Pantheon and Pandemonium XX: Live Q&A March 2026

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. 1st denoc, chapter 48, verses 4-5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge but is nevertheless haunted by spirits, angels, demons, and saints. In our time, many year into 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 De Young, host this live Colin show, focused on enchantment in creation. The union of the scene and unseen as made by God, and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits. Hey, greetings, dragon slayers and giant killers. You're listening to the 135th episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick, and with me is the stupefying salt and of the swamp men himself. Father Stephen De Young, we're coming to you live, forming a veritable, bermuda triangle between a Mayas, Pennsylvania, Lafayette, Louisiana, and interfaith radio's home base of Chesterton, Indiana. It's been months since we did an all live, all Colin show. So this is your chance, boys and girls. Call us at 855-237-2346, and you can talk to us about whatever is on Father Stephen's mind. So, but while those phone lines are filling up, Father, I thought we'd check in with you and see what your spicy takes on current events are. So, um, who do you think is going to come home with one of those Oscars this coming Sunday night? Will it be a clean sweep of K-pop demon hunters? No. That's a downer. Yeah. No, uh, sinners, sinners is even going to take best original song. Really? Yes. Wow. You want to replace your new place? No place. I was about to suggest placing a little wager, but then I was like, I can't do that. Not a lie, but I was raised differently from you, Father Stephen. I don't smoke drinking gamble and all that kind of stuff. Um, the way you've got that works righteousness. That's right. Works righteousness. Didn't inform people that the inmates are running the asylum over there. It should face this evening. And so this is definitely that I could call you could probably get away with murder. I know. I know. Like we don't know how many people are in the studio right now. Trudy is apparently having some kind of like gathering some sort of big party or whatever. Sleepover. Sleepover. Sleepover. Exactly. You're going to be singing into their hair brushes any time now and doing choreography. It's good thing this isn't done video on YouTube. Think about it. And it's a pajama party happening over in the ancient faith 3D headquarters right at this very moment. So all right. Well, since this is all callers, let's, let's get to it. So first we have Andrew calling from Arizona. Andrew, welcome to Lord of spirits podcast. And congratulations on having such an excellent name. Hello. Good evening. Can you hear me? Good evening. We do hear you. I mean, you know, first one I want to say I feel honored because I got about 10 minutes of, I got to be a part of the back scenes there. I don't know if that usually happens. There may have been a hot mic button press. Oh, you heard everything going on at the pajama party, huh? I did. I did. I will say that through you to tank was behaving admirable. You know, I, uh, I might extend the fire department usually go a lot worse than that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. Anyway, I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to call by needed a straight and something out with you before we, before I ask my question. All right. Here we go. The, the pellum with the poison is in the flag with the dragon. The vessel with the pezzle is the brew that is true. Just wanted to straighten that out. Thank you very much. I could cure. Okay. All right. All right. We can agree on that. Yeah. My question, my question, and you mentioned current events. Danny K of it all. I have a question that before we start. Oh, you're on the spot now, Andrew from Arizona. You work at a fire department at Arizona. Yes. Yes. That was a rough man. That is you think. Because you've got a lot of heat, no water. Thank you. Sometimes, yeah, well, we have some water. I was just, no, I was just in Arizona this last weekend. And you do not have any water. Like out here where I live and especially where Father Stephen lives, they put it for free in the air. Anyone can just have it. But you guys do not have it. I was there. They said, no, they sell it all to California. That is true. That is true. That is the one thing bad with California. But. Well, I mean, we could go on. Let's make a list. What is your, what is your question, Andrew? So, so my question was, so I'm. I'm just a little bit more. But I'm not really a little bit more. I'm not really a little bit more. I'm not a little bit more. We're recent still working through my Protestant dispensationalism. In the process of reframing my mind, um, and with, with. Yeah. This is a tough moment in terms of current events to be a dispensationalist. And they're all just so excited right now. About everything you're seeing on the news. So I have, we have wonderful conversations with my, with my Protestant friends. Quick shout out to John Luke. Love you guys. But in regards to everything going on, um, one of the passages we keep going back to. And this is in reference to I've listened to your guys is three part series on Israel. Three times like all three episodes. I've been through it three times. Um. And you're, you're, you're, you're father Andrew to one comment that, that the nation state of Israel has as much biblical significance as the state of. A fan one, I think you said. Seems to me. You like to insult the fans with your relevance. I know there's such nice. But so when in specifically going through into Zachariah 14, when it's talking about the day of the Lord, how do we, how do we kind of navigate and not this act right by the other. Some of the profits where it seems like there's, it seems like there's a kind of an importance to Jerusalem and Israel being in that place. And those events happening, you know, um, I'm trying to kind of lost my question. But basically like, you know, when you read about the about Israel and Jerusalem and these end time events, how do we overlay current events and not see. Kind of that dispensationalist angle or, or the Protestant angle. I mean, the one thing I'll say is the, the big, there's so many wonderful things that we can say about the problems of dispensationalism. But one thing I'll say is that the biggest problem is pattern matching. Like again, if there's anything going on in the news with regards to conflict in the Middle East, dispensationalists go crazy. They're all convinced that, you know, something is about to happen, right? This is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, etc, etc. Because they're seeing names of places that they are seeing referenced in the Bible. But the problem is that there's been, in most cases, thousands of years of history between that point and now. And why is it that all the other exciting events that happen in those times were not the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the way the stuff happening at this moment is like, why do we think that we are the people who are witnessing all of this. Right? So it kind of fails on its own terms. Say nothing about the fact that this is a completely wrong way to interpret the Bible. Right? It's, you know, the human mind, of course, wants to make connections between things. We see this, we see this. Oh, those are, those are similar or those, or those that's the same name as this or whatever it might be. My favorite version of this is where people look at whatever the Bible versus, oh, it's chapter this versus this and look at the number we just saw on the news, you know, never mind the fact that the chapters and verses of the Bible are what just a few hundred several hundred years old at best and have nothing to do with, you know, the way that they're originally being written or compiled or edited or whatever. It's, it's, it's just so much of a stretch in most cases to make all of these connections, but also it's a completely wrong headed way of interpreting those scriptures. And I'll, I'll just, I mean, I'll just tell everybody they should definitely listen to those three episodes we talked about with regards to Israel, but I don't know. specifically say about this particular passage, Father Stephen? Well, this is a more general point. But so in Protestant land, you have on the one hand, you have preterists who have this sort of over-realized eschatology. And dispensationalists really haven't under-realized eschatology. Right? Because essentially their eschatology is acting like the Messiah hasn't come yet. Yeah. That's the way they're reading these Old Testament passages. As if none of them referred to Christ's actual birth and incarnation in life and death and resurrection, all of those Old Testament prophecies were solely aimed at His second coming. You can see the obvious problem there, right? Like from a Christian perspective. So we have to take seriously, for example, that a lot of the signs of the day of the Lord are described as happening at the time Christ was crucified in the Gospel accounts. Right? That the pattern is, there's the day of the Lord when Israel is judged first, then the Messiah comes, that begins the Messianic age. And then after a time, the end comes. That's what you get from the Old Testament. So a lot of the day of the Lord's stuff was fulfilled at Christ, quote unquote, "first coming." Right? Because he didn't go away. That's why I say, we put, you know, scare quotes around coming. So yeah, I think that's the issue. And Judea was there. Jerusalem was there. The temple was there. The religious leadership was corrupt and was judged. Right? The, the, this is all of the parables, the parable of the wicked tenants, all of these parables that talk about the kingdom being taken away from Israel and given to another people who would bear the fruits thereof. Right? The Christ has over and over again. Like that happened then. Right? That was Christ wasn't predicting that the kingdom was going to be taken away from Israel 2,000 years later and given to another people at that time. Right? Obviously, even a dispensationalist would have to say, well, yeah, I mean, that was the time of the Gentile Church. Right? So it's a failure to realize that Christ in the incarnation, right? That is the fulfillment of a lot of those prophecies. And that then there are other prophecies related to the end related to the bodily resurrection, the final judgment. But if you read the Old Testament carefully, like in Daniel, when he predicts this in terms of the coming of the Son of Man, he says, and then after a time, the judgment happens. And there's the river of fire and the thrones are set. But that's after a time. There's a some period of time between the Son of Man being enthroned at the right hand of the ancient of days. And then yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you're just because you see Jerusalem mentioned in a particular passage in the Old Testament and something is happening to it or is said to be happening to it. And it seems like that's happening now. They're not necessarily connected. And we should remember, too, by the way, that the center of modern Israeli life is not Jerusalem. It's Tel Aviv. That's the capital of the country. You know, that was until recently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's where the government that's where you know, most of the missiles and stuff are being aimed. You know, we should be praying for peace, not weirdly cheering from the sidelines that one side or another is successfully shooting the other plus the only region. Oh, the only reason I asked about that Zachariah passage was because the cliff notes on the Orthodox study Bible said this was in her. I believe he said this is the day accomplished at the second coming of Christ. So my yeah, let us just say that you know this, but those notes are not divinely inspired. Yes, all of the notes in the Orthodox study Bible are not necessarily ones that we would put a check mark of approval next to. Well, that's confusing. Isn't it? Okay. All right. Well, yes. And the truth continues then. Yeah. It's okay. It's all right. It's all right. It's all right. Thank you very much. You know who can help us. I need you guys to get on the same page then. Please. Whoever's writing this, you guys. Well, I mean those notes are now decades old. Yeah. And you know, published by a different publisher. So yeah, hey, you know, a lot of things can be revised. Sure. So you know, let's pray for that. You know who could get us through these terrible times though. Danny K. Danny K. Danny K. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you for calling, Andrew. Okay. Well, we've got another call. We've got a caller from the DFW area. We have Paul in Texas. So Paul welcome. Laura's up here's my Metroplex. Yes. Hello. Hello, fathers greetings. So first I want to begin because this is long overdue. Six months to maybe almost a year ago, one of the one of the more recent Ish Q and A's, uh, Father Andrew, I have no idea why I was being I thought playful, but for whatever reason, the words that left my mouth sounded caddy for you. And I imagine you don't remember that, but we're going to apologize. Okay. Thanks. We'll go back and listen. It makes me cringe. Don't apologize to him. It's not good for us. I have no idea how or why that happened. And I even did a double take to myself alone in a room when I did it wondering why, but I thought maybe I imagined it until I listened to back. And no, I definitely sound like I'm having attitudes for no reason at all. Well, it's probably my malign influence. I just create an environment when people feel like they could pick on Father Andrew. That's right. They're just joining up with you and is bullying you with technology failing. Yep. Yep. So that's your what else is on your mind, Paul. Okay. So yeah, well, the question I have, well, of course, as a tradition for the show and for myself, I've got kind of an opening question to make sure I understand y'all correctly. And then my actual one. So back in the day, if I remember quickly, this is back when the show was still pretty young. When we were discussing idols and how idolatry actually works and how it's like pretty much a legitimate bar cry from icon veneration on more than one level, I thought I remembered y'all saying that, you know, you're outlining the beliefs of the ancient people and not necessarily what we say actually happened in regards to the demons, you know, being quote unquote like Pokemon trapped inside of the idols and whatnot so that the people could try and manipulate them to get what they want. Yes, that was their understanding of how it all worked. Okay, so there. So I did remember that correctly. Good. What I wanted to ask is in regards to the cynic sarian reading on March 5th, holy martyr Conan of Isoria. What's your giving me if I butcher that? Yes, Conan the Gardener. So Conan the Isorian sounds so much more robust. There's two Conan's on that day. I don't remember if it's the Gardener or if it's the other one. Blacks, you have me there, I don't know, which is related to it talks about basically him. I think he was being told to come, you know, offer before the idols and whatnot. But the story in the cynic sarian blatantly just refers to demons being hidden in the idols and then he banished several. He has them trapped in earth and where vessels under his home. And so I wanted to ask for clarification as one does still kind of like just as they believe or since then the cynic sarian, is that kind of like the law? I mean, there are a lot of saints. So there are a lot of saints lives that include stories of saints trapping demons inside things. Believe it or not. And by that we should not come away with a sense of wow demons take up this amount of, you know, 3D space. Yeah, it's it's that how many did you trap a single earth and where John or could dance on the head of a pin. You know, it's really that this is this is the experience that the humans are having. And it may well be that God permits them to have this particular experience because this is the way for that he wants them to interact with this scenario. You know, whatever it might be. I mean, like, like, there's a story. I think it's of Saint John of Novgorod, maybe who keeps getting irritated by a demon. And so he turns around and tells the demon to transform into a winged horse and take him on kind of a day trip pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which he does. And you know, like, well, what I mean, and that's how it's depicted in icons, this sort of creepy kind of lizardy winged horse thing with a fork tail and claws, you know, taking him flying flying this bishop down to the metal. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to see it actually. You know, so, but these are the stories as we have them. I think that any attempt to kind of try to look behind the story is to sort of miss the point of the story if that makes any sense. - Okay, well, I mean, I definitely, if we're trying to almost make a secular understanding, I agree. I definitely was not trying to go that far. I may have accidentally been doing so. I just wanted to see if there was any clarity on like, we do believe this is like, what happens like straight forwardly or if there's more allegory to it, but I may be said, I think the area I guess though. - I think the purpose it's getting at is it's sort of parallel to Christ sending the demons into the pigs, right? So the demons are in the idol and they're sort of working through the idol in the temple to work mischief with the pagans, right? And manipulate them and do evil. And so they get imprisoned under the earth, right? Under his house sort of symbolically back into shi'ol. - Yeah, no one gets it. - Or they can't, where they can no longer work mischief. They kind of get bound by the, by the saint, right? - Okay, so this would still relate to the idea of their body. It's just in this case, they're being forced into a body they don't want. - Right, and essentially where they can't, they can no longer do any harm. - Yeah. - Right, and they're back under the ground where they're supposed to be. - Yeah, well, then, if I remember correctly, the main point I was having a certain clarification is, if I remember correctly, you guys were talking about AI at some point. And Father Stephen made a joke about how Father Andrew is scared of it, but he saw the Stevens not convince they can never return into some kind of demonic, awful thing. My, what extent of, you know, let's say conspiracy like lizard men running the earth brain I've got, came down to wondering, is it possible when AI reaches a certain level of sophistication for demons to possess robotics through that? And that's where my kind of like sci-fi dramatic brain went. And is that-- - I remember years ago, years ago when I was still a stagehand, I was present at a lecture, I was helping to run lights or something for it, a lecture by the late Marshall Brain. And yes, that was his real name. He's the guy who founded the HowStuffWorks.com website. And he was talking about how we need to get hold of sort of AI and robotic ethics. And this is how he put it, before the robotic police force comes online. And so, which is a very scary thing to say, of course. But I mean, I don't know, like I think that, you know, demonic possession of objects where people or whatever comes through human involvement. So it's not like they can say, oh, we're just waiting for a really sophisticated robot and then we'll jump on in and walk around in it like a Mac. No, no, I mean, this is about humans. This is about humans doing things. - Well, fair. And I was also thinking about some of the, you know, of course, there's all this crazy stuff that that's being stuff going on. But I've also heard some stuff about the AI developers, basically owning up to actively trying to make a gun, what not. And so I wouldn't imagine it's beyond them to invite one in. It's that's possible. - Yeah, but you gotta always remember demons can only do what gotta allows them to do. You know, so as cool as, you know, movies are where they like possess puppets or, you know, dolls or whatever. Like if demons could just do what they wanted to and possess technology, I think we'd have had a nuclear war by now, right? - Copy that. Yeah, just to kill us. - Right. You see what I'm saying? So regardless of what technology gets invented, you know, a demon won't take control of it unless God decides to let one. - Yep. Which of course, there's reason not to be, you know, given the despair. - Yeah, which will probably be the final judgment as upon us, right? At that point, yeah. If he lets that happen, it's for our repentance or to stop evil or both, you know, so. Yeah. - Okay. Well, thank you very much. I do have one bonus question. I wish it was for both of you, Father Andrew, but I'm almost positive. This was not your cup of tea. Father Steven, I wanted to know what your favorite faction or if it's relevant, sub-faction is in 40K. - So I am not big into 40K. - I'm not a tragic. - But my wife collects the battle sisters. - I mean, that's absolutely fair. Okay. (laughing) - So. - Well, thank you very much, Father Steven. - There we are. All right, thank you very much for calling Paul. Okay, our next caller is from your home state, Father Steven, and it's Rory. Rory, welcome to the Willard's Spirit's podcast. - My home state of Rory? - Yes. Okay. - Well, after I changed the Laverne back to Lord's Burg and my petition to change it to Lord of the Spirit's Burg, the next petition is to call the state Rory. I got one thing that you're on that one. (laughing) Good luck. So what's on your mind, Rory? - So I have two questions. One, serious and one, less so, but not wrestling related. I promise I have no questions about red heart today. Although I would like to say that my views on dispensationalism were heavily influenced by the fact that Oldburg ended red heart's career. - Yeah, that was ugly. Was that an eschatological moment for Canada? - For Canada, yeah. - Oh, Canada. - Yeah, I hope so. So my first question is about gonna be the views of the Messiah prior to the incarnation, that in Christianity was, that a badly paraphrased view was a recognition that, you know, Jesus was both the Messiah prophesied and also this second person of Yahweh that's all throughout the Old Testament. However, I was wondering who are conceptions of the, I know there are different views of what the Messiah would be, like, you know, in a lot of people were upset that Jesus wasn't a conquering king, you know, whatever. Was there a comment, was there a comment conception that the Messiah would be whole, you know, for like a better term, the Messiah and also God himself, you know, come down. - Okay, so if I understand correctly, what you're asking is how common or was it the case that anyone believed that the Messiah, that Yahweh would be the Messiah effectively? - Yes. - Okay, so all right. I think we went over that in our episode about the Messiah father, but now it's been so long I do not remember. - Yeah, so, I mean, yeah, as you say, there were a variety of views on who the second person of Yahweh was, there was a variety of views about what the Messiah would be like, but there's a lot of places where they overlap. Probably the most prominent one is in the book of similitudes and first enich that identifies the son of man from Daniel as the Messiah, that the son of man is gonna come down and be the Messiah. That's probably the most prominent one, but there are a lot of others. So you have in the Melchizedek scroll and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Melchizedek has, it's identifying that second power in heaven as being Melchizedek who has been either he's been demonized or that was Melchizedek was just him appearing on earth, right? And him coming as the Messiah, there are certain texts that have enich returning as the Messiah. So there are various people who saw the second power as a demonized human that also saw him as being the Messiah. There are things like book of similitudes and first enich that have a second power in heaven, not totally clear about his precise identity, but have him becoming the Messiah. So that overlap was there in a lot of the literature, not 100%, but a lot of it was there. So that was among what today would be called religious Jews, right? So the people who thought that the Messiah was gonna be this conquering king, this like we're using the Hasmonian paradigm, right? The Hasmonians in their brief glory days, like John here canis, that was their view of the Messiah would be, but that was people like the Hasmonians themselves and the Sadducees, right? Who were descendants from that family and who, as you can imagine with the Sadducees, not believing in the resurrection, not accepting most of the Hebrew Bible as Bible, were far more thisworldly oriented, right? And so their view of the Messiah was also very much related to that. And that brings this whole circle back to the modern nation state of Israel. But anyway, (laughs) - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, who doesn't seem to be waiting for a beside a cup? You said you had another question, Rory? Yeah, so this one, there's a lot of Steven, so it's about a sassons creed. Oh, okay. Break then. With an orthodox twist, from an orthodox perspective, which is the more orthodox a sassons creed entry? Is it a sassons creed too because you ended by fist fighting the Pope, or does a sassons creed revelations because you're in constant and opal and you get to take it to the Turks in your expert opinion? Definitely revelation, not just because you get to take it to the Turks, but you get to explore the Haggiestafia. True, and you get glad Dracula's armor, fire, and destruction. Yes, there's a brief appearance by the titular Byzantine Emperor, who was completely corrupt. That never happened historically. Come on. But do we agree that SEO's robes and sassons creed, brother? We're the most stylish. Oh, probably. I like the black robes though. I like the black robes and revelations though, and awful lot. There we go. A five because I dressed as an SEO for Halloween and 2014. My wife showed me a beautiful costume that was super accurate, and I wore it once and only took one bad picture of it. Wow. One committed to it for 12 years. That's amazing. The revelations gets a little extra edge for me too because being an old man, I now like old man action heroes. Okay, yes. Which is as you hope you can be pulled from the back of the carriage. Yes, if necessary. So anyway, all right. Well, thank you very much for calling, Rory. Now we have Sarah calling from the great state of Iowa. Sarah, welcome to the Lord of the Spirit's podcast. Hello, I have a couple questions and in keeping with the last two, I'm going to ask a question specifically for Father Stephen. Sorry, Father Andrew. I'm sorry. I'm just going to take another break. This question is for Father Stephen. The question is when. Neanna teaches sympathy, pity, morning to allure and what is that significance for his spiritual being, for instance. Um, sorry, I'm on doesn't have this to bridge under me and so why why does this matter for alluring how does it affect his his journey as a character. I think this was for Father Andrew not for me. No, no, no, it's for you. For you. Good luck. Well, here's what you have to understand. When Mark Spector first became moon night. He was just a mercenary in Egypt. And it was kind of ironic that as a Jewish guy who would become a mercenary and was an atheist, he heads up serving an Egyptian God, right? You see the irony there. And his dad being a rabbi, having grown up, celebrating Passover and hearing the stories of his people. Nevertheless, although he's had to be brought back for the dead several times, he continued to fight crime. And I think if you understand what's going on in moon night psychology, it really answers your question. Makes person to me also, how do you feel about them casting Oscar Isaac in a role playing in Egyptian? He's not playing in Egyptian. He's playing a Jewish guy. We playing Jewish guy. I guess that's not less weird though, but. He's played Jewish guys several times. Now, he did play an Egyptian technically in X-Men apocalypse because Ed Saba Newer isn't a judge. That's right. That's right. Okay. And your other question. My wife. What is going on with what is John Baptist Baptist? What is going on there? So obviously we think of baptism as the current circumcision, but the spiritual baptism given through Christ. What is John the Baptist? Baptism. What is that doing for the people who receive that? Because then aren't they rebaptized in Jesus? Because you have those disciples who received to the baptism of John. And they believe what they know, but then they're rebaptized as Christians later. So what was John Baptist baptism for? And if Father isn't it, I mean, isn't this essentially one of the Micah, I'm getting the word wrong. You know, one of those washings of repentance that's in the Torah already. Right. It's not baptism into Christ. It's a baptism of repentance. I mean, that's how it's described in the gospels. So it's one of these washings that you have to do. Well, it's a, yeah, it's a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But what beyond that, right? So he's calling on Israel to repent and to come and be washed and experience this baptism for the forgiveness of their sins. But he's telling them to repent because the kingdom of God is in hand. The ax is at the root of the tree. See, this ties back to the first question. This judgment is about to come upon the Jewish people. And so now is their chance to repent. And in doing that, he is preparing this repentant people. That's why he's doing it to the Jordan. So on the other side of the Jordan, you have this people that's being put together. And then when Christ comes, when the Messiah comes, Jesus comes. And he comes and leads these people, Jesus, who shares the same name as Joshua, who led the people across or through the Jordan. And to take the land of Canaan originally from the evil spiritual forces and their human underlings who held it. He comes and leads those people back into the land. And we see several of the, the 12 disciples had been disciples of St. John previously. Including my name, right. And so he is by this. He is creating a very literal instantiation of the Holy Remnant. Oh, okay. Right. So that Christ can then come and this is the new, this is the new beginning for Israel. Right. Because Israel is restored with the Holy Remnant of Judah. And then the Gentiles come in to fill up the other tribes. So those who are being baptized. And this is why St. John makes the point that Christ didn't baptize anyone. His disciples did. So his disciples were continuing to baptize people with St. John's baptism throughout Christ's ministry. And then the baptism that comes afterwards after, right, Matthew 28, the great commission and Christ ascension. And the name of the father, some of the Holy Spirit. That is baptism with water and the Holy Spirit. Let's say John was talking about would come. Okay. So do all the people who are baptized, and John have to get read baptized then. Like, obviously, this is in their relevant question. It's more of a hypothetical. But. Right. Most of them what we see the general pattern in acts is that they aren't rebaptized. They have hands laid on them and they receive the Holy Spirit. Okay. So they don't get baptized again. They just get Christmas. So he's functioning as sort of an icon or maybe Joshua. Their functioning is icons of each other in a way. And then he also gets called Elijah. And I've never really understood that either. And you should listen to our whole episode about. Let's say John the four other about this. Yeah, yeah, because we talk about Elijah as his patron saint. The one who's animating his ministry. I will go back and listen to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's also a connection there between. Remember, there's this transition from Elijah to Elijah. Yes. And right after Elijah goes up into heaven and Elijah kind of receives the double portion of his gifts. What does he do? He goes and he hits the Jordan with his banal and the Jordan parts that he walks. Yeah. He walks through all kinds of funs out there. So yes. Well, thank you for your question about the pre-middle earth life of Gandalf. I know that father Stephen was pondering that a lot beforehand. This is very important question. And if you still had your Lord of the Rings podcast, I call in and ask there. Welcome. Thanks for calling Sarah. I have read the Silbarillion. I have not. Well, that's good. That puts you out in front of a lot of a lot of other. Yes. I have not memorized it. Yeah. Yeah. You got some of you caught some of the names. I do not fly upon it for it nightly. So. Anyway, all right. We're going to go ahead and take our first break and we'll be back with the second half of this all live all Q&A episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. Father Andrew Stephen Daymak 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 Radio. Ancient near Eastern texts such as the Ball Cycle, who trade the pagan god Ball as a rebel, the hero of a revolution worshiped and glorified for his long string of victories. In the Ball book, a biography of the devil, Father Stephen DeYoung shows that the Hebrew scriptures consciously turn the ball story on its head depicting him as a failed the and defeated rebel who, nonetheless, tries to steal the glory that belongs to Almighty God. From these scriptures, the figure of the devil emerged within Jewish and Christian tradition. Father De Young works through the old and new testament passages that refer to various ball stories, and he surveys ball worship through followers' beliefs, religious practices, and liturgical life. In these pages, we will see that the figures of ball and the devil, the Prince of Demons, are one and the same. To find this book and others like it, you can go to store.enchantefaith.com. Again, that is store.enchantefaith.com. We're back now with the Lord of Spirits, the Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen De Young. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF radio. Welcome back, everybody. I have to say the most frequent question in the YouTube chat right now is, are you ready for this one? Is this live? The answer is yes. No, no it's not. No, it's a. How do you know? We predicted you would say that. We knew. Yes, we are live. You can call us. If you get through, I mean, you know, Trinity is a little distracted with the big old pajama party over there right now. But. Also, I could tell by when Father Andrew called for that break that he's trying to cut this one short, guys. No. Get his 99. So you need to call in and keep this thing going. Not at all. Not at all. So, all right. Well, we have our next caller. We have Zach calling from Tennessee. Zach, welcome to Lord of Spirits podcast. Hello, thank you, Father. I'm happy to be here. We're happy to have you. What is on your mind, Zach? Here would be your own home. Is that. Yes, the here. Yes, the here we're all sharing, which is nowhere. So we've got a platonic mental space. I can't think of a funny, ethereal joke on the spot. But I have. Anyway, I got a question about a ton of it, typically I've listened to all your stuff about the atonement. I appreciate all of it. I just have one like lingering question about it. So it's if the gophe or a zazel can't be sacrificed because it hasn't people sins on it. I was wondering why Christ sacrificed while bearing the sins of the people is acceptable to the Father. Ah, it's because Christ is both goats. See, I think the question is, how can he be both goats? Yeah, I guess so. Okay. But the point is that his sacrificial function there is not the goat for a zazel. It's the goat for Yahweh. Okay. Well, we also have to say he's not literally both goats. Yes, right. He's not actually goat. No, but I mean, but I mean, in the sense that, right, he is the full what we mean by that is he is the fulfillment of both goats. Okay. So he fulfills, fills full to overflowing what the scapegoat the goat for a zazel did by taking away the sins of the people. And he fulfills what the goat for Yahweh, the sin offering and all of the sin offering did by offering himself as a pure unblemished sacrifice, right, turning his murder into a sacrificial of voluntary sacrificial self offering. So he does boast both of those things. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes, that does make sense. So am I am I kind of over-literalizing the actual putting sins on on himself? Yes, that's happening. Okay. Yes. Yeah, I mean, he's been he's been he's been he's been he's been he's been he doesn't do every single thing the goat for a zazel does. Like he doesn't go out into the wilderness and hand the, you know, even symbolically the sins over to a demon in the wilderness, right? Right. You know, so it's it's yeah, it's it's a fulfillment. It's not a direct identification in every possible way. Right. The nature of fulfillment means that he does it in a superior way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. That doesn't make sense. So all right. Thank you very much for calling. We now have Jim calling from Saint Augustine, Florida. Jim, you're not Florida, man. Are you? Well, Father, actually, after listening to the Samsonite episode, I realized that I live in the land of new Dan. So I live in Saint Augustine, land of new Dan. Oh, man, you might be Florida, man. I've read so many head newspaper headlines about you. What's on your mind, Jim? So I'm in modern speculative fiction. There are many many riffs on the idea of a parallel universe or an alternate dimension and that type of thing. And to me, these stories often, they may just, they reduce to dualism or determinism because whether you're a good Vulcan or a bad Vulcan depends on whether or not your universe has the federation or the empire or that your fate is just decided by random things outside or the fate of the universe is decided by things outside of your control like a tire and a and Ma and Pa can't truck. But as Orthodox, is there a way that is there anything of value or meaningful that we take can take away from these stories? Was there any Christian way to interpret them? Is there a way that we can view the world that got originally created as a prime universe and the one that we live in now that the consequences of sin is a darkly mirrored alternate version? For these stories only for entertainment value. So I wouldn't say that they're only for entertainment value. But I don't think that they literally describe the universe as it actually, you know, the world that God created as it actually is because part of what's in some ways being you know, like if this is if this is the darkest timeline or a darker timeline and then there's some other timeline that's not darker, then then what does that mean in terms of the the eschatological value of this world? Right? If you know the the point is is that this world has an arc. It has a story. There is you know, there is the creation with Eden and so forth and then there is fall, right? But then there's also rise. And I think that the the if you sort of fracture things out so that there's different versions, then what you get is it's easier to accept the idea that that this world because it's been corrupted. Well, that's just the way that it is, but you know, but thank goodness there's some uncrupted versions somewhere else. The kind of narrative because you're talking about story, right? So the narrative tension is that in in the way that the story actually is, is that the story is ongoing and it's going to turn out differently than we have it now. Like the the the oppressed will be vindicated. The oppressors will be brought brought low. The day of the Lord is coming and everything will be put to rights. Whereas if it's simply alternate timelines, then often the way that goes is that a given timeline just kind of keeps going in the direction it goes and the idea of redemption or something like that. Why do you need that because you have something elsewhere that's better? Right? So I mean, I think I think it is useful to think in about stories and right stories and read stories of these kinds. But there is, you know, to my I mean, this is a kind of a literary question, right? So to my literary understanding is that unless there is some kind of way of bringing them all together, which I think in some ways is some of what some of the spider verse stuff has been trying to do in the movies. I don't know if it succeeds. Unless there's some way of trying to bring them all together and kind of have a unitive story, then all you're really doing is you're serving the idea that, you know, like if in a multiverse right, where is God? Because God, the existence of a God implies that, you know, a true God, and I'm nip in it God, that there is a unifying narrative for everything. Whereas multiverse, the whole point of multiverse is that there's not. And it just kind of in some ways, the spiritual effect of that, if that's where we leave it, is to serve the current fragmentation of our society. What ultimately brings people together is that there is that there is truth, one truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ. So yeah, I mean, it's interesting, but I think that to try to, you know, say that Eden is like one timeline and we're in some other timeline, there's problems there, you know, and from a literary point of view. I don't know, Father, what do you think about all that stuff? Well, so yeah, so that's from a cosmological perspective. But I think, And I think using the couple of it. examples you gave is a good way at this. I think the point that the best of that kind of literature is making is actually an anthropological one. And it's one that has certain resonances with Orthodox theology. So now St. Dupetra St. Annoly, if you read his Orthodox dogmatics, talks about how a human person is in some sense absolute that this is part of us being in the image of God. Meaning that there is something about us, each of us, that is not determined by our heredity and our environment that makes us free to choose. And that is a created gift of God. So for example, Spock and Mirror Mirror has is part of the Vulcan race that's been enslaved by the Terran Empire. Right. But through the experience of the Captain Kirk's getting switched, he gets inspired. He gets inspired to begin essentially a kind of cultural revolution in his universe that gets talked about later in the deep space nine episodes that go back to the Mirror Universe. Or if we're talking about Justice League, the nail, we see that the other heroes, for example, are still the other heroes. We have this meditation on the significance of Superman in particular, right in his world. But if you look at a lot of the other elsewhere, like the best of the else worlds, a lot of them, especially the Superman ones. He lands in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas. He lands outside Gotham City instead of Somalville and gets adopted by Thomas and Martha Wayne. Right. He lands on Apocalypse instead of Earth. At some point, there's a point in the story where based on how he was raised, he has become quote unquote bad Superman or evil Superman. But there's some point in the story where the person who he is kind of takes over. Right. And we find out just like with Mirror Universe Spock, there was some of our Spock in there. Just having been repressed and conditioned by the environment, there is something about Superman who is still in that else worlds Superman that comes out and is and is sort of transformative. And so I think those stories are intended to inspire the kind of idea that St. Stanoly is talking about that regardless of your circumstances as a person and how bad they may be that you find yourself in what you've gone through what external forces are acting upon you, there is a part of you that is free and self determined. And and able to, for example, follow Christ, even if that cost you your life. Right. That can be brought out this person who God created within you, regardless of whatever forces the world may want to marshal against it. So there's my overly theological reading of there you go. Some Star Trek episodes in a comic book. Fun question. Thank you. Yeah. And is it Alan Davis, an amazing artist. Yes. I have to say my favorite Mirror Universe thing though is where Hoshi Sato becomes Empress of the universe and conquers everyone. I know it's just from enterprise, but still. Yes. Anyway, thanks for calling Jim. All right, all right. We now have we have, I think David from Pennsylvania. So David, welcome to Lord of spirits podcast. Hello, is this thing on it is on where you calling from here in the Keystone state. I'm my town is Thompson Town, but a lot of people don't know where it is. It's kind of outside Harrisburg. A little bit. Well, hello down there. What's on your mind? I have kind of a fun question, but maybe it might turn out to be useful for someone. So I was just thinking about I'm still new that I'm looking at soon becoming a catacumin. And like talking with my priest about that, but. I think it's like making sign of the cross and praying and this system really, really helpful for me, but I don't know the funny thing. I think it's like if someone were to. Someone were to lose their right hand, which is typically the hand you would want to use. Is it is this you know, would they just start using their left hand or is this kind of like how doctor strange was getting hung up on not being able to use the sling ring. With because of his hands and they showed him well, it doesn't matter. No, no hands that can use it. I'm not a houvian. It's too creepy for me. Dr. Strange Dr. Strange, man. He said, Dr. I'm sorry. No, he said, Dr. Strange, I have. I have a fall asleep already. So some of the stuff is not coming through. Either way, I'm actually I'm not that much of a Dr. Strange fan either. I mean, I like him. I just don't know his stuff that way. Is it because of the Amy Grant thing? Okay, that makes me so happy. I mean, if someone's missing, okay, if someone's missing a hand, they're missing their right hand or their right arm. That would be even easier to ask. You know, I don't see why it would be a problem for someone to use the other hand to make the sign of the cross. I just don't see why it would be. You know, I mean, I just I mean, I recall. I can't remember if this was in a patristic text, but I think it was. You know, one of whoever the writer was saying something to the effect like if you can't use your hand for some reason, like, for instance, I think in the case of maybe a Christian who's captive in his hands are tied. You know, they said, well, you can still make the sign of the cross with your eyes. Move your eyeballs inside your head. So like it's not like there's something magical about a particular hand or whatever. It is obviously the custom. It is with lots of amazing symbolism to use the right hand. Right. But it's not like it's an absolute, you know. So yeah, it's okay. I don't know. Well, I don't know about the doctor strange stuff. I'm just rumbling around in my head about the doctor strange thing. Because now I'm like, should you sort of make the sign of the cross with your phantom limb? Well, I was thinking, yeah, that's like a whole fascinating concept. So I've just been ruminating on that while Father Andrews been actually answering your question. Yeah. So all right. Well, there's been a lot more pop culture this time around than I was expecting. So thanks for that. So thanks for thanks for calling David. All right. Next we have, I know he might be our most frequent caller, Samuel from Virginia. Welcome back to Laura Spirits podcast. It's okay to be a regular. So first I wonder if the reason why the veggie tails characters are all Protestant is because since they don't have any hands, none of them can be ordained. Because none of them can lift up the chalice or do any of the other things they're buying. Wow. That maybe the spiciest take we've heard in a while. The Lord of Spirits podcast. But they do move things around. How are they doing that? I don't know. Also, if they, if they were orthodox when lent came, they would not be safe. So, and I was also wondering about the concentration of a church. And so in previous shows, you've talked about how the, the, in the past call service, the lift up your gate. preferences, Exodus, part of participating in the heroic of the Hades. So in the consecration of a church, for an example, peace seat, like a church that-- it used to be a pagan temple like the Parthenon, would the bishop consecrate that of a church be speaking to Athena, the former patron of that church? - Of the church? - Basically, yes. Because that is not just the invasion of the underworld, but specifically the invasion of Bale's palace in the underworld. - Yeah, Psalm 24. Have you got a copy of the Bale book or is our voiceover person considered the ball book? - Yeah, so if a pagan temple was selling-- was raising funds to build idols, would they be selling Bale bonds? - Isn't that one of the titles of your chapter? - I think that's one of the chapter titles of Bale bonds. - Yes, Bale bonds. - Bale out. People don't know what they're missing if they haven't gotten this book. - It revered to the commercial. Was an origin convicted of ball worship as one of the-- - Wow. - Yeah, it was a pretty interesting book. I never really thought about the connections between Bale and Zeus. - Yeah. - Yeah, absolutely. - All right. Thank you very much for calling our regular Samuel. - That was a quick answer. - Yeah, that was nice and quick. So all right. Well, next we have-- I think we have Jennifer calling from Washington. So Jennifer, I think we have Jennifer. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast. - Hi, thank you. - Washington State or Washington DC. - Washington State. - Oh, so it's still afternoon up there, huh? - Not the wretched high of a human being. - It is, yeah. - I don't know. - You don't know. - Our house. - It's on weird Washington. - I think the state can be a pretty wretched high. - So do you live in the part of Washington that is basically Idaho or do you live in the other part of Washington, the part is Washington? - The other part of Washington. - So you're a missionary. - I live, I just say, yeah, yeah, exactly. I say I'm near Seattle. (laughing) - Oh, did you? - Don't really exist. - Did you used to live in Olympia? - You know, I was born in Olympia, but I never lived there. - Okay. - Actually, you live in San Diego, but it's been a lot. - You'd say Diego proper or in like, La Mesa? - Actually, all the way up in Temecula, but no one knew about Temecula either. - Oh, Temecula's, I lived in Esquedito and I was barely in San Diego. Come on, Temecula. - Yeah, yeah, you know that's true. But no one knew about Temecula. Well, maybe people from Esquedito know about Temecula. - I went out of great wine tasting to her in Temecula. - Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. - Yeah, David Letterman's favorite winery. It was in Temecula. - Oh, I don't know that. - But did they have a Temecula winery? - I saw Dobley wine to commercial, which was the most glorious wine commercial ever. - Hey, come on. - Yeah. There's a winery there in Temecula, Van Ruckel winery. And from the name Van Ruckel, you could guess Dutch guy. (laughing) But not just a Dutch guy. Calvin Seminary dropout. - Nice. - Wait, they had opened a winery there. - Wow. - My thing is, I'll have to visit next time I go visit my family. I'll have to try that one. - So many things are happening, it's called. So Jennifer, what is going on over there in the spiritual wasteland of what's the Western watching? (laughing) - Well, first I just wanted to say, Father Steven, thank you so much for your last words on the episode, "So All Some Ink Kill and Goat." You had kind of given a similar answer to someone else's question when they were asking about burial and cremation. And the way that you put it, and just like God loves us, (laughing) coming from a Protestant background. Even though we were told that, I just feel like that. I mean, you guys know, 'cause you also came from Protestant backgrounds, but it's so powerful to be like, oh yeah, God loves us and He wants us to be saved. And it's there in the scriptures and why don't we believe it? So just thank you, thank you for putting it the way that you put it and being. - Thank God. - Yeah. - So my question actually goes back to the episode on divination. When I was listening to it, I thought, is this kind of what personality tests are these days? I have so many friends who really into the neogram and Myers-Briggs. And I hate personality tests, but I don't know if I'm just biased 'cause they never give me any useful information. Or if I hate them because they're spiritually wrong. - You must be an ENFP clearly. True story. Father Andrew took a personality test and it came back negative. (laughing) - It's true. - Yeah. I mean, it would be so easy to just go all out and on this question. - Dulled yourself, sir. - Yeah, why not? I mean, I think everybody's looking for some kind of skeleton key. And yeah, and I think that, like it's interesting to me, I've noticed, like part of my job, I use social media, unlike Father Steve and who just watches other people use social media. And when you use social media, you notice, of course, that ads are, they're tailored to you and the best guess, right? And one thing I notice is that when I turn 50, the ads suddenly shifted. And because of course, my age is in these things. And there are all kinds of ads that were promising like they were techniques that had to do with, usually health problems, you can tell it could turn to 50. Or like, oh, so you're at a certain stage in your marriage now. You know, like it's interesting, all these things suddenly went in this direction. And almost all of them were just like, look, if you buy our program, if you do our technique, if you, whatever, you know, and often the promises were like, I did this one thing, crazy thing for a week and it completely flipped my marriage or completely flipped my health, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I think a lot of these personality tests, I mean, there's obviously a big variety of them and they function in different ways. And I have friends who frankly, you know, think that they are useful and use them in their counseling practice. You know, thank God I'm not a counselor. But I don't know what I would do with myself if that were my job. But I think that people are looking for, like I said, a key, you know, like, oh, so this is the, and then what gets even more amazing, like, okay, I'm this and then the person that I'm with is that. And of course, of course, you would say that, you're such an INTJ, you know, the one I know the best is where I have breaks. - Right. - And which I know all about INTJs, 'cause I'm pretty sure my brother must be one. And he doesn't listen to this, but people who know him do. (laughing) And so it's really tends to be reductionist is I think the problem. And in many ways often kind of cuts off the idea of repentance. You know, this is just who I am. This is just who you are. And that's just the way that it is. - Yeah. - And so I think that that's, is it a form of divination? Maybe in that divination, of course, is looking for that, that again, the skeleton key, you know, the answer. - Right. - And within the Christian context, the answer is usually, okay, be faithful long term whether you have results or not because it's the right thing to do and because, you know, God will honor your faithfulness. Even if the person around you is not, even if it doesn't feel any different, right? I mean, I, so I, I don't think that those things are necessarily useful, some are more useless than others probably. But I, I think that the reason that people are interested in them is largely not good. Even if it's well meaning, because it's, it's in many ways is about short circling the hard work of being human, you know? And sometimes about making excuses. Like I've known to people who've gotten divorced when they found out what their, you know, different personality types were like, "Oh, this was never going to work." You know, because you're this, I'm that. And that's wrong. That's absolutely wrong. You know? So, I mean, that's, that's my take on all that. What do you think, Father Steven? - Yeah. Well, I, what's the view from the swamp? - Is the buyers, brings the four letter thing? - Yes, yes. - Okay, yeah. So I took that like three or four times over by high school undergrad, early grad school days and got completely different results each time. - Oh, not. - Which kind of told me that maybe, I don't know. That's super helpful. But I think to me part of the issue is that it's kind of a way to get softball self-knowledge. Like the most important thing you can have in life is self-knowledge, is to really come to know your, and understand yourself. And this is a way of doing that that's very clean and nice 'cause no matter what results you get on that test, you're not gonna like look up your four letters. I get's gonna say, "You're a jerk. You have no friends," right? Like, it's always, just give it up. (laughing) - No, you're trying, you know? Like, that's, so, you know, it's always gonna take, it's always gonna, oh, here are your good qualities. And then here's a way of making your bad qualities sound not so bad, right? And that's not real self-knowledge, right? - Right. - And this is a problem with a lot of, it's probably a lot of counseling too, right? Is that a lot of counseling does the same thing. There's never, you're never really called upon to actually confront yourself. - Mm. - Right. It gets short-circuited at some point. Like you're talking to a youngian and you know, it's like, "Okay, you've now come to see your shadow self. Now embrace it, you know?" (laughing) That's the opposite of what you wanna do with the dark parts of yourself, right? You wanna repent of those, you wanna try to exercise those, right? And so, to me, that's part of the danger of it, right? It's kind of a bootleg confession for people who don't have confession. - Mm. - And it doesn't have the same effect. - Okay, well, interesting. Yeah, right. Okay, so, repentant self-knowledge leaves to repentance and the problem with these. is that it doesn't really give you a self-knowledge and what it does give you is kind of telling you, like, I don't know that. Like, you're doing, okay. - Yeah. - It could be, or it could be, you know, pretty damning. You know, it could be maybe, you could be, you know, could be kind of depressing. - Yeah. - I think, you know, like, in the Orthodox tradition, we have a part of our life is to tell us, like the whole point is to repent, right? That's the whole deal. So, you know, how do we know how to repent? Well, we have our father confessors to say, look, you know, you're doing well in this way, but not so well in this way. Let's work on this. We have, of course, the people that we live with, not that this is necessarily going to say, you need to repent in this following way, because, like if you're married, and your spouse says, do you need to repent in this way? (laughing) That usually does not work. I mean, just from experience, and from hearing about other people's experience, you know, repent, oh, wife or husband of mine, almost never works. But, but, the way that our spouses and frankly our children, or other people that we might be living with, respond to us, holds a mirror up to our sins. And so their opinion about our sins may or may not be correct, but the way that they're responding to our sins, is an indication of how we need to repent, right? And of course, then also our spiritual reading, our experience in church, and the service is listening to the texts, of course, of the hymns, but also just being present there, and the beauty that we're experiencing, and then looking at our own lives and seeing how it doesn't, it's not congruent with that in one way or another. So all the tools that we really need to repent, we have in our lives as Orthodox Christians. - Right. - Right. You know, I'm not saying there's no place for counseling, but I mean, of course counseling is a huge, broad variety of different kinds of things. There's good counseling and not so good counseling. But, and that can be certainly, it could be part of the Christian life. I mean, I know priests to our professional counselors, right, so, you know, it can be compatible. But, but this kind of, again, this sort of skeleton key idea that a lot of these personality tests, at least the way that people perceive them as offering, and frankly, some of them also present themselves as offering, that I think is a problem, and we don't really need that. We have everything that we need for repentance in the normal life of the Orthodox Christian. - Right. - So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for calling Jennifer. And keep the faith. - It's a more follow-up question. - Oh, yeah, go ahead. - Well, so in personalities, there's like personality disorders. I mean, they're not part of the personality tests, of course, but like in narcissism and stuff like that, they like basically have difficulty seeing a need for repentance. How does that work for done? - I mean, I don't know what it's like to be a narcissist, who doesn't see a need for repentance. - I do. - Oh. - You know what it's like for me to be a, you know, (laughs) - Yes, everyone who knows you knows what it's like for other end of the story. - That's right. - I mean, we're all selfish jerks, right? In one way or another, right? We all are. Whether that's labeled with a term narcissism or not. Yeah, I mean, one of our prayers is to be granted a vision of repentance. You know, like we're praying right now in length. Grant me to see my own sins and not to judge my brother. That means I don't see my own sins, so I'm asking God, show me. I might know some of them, but just be oblivious about other ones. And that's why we have our husbands or our wives, or other people that we're living with and our spiritual fathers say, look, look, you know. Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - I think it's important too. This goes back to some stuff we talked about with Michelle Foucault on the, I didn't think he was gonna come up tonight, but in the episode about madness, in the sense of how he shows how we've now medicalized to this stuff. So somebody will be, oh, well, they've been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, or they've been diagnosed as a narcissist. And the language we use causes us to frame it as if like they got measles. - Right. It's sort of like, oh, well, it's not their fault. What those things mean, what those diagnoses mean, actually mean in the real world is that there are certain things emotionally and spiritually and mentally that it is harder for those people to do than the average person. It comes less naturally to them that doesn't absolve them of the need to do it. - Yeah. - I mean, there's a, there's a famous story about a drunk monk who was, because of his upbringing, he was basically raised as an alcoholic because like when he was a baby, his parents would give him little bits of liquor to quiet him down, 'cause they were refugees or something like that. And they needed the baby to be quiet so that they don't get killed by the bad guys. And so he's raised as an alcoholic. And people, I think this was on Mount Athos. People were scandalized 'cause they would encounter this drunk monk. And then when he died, I think it was St. Piusius, as I recall, someone asked St. Piusius about this guy and St. Piusius is like, oh no, actually I saw the angels taking his soul to heaven and they're like, wait, what? We thought he was a drunk. Like how could he possibly, you know, be this righteous person? And then St. Piusius then tells him like, okay, he was raised essentially as an alcoholic. And over time, he was able to cut down the amount of alcohol that he was drinking and cut it down to this smaller amount, but it still affected him. But he's struggling to repentance his whole life. Even though his struggle against alcohol, against drunkenness was much more difficult than other peoples. And from an external point of view, he was much less successful than most people. And yet God honored his struggle and you know, saved him through that. So yeah, yeah. So all right. Yeah. Thank you, Father. All right, we have another Californian calling. So we have Rachel on the line, Rachel, welcome to Laura Spears podcast. - Hello, hello, I'm here. - Yes, you are here. Wherever here is, you're there. - California, Uber, all of us. - I am there. How are you guys today? - Good, good. Good, good. So my question was, I don't wanna take it as a bit of a downer, but I guess it is serious. Yeah, well, it's something that is close to my heart. So in the past, you guys have talked about how the calling of Adam is to put the world in order and the calling of Eve is to bring life more or less. So, you know, I'm, you know, unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, I wouldn't assume that you're saying every woman is called necessarily to be a father. But it, you know, I'm sure I say, for those of us who are not able to have, you know, biological children, does that mean that our calling is the calling of Adam? Or is it still Eve's calling? How does that work exactly? - Yeah. Well, I think some nuance is important here. One, the biggest thing is that it is not that Adam has this one exclusive calling that only he does. And Eve has this one exclusive calling that only she does. And Nora definitely is it, Adam's calling involves this one thing and he's calling involves this one thing as well, right? They both need each other to accomplish both of the things that they're doing. And they both participate in those things. So, you know, Adam putting things in order, that doesn't only mean telling the ground. It's kind of a general sort of ordering, structuring, and that sort of thing. But it doesn't mean that he has nothing to do with filling a place with life. And the example I like to give is, I like to look at, for instance, men's monasteries and women's monasteries because, you know, in both cases, these are celibate people, they're not having biological children. Or if they had them, you know, they have left that behind and now this is what they're doing. Men's monasteries typically have lovely flower gardens, but I've noticed that every women's monastery have been to their way more and way better. Like it's just always the case, you know, they're both doing the life thing for sure. But one of them is definitely better at it, you know, they're both doing the hospitality thing, but one is definitely better at it than the other. It's just true. So, you know, for women that are, you know, like not, like if a woman becomes a nun from a young age, she's not having any babies, right? And that's, you know, the choice that she's made. And of course, some women are biologically not capable of it. Or their husband is not capable of helping that, them with that, or whatever. it might be, you know, or they're just single, whatever. That doesn't mean like, oh, well, you don't get to do the thing that Eve was supposed to do. Filling the world with life is not only about having babies. It's not only about having babies. But rather, I would say that these two tasks are sort of what they're sort of majoring in, but it's not the only thing they're doing. You know, and I think we can speak about these in terms of general tendencies of men and general tendencies of women. That men who have no biological children can still be fathers. Indeed, I mean, most of our bishops have never had, you know, they weren't married. They had, they don't have biological children. We still regard them as fathers and monks who never, never, never married have never had children. We call them father because they're being fathers. And mothering is still a thing that women can do who have never had biological children. In so many ways, there's many ways to be a mother. Right? So even though the language centers on particular things that we can identify with the kind of biological center to it, that's not the only thing within the range of what these vocations mean. You know, and even those like, my wife and I, we have biological children together, but I watch her be a mother to lots of people that are not our biological children, you know, and people call me father. Most of the people who call me father are not my biological children. Right? So, so it's it's it's broad. In fact, actually my kids never call me father. You know, it's always dead. But, um, yeah, so, so, so I think it's best to think in these things in terms of ranges of of activity with with overlap with significant overlap. Um, my getting that right, father. What do you think? Yeah, I, I talked about this a little bit in a previous episode at one point. But obviously, yeah, we have to give source to, I mean, women in general being able to give birth is a huge gift from God in general. But there's a lot more to the particulars of filling things with life. And a big part of that is identifying what is good, what is beautiful, what is pure, and sort of bringing that out. Right? Cultivating that, nurturing that, um, bringing it to fruition. Right? And that's that's part of the very practical aspect of what of what we mean by mothering, like in a spiritual sense. And it doesn't have to be even younger people than you. Right? Just anyone you meet when you focus on spending time saying what, what, what is good, what is beautiful, what is true about this person and what they're saying and what they have to offer and helping bring that out and accentuate that. Right? And recognize that. That is incredibly powerful in bringing people and communities to life, even if they seem kind of dead. And bringing joy to people. Right? And as much as people say we're being stereotypical and chauvinist, right? Just I hear people's confessions. Okay? It's interesting that when you talk about there are certain sins that men are more prone to and certain sins that women seem to be in general more prone to. Yeah. And high on the list of sins that women seem to be more prone to in my experience hearing confessions is the inverse of that. Right? The sin of gossip is the opposite of that. The sin of gossip is identifying everything bad, everything negative, everything ugly, and bringing that out and accentuating that and pointing at that. Right? And so as you would expect the sin is an inversion, right? Of the good. It's just a negation and an inversion of the good thing, this power that people have and women especially to be able to bring those to bring those things out. What do you think Rachel? That makes a lot of sense for Father Andrew not trying to got you anything, but you said that you think in your opinion women are better at bringing life into the world. Would you say that conversely that men are better at putting things in order? Yeah. I mean, that is that is my I'm not saying that women can't do that or that men can't bring life into the world, right? This is all on the whole. Yeah, as an overall kind of thing, you know, that and that men tend to be attracted more to that and women tend to be attracted more to that. You know, that those are ten to like like I was saying, there are plenty of gossipy men out there, right? Absolutely. The case. Father Andrew and I hang around with other priests. Trust me, there are other gossipy men out there. What? Okay, peel back the priests. No, priests couldn't possibly be gossipy. Right. But sort of on the whole. On the whole, that tends to be other, there's other things that maybe we don't need to go into, that men, since that men tend to be more prone to, but there are women who do those things, right? Absolutely. Who do those same things? So we're not saying like every man, every woman with any of this. We're talking about just general tendencies. There are very sloppy guys and very orderly women. Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So. All right. Thank you very much for calling Rachel. Next up. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. Next up, we have Michael from Louisville, Kentucky. Michael, welcome Laura Spier's podcast. Hello. Hello. We hear you. I just had a follow up. Yes. I speak in not to nothing again. But I just had a follow up from the episode about the wet, you know, the I was the one episode about the Latin theology, 'cause I asked the question involving that, been thought like the righteousness and stuff like that. I just had to follow up on that. I thought was okay, 'cause I remember he told me to listen and I think part of my question was answered by I wanted to clarify the question if that was okay. - Okay. That's cool. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify because on two things, 'cause when I think of Father Stephen talking about virtue about faith being like a, what's it called like a, you know, you can't, 'cause like, you can't hold onto it. Like, you're unsure about it, right? Especially like in a Protestant kind of worry. And as far as I know, that's for Calvinism that's really prevalent because you have to look towards your works. But I know in like Lutheran, they look towards the sacrament. So I don't know how that applies to it. I know it's like my first follow up. And then I have a second one after that, that's okay. - I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking. Could you, could you read, I don't know, Father, did you get that? - Yeah, no, I think I know what you're talking about. - Okay, okay, go ahead. - Yeah. Yeah, so I'll talk about, so the Lutherans still also consider faith to be an empty virtue and a receptive faculty, right? But as you point out, they will often, when asked about assurance, they will point to the sacraments because they say, a Lutheran would say, well, a Lutheran would say, Martin Luther said his catechism. That's the sacraments, at least the ones he accepted, which are actually three, baptism in the Eucharist and absolution, those are purely receptive. And he said that infant baptism is the purist form of baptism because the baby contributes nothing, right? The baby just receives baptism. You receive the Eucharist, you receive absolution forgiveness of your sins, right? And that's why he was so keen on having it be absolution and not confession, right? 'Cause confession can do something. But so the problem with that, the problem with that, that's a better approach than the Calvinist approach. I will say, there are things to recommend that over the Calvinist approach. But you still have the problem of Judas was baptized. Judas even received the Eucharist. It was still his mouth when he went and betrayed Christ. - Okay. - Yeah, yeah. - Right, you see what I'm saying? Like there are people who aren't going to end up finding salvation who have received the sacraments. - Yeah, yeah. I guess I guess that would make sense with us like the thief on the cross as well. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I definitely appreciate you, Anshana. The second follow up I just had was like, I just wanted to make sure I understood like the Easter Orthodox idea of like the righteousness 'cause like I think I got it from what you guys have said in the past on the podcast and like I read your writings. I just wanted to confirm like, it's like in my head I think it makes sense. But I don't know if you know what I make sure I'm like understanding it correctly. 'Cause in my mind I was thinking like the Easter Orthodox view is that you know it's the theiosis and if the righteousness is Christ and the relationship that's formed from yourself, therefore there's not like a problem with like, oh am I perfect enough because you're going closer to Christ and that's perfect. and the rightness is the person formed out of Christ. Am I understanding that right? Or am I totally off like thinking wrong? - What do you think, Father? - Yeah, so this is, so what is understood as links in a chain, right? In classical Protestantism, we understand as aspects of theosis. So justification being made righteous, thus becoming righteous, thus being set right, right? Put back in order. That is one sort of facet of theosis. Sanctification, us being made holy. That's another facet of theosis. That's another thing that's happening in theosis is we are being made holy. Glorification, Christ's coming to share his glory with us, is another facet of theosis. All of these are going on at the same time. And none of these are us being made holy or righteous or receiving our own glory like apart from God. All of this is us coming to participate in God's righteousness, God's good order, God's holiness, God's glory in and through Christ, right? And through us being transformed into his likeness. So these are all things that are happening at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you clarifying that and I appreciate you answering the follow-up that I had with all that and my ramblin. I appreciate you and your patience. Oh, good. You guys have a good night. You too. Thanks very much for calling Michael. All right. Our next caller is from the great white frozen north, David is calling from Montreal. David Wilkins, Laura Spears, podcast. Father's bliss. Can you hear me well? We hear you. God bless you. Welcome. Yeah. So I had a quick question regarding something you spoke in the past about authority and responsibility. Because you spoke when we spoke about the bishop in the past. I know you mentioned that for example, bishop's because they have more authority because of apostolic and mosaic succession, there will be held accountable to a higher degree. Basically, everybody under them is under their responsibility. And you said that the follow-up for this is that for priests, it would be the same thing. The priest will be held accountable for, let's say, his parish. I wanted to know, like, is there a limit to this? For example, I'm guessing that if father is going to be held accountable for his children, souls and so on. But an horizontal plane, is it the same thing, like, am I accountable for someone else? If you have a position that's been assigned to you at the parish, say you are a reader or a chanter, or even like a catechist, are you accountable? Or because it's been delegated to you, especially like as a catechist, is delegated to you? Like, is the responsibility still, like, to the priest or bishop that told you to do this? Or is it on yourself? And I'm asking because, for example, in the military, they're going to say that you can delegate tasks, you can delegate some sort of authority and so on. But their responsibility is always back to the person that delegated. It's not to the person that was delegated. So I was wondering about this kind of aspect with regard to an other spiritual authority. Right. So the accountability is-- it's not like in the military where you just sort of pass the buck up, so to speak. It's rather your accountability is for the task, the particular responsibility that you have. So if you're a catechist in the church, your accountability is that you teach well and for the relationships that you have with the people you're categorizing. That is the particular accountability. But you're also accountable for all of your relationships that you're in. These are people that God has brought to you. So it's absolutely overlapping. It's not like, well, this person is accountable for these people, and therefore no one else is accountable for them because they've got them. It's not exclusive like that. It's really that whatever responsibility God gives to us, whether it's delegated through someone else or through our own actions. So if you have children, God has given you those children. If you have students, God has given you those students. He might have done it through some other authority, but you still have those people as that you are responsible for in one way or another. If there is another authority that God is working through, then that other authority of course is also responsible and for the way that they delegate that authority, right? To make sure that it's being delegated well and that's being carried out well and so forth. So there's a lot of overlapping. And just the person that you are, there are many people in your life who are responsible for you in one way or another, right? Just the fact that they have a relationship with you, but it might also be somebody who's an authority over you as well. So yeah, it's not an absolute thing. It's not utterly discrete. It's not exclusive, but it's whatever has been put into your hands. You're responsible for that. To whom much is given, much is required is the principle that's that we see in scripture. Yeah, what else father? What else needs to be said here? Well, I think there's also an element though. I think there is a certain amount of responsibility with delegation also, not instead of, but in addition to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, if a priest puts someone in charge of cataclyzing people who has only been orthodox for six months, right themselves, or he hears that they're teaching weird things and doesn't do anything about it, right? Or if a bishop ordains someone as a priest hastily without due diligence, and then that person is hurting people and causing problems that the bishop doesn't act, right? Then I think that authority who delegated is responsible at a certain point for what that person is doing who they've given authority to. Yeah. So I think that is also the case. I don't think it's an either or I think it's a both ant, right? If that this is why like St. Paul tells St. Timothy do not be hasty in laying hands upon a man, right? Talking about ordination. That there is, when you're, when you give someone authority, there's kind of, there is a responsibility in terms of what they're going to do with it. If you haven't done your due diligence, right? In the same way that, you know, saying that a father and a family is responsible for his children is not saying like, if they sin, God punishes you for it. It's saying in terms of your interaction with them and how you raise them, like if you teach them how to shoplift, well, then yeah, you're like you're responsible for, for their stealing, right? But, but if you are raising them in the faith at doing these things, your kids still have free will, right? So if your kid rebels against what you've taught them and how you raise them, you're not responsible for the things they do in their rebellion, you're responsible for how you raise them and how you interacted with them. In the same way, the person who delegates is responsible for doing their due diligence to find a qualified person to delegate to. And that if they hear there's a problem acting to resolve that problem, but they're not held responsible for every single thing that person does, you know, without their knowledge, right? Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So it's going to sense. It's, it's, there is this kind of sense that it's a web of a relationship, but also at the same time, there is added responsibility on top of that web based on your station and what you're doing and so on. Yeah, if I understand correctly, yeah, yeah. And can I ask a second question? Sure. Okay, cool. So the second question, I guess it's going to be more far in-drew, but, you know, both can jump in. So I know in the past, you've spoken both about like Maraqui and like King Ship and so on and so forth. And there's the, it seems to me that at least in the early middle age, there wasn't a much difference between King Ship and let's say Western Europe under Rome and then Eastern Europe. And then as it grew, maybe there was a bit more change, but it wasn't that drastic. I was wondering, when I read something like, for example, "Volvo" of the rings with "Aragorn" as a figure of a king, it feels to me as if it's almost more of a, ancient vision of King Ship, like almost more antiquity, both pagan and let's say ancient Israelite King Ship. Like it seems to me there's a lot of this, but then there's also a lot of image-retroam that's more medieval of course, with like the tree and the way they exercise justice and so on. So I was just wondering like, when we look at fiction like this, and in this case, particularly, Tolkien, can it give us an idea of what some form of kingship, Christian kingship could look like? Of course, I'm not talking about a fantasy element. I'm more talking about morality, the responsibility, authority, action. I don't know if my question makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean, so Tolkien's idea of Erragorn, I mean, there's a mountain of writing about Erragorn and kingship out there. But he definitely is participating in biblical visions of kingship, but of course, also medieval ideas of kingship. All those things are happening there. And I think it's for those who want to interpret Tolkien in a Christian way, which that includes me. It's very rich ground to draw that kind of thing from. You know, Erragorn is, he's an ideal king because number one, he's self-sacrificial, but also one of the ways that, and so that makes him a Christian king, but also that he's a good sort of Germanic or Anglo-Saxon king in that any wealth that it comes into his hands, he passes it down. So like he's after he's crowned, for instance, he's shown, you know, giving gifts and so forth as he should to those who are loyal to him and those who are, who serve him. You know, his, he's also depicted as a healer, right? And so there's this kind of messianic element to Erragorn as well. All of these things going on at the same time. He's sort of a, he has a kind of a prophetic role also because he's, he's called to put things right to put things in order. So, so yes, I think it's very valuable for us to have images like that and to interpret them in those ways. Anything you want to add to this, Stephen? Well, I'll say first of all that Erragorn is a descendant of ancient Atlanteans, so he's a Nephilim. He's a repentant giant. But this is, this is, this is the biggest area I think of discontinuity with ancient kinship, kinship. Yeah. That fact, right? Because so what, what happens in the east, obviously, for an extra thousand years, you have the Roman empire still existing, right? And an emperor and a king are not the same thing. I won't go into the Roman cultural things about, but Rex is the one title the emperor never had. But an emperor is ruling over peoples and nations plural. Whereas in the west, as they started to rebuild, right? Pre-Christian, you have basically tribal cultural divisions, right? As Christianized and then Nicene Christianized, Western Europe starts to happen, and they're looking for a model for a more stable social existence, they deliberately pattern kinship after Old Testament kinship. Yeah. As, as the only form of government ever directly ordained by God, right? The Old Testament. And part of that is in Deuteronomy when God says, when you place a king over yourselves, it is not to be a foreigner, it is to be one of your brothers, right? And so a critical aspect of that separates kinship in the west from the more imperial system that continues in the east, right? And then get sort of transferred to the Tsar of all the rushes, right? Meaning the Caesar of the is that idea that the king is one of the people, that he is ruling over a people group that he, and he is one of them, who has been placed over the other. And that forms a different kind of bond and relationship between the king and the people. Then you have with an emperor. And I think ultimately then what you get with Erigorne, because Erigorne, to me, I'm no Tolkien expert, right? But coming at it from somebody who's read a lot of classics, it's a lot closer to the classical idea of a king, meaning like ancient Greece, where you have a man who is a superior kind of human, who you place over you, who is sort of born and destined to rule by virtue of his nature, right? It's definitely in there. That's definitely in there. Yeah. So I think that's more classical than the medieval view, which was very particular, in terms of a particular people have their king, right? So yeah, that's the father editor gave you the continuity. So I give you the discontinuity. There we go. All right. Well, thank you very much for calling David. And thanks a lot. And I hope you guys are continuing making it for a long time. We've been listening since the beginning and all keep listening. By your prayers. Thank you. All right. We're going to go ahead and take our second break. And we'll be right back with this all Q&A, all live episode of Lord of Spirits. 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. That's 855-AF Radio. Written by Father Pavel Sochek of Blessed Memory with wisdom and a deep love for God, the essentials in Orthodox Christian catacism is a book for all who hunger to understand what it means to live as an Orthodox Christian. From an explanation of the creed to an exploration of the sacraments and the role of holy scripture and tradition, this slim volume contains everything the new convert needs to participate fully in the church and to grow and faith as an Orthodox Christian. Find it today at store.ancientfaith.com. That's store.ancientfaith.com. We're back now with the Lord of Spirits, the Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF Radio. Hey, welcome back everybody. It's an all live, all question and answer episode of the Lord of Spirits Podcast. See, Father, I let that half go for over an hour just to make it make you feel like you were getting all that you possibly could out of that. You were called out in public and it worked, so I'll continue to do so. Oh no. You're in for it. I shouldn't have let that. Yeah, I'm in for it now. I'll just have to double down. Go back, swing the other way. So this half will be five minutes long. Yeah, there we go. Good night, everybody. Okay, well, next we have another caller from Louisville Kentucky. So Tyler, welcome to Lord of Spirits Podcast. Hello, fathers. Hello. Hi. I have a question about the breastplate of Saint Patrick. Yes. Even before I was Orthodox, it's like people discover it and they think it's this amazing and beautiful tear jerking poem and prayer. And even since becoming Orthodox, I thought, well, it's a nice way to take a lorica, like a like a magical spell formula and switch it out into a prayer. And then I listen to you guys, and I'm back to thinking it's probably magic because the first portion of the prayer is calling all these powers of nature to defend you. The second portion of the prayer is plugging Christ in for other beings, but in a like almost kind of, it feels kind of like warding people off with him in a way that doesn't feel right. And then the third part of the tradition is that Saint Patrick wrestled with God on the mountain until he convinced God to save anyone's soul that praised the prayer every day, which feels definitely magical. So I just wondered your thoughts on it. Yeah. Yeah. Another facet of the Irish problem. Wow. Although Saint Patrick, of course, was not Irish. He was an immigrant. Well, you know, he initially taken as a slave by the by Irish pirates. So really, there's nothing in the breastplate of Saint Patrick or the lorica, as it's also called, that is not biblical. Okay. So I mean, lorica itself, it just means body armor. So that's why it's also called the breastplate of Saint Patrick. It's just a translation of that word that Latin word. But I mean, let's look at how it begins, right? It says, I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity. Right. Right. That's where it begins. And that's the frame for the whole thing. Okay. And you know, it goes on, for instance, talks about, you know, belief through the, in the threeness of the Trinity, confession of the oneness of the Trinity of the creative creation. So this is clearly like, it's, it's all about through God, you know, and who he truly is, right? I mean, the way that it continues on is the strength of Christ's birth and his baptism, the strength of his crucifixion and his burial, the strength of his resurrection and ascension, the strength of his descent for the judgment of doom, right? It's descended to Hades, right? Like, and then there's references to calling upon, you know, the various ranks of angels through the various kinds of saints, all this sort of stuff. I mean, this is, this is, it certainly has a different kind of poetic character to it than a lot of, you know, Byzantine hemnography. But the content itself is, is really no different than all of that. So even if someone says, you know, even, and even though you get, for instance, this notion of the strength of heaven, the light of the sun, the splendor of fire, whatever, the frame for all of that is God's creation of those things. Like all those things are gifts from God. There's nothing good that does not come from God. Nothing good that does not come from God. Yeah. Right? So if I say something like I arise through the strength of my, my right hand, well, that doesn't mean I'm trusting only in myself. I mean, it might mean that. But, but if I acknowledge that that comes from God and that is a gift from God, then, then it's because of what God has given me, right? I mean, the whole thing is that way. And it goes back and forth between, you know, references to things in creation, but also God's particular, his actions, right? God's strength, his might, his wisdom, his eyes, his ears, his words, his hands, on and on and on. I mean, it just goes on and on. I mean, you know, I'm looking at the text right now as you might have guessed, you know, the magic. I memorized it. I was impressed. Well, don't be too impressed. I know Pete, I know people who, who have memorized, of course, you know, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's really, and it ends with the invocation of the Trinity as well, just as it does at the beginning, you know, and right before that, Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ will lie down, Christ when I sit down. I mean, what is he putting his, his, his, his faith in? It's really obvious. It's really obvious, okay? So was it, did I misunderstand? Then I guess I, I would have thought that your definition of like magic or idolatry or witchcraft was the, the control aspect of it, whether, whether Christ is the, the, the recipient of the prayer or not. Well, okay. Is that true? What makes, what makes Christian prayer different from pagan prayer? Is the understanding that God is completely free and it's in no way manipulated by the particular words or actions that you take. So it's, it's a request, right? It's, it's a prayer indeed prayer means to ask. Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, this idea that if someone says the prayer every day, they'll be saved within the whole context of the Christian tradition, of course that doesn't mean if I just read this out loud and do nothing else as a Christian, but I'm, I'm golden. Right. You know, of course it doesn't mean that the whole Christian tradition mitigates against that, that interpretation. I mean, are there cases of people using traditional Christian prayers as magical formulae? Of course there are. Of course there are. You know, I mean, in Psalm 50, you know, 51, depending on which version of Psalms you're reading, you know, Greek or Hebrew, you know, David says very deliberately, you know, basically that God has reject, you know, God doesn't want your sacrifices, your actions, you know, like this. If you don't have it in shite heart, but then when you have it, then you do these things. This is the whole package. Right? And there's many places in the Old Testament where God basically says to Israel, cut it out because you're not living right. Right? So, so you know, they're acting, they were, they were acting as though the actions themselves, the prayers themselves kind of took care of everything. So even in one sense, if you live by that prayer every day, you will be saved. Absolutely. I mean, if you do everything it's in there and you live in such a way that you're putting your faith in Christ in all these ways and you're invoking all the saints in all these ways. Like, yeah, I mean, this is, this is one of the most awesome pieces of Christian poetry that we have. And it's, it's, I love the fact that it's so beloved in the English language and that that a lot of Orthodox Christians have latched onto it, you know, it's, it's completely an Orthodox prayer in every way. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I'm curious what Father Stephen met by the Irish problem. I don't know, man, I don't want to poop over his party. I just, don't have the same love for the English language that I remain somewhat convinced. But sometimes he just says things just to mess with people, but also lurking deep within him is some very dark thoughts as well. Yeah. So I will, I will choose to pass over this in silence. Oh, there we go. So the last caller through in a bonus question, and can I get a small pop culture one in? Sure. Okay. So I listened to a Twin Peaks podcast called Diane, which is basically Lord of Spirits for Neopagans discussing Twin Peaks. And they talk a lot about symbolism and they talk a lot about that kind of thing. And so they mentioned that they're British and they mentioned that Laura Palmer was a homecoming queen and they didn't know what homecoming was. And so as Neopagans, they researched it and they said, Oh, it's, it's the closest thing that Americans have to a to a ritual because they figured it was a May queen somehow. Yeah, they said like they embody the spirit of the school and it's a male and female. There's, there's mind altering substances, there's dancing, there's an expectation of sexual things happening. And they, you know, there's a there's a weaker opponent that's defeated in a battle and like all this kind of stuff. And wow. Yeah, I heard that. I was like, Oh my gosh. Is is homecoming of a pagan make queen ritual? What do you think? I think they've grossly misunderstood popularity contest. Yeah, teenagers and everything. Yes, like there's not. So I would love it if purchased personally, if the homecoming king every year at schools was like some kind of Nietzsche and Uberman, she would overcome all opposition and, you know, become the creative child who envisions a new type of world and makes it happen. But it's usually just like the cutest guy on the football team. Right. And he's some kind of jock jerk who, you know, and like there's only one click of kids who actually go to homecoming or care. And like, so yeah, I think functionally in Twin Peaks, the whole homecoming queen thing is the whole setting of Twin Peaks is supposed to be nostalgic and reflect a previous era of American life. The 50s and 60s that was more wholesome than the world. And now sort of the world at the horrors of the late 80s and early 90s are intruding into this town. So yeah, I don't think they got the connotations of homecoming queen to an American audience watching Twin Peaks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I could see that. All right. Well, thanks very much for calling. Oh, appreciate it. Bye. Okay. Well, kids, when you vote for your homecoming king this year, find the Uberman shinier midst. Even if he's part of the D a D club. Yeah. Yeah. Chess club. Yeah. So all right. Well, next we have Daniel calling from Northern Indiana. I feel like the call is coming from inside the house. Where in Northern Indiana, are you Daniel? Are you in Chesterton? No, I am sitting in Middlebury, which is about 15, 20 minutes south of the Michigan border. Well, I was worried you were going to say Gary, and I was going to tell you get out run. Yeah. Gary is the bane of our wonderful state. Wow. Yeah. Really. So what's on your mind, Daniel, from Northern poor man's Ohio? What? Maybe it is better than Ohio. Oh, way richer. Wow. Oh, anyway, anyway, um, I don't know about that. So I'm not going to about the promise of David's throne. Um, in, well, firstly in second Samuel or second kingdoms, seven. Um, you know, and Nathan tells David not to build the temple because he's a man of blood. And and God says, you know, I'll have establish your throne forever. And if your son sins, I will chase him with the scourge of men. But my loving kindness, I won't take from him. And your throne shall be established forever. And then you go to Psalm 89. And that same understanding is reflected. And it's a lament that David's throne has not been made strong or has not endured. The context maybe isn't totally clear. And then you have that same understanding in first kings or third kingdoms of Levin, where it says that Reboa was left, when Jeroboam rebelled against Reboaam. That Reboaam was left one tribe for the sake of David. That David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem. But then of course we get to the exile. And David does not always have a lamp before God and Jerusalem. So how do we understand this? - This is definitely your question, Father. What's going on? - Yeah. Well, so this is why when you read the end of Chronicles and the end of, or the end of Second Chronicles, the end of fourth kingdoms, in both cases, it's talking about the heir to the Davidic throne and how he's being well treated. I'll be it in Babylon. As the king. And of course, while you don't again, until Christ, right, you don't have a king physically sitting on a throne who's from the line of David, 'cause of course the Hezmonean's weren't until Christ. What's important is that in addition to the passages you quote, you also read the parallel passage to God's promise to David in Chronicles and first Chronicles. Because in first Chronicles, the wording is slightly different. It says, "I will establish you on my throne forever." Meaning my capital ed, God's. - Okay, but that's still a man being established on God's throne forever, that man being established forever. - And so when he's talking about your son, we all know he's talking about what he said, talks about chastising his son for disobeying. He's talking about what happened with Reo Bohem as you point out, right? And so the idea is, when Chronicles is written, why is that different? It's not just, oh, while I heard it was worth it this way with the prophet said it, right? It's worth it that way, but there's a theological thing going on there. The Bible never does quote unquote objective history. They didn't have a concept of objective, right? So Chronicles is being written from exile. That's why it can end with talking about what was going on in exile. And so it sees the fulfillment of that prophecy, right? It's reading the word "olam" that we translate forever differently. It's reading it as eternally rather than always into the future. - Okay. - Right, like for every moment from now until the end of time, it's reading it as "olam" of the age, right? That it's eternally, right? And so Chronicles is already seeing the fulfillment of that in the Messiah who was to come, right? Who would be descended from David but had already processed the fact that the promise was not primarily material. So this is the dynamic we've talked about in terms of prophecy of the Old Testament, there were times where you have a sign and then you have a larger promise. So what unfolds with David in terms of his son literally sinning and God literally chastising him, but that line continuing, right? The contrast there is with what happened to Saul, Saul sinned and his line was cut off, right? There were no descendants of Saul left, right? So David, that's not going to happen too, even though his son is going to sin, he's just going to get chastised, he's going to get disciplined but not wiped out, that will possess the Messiah. And then the Messiah is going to sit on God's throne eternally, that's the bigger promise. So as the things regarding Solomon and Reoboam unfold, that's the sign of the bigger promise from the perspective of Chronicles, right? And this is just one example, you could have brought up several similar issues, right? Like God saying the Levites were going to offer the sacrifices of Leviticus forever, right? It says that. That would be a wonder for me too. Yeah, right. The same thing. And it's because of the word that's being translated as forever. And obviously Jewish people can't read that literally either because they don't have Levites offering sacrifices right now, right? That the word Olam that is better translated eternally, right, has reference to this idea of eternally in the heavenly places, right? That's more the referent than just an unending sequence of moments into the future. Let's, sorry, I don't want to, I don't want to enter up. This is your show. No, no, more than that. If what you're saying is true, it still doesn't quite answer the question for me of, okay, if it was only God is establishing David on God's eternal throne, if I'm understanding it correctly, then still why was Reboaim left at all? Why wasn't he just wiped out? Because the throne was in the physical sense wiped out entirely in the exile. David's throne. What if, yeah, right? So what it seems to not make sense of this idea that Reboaim had to be left these tribes for David's sake. And maybe the broader concern here would be, is first chronicles just reinterpreting to make things viable. And that was not the proper original understanding of it. Yeah, no, the idea is that Reboaim has to remain a king for it to be chastisement. Okay. Right, to just be chastisement and not, right, when you look at the the dynasties of the Northern Kingdom, right, you have Jeroboim, Jeroboim's son, Jeroboim's son is assassinated and replaced. Right. Right, the guy who replaced him has a son, that son gets assassinated and replaced. Right. Saul had a son, Saul's son never got to be king. Okay. So if that had happened to Reboaim, Reboaim had now, you'd just never been king. Right. Then that promise about chastisement, that sign that no with you, it's going to be different, wouldn't have been there. Right. So, the throne still fell before Jesus arrived on the scene. Right. There stopped being a throne in Israel. Yes. Yeah. There stopped being sacrifices during that time. There stopped being all of those things during that time. Because again, that's not what forever means. So it's like it's like with the land, right? God promises the land. He brings them into the land. The land is the sign of them shining like stars in the heavens eternally. Right. They didn't keep the land forever. Right. You get the sign. Once the sign is done, you don't need to keep the sign going. Right. To have because the sign happened, you now have the hope of that future fulfillment. Except the sign was not the sign to be a thing of perpetuity. Like I'm I'm I'm struggling to understand a meaningful difference or a practical difference between eternally or forever. If if we so offered sacrifices eternally, eternally has to do with the kingdom of God. It doesn't mean linearly going on forever and ever. Right. We're not talking about an infinite line. We're talking about completely apart from that line. Our Lord Jesus Christ is a descendant of David. He sits on the throne of God eternally. not just into the future forever, eternally. Yes. Okay. Okay. I think I maybe understand what you're getting at. Great. Yeah. Yeah. How did the Levites or David? I guess the Levites might be easier to grasp somehow, but how did the Levites participate eternally, even though they were done away with? Well, this is this is what Hebrews is doing. So it's talking about Christ, eternally offering the sacrifice of atonement in the heavenly, the eternal holy of Holies, right? The tabernacle at earth is a pattern of what Moses saw in the mountain in the presence of God himself. Right. And so what the Levites are doing is they are establishing that pattern on earth. Within the pattern on earth, right? And then Christ fulfills that in the actual heavenly places eternally. Right. Is what Hebrews is saying. The Levites weren't doing it eternally then. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to just waste your time with argument here. I'm just not understanding the kernel of what you're saying. Right. So the idea is what the Levites are doing. It is an image and a sign on earth and icon of what Christ does in the heavenly places eternally. So it's just like when we say that the divine liturgy is eternal. We don't mean right. It never ends after we started on Sunday morning and just keeps going and going and going and going. You know, it has a discreet within linear time. It has been an ending, but it is eternal in that it's participating in the eternal reality. Right. Okay. Christ makes what the Levites were doing a term. Yeah. Yeah. This is an easy to understand. This is it you being obtuse or anything. This is not easy to understand. This is difficult to understand. The the kind of difficult to explain. Right. Because it's difficult for us to understand. But like with David again, think about right. So what we're saying is that ultimately David's kingship was patterned after Christ's kingship. Right. So you'll notice David in the psalm says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. You notice that's in the past tense. Yes. Yes. Right. But when Christ quotes and everybody's clear that it's talking about the Messiah. Because Jesus has already ordered the Messiah has been established on. And so David's kingship is an image of Christ's kingship. Okay. So when we get to something and that this is maybe somewhat of a. Side question, but when we get something like Psalm 89. Does that reflect a. That's why we're talking about the. The lack of understanding on the part of the author in this case, Eastern, the Ezraite. About what God's promise meant. Somebody suggested to me that some of the psalms are. There to teach God's children to complain. Yeah, I frequently tell people. I get dealing with stuff where they may be feel a little angry with God. To pray the Psalms. Because I say, you know, sometimes we're a little too pious. Right. And we have those really. Yeah. Yeah. Do what expressors all, well, I can't. I can't feel that way about God. I kept you angry with God. I kept you first. Number one, God's not scared of us. He's not worried. Right. But number two, there are Psalms there. If you pray the Psalms, there are a lot of them that are just praising and giving. Glory to God. And there's a whole bunch of other ones that are like, how long? Oh, Lord, am I going to suffer like this? Are you not listening to me? Are you not paying attention? Do you not care? Right. And all of these things. And I say, if you pray those because you're praying a Psalm, you can kind of get those feelings out and express them in a way that you don't have to then turn around and feel guilty about. Yeah. Right. God has given you holy words to express that. Yeah. So you would say the answer is yes, that Ethan did not perhaps fully understand the depth of God's promise. Who does? Yeah. Who could? Who could? Yeah. Right. Who could fully experience that at every moment where humans were finite, where weak, right? Yeah. We have doubts. We have, you know, we have doubts. There's a way to have doubts and to be weak and to not understand that it is holy. And a way to do that. And lots of ways to do that that are unholy. Right. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, Daniel, I hope that that helps. And I hope that it also gives you a lot to chew on for the future. So thank you very much for calling. Yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time. Sir, sure. Okay. Our next caller is once again from the great state of Washington. And then we'll be back with a new speaker. So, I hope that you'll be back with a new speaker. I hope that you'll be back with a new speaker. Yes. Okay. certain category of very modern, mostly female Roman Catholic saints who are saints because they had these visions. And a lot of these visions that they had, for example, involve sexual situations with Christ. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with that stuff. Okay. That's what they're calling prellist. Wait, is those visions? Yeah. So I guess, I guess then the argument is basically that that their church can't possibly be the true church because they canonized that. Well, it's sort of a what's what's going on with that? Did you Roman Catholic like, right? Why are you canonizing someone for that? They're canonized for the vision. Yeah. Like you're endorsing those visions. That seems weird. Yeah, it does. I mean, I will say, I mean, obviously, I disagree with the idea that people should be canonized for that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. But I, but I would also say like this actually raises the kind of meta question is, is it possible for the church to make a mistake in canonizing somebody? And so that's a very narrow set of circumstances under which you might be able to enter that question. But the example I might give, and obviously there's a whole lot of contingency of this for this. The example I might give is there was actually a period where at least one of the metropolises of the Orthodox Church in Greece for a while was celebrating the feast of Thomas Aquinas, which is to say that they had canonized Thomas Aquinas. And there are extant hymns and so forth. You know, Byzantine church services for Thomas Aquinas, who is a Roman Catholic medieval saint. Right? I mean, you can buy a CD of this music. Someone's recorded it. And then I don't know the history of it, but clearly they do not any more venerate him as a saint. And, and actually probably a clearer example. There are cases of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 21st century, you know, as they were canonizing huge lists of martyrs and stuff, right, under the Soviet Yoke that it was actually discovered that there had been some people who had been canonized, who were still alive. And so there was no announcement made. They just sort of quietly disappeared from the lists. Right? So I mean, these are, this is the reality, right? This is this with whether someone thinks that these things are good or not. That those things happened. And you could argue, well, you know, the whole church didn't do this. It was just one part, you know, one metropolis or one patriarchy or whatever. But that just kind of kicks the can off to the side in some way or another. So is it possible then that a canonization could be walked back? Well, they have been. They have been. Yeah. But these are, in one case in particular, this is a saint who the Pope was giving plenary indulgences for going and kissing her head. Yes, right. I mean, again, I'm not agreeable. So they're not walking it back is what I'm saying. Right. What I'm saying is that the idea that there are particularly problematic canonizations that that that's occurred, I don't think is a sufficient argument against a church being the true church. Now, you know, and I, I have all kinds, I mean, I have an entirely long chapter in a book that I wrote, I know, of all of all my disagreements with Rome. But, but yeah, I mean, certainly the fact of a certain kind of canonization, especially if it lasts for hundreds and hundreds of years, this kind of stuff and just keeps getting double down on and reaffirmed and so forth. Yes, I would say that that constitutes evidence on something, you know, evidence, but I wouldn't say that it's sufficient. And I would also say that to use it as a kind of checkmate, papy is, is, is lame. You know, like it's not good. This is not good apologetics. Well, it's not like it's the only problem with Rome. No, absolutely. What big on the list, right? Why it's red prellist. Yeah. Right. Because giving out plenary indulgences to go and kiss that person's skull is also prelist. Absolutely. Yes. I would certainly. Right. So why it's red prellist, you know, when you're comparing Rome and the Orthodox Church and one of them has widespread prellist, I think that is relevant to the decision. Absolutely. I definitely think it's relevant. Yeah. But there have definitely been times in Orthodox history when, you know, most of the church had problems, big problems, you know, like during the Aryan controversy, classic example, you know, it might have just been a big piece of rhetoric, but the idea that the world awoke and grown to find itself Aryan meant that most of the church had a problem at the time. You know, so yes, I think it's relevant. I think it's evidence, but I don't think it's sufficient all on it. Well, may the Pope hold a council and throw all of those people out, but I don't see it happening because it's his endorsing the process. I doubt it. Yes, I doubt it. Yep. Yep. So well, we all learned something here today. I hope we're at least honest. But in answer to the core question, I agree with Father Andrew that pointing to moral failings of sades as if sades weren't also sinners is kind of ironic from a Protestant. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. That's because their whole thing is that you could be a saint at a sinner at the same time. Yeah. Exactly. Seemal you just at the Picato, right? Or yes, he old school covered Dung Hill. Yes. Yes. All right. Well, thank you very much for calling. Thank you very much. I just want to say instrumental in my conversion or the doctor. So thank you very much. Thank God. Thank God. Thanks for listening. So all right. Well, next we have Zach from Panama City, Florida, I believe. Is that his next yes. Yep. Here I am. Here you are. Welcome, Zach. It's good to be on, Father. I actually have a question concerning David Bentley Hart's latest book, The Light of Table. Oh, I haven't read it. Have you read it, Father? No, he'll stop sending me copies after my review. I really did get copies of a few of his books from Yale for free review copies, but I don't think they liked it. So he stopped sending them. The last, the last. Well, we haven't read it, Zach. So you're going to have to summarize it, whatever. Well, it's actually, it has to do with like near the end, it's one of the appendices or appendices. I don't know what you call it. Appendices. Go appendices. Okay, there we go. And it's a concern. Appendices. I just actually had a couple of those surgeries today had to do some of the work in the OR. Oh, okay. Oh, you did them. You didn't have. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't have them myself. But it's the appendix is did Paul have a theology of nature and grace. And it's a note on Romans 1124. Specifically, he's trying to pin down some Paul's actual teachings. And I just have to read a little bit to give context, but he says, if I, David Bentley heart, were pressed to summarize Paul's actual teachings, reliant strictly only on the Greek of his letters, I think I would tend to identify his principal point of emphasis, not as original guilt or imputed righteousness in neither of which he believed, but as the overthrow of bad angels. And then he goes on to say these agencies, these archons, these angelic beings whom Paul calls thrones and powers and domination, and spiritual forces of evil in the high places are the gods of the nations. Now, this is kind of where my question comes in. He says, perhaps even the angel of the Lord who presides over Israel, so the letter to the Galatian hints is one of their number. Oh, he was doing so well. Well, sort of no, he's been, okay, this is a news. I don't know the context of what he's doing. This isn't new. He's gone down this. He's gone down this rabbit trail before, right? Okay. Okay. I was wondering if there was like some second temple type of tradition about the angel of the Lord being one of those no, no, he doesn't know anything about second temple tradition anything. Yeah, he doesn't know anything about second temple tradition, anything. He honestly doesn't. That's not his field. That's not his area. He hasn't studied it at all. That's one of my critiques of his New Testament translation. Which I didn't think was totally worthless. I didn't really rag on it that hard. I thought. Yeah, you actually wrote a review and which people read online. If you want to read Father Stevens review of the of the art. But yeah, that review didn't cut off the Yale books. It was the universalism book that came after that cut off the flow of the books from Yale. But yeah, so he's been onto this for a while and so part of it like as Father Andrew understood it, it's like he's picking up on some of the stuff we've talked about with the gods of the nations and stuff. But here's the problem. where he goes with that is he is basically adopted the Gnostic reading. That's why he's using the word "Arcons." And that's why he's including the angel of the Lord over Israel. So he's interpreting the angel of the Lord as being St. Michael. Yeah. In this case, not Christ. And the angel of the Lord, right, being one of these powers is part of the Marcy anism. That's inherent in all of David Bentley heart's theological musings. That he doesn't like me pointing out. Interesting. Because he is the little bit of biblical scholarship that he's relying on is all like 19th century German stuff that is steeped in anti-Semitism. Yep. And people get really mad when I say that. They're like, "You're saying David Billy heart is an anti-Semite." No, I'm not. I'm saying he's relying on a deeply antisemitic biblical scholarship. And he doesn't understand how that's coloring his innate Marcy anism. By the way, when directly accused of Marcy anism, his answer to why he's not a Marcy anite is that he said he doesn't believe the Old Testament God really existed. And that's why he's not a Marcy anite. Oh, okay. He thinks the Old Testament God was evil, but he doesn't think he really existed. Wow. So I'm sure he'd say something similar about St. Paul. I'm sure he doesn't believe that what St. Paul is saying there's actually true. He's just taking the Dostock reading of St. Paul as being what St. Paul met. Wow. Okay. Okay. Is there anything in Galatian? Because he's not a Dostock either, but he's just, huh? Yeah. Is there, like, he says so the letter to the Galatians hints is where would he be getting that in Galatians? Yeah. So he's getting that from the fundamental forces. I was usually translated something like that in English, the elemental forces. Element, elemental forces of the universe. Yeah. Yeah. That are clearly a reference to these kind of beings, the gods of the nations, but also is connected there to Torah observance. If you read it in a certain way. So if you read, if you read the old, like I said, he's relying on old Bible scholarship, if you read that old Bible scholarship that he's reading, there's a debate as to whether those elemental principles he's talking about are demonic powers, like the gods of the nations, or whether he's referring, that's some weird way of referring to the Torah, right? And so what hard is doing is he's saying, oh, okay. So that place of Galatians, he's referring to these demonic arcons and maybe the Torah. Right. Like maybe also the power over ancient Israel. Yeah. And so my favorite Marcyan Rears, his ugly head once again. We'll call him a neo-Marcyanite because, you know, we have you put neo in front of it. That makes it okay. Just ask William Lane Craig. Right. Right. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That one line in there in that book kind of threw me off. I had to go listen to the angel of the Lord episode yet again, just to figure out what he was trying to talk about. I just, I did not get it. Well, he wasn't talking about the same thing we were. Spices to say. Your guys' interpretation is much better. Yeah. So his method to be fair, better scholars that he do this, say, bad tactic. They write something and they're writing outside their own wheelhouse, right? They're writing outside their own field. So they just go and say, like, well, I'm a scholar in this field. So like for him, he's a scholar in philosophy and aesthetics in particular. He's like, but I'm going to talk about the Bible. So I guess I should familiarize myself with some biblical scholarship. So he goes and, you know, finds, you know, some Ivy League articles from 50, 75 years ago. And he's like, oh, well, I'll just get caught up on the biblical scholarship and just, you know, integrate this into why you're thinking. And they just say ridiculous things. And I will throw anybody else under the bus in terms of scholars who do that. That's why father Stephen refused to answer the question about Gandalf and his pre-Middle Earth existence. Yes. It's not my field, right? I didn't have time to go listen to a few episodes of Obensoul and try to fake it out. That's right. Say something heretical. That's right. So, all right. Well, thanks for calling Zach. Thank you, fathers. Alrighty. Okay. We're going to take two more questions. Our next one is Avery who's calling from Minnesota. Avery, welcome to Lord Spirit's podcast. Good evening, fathers. Thanks so much for taking my call. Good evening. Welcome. I had a question about the, uh, in the second, second temple period or after the exile, when the ten northern tribes were fed to have been destroyed. I was curious about mentions in the new testament of certain individuals who are said to have been from that tribe. So specifically in the book of Luke with the prophetess Anna, when it says that she's from the tribe of Asher. Yeah. And I also think I read, I read somewhere, one, another one of the New Testament female saints was, I can't remember who right now, but said that she was from the tribe of Issa Kar. Um, and so I was curious as to what the traditions were at that time. Like, did those people have families that were from those tribes? And like, was that common or is that kind of a anomalous event? Yeah. Well, I mean, so destroyed does not mean erased. Like every single person is wiped out, right? Just like, for instance, you know, if, if a church gets destroyed, that doesn't mean that there's no stone left standing on another, that there's nothing left. It just means it's smashed, right? So the, the ten northern tribes being destroyed, I mean, they're carried off, but some people are left. There's people that are hanging around, you know, intermarrying with the people that the Assyrians brought in there and, you know, you get the Samaritans. And then of course, a lot of those tribes, most of those tribes have been carried off. They eventually become absorbed into the nations, but it takes several generations for that to happen. But people who are left in Judea, some of them are going to have ancestry, including paternal ancestry from one of these other tribes, for various kinds of reasons. But that doesn't mean that the tribe still exists. It means that there's a person from that tribe that's around, you know, a tribe is the, but no, right? But a tribe is the community. If the community is no longer there, they're not really functioning. They can, they're absolutely going to be said to have been destroyed or carried off or, you know, whatever, right? Yeah. I guess that definitely makes sense. And you're not here, father's even going, so slight, I'm actually okay. All right. All right. That may have been the case. That may have been the case in some cases. So I'm not ruling that out entirely, right? But we also know and this is, this is getting into biblical things that people don't read, right? Like, first Ezra's and even the canonical Ezra in Greek. So after the exile, after the people of Judah, which includes some Benjamin, some believeites, after they return to the land, they have a lot of problems, right? That gets laid out in the Ezra literature in India, Maya. And in a few cases, they have people who are then dwelling in the land who weren't Samaritans, weren't the people who were later called the Samaritans, but other people who had been moved there by the Assyrians and stuff, who helped them, like tribal groups that helped them. And when they did that and entered into covenant with Judah, they became part of the people. They sort of adopted those people into some of the missing tribes. So and Issaqar is one of the tribes that specifically mentioned in First Ezra's as this particular group. They were, they said, okay, you guys can be part of us now. You're Issaqar, right? Reconstituting them. Right. And so even though they were Gentiles, right? And this is one of the little steps on the way toward Gentile inclusion. In the sense that the reason the Judahites thought they could do that, right? because you'd say, well, why didn't they? just adopt them into Judah or Benjamin, right? They already had the idea at that point that then people of the nations, right, into which the northern tribes had been scattered were going to reconstitute the tribes. That idea already existed at the end of the exile. Anythings, the Christians didn't just make it up. Yes. It pre-existed that. Yeah. Yeah. And so those people, by the time you get, so now we're talking about 500 years later, when we get to the New Testament. So some of those folks are descendants of those people who are sort of adopted in that way. Okay. It's very interesting. Thank you. Yep. Yep. All right. Thank you for calling. We're going to take one more call and it's Jordan. You're our final caller and you're calling from the Holy Land of Virginia, but apparently from Northern Virginia, which is kind of not Virginia. This had better be. Oh, gosh. There's so much pressure. I mean, you do live in the in Satan's in the shadow of Satan's throne up there. So yeah. I believe it. I'll be some sort of. Hey, ways. Father's bless. I bless you. Thank you. I just finished last night listening through all Lord of spirits episodes. What? I'm in front. And I was that a confession about how you spent your time. Well, yeah, I'm for yeah. Well, it took a long time. It wasn't like a marathon. It took me a long time. But wow. Did you just brag about how fast you run marathons? No. No. I'm a fall. It's fixed. Okay. Okay. I'll hold on to questions. I picked one. And if you hate it, you can just tell me it's picking up. Oh, okay. We'll just say next. But so in one of in one of your episodes, you guys were talking about the same thing on Inverbal and seeing himself in the having to put see himself in the castle of God. And also St Paul saying that we're already seated in the heavy places. With that idea of eternity in mind, why why would we not pray to ourselves or assuming like we can't know that we're saved and that's why we would be for ourselves. What about like somebody like St John? Why wouldn't he pray to himself and turn it in? And according to that is if with Christ's body being resurrected and him being eternal, existing outside of time and therefore being able to walk in a garden even or in a way, having always existed in the incarnate body, then wouldn't that imply that at least with reference to some point in time, the three years that he this is on earth, that Christ had black ties to bodies. Oh no. Oh no. I'm why we wobbly questions. You were doing so well. But you put it in the form of a question. So it's like Jeopardy. Well, I mean, you shouldn't pray to yourself. We'll just start that as our baseline. I mean, it's praying to yourself. What would be the point of that? Yeah. Like what would you do for yourself that you couldn't already do for yourself? Yeah. I mean, there's only one you. You are you. So you are you. So praying to yourself implies that there's a you and there's a not you that you're talking to. You know, it's still just one person. So it's not like, oh, there's me in another part of the timeline. It's still you. I don't know. This is a little wibbly, wobbly, timey, whimy. But of course, the whole question is kind of that way. You know, I know I feel like maybe some of the answer to this is some of the stuff that you talked about the resurrection when you had that whole conversation on stage with a certain Canadian psychologist. Do you think I'm tracking correctly here, Father? Well, so yeah, part of it is how we're envisioning time and part of it is we can't help it. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Right. Say John and Damascus talks about this. Like we we are finite beings in time and space. That's the only way we can think about things, right? But it's like it's like my least favorite trope in time, travel stories, right? That where you have these type travel stories that are badly written, where you have some action going on in the past and some action going on in the future, right? And to build dramatic tension, there's somehow happening at the same time. Yeah. Like, oh no, I need the person in the future to push the button. When will you push the button? Right. You're like, you're in the past. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because it's treating it as if you have like these two, like something is happening at the same time in the past in the future, even though that's totally something different. Yeah. Like the past and future different are simply the different spaces in the different places, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so that's part of the problem with the question. Right. And like I said, you can't help doing this because this is how we think, but it's like, okay, Christ is, you know, walking from capperna, um, to Bethesda in 30 AD, right? At the same time, he's enthroned in heaven. Well, no, not at the same time. Yeah, not at the same time. Right. See what I'm saying? Right. Like we can't help but think that way, but it, it's not at the same time. Like heaven is not like this other place at a parallel time track. Right. So even though there is this weird trippy thing where St. John kind of meets St. John in a vision, right? Or kind of sees himself in a vision, glorified, right? Uh, sees as glorified self-inhibition. Um, that doesn't mean that like right now at the same time that I'm here praying, there is a father Stephen at the same time in another place. Right. Who's glorified? Who's also praying? Or something. Or whatever, you know, a future B is doing. Um, right. Like the trend. Sorry. Right. So it doesn't seem like the go to bed. Good. Go ahead Jordan. Well, I say it kind of makes you seem like the transcendence elements problem that if, if that's the case, it worth saying that we can't, we can't say that he's at the same time in for him in heaven because then we're applying concepts of time to that. Then how, how do we say that the like the line liturgy is participating in a journey? Like how are we? How is eternity making contact at all with time or with us in time? Like what? You know, we're, it doesn't seem like there's an unconnectable gap there. We're entering into eternity by being brought up into eternity. The way Isaiah was the way St. John was the way Ezekiel was. And, and, you know, the incarnation of the Son of God breaks down this division. Right. Between eternity and time, between God and man, because he is, you know, he is those things all at once. Yeah. Like we can't avoid thinking about it is like, oh, well, the angels and saints are worshipping God in heaven right now. And when I go and do that, oh, we're all doing it together. Right. That's how we have to think about it because we're finite beings and we're limited in what we can understand. It's not wrong as far as it goes. Right. But that's, that's not really capturing the reality of it. Right. Because we can't fully comprehend the reality of it. Of the heaven part, the earth part we can comprehend, the heaven part. Is the part that we can't fully comprehend. And so we have to sort of turn that into a version of the earthly part that we can understand in order to even talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Does that help at least somewhat? I know this is kind of tough stuff. Yeah. No. Yeah. I think that makes sense. I mean, well, I mean, we just, we know it the best we can and yeah, we have good reasons for believing in the things we believe, but you can't comprehend that extent of it. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. There are certain things where there is mystery and you can't dispel that mystery and understand that you just have to point at it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much for calling Jordan. And thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. That's our final caller. See, we went for almost three hours, Father Stephen. So there you go. Everybody got it. That's fair to Midland. Big, big full three halves of very late. That's true. But that's our show for today. Thank you very much for tuning in and listening everybody. If you didn't happen to get through to us live, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us at Lord of Spirits and Ancient Fate.com. You can send us a message to our Facebook page. You can also leave us a voice mail. Speakpipe.com/Lord of Spirits. 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[Music] You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen De Young, a listener-supported presentation of ancient faith radio. And I be held 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 than thousands of thousands. Saying with a loud voice, worthy is the land 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.