Cloud of Witnesses Radio
Audio drama retellings of the stories of the Christian Saints, Panel Discussions, Cast Commentary, Reaction Videos, Screwtape Returns, and more!
Cloud of Witnesses Radio
Wrestling with Tradition: Discovering Christ Through Ancient Worship | Christian Couple Finds Church
Finding Authentic Christian Worship: A Journey Through History, Tradition, and Faith
The search for authentic Christian worship often begins with a simple but profound question: “Is this how the apostles worshipped?”
In this special Cloud of Witnesses (https://www.patreon.com/c/CloudofWitnesses) mini-episode, our guest hosts, Ben and Ashley Langlois—Ben known online as Orthodox Luigi—invite us into their personal journey of wrestling with that very question. As a husband-and-wife team, their perspectives bring a unique richness to the conversation: Ben shares from his theological study and exploration of history, while Ashley offers a heartfelt and distinctly feminine perspective on what it means to seek beauty, meaning, and belonging within the Body of Christ.
Raised in contemporary Protestant settings, they began to sense subtle but growing tensions during worship: as guitars played, lights dimmed, and emotions ran high, they couldn’t shake the feeling that something essential was missing. Were coffee shops, branded merchandise, and high-energy worship experiences truly what Christ intended for His Church?
This questioning sparked a spiritual journey that led them through seven different churches, eventually settling for online services when no physical community seemed to reflect the fullness they longed for. Along the way, family connections played an important role. Brothers who were exploring Catholic and Orthodox traditions introduced Ben and Ashley to writings from the Church Fathers and early Christian practices that challenged many modern assumptions.
Some discoveries were unexpected—like learning that Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, leaders of the Protestant Reformation, all practiced infant baptism, a tradition many evangelical churches have set aside. For Ashley, these realizations opened new questions about how faith traditions shape the spiritual life of families and the formative role of women in the Church.
Their journey eventually brought them to a Presbyterian congregation that offered what they call “pseudo-tradition”—wooden pews, touches of liturgy, and references to early writers. Yet, as Ashley shares, there was still a lingering sense of longing: the beauty was there, but the roots felt incomplete. Exploring historically grounded Protestant traditions like Anglicanism and Lutheranism only deepened this tension, as they often discovered a paradox—churches with the richest liturgical practices frequently embraced the most progressive theology, raising concerns about spiritual and doctrinal stability.
Through prayer, study, and reflection, Ben and Ashley’s path eventually led them to Eastern Orthodoxy, where they encountered a faith deeply rooted in apostolic succession, ancient liturgies, and a vision of salvation as a lifelong journey of transformation in Christ. Ashley speaks to how Orthodoxy’s reverence, beauty, and communal worship resonated with her desire for a faith that engages not just the mind, but the heart and the senses—inviting the whole person into relationship with God.
This is more than a story about leaving one church for another—it’s about the deeper longing many Christians feel today: to encounter something enduring, rooted, and unchanging in a rapidly shifting world.
Entire uncut, unedited conversation between Ben and Ashley available now on our Patreon!
Visit Cloud of Witnesses Radio: https://cloudofwitnessesradio.com/
Questions about Orthodoxy? Please check out our friends at Ghost of Byzantium Discord server: https://discord.gg/JDJDQw6tdh
Please prayerfully consider supporting Cloud of Witnesses Radio: https://www.patreon.com/c/CloudofWitnesses
Find Cloud of Witnesses Radio on Instagram, X.com, Facebook, and TikTok.
Please leave a comment with your thoughts!
I briefly looked into Anglicanism and Lutheranism In fact remember I was getting ready to potentially go to seminary even. Yeah, I remember that and the biggest red flag for me was just how overrun these high church Protestant churches are with progressivism. Yeah, and you know, this is something that I think a lot of people come to realize when they start to get more and more high church. They're like why is it that all the highest Protestant churches, like Lutheranism, the Methodist Church, anglicanism, they're all the most overrun with progressivism? That's a red flag, you know. You will know them by their fruits.
Speaker 2:I thank you for being here. Don't forget to click that subscribe button. Please give us a thumbs up if you do enjoy this content and click that bell. You'll get notifications of all of our new content immediately. A lot coming your way, and please prayerfully consider becoming one of our Patreons. You'll get exclusive access to uncut, unedited complete episodes, as well as early access to all of our content. Thank you so much and we hope you enjoy the rest of this video.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about you know kind of where we were at in you know 2022, 2023 timeframe. So I was, I was deployed in 2022 studying church history and you know your brother was still on this journey. He was, you know, in the Roman Catholic church. Your parents started heading that direction too.
Speaker 3:A little after.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little after that, and so you were living at home up until you know. Obviously, we got married in early 2023. Yeah, and so at this point we were both kind of already asking questions, right when you and I got married in February of 23.
Speaker 3:I feel like I started asking questions before we got married. It was I don't know if it was when you were deployed or when we were definitely engaged, but I remember being at that non-denominational church.
Speaker 3:I don't even know if my brother was at the Catholic church yet or if he was just attending the Presbyterian church, but my whole family was still non-denominational at this point and I just remember there was this distinct moment and I have no clue why it sparked in my mind, but it just is like you know, god just kind of was tapping on the light bulb again in my head and I remember like the worship music was playing. It was very emotional and I was already kind of this was at which church the non-denominational church.
Speaker 1:That your parents were going to, or the one that we were going to.
Speaker 3:Before we got married so my family was going to this. Besides my brother and I was just I don't know. It's like every. The music was going on and I just started asking questions like I wonder if this is the peak of christianity in america is it protestantism?
Speaker 3:you know that changes and every church is different and you just have to keep hunting Because at this point, after we left our Baptist church, we had been to like seven different churches. We eventually were doing, you know, church online on, doing TV church, because we just couldn't find a place, and so that was the first question I asked. And then you know it was like, is this the same faith? You know that that the apostles had, like I remember asking that question like, is this how the apostles worshiped? And I don't believe that. I don't believe they had their guitars and their tears and their Hillsong.
Speaker 1:You, know their coffee shop their coffee shop you know, $50, you know branded t-shirts.
Speaker 3:I just didn't think that that was, that was the roots, you know, the root of the church. And so, um, you know, I, I, after that, I started wondering you know, how did we get so far? Um, and then, you know, I asked those questions. I had that uncomfortable feeling in my chest of of, you know, just overwhelm of, oh my gosh, I need to start learning everything. Thank God I have men in my life who are, you know, kind of make the process easier.
Speaker 1:At that point it was mainly your brother.
Speaker 3:Well, my brother and I know my dad was asking questions too. And I have another brother who was really really big into history, so he was kind of the little ortho bro before.
Speaker 1:Before anybody else.
Speaker 3:Before anybody else officially, when my family took that detour into Catholicism, yeah, which was only about like a year and a half, yeah. He was like die hard yeah.
Speaker 1:He's the unsung hero of this whole thing is because he would. He would send all of us like all this orthodox propaganda, like he would send us like orthodox 200, like gigabyte file of memes while we were protestant, or like yeah, your parents, yeah, we were like you know still acquiring into what's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, so, um, so we can kind of pick it up when. So when we in 2023, you know we got, we got married and I was going to a non-denominational reformed ish church and you know I didn't at that time, you know I didn't, I didn't really see, I didn't feel uncomfortable with that church at that point yet and in that early 2023 time frame.
Speaker 3:But, but you expressed some things to me, yeah, I don't remember everything I expressed to you, but some things do come to mind. I mean, the people there were really great, which you'll find that at most Protestant churches, community is the center of the church, aside from the Bible and the gospel, but community is like the ultimate priority in Protestant churches, I feel like. So the people were great, but you know, the flip-flops and board shorts on stage were a little off-putting. The gluten-free communion was a little off-putting, aside from the you know, emotional music. I did think it was weird that we I'm like, if this is supposed to be the Eucharist which we didn't call it that but if it's supposed to be communion, then why is it gluten-free? Like wouldn't this be a holy thing? So those were kind of the things and I think I still had those questions in the back of my head that this just isn't you know how the apostles.
Speaker 3:This is not the faith that Christ left us. Or at least the church. It's remnants of the faith, but it wasn't the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so that kind of, you know, I started to get on board with that, as I was, as I was in, you know, continuing in my church history journey, I started to realize how, how a historical, you know, a church like that truly is. You know, particularly, you brought up the sacraments, you know, particularly the E eucharist, um, you know, and just the way that it's gone about, I don't think they mean to do it in a disrespectful way, um, but you know, you put it, you put it very elegantly, you know, and it is, it is, you know, at the end of the day, you know, um, it is disrespectful, obviously, to the sacraments and and and not, it's not even aligned with the way the reformers viewed the sacraments. And this is, this was actually the first thing, um, in some ways, this was the first domino to fall for me as far as leaving protestantism was what did the reformers themselves teach, right, um, and if you remember, it was infant baptism, remember, um, you know that was really why we became Presbyterian.
Speaker 3:Well, that's another thing. My brother pushed us on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:He's like you need to baptize babies, and I'm like I'm married, you need to talk to my husband.
Speaker 1:But God was simultaneously working on me with that particular issue, that was the and I think for a lot of people, infant baptism. In some, in many ways, is that first domino, Because it's like, OK, gosh, you know, every reformer believed in infant baptism. Luther, Calvin, even Zwingli believed in infant baptism. And so I was looking at that and I was like man, like what, what are we doing here? Like not even the reformers agree with us. The reformers agree with us and if you remember, we were on a road trip and I was listening to the John MacArthur RC Sproul debate on infant baptism RC Sproul obviously was in favor of infant baptism.
Speaker 1:John MacArthur was opposed to it, um, so that was why we became. That was why we became, uh, presbyterian Um, and you know, talk about maybe like what was your kind of experience at first at the Presbyterian church? Cause we were, we liked it a lot at first when we were, when we got there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, again, you know, community there was probably the best I've ever experienced, compared to all of the other Protestant churches I've ever been to. Um, I think the size had to do with that, but I think what I also really liked is when you walked in. It felt very traditional from a Protestant perspective. You know some of the older generations, they might say, or even younger generations, they might say it's kind of, you know, was a little dusty, but it, you know it had the beautiful creaking wood floors and the pews and our pastor wore their version of the liturgical garments. So there were a lot of remnants of tradition for the Protestant faith. I liked that. They called it, didn't they call it like a homily? Yeah, yeah, it was like a homily.
Speaker 1:They would sing the Trisagion, the.
Speaker 3:Trisagion, the Nicene Creed.
Speaker 1:I remember Pastor Adriel. He's awesome, by the way, and he really holds to tradition as much as the PCA allows him to. He has a very high view of tradition and the first sermon he gave that we were there for he quoted St Augustine, and so you know I was like. I was stoked about that. Yeah, when we got there I was like let's go. You know, quote St Augustine so yeah, so you know, we really enjoyed, you know, especially at first.
Speaker 3:And they also have like icon, like pictures on the pamphlets that they'd hand out. So that was also something. And then they had the stained glass with which it was a, wasn't it autheran church yeah, yeah, they were using. I don't think they were supposed to have you know, operate in a building with.
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny because it was beautiful, yeah it's funny because there's actually in the church there's a, there's a big icon, yeah, in the back, which is which?
Speaker 3:is funny traditional.
Speaker 1:Traditional presbyterians are. No, I'm talking about the icon that was in the back of the church oh gosh, I don't know that. And traditional presbyterians are no, I'm talking about the icon that was in the back of the church oh gosh, I don't remember that, and traditional Presbyterians are iconoclastic, but because it's a Lutheran church that they were operating in yeah, so we really got as close as we could, I know you entertained.
Speaker 3:Anglicanism for like a tiny bit but then that was, we just couldn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were just creeping, you know, higher and higher church. And I think you know I I distinctly remember we were out to dinner one day I don't know if you remember this, it was. We were at our favorite Italian restaurant, okay, and and you, I remember you using the term pseudo tradition Like that was what you felt like this church was. It was like they were, it was like it's they're trying to have tradition, but it's a pseudo tradition. Um, and this was about six months in, we were confessional presbyterians at this point um, and it just it was like close right, but it like it just wasn't yeah it wasn't everything that we were looking for yeah um, and yeah mean just briefly on the Anglican thing.
Speaker 1:You know, I briefly looked into Anglicanism and Lutheranism. In fact, remember, I was getting ready to potentially go to seminary, even.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1:And the biggest red flag for me was just how overrun these high church Protestant churches are with progressivism. Yeah, and you know, this is something that I think a lot of people come to realize when they start to get more and more high church. They're like why is it that all the highest Protestant churches, like Lutheranism, the Methodist Church, anglicanism, they're all the most overrun with progressivism? That's a red flag, you know. You will know them by their fruits, right, and so that was. That was a huge red flag for me.