Bummer you chose to ignore the massive difference between Lutheran/Anglican and Reformed/Non-Conformist positions.
I was waiting till you finished out Tobit before making recommendations to others to listen. As an Anglican, I’m really sad I can’t recommend this podcast to “Protestants” who don’t understand our own beliefs about these books.
Hi JMats. Joel and I are both former Anglicans, and I have personally spent a good bit of time interacting with confessional Lutheranism, so I'm not sure where your concerns lie. We both use Anglican and Lutheran resources in preparing our materials, and think we represented them well, with many, many, many references to Anglican and Lutheran resources throughout our episodes. Short of quoting the 39 Articles or diving into specific Anglican exegesis, I think we not only treated all versions of Protestantism fairly in this regard, we gave far more press to Anglican and Lutheran materials than one might expect from a podcast by Orthodox hosts on an Orthodox network.
Thankfully, we've received a ton of mail from Protestants of many varieties who were not bummed by our presentation.
In other episodes, you were fair, and particularly your Jewish guest was VERY clear in pointing out that Anglicans CONTINUE to have these in our Canon. But in this episode the annoying Eastern/Roman habit of talking about "Protestants" (as if Anglicans have anything in common with Baptists or Pentecostals!) seeps in - suggesting that "Protestants" (apparently including Anglicans and Lutherans?) eventually took these books out of their Bibles for theological reasons may be true for Non-Conformist and Reformed communities, but it is most emphatically NOT true in Anglican and Lutheran branches - although I admit there are a lot of laymen and even clergy who do not realize this.
I'm sensitive to this because this is an issue that I see as important WITHIN Anglican circles: most Anglicans don't know what we believe about these books (or most anything else), and so we do sort of get lost in the quagmire of "Protestant" (that nebulous word that has no actual meaning in defining any sort of doctrine other than "Western-Christian-not-under-the-Pope").
As a former Anglican who turned to the East, I'm sure you can understand my annoyance at being lumped in with Baptists or Presbyterians in regards to anything. They have no apostolic succession, therefore they are not the Church, and the fact that they do not have these books in their Bibles is further proof (to me) that they are not the Church - so blurring the lines on this by talking about "Protestants" is, in my view, deeply flawed.
I definitely appreciate the feedback! I honestly thought we were clear and nuanced, but there is nearly 8 hours of material there in which we commented on various aspects of these books and their reception. Perhaps what is clear to me is not so much to you, and we always want to be clear to the listener.
It is also important to us to represent everyone fairly, and clarifications may end up on future episodes—-perhaps you can clarify here.
This is an Orthodox show that we hope is accessible to all, and anticipate our listeners to be engaged and interested people of good will who are growing in their knowledge of scripture.
If you’re one of those, and it sounds like you are, then this show is for you and them!
We are kinda hoping everyone can come along and learn something about these books!
Oh yes, this show is definitely for me! I'm very much enjoying it - I'm just having to do a bit more clarification and explanation before I recommend it.
I hope to be teaching a class at our local parish on the Apocrypha and will definitely be using and referencing this show!
I don't have any concerns with this being an Eastern Orthodox show and coming from a specifically Eastern Orthodox point of view. My complaint is not in the viewpoint you are taking but in the misrepresentation of the viewpoints of others (ie, Lutherans and Anglicans as separate from Nonconformists and Reformed).
It's confusing that sometimes your show is very clear and at other times, not at all. For example: Your first guest did a great job of clearly differentiating different branches of Christianity; your second guest also fell into somewhat lazy "Protestants" discussion. My advice (again which you may resonate with being former Anglicans and former Evangelicals) - don't talk about "Protestants" at all. There simply isn't such a thing, particularly on the subject of the Apocrypha. And if we're counting noses, then the vast majority of "Protestants" (American Evangelicalism/Pentecostalism/Fundamentalism notwithstanding) have historically *accepted* the books of the Apocrypha as important Ecclesiastical books. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a Lutheran! - writing less than 70 years ago, cited these books as PART OF THE BIBLE.
I appreciate your interaction and response to feedback! Even if you don't take my advice, I appreciate your posture of listening!
Bummer you chose to ignore the massive difference between Lutheran/Anglican and Reformed/Non-Conformist positions.
I was waiting till you finished out Tobit before making recommendations to others to listen. As an Anglican, I’m really sad I can’t recommend this podcast to “Protestants” who don’t understand our own beliefs about these books.
Hi JMats. Joel and I are both former Anglicans, and I have personally spent a good bit of time interacting with confessional Lutheranism, so I'm not sure where your concerns lie. We both use Anglican and Lutheran resources in preparing our materials, and think we represented them well, with many, many, many references to Anglican and Lutheran resources throughout our episodes. Short of quoting the 39 Articles or diving into specific Anglican exegesis, I think we not only treated all versions of Protestantism fairly in this regard, we gave far more press to Anglican and Lutheran materials than one might expect from a podcast by Orthodox hosts on an Orthodox network.
Thankfully, we've received a ton of mail from Protestants of many varieties who were not bummed by our presentation.
Cheers!
Thanks Jamey for the response.
In other episodes, you were fair, and particularly your Jewish guest was VERY clear in pointing out that Anglicans CONTINUE to have these in our Canon. But in this episode the annoying Eastern/Roman habit of talking about "Protestants" (as if Anglicans have anything in common with Baptists or Pentecostals!) seeps in - suggesting that "Protestants" (apparently including Anglicans and Lutherans?) eventually took these books out of their Bibles for theological reasons may be true for Non-Conformist and Reformed communities, but it is most emphatically NOT true in Anglican and Lutheran branches - although I admit there are a lot of laymen and even clergy who do not realize this.
I'm sensitive to this because this is an issue that I see as important WITHIN Anglican circles: most Anglicans don't know what we believe about these books (or most anything else), and so we do sort of get lost in the quagmire of "Protestant" (that nebulous word that has no actual meaning in defining any sort of doctrine other than "Western-Christian-not-under-the-Pope").
As a former Anglican who turned to the East, I'm sure you can understand my annoyance at being lumped in with Baptists or Presbyterians in regards to anything. They have no apostolic succession, therefore they are not the Church, and the fact that they do not have these books in their Bibles is further proof (to me) that they are not the Church - so blurring the lines on this by talking about "Protestants" is, in my view, deeply flawed.
I definitely appreciate the feedback! I honestly thought we were clear and nuanced, but there is nearly 8 hours of material there in which we commented on various aspects of these books and their reception. Perhaps what is clear to me is not so much to you, and we always want to be clear to the listener.
It is also important to us to represent everyone fairly, and clarifications may end up on future episodes—-perhaps you can clarify here.
This is an Orthodox show that we hope is accessible to all, and anticipate our listeners to be engaged and interested people of good will who are growing in their knowledge of scripture.
If you’re one of those, and it sounds like you are, then this show is for you and them!
We are kinda hoping everyone can come along and learn something about these books!
Oh yes, this show is definitely for me! I'm very much enjoying it - I'm just having to do a bit more clarification and explanation before I recommend it.
I hope to be teaching a class at our local parish on the Apocrypha and will definitely be using and referencing this show!
I don't have any concerns with this being an Eastern Orthodox show and coming from a specifically Eastern Orthodox point of view. My complaint is not in the viewpoint you are taking but in the misrepresentation of the viewpoints of others (ie, Lutherans and Anglicans as separate from Nonconformists and Reformed).
It's confusing that sometimes your show is very clear and at other times, not at all. For example: Your first guest did a great job of clearly differentiating different branches of Christianity; your second guest also fell into somewhat lazy "Protestants" discussion. My advice (again which you may resonate with being former Anglicans and former Evangelicals) - don't talk about "Protestants" at all. There simply isn't such a thing, particularly on the subject of the Apocrypha. And if we're counting noses, then the vast majority of "Protestants" (American Evangelicalism/Pentecostalism/Fundamentalism notwithstanding) have historically *accepted* the books of the Apocrypha as important Ecclesiastical books. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a Lutheran! - writing less than 70 years ago, cited these books as PART OF THE BIBLE.
I appreciate your interaction and response to feedback! Even if you don't take my advice, I appreciate your posture of listening!