Re-Thinking Protestantism Through the Fathers: He's Leaving Protestant Evangelicalism Now What?

“If 10 people say the Holy Spirit told them 10 different meanings, how do I know who’s right?” A raw conversation on Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the early Church.

He tried to quit porn for the millionth time, sat down in silence, and opened the Bible at random. Proverbs 5 stared back like a warning with his name on it and that was the moment Tremayne Collins (https://www.instagram.com/tremaynecollins001/) stopped being a “fan” of church and started taking Christ seriously. What follows is a story of repentance, recovery, and rebuilding a life around Scripture, mentorship, and real spiritual discipline.

Jeremy Jeremiah of Cloud of Witnesses talks with Tremayne Collins about leaving atheism behind, confronting a long battle with pornography, and finding a serious Christian life through repentance, recovery, and Scripture. Then we follow the questions that hit next when sincere Christians disagree on doctrine and church history starts pointing beyond modern Protestantism.

• Tremayne’s background in Lutheranism, then years away from faith
• A moment in Proverbs 5 that sparks repentance and change
• Porn addiction recovery, mentorship, and building daily Scripture habits
• Why theological disagreement in non-denominational churches creates an authority crisis
• Early church fathers and what they teach about Eucharist, baptism, and holiness
• Orthodoxy’s critique of Western innovations and why the Reformation happened
• Purgatory, Mary, papal claims, and what Orthodoxy does and does not affirm
• Why sola scriptura depends on later historical conditions and canon choices
• A reading recommendation for comparing Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy

But a new problem shows up fast: theology. In a non-denominational world, smart and sincere Christians can read the same passage and still end up in opposite places on salvation, assurance, righteousness, and church practice. Tremayne asks the question many people are afraid to say out loud: if everyone claims the Holy Spirit, how do you tell which interpretation is true? That question pushes us into church authority, the limits of private interpretation, and why “Bible alone” can feel impossible to live out without a coherent guide.

From there we head into early church history, the church fathers, and the surprising discovery that writers like Irenaeus and Ignatius don’t sound like modern Protestantism on the Eucharist and baptism. We also dig into Catholic vs Orthodox differences, the Great Schism, “innovations” in the West, and why Orthodoxy rejects purgatory. Along the way, we recommend Rock and Sand by Father Josiah Trenham for anyone who wants an Orthodox perspective on the Reformation and a grounded introduction to Eastern Christianity.

If you’re sorting through Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy or you’re searching for the historic Christian faith, this conversation will give you better questions and clearer next steps. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves church history, and leave a review with your biggest sticking point: authority, Mary, purgatory, or something else?

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Transcript

Theology Confusion Sparks A Search

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People just can't seem to agree on theology where I go to church. Um I went to a non-denominational church called Manna.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Before you make any decision, ultimately, because I know you're obviously like you said, you're read you're reading Roman Catholic material right now, so I'm sure Roman Catholicism looks pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

If you study them as a whole, you look at Irenaeus and Polycarp and Ignatius and Clement and Thomas Martyr and all these different fellows, man. I mean, I haven't read their letters explicitly, but from what I understand, they're just they're not Protestant. They're at the very least orthodox or Catholic. Their viewpoints are that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ and 100%. And we have this the narrow gate and the narrow path is that we must find Christ and follow him wholeheartedly and avoid sin.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I welcome the Cloud of Witnesses. Jeremy Jeremiah here in the Cloud of Witnesses studio. Really excited about this conversation. Tremaine Collins, he's a non-denominational Protestant. Well, was. He's now kind of curious about uh Roman Catholicism, but he's also maybe a little curious about orthodoxy. We have an initial conversation here. You get to hear his story as to how he came to be in the place that he's at. I think you'll find him a dynamic person who's just interesting to hear uh speak on these topics. Please leave us a comment down below. Like this video if you haven't already, and please, if you would like others to help uh find this content more easily, it always helps if you subscribe as well. We look forward to seeing you at the end. Enjoy.

A Conversion Born From Addiction

SPEAKER_00 1:32

I've heard this quote. I don't know who said it, but it was um something along the lines of to study church history is to become either Orthodox or Catholic. It is to stray away from Protestantism. And, you know, I grew up Lutheran. Um probably like nine or ten years old until I was about 18, and I walked away from the church for about 10 years, considered myself atheist or agnostic. I had a my my stepdad raised me and he passed away unexpectedly, and I felt some way about that, and I blamed God and did the things he shouldn't really do. And I wouldn't really consider myself like a follower of Christ when I was a Lutheran, when I was a kid, when I went to church as a kid. It was more so I was a fan. I I liked doing the service. I went on a couple mission trips. I liked the singing, I liked the Sunday school, I liked the the religion, the social aspect of it, but I wasn't studying theology. And um, you know, if you fast forward now to about six months ago, seven months ago, is when I finally found Christ and I became Christian devotedly. Um I was approaching pornography. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

How how how did that happen? How'd you how did how did you encounter Christ?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, it was uh it was a moment, man. Let me tell you, I I I was a porn addict from eight until 28 years old. Awful, really bad. I consumed it two, three, four times a day, every day for 20 years, and I was trying to quit for the millionth time, and I made it like 10 days at this point. Uh and after I'd made it about 10 days, I was just struggling. And one day I felt the anxiety and I sat down on my kitchen table and I told myself, I'm just gonna sit here for 10 or 15 minutes in silence and see what happens. And for some reason, I got this urge to pick up my Bible because I went to two church services at this point because I was curious. I haven't made a decision yet. I liked the moral teachings of the church. I didn't like what I was necessarily like the worship and the songs. I went to a non-denominational church originally.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

I didn't get done with that, but I did enjoy the moral lessons and I thought, oh, this is cool, but I wasn't sold on the Bible yet. For some reason, I decided I'm gonna pick up my Bible and I opened it to a random page, random chapter, and it was Proverbs chapter five, which I think you probably know is a warning against adultery. And that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was like, holy moly, dude, this is crazy. Like, I here I am struggling because I want to consume, I want to give in to this desire. And I opened the Bible to a random page and I started crying. I went, holy, holy crap, dude. And I just, it was the first time that I looked in the mirror for a little while and accepted what it is that I had done and who I was and what I was becoming. Yeah, um, I was an adulterer. There were many relationships where I cheated on my partner. I watched pornography for 20 years. I was cranking my chicken every single day excessively just to feel something, to have some dopamine, distract myself from problems. And um, that was my wake-up call. That was my like, okay, you're you're definitely real. Um I I hear you, I see you, and I took it very seriously. And from that moment on, I checked myself into a rehab program, a spiritually based rehab program for porn. And um, I started attending two different small groups of church. One was that one, and then another was a book study. I got myself a mentor and I started reading my Bible devote. Like even still to this day, I read it for 30 minutes at least, up to an hour and a half or two hours a day, depending because I just love scripture, man. I love

Why Bible Alone Feels Unworkable

SPEAKER_00 4:50

it. Um I ran into this problem. I ran into this problem about two months ago, and I noticed it really immediately, but I just didn't know enough yet. I noticed that people just can't seem to agree on theology where I go to church. Um, I went to a non-denominational church called Mana, which was in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And like I said in this video that you watched, man, these are intelligent dudes that I don't think are trying to be disingenuous. I think that they are doing their best to come to some sort of conclusion about what the Bible has to say, and they all come to different conclusions because the Bible is confusing. And, you know, my mentor that I picked out for myself, he is one that I would say believes in eternal security. He's one that uh considers himself non-denominational, and he says, I didn't agree with any denomination, which is why I chose none, which is just a fancy way of saying a Protestant. And I don't know, I'm not gonna get into that. That's a different, that's a different blow.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

But we can go down that road later, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah. But regardless, I just every time I would approach theology and say, this doesn't make sense, and that doesn't make sense, and this doesn't make sense, and that doesn't make sense, I couldn't find the answers in the Bible, and I couldn't find the answers within my church. And I kept having this thought of like, okay, well, if 10 different people are saying they're led by the Holy Spirit and they're reading this one piece of scripture, they all say, I have the right answer, the Holy Spirit gave it to me. How in the world am I supposed to discern which one has the right answer? There's no way for me to know. And it makes you ask this question well, if the book, if scripture is infallible and it has the right answer, and I'm in, like I said, I'm not possible, it's not possible for me to find the answer. I'm incapable of finding it on my own. If these people aren't capable of finding on their own, somebody has to have the answer. And that's when I started venturing

Reading The Church Fathers Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 6:25

out. This is when I started studying early church history. Admittedly, my sponsor in my porn rehab program, he's Catholic, and he gave me this church. The early church was the Catholic church, and I read that, and um, pretty pretty immediately I realized, wow, the early church fathers did not believe anything that Protestant Protestantism teaches. And some people will make arguments that it does. Like I there's one fellow who um you know I see on TikTok sometimes his name's True Christian Ministry, and I think this is a man that loves God and he very earnestly seeks God, but he's trying to be as a big type.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Oh, yeah. I think he so he believes in eternal security, but he also believes you need to be baptized, but he also believes you need to be completely uh I shouldn't say sinless, but you have to be righteous, you have to pursue righteousness, you have to avoid sin. Um anywho, he can always seem to find a way to fit scripture to what he's saying.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And uh I find this problematic because you know, these people can say, you know, you you're cherry-picking different pieces of the early church fathers to fit this narrative or that narrative. But I find that if you study them as a whole, you look at Irenaeus and Polycarp and Ignatius and Clement and Thomas Martyr and all these different fellows, man. I mean, I haven't read their letters explicitly, but from what I understand, they're just they're not Protestant. They're at the very least orthodox or Catholic. Their viewpoints are that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ and the baptism saves, and we're there at the narrow gate and the narrow path is that we must find Christ and follow him wholeheartedly and avoid sin. Um, that he's there to pick us up when we've fallen. You know, I haven't decided let me back step actually. I have decided that I'm not going to say Protestant. Like I've leaned more towards Catholicism because that's what I've studied. Um but from my understanding, Orthodoxy is, and maybe maybe you can enlighten me on this, and I'm missing the point, but orthodoxy is the more traditional view of the church, whereas Catholicism has added some doctrine that wasn't necessarily there

Orthodoxy Versus Rome On Innovations

SPEAKER_00 8:20

in the first century and the second century.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, uh Trey, uh 100%. Um, first and foremost, you know, thank you for your your story. Um, you know, I know it's probably just a piece of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah, we talked to tell the whole thing in that in 10 minutes, but of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Um, but I want you to know, man, you're not alone. Um, I have had those same struggles. Um, and you know, thanks be to God. What you find is there is healing in the church. In orthodoxy, we say often the church is the hospital for the soul. Um we have even done videos on on this channel related to recovery, um, and how tied like the 12 steps and orthodoxy are kind of like hand in hand because that's how in many ways we look at our faith. Our faith is a you know, what does Paul say, right? Work out your faith to fear and trembling. And that's how Orthodox approach the faith. It's not this, oh, I believe, and so I'm good, man.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

You know, I I I believe imputed righteousness or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. You know, the penal substitutionary uh uh you know theory for us is just not like he said, it was not taught, it was never taught in the church, and it literally is an invention of Protestantism. Ultimately, um, it comes out of Aquinas, excuse me, uh Augustine, um, Luther applying Augustine, and you know, um, we can even talk about the the post um tomist you know world. Here's what I would want to say to you, Trey, in regards to Roman Catholicism. I believe, and what I would kind of posit for you, is that the Protestant Reformation happened for a reason. And the Protestant Reformation, as you know, was a reaction to Roman Catholicism. And so what was happening in Rome was you know enough to where the entire Protestant Reformation occurred, right? There were that many people who had to react against what they saw happening in Rome. And as an Orthodox Christian, we would point to the church history in the East and say a reformation was never needed, right? You after it was after the Great Schism in uh 1054, when you have Rome on its own broke off by itself. Some Orthodox, you know, they might even they might even say the Roman Catholics were the first Protestants in a sense in that they kind of broke off on their own in 1054. From that point, you have another, you know, just a couple hundred years until the Protestant Reformation. Meanwhile, in the East, this entire time, from 33 AD to today, the Eastern Church has remained unchanged, you know, virtually unchanged, with never a Protestant Reformation, you know, no radical shifts in doctrine, um, no things like, well, you know, the papacy and and Mariology sometimes seem to go a little radical in the West. Um, and the Eastern Church looks at that and we look at that as innovations. We see that as it's novel, it's it's this new thing in the church. And as what I think you're seeing in your reading, usually, if it's new in the church, it's not good.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah, there was something to be cautious about for sure. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

I think that's pretty fair. And you know, admittedly, I haven't looked at um church history from an Orthodox perspective, only from a Catholic one. You know, and I've had people criticize me saying, Well, why how come you haven't viewed this from a Protestant perspective? And my answer has been that I've tried to, um, and that it hasn't made sense.

Sola Scriptura And Picking A Canon

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Before you make any decision, ultimately, because I know you're obviously, like you said, you're read reading Roman Catholic material right now, so I'm sure Roman Catholicism looks pretty good. Um, if you wouldn't mind, if you would read this book Rock and Sand, Rock and Sand by Father Josiah Trenham. I think you will get so much out of this. It's a fantastic book. Um, it literally is the first half, he kind of goes into the history of the Reformation from an Orthodox perspective. And then the second half of the book is him kind of explaining how orthodoxy uh differs and what orthodoxy is. It's it's an excellent, not only introduction to orthodoxy, but definitely in kind of in juxtaposition to the Protestant um world and Protestant movement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, I'll read him in. I'm all about it. I uh I like learning stuff, and I I think if we can't test our faith against other beliefs, then you don't have very good faith. So um I'm all about that. You know, there's there's small things that I haven't quite wrapped my head around. I feel pretty comfortable about the church structure. I think that you're supposed to run the church off the bishop. I think I think uh the Pope is infallible in the the sense that um there are times when he can speak upon certain things. I believe in the Eucharist, I believe baptism saves. Um what I what I struggle with yet, and I I may maybe it's just because I haven't read about it, is Mary and uh Purgatory. Those are like the two two big ones, but I just I haven't read any enough text to have a position on it, really. But um understood. Yeah, I'd I'll definitely read the book, man. I appreciate that. I'll check it out, I'll give it a bye.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, um, I I I'd even be happy to send it to you. Um, Trey, I will say um on those two points, this is I just want you to to begin to get a sense for where orthodoxy kind of fits into this whole thing. You said that you've got maybe an issue that you know, you haven't read, I'm not saying you have an issue with it, but you you haven't read enough yet on, for example, purgatory. I will have you know Orthodox do not believe in purgatory. So, in other words, the Orthodox Church, the position is that purgatory is another innovation of Rome. It's an it in other words, we would literally say they invented the doctrine. And so what I would what I would kind of offer to you is that there is the historic Christian faith available to you where you don't have to swallow purgatory. Because I think purgatory has a lot of problems myself. It's one reason why I didn't become Roman Catholic.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

But the orthodox side of things, I certainly haven't considered. I'd imagine that book, Rock and Sand, would have a perspective on that, right? Yeah, 100%. 100%. I'll read that book, man. I don't see why not. That's that makes good sense to me. Um that's something I haven't considered. You gave me something to consider, so I got nothing to argue against.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

For sure. And and like I said, I my intention, of course, isn't you know, is not to argue, you know, at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

I don't feel that way. I maybe a better, maybe a better word is um that you gave me something to consider, and I'm grateful for that. That's not something I've thought about.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Amen. Amen. And I and I appreciate I appreciate that. I appreciate you. Trey, one thing um, you know, when you're doing your reading, it's interesting of church history. I read Protestant church history when I was coming to um leaving Protestantism, I should say. I hadn't made a decision for Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism yet. And Philip Schaff is a famous uh Protestant historian, you might have seen his name. Um there's also uh Gerislav Pelikin, who's another, he was a Protestant um historian, very you know, these are well-known guys. And even reading of the Protestants, I you still come away with I think with what you're seeing, Trey, and what I'm seeing. And I'll give you an example. Philip Schaff himself, who's again, he's a Protestant, yeah. I think he was a a German, Protestant German um uh you know, Christian studying and he wrote like a six-volume history of the church. He said explicitly that sola scriptura was an invention of the Reformation.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

It's an invention of the printing press, man. I mean, if you really look at it, sola scriptura just came from people being able to read the Bibles alone by themselves, you know. And I think of um, you know, Martin Luther, for example, rejecting the books like Revelation and James and saying, well, these just don't fit my spirit, and I can't really acknowledge the things that are in here. And how often does that happen? You know, how often do we do we pick up the Bible and say, well, these pieces of the Bible don't fit my theological perspective, so let's just kind of not pay attention to this so that my position makes a decent amount of sense. So I'm up with you 100%. Yeah, it's it's yeah, I just it is what it is, but I also believe this. I believe, I believe that um God is not bound by his sacraments and the truth, but we are. Um so whatever layers of truth God has revealed to us is what we're going to be judged by. And I've met some really good people in my life that, you know, like my mentor, for example, he's Protestant wholeheartedly, and I don't think there's a sliver of a chance, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't think the way I know him, you know, I don't I don't imagine he'll ever convert away. And regardless, um, this is a man that I know very clearly loves God, and I think God will judge him based on his heart and all the truths that have been revealed to him, and whether or not he's been, you know, uh ignorant to those things, or if he's chosen to reject them. And you know, I don't know that, and neither do you, and neither does anybody, I suppose. But all we can do is control uh what God reveals to us and acting on those things. And um, you revealed something to me today. So I appreciate God working through you to give me something to chew on,

Closing Thoughts And How To Support

SPEAKER_00 17:52

man.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Look at that. You made it to the end. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Tremaine. We are actually hoping to have more conversations together. Um, he's going to read Rock and Sand by Father Josiah Trenum. Really exciting. Please let us know what you thought of this conversation down below. If you're interested in supporting the work of Cloud of Witnesses, the best way to do so is to go over to our Patreon, search Cloud of Witnesses on Patreon. We really appreciate your support. Helps keep the lights on and the monthly monthly licenses paid for. Um, it's expensive running a podcast. It is not a money-making endeavor. Um, but we do really appreciate your support. Thank you for being here. We hope this was edifying. God bless you. Please let friends and family know that you enjoy Cloud of Witnesses. Thanks so much. Bye bye.