Will This Be On The Test?

Ecclesiastical Anxiety and the Gospel of Overthinking

They say, the experts, that when you die, and when you cross to the other side, Saint Peter is waiting for you, at the Pearly gates. They say that he’s got some open books.

And they say, the experts, that there’s a quiz.

Not your sins—those are forgiven.

It’s not about all the good things you’ve done—that’s covered, too.

It’s not even about how many Instagram or Substack followers you have, and how many heavy handed guilt trip quotes you posted.

No, no, no.

This is a different kind of quiz.

Saint Peter leans over the lectern, and he passes you a sheet of paper, and a feather quill pen, and says:

“Check the right box.”

And it’s just one question:

Which were you?

a. Catholic

b. Protestant

c. Orthodox

d. None of the Above

And Saint Peter says, “No cheating, we can tell.”

And just like that, all at once, your eternal destiny, your everlasting fate, depends on how much you figured out—how well you navigated the maze of church history and the imbroglio of theological controversy.

“Take as long as you like.”

And it just might take an eternity.

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And I think I get it, that sort of big question:

What’s the True Church?

And if you’re like me, and if you grew up in the evangelical world, then that question seems to loom large over just about every modern issue and scandal of our modern world. It casts its shadow over every theological quandary we have.

When I was in seminary, some fourteen years ago, I remember writing a paper on the Divinity of Christ and, as part of that, I tackled the Virgin Birth. Back in those days, we couldn’t google everything, and Large Language Models were nightmares conjured up for sci-fi horrors.

We had to use libraries—those were our repositories, and librarians were our chatbots.

I had this list of books and topics, stuff I’d gleaned on the topic, and showed the librarian, and she pointed me in the right direction, and made a few suggestions—ideas that might round out or confront or verify my assumptions.

Exactly what a burgeoning little scholar wants.

The seminary I went to was Reformed and Baptist, I’m neither of those things now, and some of the books that sweet, sweet librarian suggested to me were Catholic.

Catholic was a four letter word for my generation of evangelical.

The anti-christ was going to be Catholic, and if not Catholic, he was going to be Nicolai Carpathia and he was going to try to kill Kirk Cameron.

I decided to rebel against my heritage and I read a bunch of Catholic writings on the Divinity of Christ, and I was mesmerized. It was a kind of articulation, philosophically informed, that I had never experienced before.

And that began my own journey of trying to figure out the so-called True Church.

The Anxiety of The Modern Time

This was over a decade ago and things were allowed to be slow; allowed because they had to be—at least by our modern standards.

But now?

Well, there’s no such thing as slow.

There’s a generation of twenty-somethings asking me questions almost daily about the filioque, the essence-energies distinction, the eucharist, and wondering if their walk of faith counts if their eucharistic view isn’t x or y or z.

It took me years to get there, and books. Lots and lots of books. I couldn’t watch a YouTube video, listen to a debate, ask some AI to give me the bullet points of both sides of the argument.

I had to read and underline and take notes. I had to go at my words per minute.

And therein lies the first part of this ecclesiastical anxiety:

1. Interent Theology

We have infinite access, breakneck speeds, and almost zero clarity.

Let me explain.

You can watch a video about Martin Luther and his hammer and nail, read a Substack about some solas, and you can think you have it all figured out—the Protestants must be right.

And then, the day after, you watch another video, see another Reel, “One Question Protestants CANNOT answer!!” and it’s about canon, or authority, or the Baptism, and then, that day, you’re almost Catholic.

And then, the day after, you see a picture of an Eastern Orthodox priest, and he’s got a big white beard, and he’s dress all in black, and he’s carrying his Chotki, and you think to yourself, I didn’t know spirituality could be so punk-rock. And that day, you’ve got one foot in the East.

Rinse and repeat.

There’s no clarity for two main reasons :

1. We don’t know how to think clearly—how to discern and process and engage with information. We just consume it. Like little gluttons.

2. We want change in an instant. Like we can study things for an afternoon, a weekend, and solve about 2000 years of figuring.

The first way out of the anxiety is a bit of slow.

This journey, the question of your entire life, can’t be rushed—it goes by one day at a time. And here’s the problem with problems—they always take time. Rush them all you want, but the cold, hard facts aren’t really what you’re looking for.

I know people who ask ChatGPT to summarize books for them, to spit out some bullet points and high level ideas. That’s one thing—but it isn’t the thing. The thing is the time it takes to read a book, sentence by sentence, day by day, thought by thought. It’s all the subconscious little connections we make, all the tweaks and changes, all the moments we now spend “in-between”, in lines, in traffic, in the restroom, and our brains and bodies are trying to figure it all out.

You can’t trade that for anything.

You can’t rush growth, you can’t google a sapling into an oak.

Part of the anxiety comes from this overwhelming amount of data and information taken in, and the short timeline needed to process it.

2. The Question of Beauty and History

Beauty has a gravitational pull.

In 2017 Aislinn and I backpacked Europe, and like typical tourists, we went into every church we could—and they were all Roman. And everything grabs onto you, and then it pulls. The statues and the paintings, the engravings and the altars, the stained-glass, the arches, the incense. It draws you in, like a heavenly magnet.

And your heart leaps within you, dances to the melody of all this Beauty—but you’re not sure if you should. You head doesn’t consent, not yet. What if it’s not True?

I was raised churches with folding chairs that “Preached the word, brother,” and this almost felt like betrayal. Like I needed a book before I needed a fresco. I’d kneel, I’d pray, I’d experiment—trying to take it all in, and it felt like I was falling in Love.

But was it the wrong person ?

Was I cheating ?

And then you start to try to get your bearings—read some history, get grounded, figure out if all those early church expressions, those first few hundred years, looked like how church was for you growing up.

Flannel-graphs and all.

I had this idea that the further I looked back, the more clear it would all get. Hazy 2000s to a crisp coherent 200s.

But then, it’s not.

It’s not like the little church down the street.

It’s Fathers debating, it’s schisms, it’s popes and bishops, it’s questions about the Eucharist and if it’s too Judaizing to use leavened bread.

It’s councils and creeds and canonization, it’s authority, it’s sacraments, it’s the magisterium.

And it’s not like the Catholics or Orthodox are off the hook, either. There’s tomes, written by experts, lettered men, and they’re debating each other, in Greek, in Latin, and other coded language, on theological and philosophical minutia. Something akin to angels dancing on the head of a pin—except this is about the primacy of Rome in lost letters.

And then there’s little old me, there’s little old you, and we’ve got our notepads, and our pencils, and we’re trying to take notes.

The stakes feel eternal.

There’s this pull of Beauty, and then there’s two thousand years of theological footnotes. And somewhere in all that annotation is the question:

Have I missed the real Jesus?

Is There a Way Forward?

Maybe.

I don’t know—and that’s only because so much of it is personal.

And because it’s personal, it’s limited by your particular brand of finite-ness. Which means you probably have to go at the pace you can.

And the goal is this:

Be in the place where you can obey most.

I know that sounds anti-climactic, but hear me out.

This is a way of saying that you should put your roots down in the place that allows you to be most loyal, loving, virtuous, and devoted.

To be the best Saint you can be.

And I don’t think that’s necessarily a static thing.

Here’s a framework to start from:

Truth: as it pertains to Nicene and orthodox Christianity, historic.

Goodness: as it pertains to Christian virtue and ethics, to obedience.

Beauty: as it pertains love and wonder, as it pertains to the architecture of value and expression.

What I mean is something along the lines of: we want to be in a Christian place, one that echoes with the same dogma, core and foundational, that the church has chanted since its inception. We want to be in a place where our entire way of being is expressed in faithfulness and loyalty—the Good Life is a Virtuous one—and true Virtue is found in the person of Jesus. And we want to be in a place of beauty, a place that guides our bodies and souls to reflect upon the Eternal Majesty and Transcendent Splendour of God—a place that prioritizes Him and captures our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies.

And I’m telling you, this is a journey, and it is a mystery.

And mysteries aren’t solved.

They’re entered.

I know what all this looks like for me, and I know where I have left and I know where I’m going to end up—but I’m in my mid thirties, and I’ve been on this path for over a decade, and most of my life is settled.

But you might just be starting.

That’s good.

Enjoy the Mystery.

A Bit of Practicality

Let me try to ease some of the anxiety further—before suggesting some things to read and engage with.

1. You’re not alone

This is generational confusion—maybe ask yourself why. Why does this generation struggle with this question so much? Is it the need for stability? Is it the need for structure? Is it the need for identity? Is is all of the above? and more?

2. Slow and Steady, you’ve got your whole life

I know what that sound in the head sounds like, rushing you into answers and arguments and checked off boxes. And I know sometimes it can sound like panic and desperation and even performance. I know it can you that you’re lost.

Treat the whole journey as an act of prayer—a liturgy of discovery.

God is at the end of the journey, and so is Home. But guess what, He’s there every step along the way, and He guides us into all Truth. He’s not late, nor is He early; He doesn’t hurry us into anxiety, but He does call.

3. Pick a Table and Eat

Be where you are, or find a place, and quick, where you can enter in. Theology is lived; religion is more than intellectual belief, it’s embodied practice.

Try something new, and live it—I went to vespers at an Anglo-Catholic church for about a year or two while I was living in Toronto, during seminary. And I was so green, so tenderfooted, so fresh and unaware, I’d fall asleep kneeling in prayer. Every night for three months.

But we got there, eventually. Well, not there. I’m not Anglican, but you know what I mean.

Eventually you need to stop researching and you need to start living. Off screen. Real life.

What about that Quiz?

You look up at Saint Peter, and you checked the box.

And underneath it, in as tiny scrawling sentences as you could, you write out every little thing you every wondered about.

And you pass him the quiz, heart pounding.

And you’re wondering if you should have mentioned the differences between hesychasm and monastic contemplation.

And they say, the experts, that Saint Peter always takes that quiz and rips it up.

He leans over the lectern, they say, and he smiles, and says, “oh, that’s just a little joke we do up here.”

And some blood goes back into your face.

Saint Peter asks, and he also knows, because he’s got the books:

“Did you know Him?”

And you can hear Matthew 7 in the subtext.

No one’s asking about the right camp, about naming every heresy, about prayer books, or instagram followers.

He’s asking about transformation, a knowing that lives. Faith worked out in love. Cups of cold water, prison visits, clothes off our backs.

And that’s the test.

I think it’s always been the test.

Knowing and being known.

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Let’s keep the conversation open:

1. What keeps you up at night when you think about the Church ? What’s your biggest questions?

2. What aspects of Beauty and Liturgy and Sacrament do you not know how to deal with ?

3. What part of our Church history haunts you ? Heals you ?

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Every Day Saints is a torchlight searching for the quiet miracles, the beautifully human stories and ideas that exist all around us. And it is a place to dialogue, not Holy Ground, but still a place of gathering.