How Ancient Christianity Understands Salvation: Why Orthodoxy Is Drawing Christians Seeking Depth

“What kind of God do we serve if grace can’t overflow?” Father Lawrence unpacks icons, theosis as healing, and why generosity beats gatekeeping.

We explore why icons shape the heart, how salvation heals more than it acquits, and why liturgy needs clarity, reverence, and real preaching. We talk about gracious ecumenism, creativity born from humility, and fiction that nourishes Christian hope.

• icons as aids to healthy love and memory
• salvation as healing of the heart, not only pardon
• liturgical renewal and frequent communion
• sermons placed to meet the Gospel
• graciousness toward non-Orthodox and grace beyond boundaries
• tradition and the Holy Spirit held together
• humility, craft, and joy as signs of true creativity
• fiction shaping imagination, grief, and hope

What if salvation is not a verdict to file away, but a lifelong healing of the heart? That’s the thread we pull through this conversation with Father Lawrence as we explore icons, liturgy, theosis, and the generous reach of God’s grace. Using the simple image of a grandmother’s photo wall, we unpack why icons matter: not as magic, but as love’s memory, training our hearts to recognize Christ and his saints in daily life.

From there we widen the lens. Salvation, in the New Testament sense, is rescue and restoration—God mending what sin has bent. Father Lawrence speaks pastorally about how forgiveness without transformation leaves homes fractured, and why theosis means becoming who God made us to be through real change of mind and desire. That vision drives us back into the church’s worship: preaching that truly follows the Gospel, frequent Communion received with reverence, and language that people can understand. Liturgy is not background noise; it is the clinic where the Physician of souls meets us.

We also face a charged question with clear eyes: does grace exist outside Orthodoxy? Father Lawrence answers with confidence and humility—God is not boxed by our boundaries. We honor the church as the fullness of faith while recognizing Christ’s work in sincere believers elsewhere, refusing the false choice between tradition and the Holy Spirit. Finally, we turn to creativity and culture. Humility and craft open the door for art that serves truth, while good fiction—think Tolkien and Lewis—can carry hope through grief and awaken courage for the road ahead.

If this conversation sparked insight or challenged your assumptions, share it with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful episodes, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Can Orthodoxy hold tradition and the Holy Spirit together? Father Lawrence says yes—and shows how liturgy, art, and fiction shape the heart. Stream the episode and weigh in: what nourishes your faith the most?

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Transcript

Welcome And Icon Analogy

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So you should really fast with the exception of other witnesses. Don't forget. Could you say more loudly insignificant circumstances? Schwimmen would have said, that is the joke would have said. 1560. Starting in which you do need to use no. Oh, whatever. If they've got good luck trying to get rid of them. So what can we learn from the United Church of Canada? The Orthodox Church is not a box in which you put God. It is the body of Christ, but the grace of God is such that it overflows, it overflows the boundaries.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Jeremy Jeremiah here at Cloud of Witnesses, another great conversation with Father Lawrence. Remember, click that bell. Please like this video if you do. Leave your thoughts down below, and we really hope to see you at the end.

Do We Need Icons To Pray

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Enjoy. Shouldn't you worship Jesus the way that the apostles would want you to? I mean, that's the that's the question. So um so the question isn't, can you do it? Of course you can do it. You know, if if you if you don't, if if it'll if it dropped, if you're stranded on a desert island and you don't have an icon, you can still say your prayers. You don't need icons to pray. But if you're going to be have a healthy life, you know, it's like in explaining icons. I'd say, why do you have icons? Ask your grandma why she has pictures of her family on her walls. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Because that's why we have icons. Does she need them? Can she have family without the pictures on the walls? Yes, she can. But if you're going to have a healthy relationship and she's a normal grandma, there will be pictures of the grandchildren. You know, and her husband enters handsome in his army uniform and the kids, all that stuff. They'll be on the walls because family is important. And such is the human heart that you we are comforted by pictures of our family. I would say to if you got if there's some guy you're you're married or you got a girlfriend, do you have your wife's picture in your in your wallet? Yes. Why? Do you need a picture in the wallet? No. But you got one, yeah. Would you be without one?

unknown 2:19

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

That's the answer. Because that's how the human heart works. That's how family works. Beautiful. So so um it's not a matter of can I do it without it? It's a matter of what is the what is the what is the healthy human apostolic thing to do.

Healthy Worship And Apostolic Practice

SPEAKER_02 2:36

How do we uh we because we have so many coming into the church for the first time, what's the best way to um frame for newcomers? Uh what's the best lens for newcomers to understand the divine liturgy?

Entering Liturgy With A Hungry Heart

Salvation As Healing Of The Heart

SPEAKER_01 2:51

But I said, what do I need to bring? You need to bring an open and hungry heart. You know, you say, well, do you don't need you say, do I do it? Do I need to read some books? Sure. But you don't need to. What you need is a thirst for God. What you need is a hunger for the truth. And if you don't have that, it almost doesn't matter whether or not you're reading books or what's on your back, come to that. You need it's it's about because orthodoxy is about the transformation and healing of the heart, theosis is is about is about the healing of the human heart. You the problem isn't just that you're guilty. That that too. But the the problem is that you're an idiot and you're and you're making people around you upset. You say, Well, I have the I have I have the blood of Christ, that that's all I need. Listen, I'm telling you, the wife thinks otherwise. If you're an annoying person, she'll say, Is it's all I need to be forgiven? And and the blood of Christ, the wife will tell you, if she loves you, you should stop being an idiot. Stop being a forgiving father, that's great. Blah, blah, blah. In other words, the healing of the heart's important. Uh so I mean, will will God will will God let you into the kingdom if you're if you're an idiotic husband. Yeah, I guess he will. But when you get in there, he's gonna have a few things to say to you that you wish that he wouldn't. So maybe fix it up now. So the the theosis, uh fancy word, maybe um less helpful than it might be, um, is to is uh means that salvation is more than just being declared not guilty. Salvation means healing. And in fact, the word so in the Greek uh to save, um, is is you know, when when our Lord healed somebody physically, he said, you know, they you know, they were saved that very moment. You know, in other words, healed. So and so is uh sutania, uh salvation, and that's the noun. Um and and and healing, they're much um uh aligned. There we are, it's it's it it's the same thing looked at from another another point of view. So salvation is not just a matter of saying, um, I now have my ecclesiastical or celestial fire church in place, I'm not gonna go to hell. Okay, oh, it's good. But there's more to it than that. God didn't just not want you to go to hell, he wants to heal you from the inside out, he wants you to be the person that he created you to be, the person that deep down inside you want to be. You're working on it and you can't pull that off, as Paul says in Romans 11, but you want to. And salvation says, well, eventually I will. No, but surely you want to, you want to be the person, you know, that someone said that that your dog thinks that you are, possibly, you know, that sort of stuff. You know so you you our hearts demand this healing. And that's what that's what salvation is, or theosis, if you like.

Theosis Beyond “Not Guilty”

SPEAKER_03 6:02

What are some of the things that concern you, you know, in terms of from a pastoral perspective, things that Orthodox, maybe overzealous Orthodox, maybe new Orthodox, maybe very old Orthodox. You know, what are some of the pitfalls that you've seen over the course of your um practice in the priesthood that that you think is maybe even coming up more now?

Liturgical Pitfalls And Preaching

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah. I would identify two, one liturgical and one ecumenical, to use the labels. Um uh when I was uh first beginning my reflex ministry in 1986, 1987, uh, one thing they brought me into the church was reading Father Alexander Schmerman and the gang. It wasn't just him as the guru, it was him as almost as the prophet. It's the voice crying in the wilderness, to saying that here's the vision. There's there's something that the Orthodox are not doing as well as they could. In other words, the Orthodox are not being as Orthodox as they should be, you know, there's stuff, you know, you're receiving Holy Communion once a year, you know. That's liturgically, you're you're preaching a sermon at the end of the service, not after the gospel, because you know, it's just a sermon, you know, that and the announcements about you know uh coffee hour or something, I guess. Well, you know, you know, I remember when I was at when seminary was short and made nameless back then. It's changed now. So um, but they had on this on the Sunday, they got the uh they got the students to preach, because you know, you want to give them give them practice, and their time that they would preach was during the clergy communion. Can't make this up, you know? It's a filler. Wow. So you have a five-minute sermon during the clergy communion. And I thought, could you find, could you could you say more loudly how insignificant the sermon was? So Schmemen would have said, not to say John Chrysosta would have said, this needs fixing. So Shemon is the prophet was able to say, as prophets do, certain things in Orthodoxy need fixing, liturgically or pastorally, or whatever you want to say. Our faith is expressed liturgically, so he had lots of liturgical things to say. Um he was he was saying, as an historian, that certain things that have affected the Westly have affected the east badly as well. We're not immune. There wasn't some sort of, I don't know, Berlin wall going from east to west until they could get through, you know, that sort of stuff. So very good. So he was prepared to say, here's the real tradition, here's our history, here's what, and and here's how we could be more faithful and true to that. And it was that vision that excited me and my generation. I mean, I could give you the list of all the oldsters like me. Many few have retired, lots have died in many ways, you know, the last man standing sort of a thing, and in my class. But I mean, um, but we're all excited about this uh Schmeman's vision that he gave us, and we could say we can we can return to first principles, you know. We're starting, we're starting, you mentioned it. Do we need pews? No, you know, whatever. I mean, that sort of stuff. Uh, if they if they got them, good luck trying to get rid of them.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

So Father, we we uh we can't get into that topic, it'll be a little too touchy.

Returning To First Principles

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Absolutely. But but the but the point is, Sperman said, guys, you you could go back to first principles, you know. When should you preach the sermon? What how often should you receive Holy Communion? What does it mean? Is it just a requirement so that you can vote at the AGM, which is how it very often was for those things, you know? Should it should it all be in Slovakic that nobody understands? So stuff like that. So um the other, so and it seems as if we have retreated from that at least a little bit in spots. And I think that we are we are the poorer for the retreat. The other thing is that in the in the in those days where uh giants walked the earth like Schmeman and Florovsky, um, the the the church didn't seem to be as cranky as it is now, you know? Where there was a uh Kurs uh uh Florovsky was instrumental in the in the creation of the World Council of Churches, admittedly. The World Council of Churches now is a lot wackier than it used to be way back then when it started. But there wasn't a uh there was uh in those days with Florosky and Schwemen and also other people, there was uh uh a graciousness about orthodoxy. They weren't, they weren't, we weren't always picking a fight. We weren't always trying to say, what's wrong with you and what's wrong with you? And you know, we didn't have these absurd memes uh haunting Facebook about, you know, that we're so better than all these other guys. There was, like I said, a graciousness of spirit. Um uh we it still said, look, we're the church and you're in schism, and that's kind of you know, but we but but but we can still talk. We we we weren't having these long discussions about is there any grace outside the about the about the boundaries of orthodoxy? Of course there is. Why can you open your eyes? It's there to see. So so this was the and again, I my my fear is that we are perhaps retreating from that graciousness of spirit, that openness and love and humility from our brothers, to say, you know, um, is there anything that we can learn from somebody else? If there, you know, what can we learn from, I don't know, uh the United Church of Canada? Probably nothing.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

But but what did they not encounter God or the Holy Spirit until they came into the Orthodox Church? Or was was that experience leading them, even some of them who are still in there, you know?

Graciousness In Ecumenical Encounters

Grace Outside Orthodoxy

SPEAKER_01 12:03

I would that's a that's a very good question and an important pastoral question. Uh Florovsky would say, I'm gonna bring in the big kids, you know, I would say that you absolutely experience the presence of Christ outside the Orthodox Church. Why? Because the Orthodox Church is not a box in which you put God, that it is, it is the body, it is the body of Christ, but the grace of God is such that it overflows, it overflows the boundaries. So that if you're gonna say, I thought it it it ultimately comes down to a basic question of what kind of God do you think it is that you serve. So if you're gonna say, okay, let's find some of it. Billy Graham, okay? Billy Graham was a devout person, wanted to uh very much evangelical, you know, but he was he was open to orthodoxy, goes to Russia, and got all sorts of flack for it for preaching in the Russian churches. Um but he was very much an evangelical Protestant. If you're going to say that Billy Graham has never been born again or experienced the grace of God or been touched by God or whatever way you want to phrase it like that, he did not know the grace of God. It was all just, you know, uh there's undifferentiated darkness outside the boundaries of the Orthodox Church. You know, if that's what you're gonna say, that no one really experienced the grace of God until you come to the Orthodox Church. I thought, what kind of so are you suggesting, therefore, that Billy Graham's gonna stand before the Lord on the last day and say, Lord, I love you so much. I've served you my whole life, my desire has been to see your face. Are you suggesting that that the Lord's gonna say, sorry, you are going to hell because you picked the wrong denomination? And I thought, pick the wrong denomination. He was born into evangelicalism, he didn't pick it like he would pick something off a menu in a restaurant. That was how else can you possibly find orthodoxy, especially in that day? The orthodox person, you know, but they're speaking Greek, Slavonic, Userbian, God is what they they weren't talking to him. The presence of the love of and uh heartwarming grace of Christ that I knew as a charismatic, you found them both in orthodoxy, perfectly synthesized, perfectly blended, perfectly combined. Um uh so it wasn't a binary, but which is it? Is it is it is it tradition or the Holy Spirit? No, it's both. That that dichotomy was overcome in the church. That's how I knew I was home. Yeah, so I don't I don't have to choose in Orthodoxy, you can have it all.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

Yeah. Yeah, thank you for expounding on that because it is, it's a very important point. Um, all of us here, you know, we still have a lot of friends and family who are currently Protestant um or andor Catholic, um, come from various traditional backgrounds. My father, you've mentioned tonight, uh Father Lawrence, a couple of times, my father happens to be Orthodox Presbyterian. Um so I I get it. Uh, and it is important because it's interesting, it comes up so often in conversations with our, especially with our Protestant brothers and sisters, that when orthodoxy is brought up, I hear almost inevitably, oh, so you're saying that I'm not saved. I know. And and I want to go back all the time and say it's it's not that you're not saved. I've got every belief and hope uh that I'm gonna see my family in heaven someday. But but there's still something missing, right? And that missing is the fullness of faith. Please, Father.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Part of the problem is maybe is that um in evangelicalism, that you it's this idea of the invisible church in the sense that as soon as you say the sinner's prayer, you ask Jesus in your heart, you receive Christ, or whatever way you want to phrase it, your name is written in heaven, and you are now a part of the church. It's invisible in the sense that it's in heaven, and I can't see it from here, but I mean it's the but you're a part of the church by virtue of being saved. It's the same thing. So um you you might not have found the Baptist church down the road, but you're still part of the church. You go to a church because it's helpful, but you're part of the church either way. So most evangelicals that I talked to would say, even if you stop going to a church, you're still part of the church.

Tradition And Holy Spirit Together

SPEAKER_03 16:18

You know, this generation of Orthodox Christians and how we can fulfill that call to bring that richness, you know, in the arts, um, you know, with that that creative subcreation, you know, that that Tolkien famously talks about. How can Orthodox Christians bring that out? Um, you know, maybe without falling into moralism or or you know, other errors?

Invisible Church And Belonging

Creativity, Humility, And Craft

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Um I I I think the uh a couple of things. One is that is there when you approach anything in life, but especially to be creative, has to has to come with humility. Otherwise you you will fall into moralism. Um uh you know, and you then you start giving your own stuff. You know, you need to you need to have a sense of humility to say, Lord, what is what is the what is the truth, you know? Like almost against Psalm 139, you know, oh Lord, examine my heart, see me, search me and know, see if there's any wicked way in me, lead me an everlasting way. You know, you have to need to have that sort of a humility before God to say, I need to, Lord, I help me to learn, help me not to get in the way, you know. Um, because otherwise you will be um moralism and or God knows what. You'll you it'll be your thoughts and you'll get in the way of what God's trying to do through you. Um uh and remember about um Paul Stukey for the uh I said Peter, Paul, and Mary. Uh Paul Stukey is still alive. Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers have gone to their award. Uh Paul was a Christian and he wrote a song called uh the wedding song, There is Love. Way back in the 70s. Yes, I'm that old. Um and he said when he was introducing it, he said, you know, you sometimes you just wait on the Lord long enough and and you get used, he said, uh for that for the gift song and so that so part of it is seeking the Lord in humility, that if the Lord wills, if he doesn't will, then don't shut up. Uh then you'll be used. And one of the signs that you maybe are being used or that you should create, uh, in referred is the art, is that you're genuinely excited by it. You know, you put this as you when God teaches you something, when God puts something in your heart, when God shows you a vision, you I I gotta share this with you. I gotta, you know, that you and you of course you do it with as much skill as you can. So you gotta learn the craft, you gotta, I don't know, take courses, practice, whatever. You know, it doesn't come automatically. Um divine inspiration that can't make up for you being a lazy wretch. You know, you're too lazy to put the work and do it, well wisen up. But but when you but when you put the work in it, then then you you still the the the spirit of God can work in that in that in that in that humble heart. And the sign that it is is that you find something that excites you, and it and if it's not just a hobby horse, it will excite somebody else. Amen. Amen. Give your manuscript to somebody else and they go, wow, this is great. You know, that's maybe a sign that God is using you. Um but you gotta find it has to be something that that that fills and overflows your heart if you're gonna if if it's going to be genuine, genuinely creative.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Amen. I love that. Yeah, and um me being uh uh a book lover here, um actually fiction was uh it played a part in my coming into orthodoxy, also um, you know, reading religion of the apostles and and becoming orthodox and things like that. So what role does fiction uh play in uh an Orthodox Christian's life? Um shouldn't they refrain from it? Should they keep away from it? Or should they do you encourage them to um look into it and see what they could find?

Fiction That Forms Christian Hope

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Um I of course it depends upon what you mean by fiction. If you're looking, I mean, you know, what's about the thing was called, was it 40 shades of gray or something like that? No, yeah, 50, 50 shades of gray, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, but there's fiction and there's fiction. But I mean, um, so but real fiction, like you're you're talking about Tolkien, you're talking about uh C. S. Lewis's the the the Darnian Chronicles and stuff like this, or um uh some uh some of I don't know, Father Brown and G.K. Chesterdon, something like that, you know. And so I think that it's important if if God gives you the intellectual hardware uh to read and and to use it. I think that the idea of what someone once called the crucifixion of the mind, otherwise known as turning your brain off, is a sin against God. You know, if God you you were to worship the Lord of God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you know, or you're you are not using, in effect, misusing the gifts of God. So um so but so assuming that God gives you the intellectual stuff up there, you should engage with culture as much as you can and read and think and create and and in it's not of that engagement that God can teach you stuff, that God can inspire you. So remember, there was one of the one of my favorite little bits of of um uh all literature, uh C. S. Lewis, with when in his book The Last Uh The Last Battle in the Arian. Mm-hmm. And one of my favorite bits, uh, it it it it's a great thing to use uh at funerals when people are grieving and wanting to see their loved ones again. When how that how that book ends, you know, you probably know the uh the text and the the quote very well, that um he was telling the children that they were in fact uh dead, uh as they used to call it in the Shaggal lands. And he said the um uh the this the school term is over, the holidays have begun, the night is gone, this is the morning. And he said that as he spoke with them, he no longer looked like a lion, but the things that happened after that are so great and so beautiful that I cannot write them. And he said, Louis said, This is the end of all of the stories, but for them it was just the beginning of the story, and the all the adventures in this Narnia, and all their life in this world was like he said, the the like uh the cover and the title page of the story, the great story, the story which uh no one on earth has read, the story he said which goes on forever, the story in which every chapter is better than the one before. So that's fiction, but that's the sort of thing that you've that it it is a revelation of the gospel. It's it's it's poetry on the page, and so it is what uh when you can put it in a sermon the right way, um it's what the grieving need to know. You know, the those that that you have lost, those that are lying cold in the coffin, um they're beginning their this story, and you will see them again, and that story goes on forever. They're experiencing it now. Every chapter will be better than the one before. So that's the fruit of literature, if it's good literature. That's so that's why that's why you should read it because it inspires, it fills the heart. God can use it to reveal his can can can reveal can reveal hope to you, to encourage you to think all the stuff that the Holy Spirit can use it to build stuff in you that you're gonna need, especially during during the dark times of life.

Closing, Patreon, And New Book

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Look at that. You made it to the end. What a wonderful blessing it was talking with Father Lawrence. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Remember, if you want the full, uncut, unedited, nearly two-hour conversation with Father Lawrence, go visit our Patreon right now. Patreon is thankfully the best way to support Cloud of Witnesses and the work that is going on on this channel to bring you Christian content and God willing, that's edifying and a blessing to others, helping others discover the faith that's been preserved for 2,000 years. We look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thank you for being here. God bless, and bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Um, I have a new book coming out in early February called Um Prayers in the Dark, published by HFA Publishing. It is a um meditation on suffering in this life, um uh rooted in uh uh verse by verse commentary from the from the Hebrew on the Lamentations of Jeremiah. So the jumping off when we're talking about suffering. So that should be out uh early February in time for Lent. Um but I would also like to commend my uh my blog. Every Monday morning I sit at the computer and post another uh blog post uh to my blog called No Other Foundation. Uh you find it at no other foundation, nootherfoundation.ca from our or from St. Paul's words, of course. No other foundation can uh can a man lay but that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. So every Monday morning, I if you if I can show up in your inbox uh of your of your computer, just log on to nootherfoundation.ca and uh I'll be there with your Monday morning coffee.