Gospel Simplicity Explored | Orthodox Christians Interview Austin Suggs! | TLTS007 CWP046

Have you ever pondered the delicate threads that tie together the vast spectrum of Christian beliefs? Austin Suggs of Gospel Simplicity joins Nick and Jeremy of Cloud of Witnesses Radio for a captivating exploration into Christian ecumenism, revealing Austin's mission to connect Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant followers through thought-provoking content. Austin Sugg's journey from a dorm room project to a key voice in interdenominational dialogue has sparked a library of spiritual resources, aiming to foster understanding and celebrate diversity within the Christian faith.

As we journey through the theological terrain, Austin shares personal reflections on how faith shapes our daily lives and relationships with Cloud of Witnesses. We discuss the balance between head and heart in spiritual practice, the enduring legacy of the saints, and the pivotal moments of the Reformation that continue to influence western Christian tradition today. Whether it's the academic rigor of theological study or the intimate warmth of devotional worship, our conversation underscores the myriad ways individuals encounter and embody their faith.

We wrap up our discussion by delving into the transformative power of incarnation, the responsibilities of digital evangelism, and the significance of sacred spaces in experiencing Christ God. This episode serves as an invitation to both the curious and the devout to engage with the Christian community at large, reminding us of the collective journey we share as followers of Christ. Austin's insights provide a beacon for those navigating the complexities of their faith, illuminating a path towards hoped-for unity and deeper understanding.

We are thrilled to host Gospel Simplicity - we're extremely grateful to Austin Suggs for taking time to talk with us so early in the new year 2024!

Find Gospel Simplicity here: https://www.youtube.com/@GospelSimplicity

Like what you hear?  Become a Cloud of Witnesses Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/CloudofWitnessesRadio

Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!

Transcript

Austin Suggs: 0:00

They were not that special, where sometimes the way I put it to people is like, in the grand scheme of things, like we're kind of cosmically insignificant and at the same time you were so loved that the god of the universe took on human flesh and died for you, and if we can hold those two things at all times in our spiritual life, I think that's a really powerful thing.

Jeremy: 0:22

Hi, this is Jeremy.

Nick: 0:23

Hi, this is Nick.

Jeremy: 0:24

This is Cloud of Witnesses Thinking like the Saints. Because we have a very, very special episode. Those of you guys that are watching this right now you already know, because you see Austin Suggs from Gospels Simplicity is joining us today. It is a treat, to say the least. Austin, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join Cloud of Witnesses today.

Austin Suggs: 0:47

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Jeremy: 0:48

Thanks for having me we were talking a little bit before this episode started. It was a little bit of a rocky start, for which I ask your eternal forgiveness. I know you were busy and I did not mean to get our schedules so mixed up etc. But those of you that don't know that are seeing this there was a little bit of work that it took to make this happen.

Nick: 1:13

You have a scramble, that's OK, yeah.

Jeremy: 1:15

Austin, maybe reminding you maybe of your early days, of your early days of podcasting. Hopefully you can remember those days, because that's where we are.

Austin Suggs: 1:23

Oh, it doesn't feel like too long ago at all. It's been fun.

Jeremy: 1:27

So, austin, for our audience that may not know of your channel I doubt that's many out there but would you mind telling us a little bit about who you are, first and foremost, and then we can start talking about your podcast.

Austin Suggs: 1:43

Yeah, so as far as who I am, I suppose in the internet realm of answering that question, I suppose there's lots of ways you could answer it, but I run a channel called Gospel Simplicity. It's a YouTube channel where I try to help people deepen their faith through uncovering beauty, truth and goodness in the Christian tradition. What that looks like is I bring on guests from across the spectrum of the Christian tradition. My audience is almost one-third Catholic, orthodox and Protestant, which is really fun, and we just explore topics related to church history how the church has developed. What are we supposed to do with that today? Also, do some church tours, various things like that. The channel started a while ago just as kind of exercise in public speaking. It evolved over time into what it is today, and I have the great joy of just getting to have conversations with people that I never would have thought I'd get to talk to about topics that I'm already thinking about anyway, and then getting to share that with others. So it's a great time.

Jeremy: 2:42

Thank God. Yeah, absolutely, austin. You have a gift for interviewing and I don't think that comes to everybody. There's some people have it, some people don't. I'm sure that's a skill that some people can learn, but I think it's one of the reasons behind the success of your channel, because certainly there's lots of people that interview people online and to varying levels of success or resonating with other people, how do you approach your interviews? Would you mind talking to us a little bit about your? You know, how do you plan for these, how do you prepare for these, etc.

Austin Suggs: 3:20

Yeah and well. Thank you first for the kind words and as far as the planning goes, for me, I think a good interview starts long before you turn on the camera. A lot of it has to do with what you're doing on the front end, with the research. So for me that looks like what I think is a simple thing, but something I've found very few people actually do, and that is, if I'm interviewing an author about the book, I will not interview them till I've read the book.

Austin Suggs: 3:46

So I read the book, I take notes, I try to think of how they're structuring their argument, what are their main points, and then I'm always trying to think of kind of the intersection of a couple things, of what is it that my audience is interested in? What does this author bring to the table? And then how can I also try to help bridge that gap so that they can they being the audience get in one hour the answers to the questions they might have? And so I always try to think you know what questions are they going in with, and if I'm leaving them with the same questions after an hour in this video, I haven't done my job, and likewise for the guest, if I'm taking their time. I want to make sure that I'm not just asking a question that's like very surface level in their book, but it's trying to take it a step deeper. So they feel like I've, you know, used their time well and we can have a deep, engaging conversation.

Jeremy: 4:40

Austin, the. You know the way you approach these. You talked a little bit about you know yourself I saw that, you know gospel simplicity started in, I believe you said, the dorm room at Moody College. Can you talk to us about the journey that it's been? There seems to be definitely. You know this, this evolution over time, and you know I'm really kind of curious talking to you now. You know it's 2024, right, we just had this new year, kind of I'm not sure how often you ever have the time to or that you do reflect on your, on your podcast, right, on what you've accomplished and what you've, you know, created. You know this, this library of these interviews and these church tours and you know really, in some ways, book reviews etc with the authors, and you know talking to priests and pastors, and well, I guess maybe my question is do you take the time to reflect on it or would you mind reflecting on it now?

Austin Suggs: 5:40

Yeah, I mean. So I wouldn't mind reflecting on it now, and I do reflect on it. You actually caught me on an interesting day for doing this, as today I was up before the sun, was doing my kind of 2024 planning for the channel and setting the goals and planning all the content, and so it was kind of a time of reflection as well, of going back over content, seeing what I've done, what's worked, what hasn't, what's worked that I liked doing and maybe what's worked that I haven't liked doing, and trying to do more of the former than the latter, but you know, reflecting back on it. So it's right and wrong that the channel began in a Moody Bible Institute dorm room. That's what I have on, kind of like the about section. It's true that gospel simplicity started at Moody prior to that. The channel is just given the very creative name of Austin Suggs, which happens to be my name, and that actually started, I suppose, in my parents basement and I was interning, I think, at a church at that time, or I might have been on staff already, I'm not quite sure, but I'd started teaching in their high school ministry and fell in love with it and wanted to get better at it, and so I began just recording videos of me doing Bible studies or talking through topics as a way to practice public speaking. So that's how the channel initially started.

Austin Suggs: 6:55

And then one day I made a video reflecting back on my experience of going to a Catholic Bible study, which was before I was really interested in kind of what you could call, maybe like ecumenical conversations. I was always interested in talking with people I disagreed with or just learning from people with diverse viewpoints. That was something I enjoyed doing, but I wasn't really engaged in like ecumenical dialogues per se. So I made a video reflecting on that, hadn't really thought much of it, and that video blew up, at least relative to my channel at the time. Yeah, I had been making multiple videos a week for over a year at that point, had under 1000 subscribers, you know average probably about 10 views a video. On that one I got 10s of 1000s of views.

Austin Suggs: 7:38

And all of a sudden I was this young evangelical guy that had a lot of Catholics coming to my channel and saying you know, have you thought about this? Or coming up with you know various arguments, and the truth was I hadn't thought about it. So I figured the best thing I could do in that situation would be to find the smartest people I could ask those questions to, and so that's when I began doing interviews, which really just started as questions I had for myself, and over time, you know, there's still questions in some ways that I have for myself, but there's also kind of the stewardship angle of I have this audience that watches these videos and how can I help answer their questions to. And as I look at it now, I see my channel in some ways as this opportunity for people to get a primer on church history for free.

Austin Suggs: 8:25

You know, I've been lucky enough now to be doing my second degree in what is kind of a commercially useless field of study. You know, I got a degree in theology which I loved and I don't think it's personally useless, but I can tell you it's not. It doesn't do a whole lot for you in the job market. And now I'm doing one in liberal arts with a focus in philosophy and theology, which is equally commercially useless, but you know I love doing it. Not everyone can take that time, and so I see, in some ways, my channel being an opportunity to introduce people to that who aren't going to be able to go take four, six, eight, however many years of study out of their time.

Nick: 9:05

Well, you know, first off, thank you for sharing this story Very, very interesting and very providential. I mean, obviously, you know this personal enrichment that you have been going through has helped you know so many people through your channel, so I thank you so much for that. And, yeah, definitely you know, when it comes to what comes to mind when I hear this I guess, inception story, this genesis of your channel, of how much people want dialogue and how we're ripe, you know this whole internet situation we find ourselves in, right, how ripe it is for dialogue, hopefully positive dialogue, but oftentimes it's not positive dialogue, right when it comes to any kind of scandal, etc. But very interesting because that's actually how I came across. You was, you know a lot of being Orthodox Christian. You know the algorithm, I guess just knew me and most of the things that I see with you is you speaking, you know, to Father Josiah Trenton, father Peter, etc. So very interesting.

Jeremy: 10:15

Austin, yeah, I'm glad you're enjoying it. You're talking to a. I was a philosophy major, Nice, Nick actually studied theology, so you're in good company in terms of. We understand the lack of commercial, you know ability, but yeah, you know what that said to me, Austin is you know, I think in many ways you're a teacher at heart, is what your, your your kind of origin story as Nick was talking about tells me is, you know you had this natural affinity for wanting to teach and to help educate other people.

Jeremy: 10:46

One of the things I picked up on, you know, with your channel, I think, more recently, is you talk about reading and how to read, and I think that's such an important topic. I, if someone, did an internet search, you know, somewhere back in the years of yonder, I did a. I used to booktube. I'm not sure if you know what booktube is, but I used to booktube and then I actually I asked a video on annotating books because it was such an important element of reading and I love how you are bringing that education.

Jeremy: 11:18

Like you said, not everybody is apprised of these things, right? Not everybody is getting those types of insights, and for me, just the simple concept of writing notes in the margins of your book as you read it changed my reading life literally, and so, yeah, so we highly and greatly appreciated. Do you see yourself doing more of that in 2024? You talked about how you're kind of planning your 2024 year. What, what can our audience and your audience hope to expect more of, or are there things changing in 2024? And you mind talking a little bit about that?

Austin Suggs: 11:53

Yeah, sure, happy to talk about that, and I'm glad that you enjoyed those videos. I do think it's a really important thing and I I will be doing a little bit more of that somewhat around, like the theologians craft and the historians craft, like how to do these things well, because I think what a lot of people are doing is they're getting interested in these things, which is awesome. I love to see people getting interested in theology, history, philosophy, et cetera, and they're consuming tons and tons of information on the internet, which is great, like it's a great way to get initially oriented to these things. However, it can hit a pretty early point of diminishing returns. I find that you cast a really wide net. You listen to all of these videos, all of these podcasts it's the thing that's always playing on in the background for you but you're going kind of a mile wide and an inch deep that it. People are struggling to kind of synthesize this information to see how it relates to one another. I find that, especially with my channel, since I have such a broad array of guests, so I get a lot of people commenting like, hey, like when you know, catholic comes on, I think, oh my goodness, like they're right. And then an Orthodox comes on I'm like, wow, they're right. And a Protestant comes on Like, ah, they've got it. And then they're just confused. And I get it because they we now live in a time when you can encounter a lot of people who are smarter than you, who can make a good, sound argument, but there's a bunch of them that all disagree in you, like how can I ever figure this out? And so I I do want to try to help people come up with ways of taking that next step. I feel like I've provided a lot of information, and I'll continue doing that through interviews, but I would like to talk about, like, how to be a good theologian, how to read well, how to be a good historian. I think that's something that's kind of lacking in a lot of theological circles. Even and what is it? What are the, the toolkits that a historian might bring, that a theologian might not bring at all times, and kind of how can we look at those well together, cause church history really does intertwine those two disciplines. So I'll be doing a little bit of that. I enjoyed the teaching aspect of things. I'll continue doing interviews on topics that I think my guests will find or my listeners will find interesting.

Austin Suggs: 14:05

The most fun videos for me to make are the more experiential videos, the ones where I'm going and doing a church tour, where I go to a monastery, where I, you know, go out and do something, film it, reflect on it, for a couple of reasons. One I just I like being out in person with people. It's fun, you get to meet real life people. I find this video is a more interesting. I used to be a wedding videographer and so I enjoy getting to do some of that aspect of things.

Austin Suggs: 14:32

The problem is I work full time in addition to doing this and I'm doing my masters right now, so there's only kind of limited availability to actually do those things. So I've set myself an ambitious goal of doing six of those. So film one, edit it the next month, and so on and so forth throughout the year. And then I'd like to do a bit more of I'd call kind of like essay videos that aren't just talking head, so similar to some of the things that I do on my channel now, but maybe with a little more production value to it, thinking through it a bit more. But we'll see. I mean it's a lot easier to plan those things than it is to execute them.

Jeremy: 15:10

Amen to that.

Nick: 15:11

It's a very exciting projection you have for 2024.

Austin Suggs: 15:14

Thanks, yeah, if I can actually check off all the things on my Trello list, then it'll be quite the year.

Nick: 15:21

Yeah, that's awesome, I like. I like how you're going excuse me deeper into kind of the purpose of your channel, right Gospel simplicity, bringing that simple message out of all these theological I don't want to say complications, complexities. Yeah, so I like how you're going deeper into that concept. Thanks, yeah.

Austin Suggs: 15:47

I mean, you could think of it as moving to like a. I don't know if my videos are at the 101 level right now, but trying to give people some of the tools, maybe at the the 201 or 301 level. That'll hopefully help them think through the things a little more systematically and make their journey a little easier. Yeah, and a synthesis level.

Nick: 16:05

I like that. Yeah, I like that.

Jeremy: 16:08

Absolutely. You mentioned a really interesting statistic, that's being that you know, in essence, your audience is one third Protestant, one third Roman Catholic and one third Orthodox. I will tell you kind of from you know, behind the scenes, from the Orthodox side of things, because I'm also an Orthodox Christian, there are so many people in Orthodoxy who are always like oh, you know, austin, you know Austin might become Orthodox, and I know for a fact that Roman Catholics say the same thing, right, or Austin, he's going to become a Roman Catholic. And and I find that very interesting and that must be an interesting position to be in. There was a time where and I'm not sure he's going back, maybe a year, a couple of years ago you did that video why? Why you decided not to become Orthodox or why you're not Orthodox.

Austin Suggs: 17:02

But how long ago was that, Austin? Oh well, I think I was looking at that today. I think that was 2021. Okay, I'm actually working on like a updated outline slash script for like that video, essentially after we finish this today. Okay, so there will be more.

Jeremy: 17:21

That's good to hear, you know, because it is it's a fascinating topic myself. I'll tell you very, very quickly. I'm a former Protestant myself. I told you I studied philosophy for my undergrad. I was studying at UCLA and I met a Roman Catholic of all things. He was a kind of a lay apologist. He had used to volunteer for Catholic Answers and he our conversations are what you know kind of opened my eyes to the world of, of whether it was Roman Catholicism or church history, et cetera, and then, through the course of I was reading a lot of Dostoyevsky at the time I ultimately, over a three year period, became Orthodox.

Jeremy: 18:00

But it was conversing with a Roman Catholic that in many ways kind of brought that about. You said, austin, that you know you'll talk to a Roman Catholic and you're like, oh, they sound right. And then you talk to an Orthodox oh, they sound right. You know evangelicals saying what is the Suggs home like Theologically? You know you and Mrs Suggs like do you guys? Are you guys always talking about these things? You know, how does your podcast kind of interplay with your own faith, your own faith journey, your own experience of Christianity? You mind talking about that?

Austin Suggs: 18:38

No, I don't mind at all, it's a great question. Yeah, so as far as like what this looks like, my last name is Eliza. For Eliza and I it's interesting because I think in some ways we're the image of opposites attract and in some ways although in a lot of ways we're very, very similar, but I would say theologically I don't know that we're opposites, but where I, you know, you'll see me in a theology nerd T shirt or sweatshirt. You know, in most of my videos she would not describe herself that way. I think we approach our faith kind of in different ways. We met through church.

Austin Suggs: 19:15

Faith is something that's very important to both of us. But I often engage with faith probably in an overly intellectual way, in that, like I want to read books, I want to think about these complicated questions, I want to dive into it, all of those things, and I really enjoy it. I kind of, I suppose, have like an academic approach to it and then I realized that I need to not forget all of the other aspects of faith, like the embodied parts of it, the the affectionate parts of it, all of this I'd say Eliza approaches it probably. You know, flip that on its head, that for her, you know, reading like dense theological books, listening to boring YouTube videos like those on gospel. Simplicity, you know, isn't probably her cup of tea per se, but she enjoys kind of more devotional things, more kind of coming up from a more heart perspective. And so how that inner like or overlaps can look different, I'd say, like she I don't think she watches hardly any of my videos and that's completely fine. But like, well, generally we like to read books together and so I try to find things that kind of work for both of us.

Austin Suggs: 20:29

So like an orthodox book that we read together was I don't know if it's the title of the subtitle, I don't know title everywhere present living in a one story universe, father Stephen Freeman. So things that are like devotional, like that. And I will say it's changed how she thinks of things like the Eucharist and it's changed how she might think of some things related to church history. But I would say you know where it overlaps are probably more how would I put it? Like introducing like prayer beads and things like that. Or I've taken her to monasteries and to various kind of more liturgical forms of worship and she's enjoyed that and kind of just broadening her perspective on these things. But I wouldn't say that it shows up in a sense that like we're around the dinner table, like debating the finer points of the filiocue or you know, the Council of Calcedon or something like that's not really what it looks like in our home.

Nick: 21:25

Yeah, it's very interesting. I feel like that's a common pattern between the male and female right, your experience coming to the church or coming to faith in general. Right is the male always thinking. Right, always on some group chat you know some server talking while females, right, it's more okay. Where, where does it sit with their heart? What is the experience? And both oftentimes, you know, are very needed, but I oftentimes think that that is a big reason why, at least for the Orthodox Church, there's a large influx of young males because they are doing this research, they're being engaged, you know, through these mediums that are so powerful, you know, at this point in history, through the internet. So it's very interesting Including your channel Austin.

Jeremy: 22:18

Yeah.

Austin Suggs: 22:19

Yeah, it is always interesting when I hear that people have become Catholic or Orthodox, because my channel it's not something that bothers me, but it's always an interesting thing.

Nick: 22:27

It's. Your channel provides an amazing, you know, touchstone for all these other things and I think what people really appreciate, what I appreciate about you is the humility right in which you present these things, allows the viewers right to listen for themselves and to make conclusions for themselves, instead of maybe you know, a more strong armed approach, which you know may have its place in certain you know situations etc. But oftentimes it allowing that freedom for the viewers and listeners it goes a long way.

Austin Suggs: 23:03

I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, I think some of it, a lot of it's intentional. I think some of it's also my personality. But I'll say, you know, interestingly enough, perhaps to people like I'm not all that interested in apologetics, like if I ever became Catholic or Orthodox I wouldn't have no interest in being an Apologist. I find these topics really interesting and I want to help people get the best information and make the decisions for themselves. But I'm not overly concerned with convincing anyone that I'm right or you know that it has to be this way. I think that engaging with these things will help deepen their faith and I'm really comfortable with whatever conclusion they come to.

Jeremy: 23:47

That's awesome, austin. So that's kind of a nice segue into a lot of witnesses. As you may know, we the focus of our podcast is to retell the lives of the saints. In a way, we bring in voice actors from our, from our community here in San Diego and we we try to bring alive right through, like these radio style dramas, you know, almost like an audio book, audio play, retelling the lives of the saints of the church. And because we want to try to do the same thing, austin, with, I think, with what you just said, which is bring this awareness right, kind of bring this exposure of the lives of the saints to the Christian world and what people take from that. They take from that.

Jeremy: 24:33

You know, nick and I are we kind of pride ourselves on when it comes to that element of our podcast. Hopefully we're in the background, right. There's what really matters is what this story of this saint right, the story of this person who lived a life devoted to Christ, and what we can glean from that. We wanted to ask you, you know, in terms of because you're certainly no stranger, you know, to the experiential element of orthodoxy and even Roman Catholicism, you know the churches obviously typically are much. You know more adorned and you know there's the icons etc. The liturgical elements of that. Because, as a Protestant yourself, how do you view the history of the saints? I know you've talked recently even about the fathers of the church and how to read the fathers. It's a great video, by the way. Can you talk to us about saints, saints of the church, small that's big, as, however, you kind of view that in your own life and practice?

Austin Suggs: 25:37

Sure, yeah, and it's a big question, you know. You steer it however you want, depending on how, what my answer might spark it to you, and a lot of ways I'm not actually sure we'd see it all that differently. Now I will put a caveat that I don't speak as a representative of any group. I speak as a representative of myself. So they're, you know, definitely Protestants who would disagree with me, as well as people of various traditions that would disagree with me. I mean the saints. So I think there's a couple levels right. So I think, at the minimum that I think we could all agree on all being people from, you know, across the Christian tradition is that the saints are exemplars of the faith to that model lives to which we can aspire, to emulate, you know, in our own way, as best as we can. And so one way that might look like you probably you can't really see them I have this like very. I don't think it's sad, I like it, but it's just like on the ground right here.

Austin Suggs: 26:36

I've got a couple of icons there where I do kind of like my morning devotions in my little office here, but one of them that I have there is the venerable bead and kind of patron saint of scholars, and so often before my classes are in the morning, since so much of my life is kind of academic focused, whether it's my YouTube channel or grad school et cetera I often think of you know that model of being a scholar saint, of one who is deep in studies but is using those studies for the glory of God, and so I think you know, at a bare minimum you could say that someone like Saint Bede represents that and that we can use that model as something to strive towards. But I think I do think that the Saints intercede on our behalf. I think we see that in Revelation of you know the martyrs around the throne crying out. I think where people, and I think even most Protestants, could agree with that even if it isn't, I think they might say it's kind of vague how much knowledge they have. But like a general intercession, I think where it gets tricky is like whether that intercession can go both ways, like whether it's just the Saints interceding down for us or whether we ask the intercession up to the Saints.

Austin Suggs: 27:53

I made a video not too long ago that that's actually not something that I'm uncomfortable with. I don't have a problem with Christians asking for the intercession of Saints, but I respect the reasons for why people might have a problem with that. I wouldn't make it mandatory on anyone. So I would say they're not just a model but they can also be intercessors for us and that I think you know in a very real way, even though very difficult to understand, like we are surrounded right by that cloud of witnesses that are praying for us, spurring us on, and how kind of our realm overlaps with the spiritual realm is a difficult thing to say and to really pin down, but I think there's at least some element of especially like in the gathering of the maybe lowercase saints on earth today, that we are surrounded by that cloud of witnesses that is, at the very least, praying that we might join them at some point.

Jeremy: 28:51

So yeah, interesting. It is a distinction, right between orthodoxy and honestantism. You know, austin, I spent years and years of my life from the time I was a young kid. I went to a private Christian school as a Baptist school but really kind of theologically it was dispensational, you know, non-denominational in practice. I then kind of became ultra-reformed Calvinist for the years right before I became orthodox. So I've seen, you know, years and years of Protestantism.

Jeremy: 29:25

For me, being a Western Christian, I never was exposed to the saints, really anyone, except for, obviously, saint Paul, saint Andrew, saint John, right, I simply had no knowledge of them whatsoever. There is an East and West divide. I don't think you would disagree in terms of the church and how things are taught and you, as kind of an educator, where would you say that that history, austin, should come in, or ought it come in in a Protestant world? Would it benefit the Protestant world if they were learning about these lives of these modern saints, or even saints from the fourth century, seventh century, wherever it happens to be? Can you maybe give your perspective on that?

Austin Suggs: 30:15

Sure, yeah. So I mean I would certainly say that I think it benefits Protestants to think about the saints throughout time and I don't think that's necessarily an aberration or like a new thing for Protestantism. Maybe it's a recovered thing within Protestantism. For instance, like if you're, as you probably know, like if you're reading Calvin's institutes or you're reading like his preface he has that letter to the king of France in there and what he's essentially saying in the institutes is like, hey, we're not actually doing anything new, like the fathers are on our side. Now, whether people agree with that or not is, you know, neither here nor there for the point I'm making right now. But the the point for Calvin is that like he's not going away from the fathers, or at least for him, like the early fathers, let's say kind of the first four, five centuries he's actually seeing what he's doing as a recovery and so, while he might have a different view of the cult of the saints and I don't mean that in like a pejorative sense, but in the kind of academic sense of cult he would see himself as trying to kind of live in line, in alignment with the teaching of those saints. And so I think certainly like learning about the saints in terms of their teaching, all process would agree with, I think, even their lives.

Austin Suggs: 31:27

Now there was a big strain within kind of the reformation, of trying to I don't want to say demythologize, because that's kind of a later concept but there's this trying to strip away what they saw as kind of accretions to some of these stories. So if you were to read, say, like the um, uh, what's it called? It's uh, like the golden legend, uh and um, and like the medieval west, the kind of hagiography at the time, I think, for Luther and Calvin, they would see this as like okay, this isn't like based in history. We have these kind of crazy stories that are popping up and they might have started as kind of like pious additions to these stories, but they're getting out of control and it's kind of leading people astray, and so they had this idea of like, well, let's, let's not get too carried away. It's maybe not a bad impulse in some ways, but there are kind of secularizing tendencies within, something like that.

Austin Suggs: 32:18

So I would say that not only can pros and slearn from the teaching but also from the lives now getting like, getting to the bottom of the difference between like some hagiography and what might have actually happened.

Austin Suggs: 32:31

How everyone talk about that um can be difficult, but I do think we can benefit from um, the the witness of of holy lives of those who have gone before us as far as more modern today. I would say that while there are a lot of Protestants that have kind of a very narrow view of the church, it's not necessary to have that that they could have a more wide and expansive view of the church, uh, such to say that, you know, the saints in the west and in the east can be properly called saints, and there might be disagreement over kind of how technical of a term that is, which we could talk about or not. Um, but I think I think we all benefit from contemplating the lives of people who know God, who are holy and they're living in Orthodox and they're thinking, and that emulating that is only a good thing, and so the more examples of that that we can have, the better.

Nick: 33:26

As you have grown with your channel and grown in your perspective and and and in your journey, have you seen any like coming full circle with any of these concepts, with any of these ideas, where you know you kind of launch out into the deep end and you're like, OK, maybe not quite this far on these, you know, on this topic or this belief or so when you say full circle, meaning that I had maybe an uninformed opinion that went from kind of like I believed X but didn't have good reasons for it I learned more about it and then realized that actually I was right believing X and now I have good reasons for it.

Austin Suggs: 34:08

Is that what you mean?

Nick: 34:08

Yeah, yeah, along those lines. Yeah, that makes sense. It's kind of a broad question, I'm sorry.

Austin Suggs: 34:14

No, no, no, that's OK, I just wanted to make sure it. What if you were asking about kind of keeping the same opinion or changing my opinion? When you said full circle, I suppose full would be staying in the same place or at least reaching back to the same place. I mean, I suppose, like at the largest level, I'm still Protestant, which I think is somewhat of a surprise to me Maybe not as much of a surprise to me as to other people, but I would say it's probably a surprise to me. And so at kind of the macro level, that's probably the biggest one.

Austin Suggs: 34:43

I went through a period of like real angst over that, I'd say, predominantly when I was in college, feeling like I have to get this figured out now. And the channel was blowing up and I was coming across all these arguments kind of for the first time. And I think for a lot of people not all people, but a lot of people they kind of had that like first brush and that's when they end up kind of becoming a catechumen or going through RCIA or whatever, and I don't begrudge that at all. I think what happened with me was that a lot of people again, not all people but they begin hearing like they take in a lot of content from the orthodox side and have a. They hear a couple like critiques of Roman Catholicism from orthodox and it's kind of like the best of orthodoxy, with some sprinkling against Catholicism and a lot against Protestantism, and they're like, okay, this is what I got to do when they become orthodox and I think they probably lead great lives within that and it's good for their faith and so on and so forth. Same on the other side that you taken a ton of content from Roman Catholics and a little bit of Roman Catholic critique of Eastern Orthodox and a lot of Roman Catholic critique from Protestants. This is all assuming a Protestant starting place and you join RCIA, you become a Catholic and probably deepens your faith in its own way as well.

Austin Suggs: 35:54

For that change and kind of having to really take a step of faith in that way, I think what becomes difficult is when you really try to wait into both simultaneously as well, as not just kind of critique your own Protestantism but go deep within the history of Protestantism itself, kind of return to the sources of that. It's really complicated at that point and I think you know what happened for me was I didn't kind of do the fast track to any of those, but I began taking it a lot from all sides and I sometimes use or I haven't used it online yet, but I scripted out talking about it, it'll probably be in there. There's a term from kind of like atheist Christian dialogues of non-resistant non-believer and in some ways I feel that way about as a non-convert, like a non-resistant non-convert. I in many ways would probably prefer to be Orthodox or Catholic. I just haven't been fully convinced of the claims and so I remain Protestant, with, you know, having learned a lot more. But I guess I've come full circle in that way.

Nick: 37:00

Yeah, yeah, very interesting. I think that that's what I was trying to get at. I wanted to hear some of you know what's the inner struggle, what's the inner story and, like you said, you're surprised that you're still Protestant. So I was like you know what's going on? You know on those lines. So very interesting. Thank you for sharing my pleasure.

Jeremy: 37:19

Yeah, I appreciate very much. Your Nick mentioned humility and just kind of your sobriety. You know, as you approach these topics, you know, and your disclosure as well. Austin, you know you mentioned that you pray when you pray, you pray maybe sometimes in front of your icons or you know, however you do, that maybe have a special spot. That's kind of a special place to pray or sanctified place. I don't know how you I don't want to put words in your mouth- yeah, those are all good words.

Jeremy: 37:48

And you know that. You know, to my mind, there's a lot of family members I have. My dad is still a Presbyterian Calvinist, very kind of strictured, and you know he, he would look at that and he would say, oh, this is terrible. You know, literally, probably he would mount it to some sort of idolatry and so, and you know, as you know, there are some in a process that I think that way and and so I, I. It is very exciting to see you know your embrace of the faith in this way. You know, without this, you know kind of dogmatic on any real point in terms of you know, there's certainly. No, I don't sense a polemic in you, austin, and that's you know, and that's important. I think that's one reason why you maintain an audience that's one third you know of the Christianity and so that's, that's a beautiful thing. Could I?

Nick: 38:44

piggyback off of actually what you were just talking about, you know, talking about how your dad or maybe you know Protestants from you know other traditions and faiths not faiths, but you know practices, how the concept of even sacred space, right, would be a little like. Well, what are you talking about? God's everywhere, or so you know. I see that you have an emphasis on incarnational theology, you know, and how that the incarnation creates a more holistic view right of of spirituality and of our existence. Could you speak on that? Your take?

Austin Suggs: 39:29

Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure I have anything. You know ground well, maybe groundbreaking for someone, but it's certainly not new to me. But I would say that largely all of theology, I think, is kind of footnotes on the Trinity and the incarnation, that everything kind of flows out of that right. And so I suppose, as far as like the incarnation goes, there's various ways of looking at salvation. I think oftentimes in more recent Protestant conversations we have a focus on kind of like an external kind of transactional type of salvation, where salvation starts at the cross or maybe there as a reaction, and salvation is this gift that's given from God to us, kind of apart from us. But I think even a more properly Protestant but certainly a more properly patristic understanding would be that salvation really starts at the incarnation, that in taking on human flesh God is in Christ redeeming humanity from the inside out, and that you know it's a salvific experience, from kind of womb to tomb and beyond there. And so I think you know you could go to someone like Saint Gregory of Nazanus who says that what she has not assumed has not been healed, and so that's why we kind of need this very like a full incarnation, not just kind of taking on flesh as like an outer jacket that he took off, but actually like fully becoming man, which is why things like Cacodon are so important there. But yeah, I would say, you know, you could kind of echo as scandalous as it might sound, like a Saint Athanasius, and on the incarnation, where it says you know, god became man, that man might become God.

Austin Suggs: 41:10

Now that sounds like a lot, but I mean the basic idea here is this idea of union with Christ.

Austin Suggs: 41:15

Right, that God taking on human flesh and humanity, that humanity is then in union with God and that that is really what salvation is, is being in Christ. Again, as crazy as that might sound, when we go into the New Testament, like the most common word pairing you'll see is in Christ. And this isn't just to me at least, like an empty metaphor, but something very real that that union is the heart of our salvation. And I actually came across this like this is going to sound like something I only learned, maybe through Orthodoxy or Catholicism. I actually learned this through Calvin and through having studying under two really great Calvin scholars who did their PhD in this area on union with Christ. And you know for Calvin he would say that as long as Christ remains apart from us, all the gifts of salvation remain apart from us. That's book three, chapter one, I believe. But so, yeah, I would say that the incarnation is the foundation of salvation from the very beginning, and that's the means by which we are united to Christ, which is salvation.

Jeremy: 42:17

And then you know kind of you mentioned a couple of times in this conversation, austin, the kind of fortuitous you know timing of some of these questions with what you were doing this morning, etc. Another one of those is today happens to be Theophany in the Orthodox Church, which I'm sure you know, but maybe for your audience or our audience, excuse me is the baptism of Christ, which in Orthodoxy is obviously I mean, it is an important event and for so many reasons and as you say, you know, the incarnation of Christ is really kind of the foundational theology, capital T of all theology. I like how you put that the understanding in Orthodoxy of expanding the of what Theophany is, of what baptism is, is that Christ in you know, god in flesh, taking on humanity in every sense, right, fully God and fully man, that as he's baptized, he's in the waters, he's literally blessing the waters, right, even the waters become sanctified and you'll often see icons of the baptism of Christ, of Theophany, where you'll even see fish in the water, right, and the idea is that all these things, basically in essence all of creation, right, all of this physical reality that we experience, has all been touched by God in that sense, and I think you know it's a beautiful concept and you know Nick had asked about that kind of say sanctified spaces, sacred places, and it's exciting to see that. You know, you are experiencing that in your own life and even seeing these touched on in Calvin. You know there is, there is a beauty there and there's a recognition there.

Jeremy: 44:12

No doubt, you know, within all the Christianity, you know, despite what, what flavor or tradition you may be practicing and I think where I'm going with this, austin, my question for you is is, with this incarnation, with this touching of reality, is that experienced in the day in, day out? Do you believe that that it's experienced more in a sacred place, in a church, in a monastery, places you've experienced and been? How do you kind of meet that out in your own life in terms of, shall we say, uniting with Christ?

Austin Suggs: 44:59

Yeah, it's a good question and it kind of gets into some of the like Well, we don't need to get too into the weeds here, but like how God is experienced in our life, which I think can be quite varied, but also has, you know, some commonalities between people. I would say that, generally speaking, there are places that you could describe, or some people might call, as like thin spaces or sacred spaces, or places where the where it seems easier to encounter God, where that kind of what, however contrived it is, like that separation between our day to day lives in the spiritual realm just seems a bit thinner, that it seems that there's easier access to God in whatever way there. I do believe that that is the case. Why that is? I think there's probably multiple factors going into that. I think there is kind of like a sacramental nature to reality there, where we have the spirit of God kind of like infusing these kind of like physical spaces. I think there's also something in being in a place where so many other people have experienced God, which can be both in a spiritual sense, probably also in somewhat of like a socio psychological sense as well, which I don't think is a bad thing that those things could overlap and I think so. I do think that's possible. I will say, like in my experiences going to monasteries or in really beautiful churches, like there is that sense of the sacred, some of which is done through things like light and architecture, some of which is harder to explain through kind of physical or psychological or sociological lenses, and I think we can explain them through more kind of like spiritual senses.

Austin Suggs: 46:48

I want to say I don't think that's like the exclusion of a single mother experiencing God in a deep way, but when she's like prayerfully washing the dishes and the babies crying, like I think there's a sense in which places are sacred through events that have happened there, through the experiences of many people there.

Austin Suggs: 47:10

But I think we can also kind of actively make things you know, spaces in our home more sacred through our own intention and attention and repetition of rituals in those places. And so like for me, like this little square on my carpet here where I've got some icons and a candle in my Bible and prayer books there, like through consistently engaging in that place in a headspace, like through again those kind of elements of attention, like being attentive to the presence of God there, that intention of like setting us the commitment to like I am here to encounter God, and repetition of like doing it consistently, it can become kind of a sacred space for you. And so I would say you know, there's somewhat of like the ontological, maybe nature of a space that can have that, but also maybe our subjective creating of that space. Kind of a convoluted answer, I suppose, but hopefully that's helpful. Yeah, that's very helpful.

Nick: 48:02

Beautiful it's that, you know. Going back to the etymology, right, it's set aside, right, and the ways in which it's set aside in many ways are multifaceted. God's blessing the people working in it, the experiences, like you said, there's nothing wrong with there being an aspect of a socio, socio how did you put it? Psychological, yeah, you know. And social aspect, you know, it's like when I hear atheists say, you know, oh, there's just a religious aspect of your mind and when you have a religious experience, it's your mind. It's like we are, you know, we are spiritual and physical beings. Of course, if we have a spiritual experience, it shouldn't be a surprise. If you know, there's brain analysis that shows that something's going on to us in our matter. So thank you for speaking on that.

Jeremy: 48:53

Absolutely.

Austin Suggs: 48:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Jeremy: 48:55

You know, austin, as we start coming to the close of this conversation today, you said something a few minutes ago when you were answering Nick's question about the, you know, sacred sanctity and sacred spaces. You said that you didn't have anything necessarily groundbreaking to say, and then you kind of qualified, you said, well, maybe it's groundbreaking for someone. When we talked about having this conversation several weeks ago over email, we talked about maybe discussing evangelism and the Internet. Right, you have a podcast, we have a podcast. We are, you know, by God's grace, hopefully to some extent bringing edifying content to, to the world through the Internet. And I love how you put that.

Jeremy: 49:43

Maybe groundbreaking for someone, because I really think, at least in speaking for myself, that's kind of the heart of it, isn't it Right? I am nobody, I'm a nobody and, by God's grace, I hope maybe to stay a nobody, but maybe something said today, whether by you or me or Nick, will be groundbreaking for someone. And so I just I really appreciate that and I want to kind of put this in your lap in terms of can you say more about that? Right? How is it that there's this juxtaposition and this intersection between the lived Christian experience, theology, the history of the church, all these things. And yet here we are, three men talking over a Zoom call on the Internet. Can you just talk about that?

Austin Suggs: 50:38

Sure, it is a weighty thing. You know, I've been lucky enough to have, I suppose, some level of success on YouTube and I don't know what the exact numbers are now, but I think it's over like five million people have seen my videos at this point, which is kind of hard to wrap my head around. In a lot of ways, that's a lot of people, right, and at any other time in human history it would have been very, very difficult to talk to five million people, right? I mean, we can think in this context of this conversation, like all these incredible saints that have gone before us that never talk to a fraction of those people, and so that can be at its worst, maybe a pride inflating thing where we see that and that's like, oh, I must be really special, but we're not. We just happen to have people that listen to us occasionally. So I think you know that idea of groundbreaking for someone. We make this content, right. You guys make content on your channel, I make content on my channel, and the danger is that it becomes this thing that we just do and we don't think much of it, and it's easy to feel like that because I'm just sitting in my messy office I mean it's messy on this side of the camera making videos talking to a camera. I put a couple of buttons, it goes up on the internet and that's all I really experienced. I don't see all of these thousands of people sitting in front of me talking to them like I would if I was sitting in a stadium, and so it can feel nonchalant.

Austin Suggs: 52:06

And I think we want to kind of balance two things, which I think is also what we want to balance in our spiritual life in a lot of ways. One, realizing that, like what we're doing, we're not that special. There are sometimes the way I put it to people is like, in the grand scheme of things, like we're kind of cosmically insignificant and at the same time you are so loved that the God of the universe took on human flesh and died for you. And if we can hold those two things at all times in our spiritual life, I think that's a really powerful thing. Like you're kind of cosmically insignificant and God like also sent his son to die for you. And I think in the same way we take that like with our content making right, like, on the one hand, like I'm just some dude talking to a camera, and that's really like. I try to share my thoughts in a way that's helpful, but like I'm a dude talking into a camera, but in another way.

Austin Suggs: 52:58

By God's grace, I have this opportunity to communicate with more people than has been humanly possible for most of 99.9% of human existence and, through some mysterious ways, the words that I share can inspire people to make life altering decisions. Like I said, when I get messages from people that like hey, your channel caused me to become Catholic or Orthodox or Stay Protestant or whatever, like, those are some of the biggest decisions those people will make in their life and in some way this content had an impact on that. And so I think you know the prayer always should be, before making content that there would be glorifying to God, that would be helpful to someone, and, while recognizing that what I'm saying isn't groundbreaking, in the grand scheme of things, like, no one's going to give you a Nobel Prize for regurgitating some information from good books. It could be just the information that someone needed to hear at a certain time, given what's going on in their life or the things that they're wrestling with, that makes them realize they're not the only one asking these questions, that their questions matter, that there's good information out there and that information could help them change their lives.

Austin Suggs: 54:08

And that's a crazy thing. And so I think you know we go forward with fear and trembling, but pray that you know the feeble offering that we have might mean something I've used in the past the feeling like I'm the little kid that comes to Jesus with, like, was it a two fish and five loaves or however many? Right, you've got just a little bit. It's like I've got my stumbling words, but somehow it's been multiplied to feed, I suppose, millions of people at this point. And you know, just recognizing that both of those things can be true, but ultimately, the good that comes from it I can't take credit for, but I can for all the shortcomings.

Jeremy: 54:52

Austin, we're going to give you the last word today, but I just want to say that you know, may God continue to bless you, to bless your wife Eliza. You know what you're doing is truly you know, with all these things being said, I'm not trying to puff you up, but just you know it is a major voice out there, right In this internet. And, as Nick was talking about, one reason we got a lot of witnesses started is I think it was Peter Hears who actually said you know, the demons are going to invade the internet, right? So and Nick, you probably can say it better than me but so why not combat it with some actual Christian content, right? If there's a vacuum there, it's going to be filled. So maybe let's fill it with Christian content.

Jeremy: 55:43

So I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart of you taking your time today to join us in this conversation. It's been, it's been a great conversation. I hope our audience is edified by it as well. Would you let our audience know, you know where can they find you, and maybe just some closing thoughts. You know what are, what are your goals for 2024? Where are you looking at and what would you like our audience to be left with after today's conversation.

Austin Suggs: 56:10

Sure, and thank you guys so much for having me.

Austin Suggs: 56:12

If people want to find me online, they can search gospel simplicity and come up on the various platforms and such, but the place I'm most active is on YouTube.

Austin Suggs: 56:24

Here I do have a podcast and various and sundry things, but YouTube is the best way to find me and so if people enjoy what I've had to say today, they might enjoy some of that content as well.

Austin Suggs: 56:35

As far as closing words, you know, I just love the promise of your channel of, you know, introducing people to the saints that have gone before us, and I think maybe my recommendation for people listening to this would be to spend more time thinking about the saints and reading about the saints and engaging with the saints Then they do my own content or other things on the internet and to just keep keep in mind what's really most important. So I hope that engaging with videos like mine are helpful to them. But I think we can all remember that what we're doing is far more than you know being big on YouTube or learning some things, but hopefully, in the manner of the saints, we're learning to follow after Christ as best we can, when, even with all the stumbling and skinning our knees and getting back up again, but that we can just keep moving forward and recognize that there's a whole lot of people cheering us on and that and supporting us on our journey.

Nick: 57:30

Amen. Thank you so much, amen. Thank you so much, austin.

Jeremy: 57:34

God bless, you, god bless.