Sin is often reduced to a list of bad behaviors, but this conversation reframed it as a rupture in relationship and a distortion of identity. Join Jeremy Jeremiah, Mario Andrew, and Cloud of Witnesses special guests Father Deacon Anthony, an ordained deacon in the Antiochian Orthodox Church, and associate marriage and family therapist, Jacob Sadan (https://jacobsadan.com/) in this frank and inspiring discussion of sin.

Drawing from early Christian teaching and cognitive behavioral therapy, our guests showed that actions flow from thoughts and feelings, and those are shaped by how we name what is happening inside us. If we see ourselves as inherently evil, despair follows; if we deny fault, pride grows. The older Christian vision holds a paradox: we are made very good in God’s image, yet wounded by passions and habits that pull us from life. That paradox calls for clarity, not condemnation. Naming the wound without becoming the wound is the beginning of healing.

A vivid metaphor carried the dialogue: the black spot on the skin. We can ignore it, try to cut it out ourselves, identify with it in shame, or bring it to the physician. Only the last path actually heals. The physician, Christ, works through the church’s rhythms—fasting, prayer, confession, feasting—because rhythm regulates what is dysregulated. Like a garden, the soul shows its beauty when tended with boundaries and care. The point isn’t legalism but formation: seasons that humble pride, awaken joy, and train our loves. In this frame, guilt is not a curse; it is the pain signal that says, return to the Doctor. Shame, on the other hand, fuses sin to identity and locks the soul in a closed room.

Psychologically, the cycle is simple and stubborn: beliefs spark feelings, feelings drive behaviors, behaviors reinforce beliefs. If I believe I must fix myself alone, I will overreach, fail, and destroy self-trust. Addiction lives in that gap between imagined control and actual powerlessness. The first step to freedom is admitting limits and sorting what I can change from what I must surrender. Confession becomes a structured pause to observe the inner world: what happened, why it happened, and what to do next. Spoken aloud to a trusted guide, the most terrifying truths lose their sting and regain their meaning as invitations to growth.

Finally, community matters. A church that engages body and senses, offers communion and confession, and pairs diagnosis with prescription becomes an arena where grace meets effort. Outside that arena, there are no crowns because there is no contest. Inside it, accountability interrupts self-deception, and mercy makes change plausible. The way forward is not self-loathing or self-excuse but love, truth, and rhythm: see the spot, feel the healthy sting of guilt, ask for help, and return to the practices that tame the garden. We are beloved and broken, not worthless or sovereign; healing happens where we stop pretending to be judge and return to being patients of the true Physician.

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The question seems simple: did Protestants ever agree on the Lord’s Supper? The answer, drawn from history and confessions, is messy. The early church spoke with one voice about a true, real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a conviction shared across geography and centuries. Then the Reformation fractured that consensus. Luther defended real presence with fire, appealing to Christ’s words as plain and binding; Calvin insisted on a true spiritual presence without a change of substance; Zwingli argued for a powerful memorial devoid of presence in the elements. These are not minor tweaks; they are different maps of reality, worship, and church. The implications ripple through how we pray, preach, and gather. Special episode for our brother @theprotestantgentleman Dillon Baker.

Luther’s stance, preserved in the Augsburg Confession, reads with startling clarity: the body and blood of Christ are truly present and distributed to those who partake. For him, the promise of Christ anchored the sacrament; God acts, we receive. This wasn’t speculative metaphysics; it was pastoral assurance built on Christ’s words. Yet even within that stance, Luther rejected philosophical explanations he considered overly rationalistic, choosing instead to guard the mystery. For many today seeking historical Protestant roots, that text offers a bold continuity with the ancient church’s devotion, placing emphasis on Christ’s promise rather than human mood or memory.

Calvin pushed in another direction. The Westminster Confession, reflecting Reformed insight, rejects any change in the substance of bread and wine. Christ is truly received, they say, but not by the mouth; He is given to faith by the Spirit. This attempt to safeguard both biblical language and philosophical coherence introduced a careful distinction: presence without material change. It aimed to avoid what they saw as superstition while retaining sacramental grace. Yet the same document criticizes views it considers contrary to Scripture and even to common sense, sharpening lines against both Roman Catholic teaching and Luther’s insistence. The Reformed vision sought transcendence through the Word, Spirit, and faith rather than in the elements themselves.

Zwingli’s memorial view drew still sharper boundaries: the Supper is a sign and remembrance, a communal pledge of loyalty and gratitude. Here, the focus shifts from divine action in the elements to the church’s act of obedience and memory. The table becomes a proclamation of the gospel rather than a locus of Christ’s bodily presence. This view resonated with those wary of idolatry and eager to stress the sufficiency of faith. Yet critics asked whether such symbolism thins the mystery and reduces sacrament to lecture, exchanging presence for reminder and gift for gesture.

Why the divergence? One claim in the conversation is that sola scriptura, untethered from a living interpretive authority, multiplies interpretations. The Reformers shared a high view of Scripture but not a shared hermeneutic about sacramental language. When “This is my body” meets different commitments about sign, substance, and promise, meanings diverge. The result is denominational lines drawn at the table itself. Confessions not only teach; they exclude. Augsburg rejects contrary teachings. Westminster calls other views repugnant. Such language reflects the stakes: worship sits at the center of identity, and the Supper is worship in its most intimate form.



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Jeremy Jeremiah, Cloud of Witnesses, reacts to and answers the call from: bayliebelieves, Baylie Clarke, (https://www.tiktok.com/@bayliebelieves) viral video.

Jeremy quotes directly from 19th Century documents, original source, discourses by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to demonstrate that the LDS faith is anything but Christian (by any stretch of the imagination). Joseph Smith and Brigham Young taught that God the Father was once finite, and was once "a man" just like you or me.

The conversation turns on a single hinge: does Latter-day Saint theology align with historic, orthodox Christianity? We explore this by defining terms, citing primary sources, and testing claims against scripture. The starting point is the Trinity, not as a word-game, but as a boundary-setting confession about who God is. Classical Christianity says God is one being in three persons, sharing one divine essence, without confusion of persons. That means the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, yet each is fully and eternally God. This guardrail matters because it protects both God’s oneness and the real distinction among Father, Son, and Spirit, and it anchors the meaning of the incarnation as God the Son taking on human nature without ceasing to be what he eternally is.

From there, the critique of LDS claims comes into focus: the Mormon teaching that God the Father was once a man who progressed to godhood, and that humans may likewise be exalted as gods as taught clearly for years by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Mormonism's first two so called prophets). The episode reads from Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse and Brigham Young’s Journal of Discourses to show how these ideas are presented within early LDS leadership. The claim is not a stray footnote; it is a thread that runs through the sources. If God was once finite, then divine eternality and aseity are compromised. Historic Christianity insists that God is uncreated, without beginning, dependent on nothing beyond himself. If deity is an achievement, the word “God” loses its unique, absolute meaning and turns into a rank one can attain.

The discussion then tests LDS proof texts. Stephen’s vision in Acts 7 is cited and corrected: Stephen sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, which fits the Christian confession that no one has seen the Father in his essence, yet the Son reveals the Father. The host clarifies essence and person using simple analogies: two humans share humanity yet remain distinct persons; similarly, the divine persons share one divine essence while remaining truly distinct. This is not modalism and not three gods; it is the mystery of one God in three persons, confessed in the creeds and rooted in scripture.

A second axis is the incarnation. Jesus did not “become God”; he became man. The eternal Son took on flesh through Mary, remaining what he was while assuming what he was not. If one imports the idea that the Father once gained godhood, the logic pressures the incarnation into a story of divine ascent rather than divine condescension. Historic Christianity resists this inversion: salvation is not climbing into deity by degrees, but being united to Christ by grace, participating in God’s life without becoming gods by nature. The difference between deification in classical theology and exaltation in LDS teaching is not semantic; it concerns whether God is eternally God and whether creaturely nature can ever cross the Creator–creature line.


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