It is clear that repentance is an act of grace, and the Spirit breathes where it wants, and it is not at all necessary that a repentant mood will really awaken in your Protestant interlocutor at this very moment.

But on a rational level (and it depends on us), this section of the conversation can have the following conclusion: so, you now know that, say, the Orthodox understanding of the veneration of icons is not a betrayal of the Word of God.

Can you give me, yourself, God, your word of honor in the end, that from now on you will never again blame the Orthodox for venerating icons? Or maybe you will be able to call on your flock, your disciples in your community to throw this rusty weapon out of their arsenal?

An accusation that comes from ignorance is one thing. But if a person already knows the real state of affairs, but continues to say the opposite, this is already slander. Why should you take the sin of perjury upon your soul? Accusing the Orthodox of an imaginary violation of the second commandment, from that moment you yourself will violate the ninth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (Deuteronomy 5:20).

8. At the next stage of the conversation, offer the interlocutor an excursion into the world of Orthodoxy.

Since we are Christians, then perhaps over the two thousand years of Christian life and thought we have accumulated something that could be useful to you?

First of all, it is the world of Orthodox asceticism, anthropology, then it is the world of Orthodox culture (icon, church, music) and the world of Orthodox thought. In order to understand and accept these acquisitions and gifts of ours, it is not even necessary to become Orthodox.

Orthodox theology has borrowed much from Catholic and Lutheran theology in recent centuries, but it has not ceased to be Orthodox.

In the same way, one can take a lot from the Orthodox world while remaining a Protestant (although, perhaps, no longer a "Southern Baptist").

9. Now we can proceed to a discussion of the problems that Protestant theology creates for itself, that is, to a discussion of the internal contradictions of Protestantism.

The most important of them is an attempt to tear the Bible away from Tradition, from the Church.

The addressee of the revelation is the Church. The author of the canon is the Church. The Bible is compiled on an extra-biblical basis. By whom exactly are these books included in the Scriptures? –Church. The Church as a liturgical community is more primary than the Church as a community that hears the reading of Scripture. And when the New Testament books had not yet been collected, and even when they had not yet been written, the Church already existed, and the Eucharist was already in it.

Now we first listen to the reading of the Gospel, then take communion. But in the apostolic era it was different: first the oral preaching of the apostles and their disciples (tradition), then Communion, and only much later – the receipt of a copy of the "Gospel from..."

The Church began to take communion before it began to read the New Testament. And the canon of the New Testament was in harmony with the Eucharist, and not vice versa.