2025-08-02: Gary Sheng & Tim Dort-Golts - Spiritual Transition and Orthodox Awakening

Date: August 2, 2025 Participants: Gary Sheng (@gary-sheng.md), Tim Dort-Golts (@tim-dort-golts.md) Type: Extended Philosophical and Spiritual Dialogue Context: Gary's transition away from Alpha Schools, exploration of Orthodox Christianity, and continued spiritual mentorship of Tim

Executive Summary

This conversation marks a significant spiritual and strategic transition for Gary, featuring his first Orthodox church experience, definitive break from Alpha Schools, and profound theological insights shared with Tim. The dialogue covers three main themes: Gary's spiritual evolution toward Orthodox Christianity, his critique of the "social impact" space as demonic energy trap, and the theological framework for distinguishing authentic ministry from performance-based activism.

Key Themes & Insights

1. Orthodox Christian Exploration

First Orthodox Experience: Gary attended his first Orthodox liturgy and was deeply impressed by the "very solemn, very sacred vibe." He noted the lack of marketing focus compared to Catholic churches but appreciated the "ratcheted up to a higher degree of traditionalism."

Spiritual Alignment Discovery:

"Their view is like Satan is winning, like in a big way right now. And there's not really like a denial of that. I think Catholics are, you know what I realized that Catholics preach? Catholics preach everything is pretty much fine, but we need to stop doing wars."

Catholic Church Critique: Gary identified systemic issues with Catholic institutional alignment: "They basically endorse the system. And then they make money on the wars, too, by the way. They make a lot of money in the wars... So it's just not the right church."

2. Denominational Freedom Philosophy

Tim's Non-Denominational Approach:

"I don't think it makes sense. I want to go to every church and pray. Or I want to be outside the church and be able to pray. Not be constrained by, let's say, I'll call it non-foundational. What I really mean is that they're not in the scripture rules, right?"

Gary's Validation: Gary affirmed Tim's approach, emphasizing the value of developing faith in parallel: "I know you're going to make a good spiritual judgment about how to proceed with your own faith journey. So I'm not even rushing to influence you on that."

Mutual Learning Framework:

"There's a huge value in developing our own faith and spirit in parallel. And sometimes it aligns a lot. Actually, it surprisingly aligns... But at other times, we would just figure out different lessons about different things. And we would just help each other, teach each other."

3. Alpha Schools Final Break

Definitive Decision: Gary announced his formal resignation timeline: "I think I'm going to say I formally resign from this role and please terminate all contracts related to my relationship with Alfa. Just to totally clean it up because I didn't get a message."

Organizational Critique:

"I don't know. It's just a shit show organization. That's what it is. I think, you know, it kind of reminds me of, even though it's not the perfect analogy, it's like, say you're a bad father to 10 kids. Is the solution to have 90 more kids?"

Tim's Support:

"I totally support the decision to just cut it off. Unless you get a response that's super favorable in the next couple of days."

4. Peter Han's Spiritual Business Philosophy

Introduction to Key Teaching: Gary referenced Peter Han as "such a smart guy" and forwarded materials about two fundamental approaches to making a living:

Two Ways of Living:

1. Atheistic Toiling: "toiling, atheistically, without trust of God, without letting God do his work"
2. Divine Flow: "letting God guide your boat and you row... in a flow, during calm or favorable tides"

Peter's Seven-Month Testimony:

"Peter hasn't collected a check for seven months. He can do that because he has some money in the bank because he's 40, 40 something. But the way that he's working is being very, very... just making disciples of the world in a very not traditional church way."

Core Ministry Definition: Gary emphasized that making disciples is "one of the most important thing that God wants us to do... It's not theoretical, man. It's not just like a myth."

5. Theological Framework for Authentic vs. Inauthentic Work

Divine Calling vs. Slavery:

"You can't both be depending on weekly paychecks from a Slade Master... And trust God that he'll provide and allow you to walk your talk. Your true calling. You can't be both."

God's Standards:

"God won't even reward you with that. God's not going to be like, well, you kind of trust me. So just can you please trust me a little more and more and more over time? Just like maybe 1% more every day. You know, for a while. I just don't think that's how it works."

Two Masters Principle: Tim articulated the biblical principle: "You can't have two masters. And this, I think, is the exact phrase you should use for convincing and discipling... the couple that you mentioned, right? Because this is exactly about them, right? Once you've told them what the impact space and the democratic reform space is all about. They will not be able to live like that as Christians."

6. Critique of Social Impact as Demonic Energy Trap

Language Corruption Analysis: Tim provided sophisticated analysis of how the impact space corrupts meaningful language:

"They deprive through their pretenses, through pretending to do something. They still use the same language as the people who would actually want to do something... It's like making a change, changing the status quo. What else? Actually making impact. Do you see how making impact now sounds fucking awkward to use?"

Spiritual Diagnosis:

"This is straight up evil... they corrupt the language that we use to describe good and to describe the movement and the strife toward good."

Gary's Aggressive Language Justification:

"My biggest reason for using this aggressive language is because everyone's time is so limited. And they're not doing their calling, Tim. They're not doing their calling."

Demonic Energy Trap Definition:

"These are demonic energy traps. Their energy sucks. The black holes of energy."

7. Biblical Basis for Impact Work Critique

God's Standards vs. Human Impotence:

"God would not put you in an impotent calling because God would not make you impotent as part of your calling."

Deception Through Pretense: Gary used DreamDAO as case study, noting that only authentic participants (Gary, Tim, Chauncey) eventually became Christians: "You know how I remember he was authentic? It was while... the first uh internships faith phase... It was the only one who proposed like a decent internship."

Ultimate Test:

"And look who ended up being fucking christian... because it's the only way to maintain that energy long term."

8. Spiritual Warfare and Cultural Analysis

Effective Altruism Critique:

"One of the most important critiques of effective altruism... only really come from people grounded in the spiritual realm because utilitarianism is demonic."

Playing God Problem:

"We are someone to judge, right? Yeah, exactly. We are the judges and and ultimately It's not your role to to do that, right?"

Surveillance State Analysis: Gary provided analysis of Peter Thiel's work: "If you're preventing anything from happening... While you're advocating for transhumanism, so you're legalizing sin. While penalizing free will that is the consequence of an atheistic world view demonic world view."

9. Technology Ethics and Transhumanism

Free Will vs. Control:

"You are not god to give people free will or not... Because it has already been given... It's basically going against god like straight up."

Acceleration of Evil:

"Everything's accelerating so like all the evil is kind of like accelerating so fast. It's like it's just it's very very interesting to me. To see it all happen so quickly."

10. Character Assessment Through Crisis

DreamDAO Case Study: Tim reflected on who maintained authentic energy: "I was like, oh, was it really Gary Chang's project and not actually DreamDAO? You know, because Gary just left, and this shit doesn't work anymore."

Spiritual Endurance Test:

"And I just figured out that you were the only fucking one with authentic energy in there... But I mean to me to me it really kind of shows and it's funny because look I'm, not trying to find parallels, but who ended up being christian? Who ended up being christian bro out of all the people in dreamdale?"

11. Personal Relationship Boundaries and Standards

Victory Boyd Professional Framework: Gary mentioned establishing clear professional boundaries while preserving spiritual partnership with Victory Boyd after she began a new romantic relationship.

Quality Standards in Partnerships:

"Well, I just realized, like, It's not very easy to work with people that are just about money. Yeah. Because they make shitty things."

12. Tim's Continued Spiritual Development

Integration of Gary's Teaching: Tim demonstrated sophisticated integration of spiritual principles learned through their ongoing dialogue, particularly around fear of God, moral superiority recognition, and divine accountability.

Technology Adoption: Tim committed to adopting Gary's recording system using Apple Watch + Cursor integration for relationship intelligence accumulation during his France transition.

Continued Partnership: Despite Tim's move to France, both maintained commitment to their spiritual brotherhood and strategic collaboration on kingdom advancement initiatives.

Strategic Outcomes

1. Gary's Orthodox Exploration: Clear spiritual direction toward traditional Christianity without denominational constraint
2. Alpha Schools Closure: Definitive end to organizational relationship enabling focus on authentic calling
3. Peter Han Integration: Adoption of spiritual business philosophy emphasizing divine timing over human forcing
4. Social Impact Critique: Comprehensive theological framework for identifying and avoiding demonic energy traps
5. Continued Mentorship: Strengthened spiritual brotherhood with Tim despite geographic separation

Notable Quotes for Future Reference

On Authentic Ministry:

"When people have been inspired by the Holy Spirit and also reading the Bible through the Holy Spirit, not through the devil... When you're inspired by the Holy Spirit, reading the Bible, to not use the Bible to create slaves, but to liberate in the only way that... not in terms of like gay pride, but like in terms of like true soul salvation."

On Social Impact Deception:

"If they're not working towards serving their divine calling, it's that source of their attraction might as well be called demonic. Because they're disobeying. They're rebelling."

On Political Reform Futility:

"The way to control politicians... is to fucking bribe them. And then create fear. Because that's like how the Jews do it... And like shame them... It's like almost all of why any policy gets put in is because they were bribed to do so."

On Divine Timing:

"He who has an ear, let them hear. They really become your followers or fellows... It spreads a culture of truth telling where you're like, this is almost certainly not your calling because God would not put you in an impotent calling."

This conversation represents a watershed moment in Gary's spiritual evolution, combining deep theological insight with practical wisdom about authentic ministry versus performative activism. The dialogue demonstrates the continued strength of the Gary-Tim spiritual brotherhood and its role in advancing kingdom principles through uncompromising truth-telling and divine alignment.