love for other Christians. Even where professing Christians disagree, the disagreements would be conducted in a way that reflects love: forgiveness, charity, and a desire for the good of others. There would actually be more robust argumentation, not less, because I think charity helps us argue more clearly. We don’t just lob grenades; we make more chiseled arguments.

My deepest longing is for a great renewal, especially for young people to find the gospel right now. We’re coming off a significant thirty or forty years of decline in the church in America, which is distressing to me. I’ve studied the sociology of this a bit, and a lot of people have left the church over the last thirty or forty years. I’d love to see a reversal of that—a tremendous turning to the gospel amid the feelings of hopelessness in the world, and a tremendous infusion of charity between Christians, which, as I read the Gospel of John, is pretty critical to that. I won’t make it any more complicated than that: that Christians would love each other, and that this would adorn the beauty of the gospel.

Dan Doriani: Amen. I love your hope and your prayer. Gavin Ortlund, it’s been a pleasure to have you in conversation about how we disagree and how we agree, especially in conversations between believers, but also in all of life. Thank you for your time today.

Gavin Ortlund: Thanks so much for having me, Dan. It’s wonderful to talk with you again.

Announcement: Your Corner of the World [58:25]

Dan Doriani: Friends, thanks for waiting for this announcement. Here it is. Over the last five years, we’ve interviewed nearly 100 people, asking them to show how they are changing their corner of the world and the place God has for them. Our news is this: in September, we’re expanding and relaunching our podcast with a new name drawn from a phrase we often use, Your Corner of the World. We’re also adding a regular co-host, my friend Mark Vroegop. He’s the president of The Gospel Coalition and a champion of the faith and work movement. We’ll keep interviewing leaders from every sphere of work—men and women who live out their faith in Jesus in their vocations.

This change will improve our podcast in important ways. By joining The Gospel Coalition network, we’ll reach more people, have a wider variety of guests, and explore how believers transform more workplaces through their faith. If you’ve already subscribed to this podcast, your subscription will automatically transfer to the new podcast. This fall, you’ll still find us at our website, faithandworkstl.org, and on The Gospel Coalition podcast network at thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we hope you’ll join us in the fall.

Working with Dan Doriani is a production of the Center for Faith and Work St. Louis. We seek to promote faithfulness in the workplace, in education, in discipleship, and in the stories of believers who’ve applied their faith at work. If you want to put your faith to work and change your corner of the world, visit faithandworkstl.org. We’ll help you start a cohort with like-minded believers who also want to practice their faith at work. This podcast is donor-supported; to keep us going, please donate on our website. Maybe more importantly, you can support us by listening, subscribing, sharing, and posting about us on your favorite platform—or go old school and tell a friend.