De-Platformed by Dan DeWitt, the Influence of History, Receiving the Received Text

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:33

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line on a... I think it's Thursday. Yeah, I think it's Thursday.

00:39

Huh? All day. Yeah, thank you very much. Sorry, I'm having to apologize to Luke the

00:48

Bear because once again, The Dividing Line is on at the exact same time as Apology Radio.

00:55

So I guess, you know, I'm feeling conflicted about that. Maybe we'll have to arrange not to do that in the future so that people can watch both live at the same time.

01:05

But nothing we can do about that right now. We'll have to work on better coordination or cooperation or something in the future.

01:15

Anyways, a few things to get to. One of them... Have you ever...

01:21

well, this is probably just for you older folks, but... For example, it's happening a lot more to me these days that I'll get an email and I'll think about what

01:34

I'm going to say in response to it. And because I thought about what I was going to say in response to it, then I assume that I actually wrote it.

01:40

And then I never write it. And then they say, I never heard back from you. And then you're sitting there going, but I remember responding to it.

01:49

But actually, all you had done is thought about what you were going to say when you responded to it. That kind of thing, unfortunately, is happening.

01:55

And I have this graphic. And I have a distinct recollection of responding to it.

02:07

And I thought it was on the program. But I can't find it anywhere. I don't want it to go by.

02:12

I think it is important to look at. So I may end up repeating something. That's just, you know...

02:20

Honestly, part of it is age. Part of it is trying to do as many things as I'm trying to do at my age.

02:28

But I'll tell you what I think the most of it is. Modern problems,

02:38

I know. Modern problems. But people will contact me about something and I've said, yeah, let's do it.

02:48

And then the next day, I'm like, I don't remember what the date was and how did that person contact me?

02:54

Was it a text message? Was it a Facebook message? Was it WhatsApp? Now there's this new thing...

03:01

Marco Polo? You haven't done Marco Polo yet. You'll get sucked into it. It's visual text messaging.

03:11

No. This is visual text messaging. There's just so many...

03:20

WhatsApp and everything. And I'll be sitting there going, I know they contacted me. And sometimes it'll be an actual text message that didn't go through iMessage so it's not in the message thing.

03:33

And there's just... I don't think God designed our brains to have this many avenues of input.

03:41

I'm being serious. I just don't... I just don't think so. And I think that lends to...

03:49

Especially to people who are not naturally multitaskers. I sort of am. But I would imagine folks like that just like, man,

03:57

I'm just not going to do it. I'm just not going to touch any of that kind of stuff. So anyway. I'll get to that one later on.

04:06

I may be repeating myself later on. And if so, you all can have a laugh at my expense.

04:13

It's amazing how many times people will say, he's never admitted to being wrong about anything. And I'm constantly talking about how dumb

04:19

I am and the stupid things I do. And it's like, whatever. Oh, so I...

04:25

Oh, Yutato is counting up the number of facepalms I do today. That would be interesting.

04:31

Should I get my Picard facepalm thing?

04:39

Three? No, not saying it, doing it. Not saying the word.

04:44

Actually, facepalming. That's different. Anyway.

04:50

We'll get to that one in just a moment. And we'll press on from there. But one of the things

04:58

I do need to address is I was initially sent just one of these two tweets.

05:11

And only about an hour, hour and a half, two hours later, I don't remember exactly what it was, did

05:19

I see the second tweet. Partly because when this individual decided to post these accusations, he also decided to block me.

05:29

Though, to my knowledge, we've never had any communication whatsoever. Is that a virtue signal block?

05:35

I think it's a virtue signal block. That's a virtue signaling block. If you're going to talk about somebody,

05:45

I've got a huge block list and it's generally because there are some really nasty, insulting people.

05:51

And I'm talking real insults. Not, I'm insulted by your position type stuff. But preemptively?

05:59

That's interesting. Anyway. The first tweet that I saw from Dr.

06:09

Dan DeWitt who teaches at Cedarville University. He is a graduate of the

06:15

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, PhD. And Dr.

06:21

DeWitt teaches apologetics and a lot of very similar areas. That's why he said the first thing here, which was,

06:30

I purged my syllabus from resources from a particular apologist whose online witness has consistently been careless and uncharitable.

06:42

I'd encourage any seminary or Christian university who has seen the online conversations and then this cut off here.

06:48

I think it is to do the same. Is what the rest of it said. I believe was the rest of it. To do the same.

06:55

So that was the first tweet that I saw. And there was no name.

07:03

So again if you're wondering when you've been blocked by someone but you have a direct link to a tweet, you just simply open a browser window, an anonymous browser window.

07:23

Go private or whatever it is. What does it say in Chrome? It is file new incognito window.

07:36

And then you pop the URL in there and up it comes. Then you can follow the chain.

07:43

So all blocking does, like I can see all of Kyle James Howard's stuff, even though he blocked me a long time ago.

07:48

It just takes an extra step. You've got to get a URL to one particular tweet, then you pop that in and then you can see whatever you want.

07:57

So anyway I did not see the follow -up tweet.

08:03

So the initial thing is no name but people started going, well who are you talking about?

08:10

And people knew exactly who it was. So people responded and you started getting conversation going on Dr.

08:17

DeWitt's thread there. And immediately people were like, what are you talking about?

08:23

Even if you don't like what he said about a subject over there if you've had him in your syllabus all along and folks there were people who popped into my threads and his threads and stuff going

08:38

I found out about you because I was in his class and I love you both and I'm just so thankful I got hold of all the resources and another person said

08:47

I've become reformed because I ran into your material there and started reading and that led me to do more reading and thank you very, very much and it's such a shame to see this and so on and so forth.

09:00

evidently the material was worthwhile suggesting to the students before but notice the assertion whose online witness has consistently been careless and uncharitable.

09:19

Well you're certainly free to have whatever opinions you wish but there are all sorts of people that would find all sorts of material in my online witness, which

09:32

I guess would include this program which began when you I think were a teenager or earlier

09:40

I'm not sure exactly how old you are, but the divining started in the 80s and I think that would have been probably born in the late 70s so as a child and you know you can characterize it as you wish but I think most folks realize just the opposite that there has been a consistent carefulness and charity

10:08

I mean I suppose there's something to be derived from the fact that I've got people on the one side constantly saying that I'm a wimp that I'm too nice to this group over here or that group over there and you and Michael Brown are just terrible, that you all would get along with each other and blah blah blah and you know why do you have to insist on being so careful in representing what this group means to that group?

10:40

They're just all a bunch of heretics anyways, so you've got those folks and now over on this side you've got you've got this type of an attitude that I think derives from some other source but anyways so consistently being careless and uncharitable and then saying hey everybody needs to, in other words exclude this man exclude the most active

11:10

English speaking Christian apologist in in the current day why?

11:18

because of the tweet from Saturday because of the tweet from Saturday now this makes a claim that there is it's consistently been this way then why did you have my materials in your syllabus in the first place?

11:32

because I haven't changed I had Votie Balcom on talking about this stuff years ago now maybe you just didn't know about it but the possibility

11:41

Dr. DeWitt is that you've changed and not me and one of the reasons

11:48

I would say that is in looking at your bio you are a associated with the

11:57

ERLC. You're a research fellow for the ERLC for the ERLC and I have criticized the

12:06

ERLC and have publicly stated that there is very strong evidence that the ERLC has been deeply influenced over the past number of years by critical theory intersectionality that there is a obvious leftward lurch in the

12:22

ERLC and I am not exactly the only person who's come to that conclusion there are many within and without the

12:33

Southern Baptist Convention that have seen rather obviously the leftward lurch under Russell Moore of the

12:41

ERLC but let's keep one other thing in mind what happened just recently that involved the

12:52

ERLC and Alpha and Omega Ministries and most people don't even think about this haven't even given it a thought but other people did and what was it?

13:04

Sam Mulberry Sam Mulberry and Living Out you say well you didn't do that that's true that was

13:13

Dr. Tom Buck where were Tom Buck's articles posted? aomin .org

13:20

our website we hosted the articles that specifically targeted the

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ERLC's commendation of Living Out so now you have a research fellow for the

13:39

ERLC saying I'm purging all this guy's stuff out of my not that I've found better stuff that's the thing about this when people say

13:51

I'm not going to use your material I'm just going to reject you and everything else what about the students?

14:01

what about the students? what are you going to direct them to on the subject of the King James only controversy?

14:07

what are you going to direct them to for a orthodox Christian analysis of the

14:13

Quran that will equip them to engage in direct conversation with Muslims to seek to make the gospel clear to them what are you going to replace the forgotten trinity with that will have the same impact upon people's lives in making them passionate and grounded in the word of the subject are there good books on those subjects?

14:35

yeah there are but in our time and our day up to date that communicate with a background of engaging and by the way engaging in a very respectful and charitable fashion with all those groups having done so for decades what's your real priority when you would no longer utilize that kind of information only because well

15:02

I don't like the stand he takes on these other issues and the stands which taken were unremarkable only 10 years ago but hey the point is

15:13

I'm not woke and I think woke is broke and I think woke is anti -biblical and I think woke requires the importation of foreign categories into the

15:25

Christian faith and it seems if you're woke then everyone who is not and knows that you say they should be now becomes your enemy which would substantiate the assertion we've made from the beginning that critical theory by definition can only be divisive it cannot provide a mechanism for uniting individuals which is true but that was just the first tweet

15:52

I didn't see the follow -up tweet which was worse this was a follow -up tweet that I guess

16:01

I ran into I don't know if someone posted it to me or I forget how but it was a little bit after that so this is the follow -up it says we should not we cannot have prospective students, parents and alums perceive that we support hate -mongering by Christian leaders who thrive on controversy and cruel comments so what do we have here as far as accusations from Dr.

16:33

Dan DeWitt of Cedarville University we have the accusation of hate -mongering thriving on controversy and cruel comments well those are serious accusations and so I responded but of course he has me blocked which doesn't which would mean that my comments might not directly appear on his feed

17:04

I can see people I've blocked if I want to but again

17:14

I then utilized the Cedarville University contact website webpage, whatever and I wrote to Dr.

17:27

DeWitt and I challenged him to back up the publicly made accusations and I invited him if he really believes this is true if he really believes

17:42

I am hate -mongering that I am producing cruel comments it should be easy to substantiate that in context now of course

17:53

Dr. DeWitt knows that I would demand that everything be put into a context so any response that I would write to someone who is calling me a woman, a misogynist racist you know

18:06

I'd want to make sure that was in the context so that someone would know what the context of the comment was but I said nothing to anyone that to an adult anyways would be considered cruel in our day where if you say to someone your statement is illogical oh that's so offensive ok there are people that's cruel comments, well if Dr.

18:31

DeWitt thinks that that's cruel that needs to be pointed out too I think

18:38

I think people need to know that's the foundation of that kind of accusation but I would think that the main people that would need to know about what a hate -mongering thriving on controversy cruel person

18:55

I am would be this audience so this would be the perfect venue to come on and to demonstrate and to ground these accusations or the perfect venue to come on and say

19:11

I did not do due diligence I only heard second hand information this was posted before I did the dividing line 90 minute broadcast providing full documentation and defense and I withdraw my accusations with apology that would be very acceptable as well now

19:36

I have not received any response to the email of course it's summer

19:44

I believe Dr. DeWitt is traveling to Florida actually so maybe the stuff that comes through the university email

19:54

I don't know maybe he hasn't seen it don't know maybe he's choosing to not even respond to me

20:03

I don't know but people in this audience do and I'm sure there are a number of you in this audience that have direct contact with Dr.

20:14

DeWitt and so if you would want to respectfully let him know that there's an email waiting for him and an open invitation to substantiate the accusation that he has made on this program that he is more than welcome to do so but I think it needs to be dealt with if these accusations run true then they're slanderous and there are passages of scripture that deal with how you're supposed to handle these types of situations and so I it's sad to see this kind of thing especially what it tells us about the church today can we just be straight up honest the reason this is happening is because I'm not black and therefore

21:10

I am not allowed to speak on this subject which means here a southern seminary graduate speaking on worldview issues clearly gives evidence of being thoroughly impacted by formed by infected by,

21:29

I would say in a negative sense um critical theory, intersectionality identity politics or as Vody used to put it ethnic gnosticism you can't talk about this stuff and it doesn't matter what you said it doesn't matter how you said it any words you use will be used against you in a different context than you offered them because intersectionality doesn't care about objective context or objective meaning you're either an oppressor or you're the oppressed and if you're in the oppressor class your context and your intention is irrelevant that's what you, folks you need to understand this once you buy into identity politics and you don't have to have read books on the subject of of critical theory to imbibe the worldview and the mindset it can simply become this feeling that old white men with white goatees should never say anything about the abortion rate in the black community you're not allowed to and then when you start pushing, why?

22:49

what's behind that? and if you start pushing for consistency, you're being mean you're mean spirited you're nasty, you're offensive that's where we are today there was a day when you actually felt the responsibility if you made a statement or a claim to back it up to be able to back it up and to not run to your safe space of intersectionality and identity politics you're a part of the wrong group, you can't talk about these things you can't even have a concern about these things and that's one of the reasons that I have not backed down on this and I cannot back down on this is that we have brothers and sisters in this community that are fighting the fight there's

23:38

Ken on Twitter, he was mentioning he was posting some stuff in regards to this you know you've got

23:46

Daryl in Omaha and you've got black brothers and sisters in that community that are fighting the battle they see what's going on they know what's going on, they're trying to bring a word of righteousness to bear and what is our culture saying to us leave them alone abandon them do not stand with them, do not defend

24:14

Samuel Say when he writes that tremendous article because you can't you don't have the intersectional authority you are an oppressor and that's what makes it wrong for someone like Samuel, that's why he was attacked by that guy you're betraying your race because you are of the oppressed but you aren't buying the oppression narrative that you're supposed to buy for everything so the point is what we're being told and what

24:51

Dr. DeWitt's actions demonstrate is abandon them leave them to their own resources do not stand with them do not encourage them do not say to them what you're doing is right,

25:03

I know that it costs you a great deal but we're with you we support you, no no no no you're not allowed to do that, shut up wrong identity you're the oppressor doesn't matter whether you oppressed anybody but you're the oppressor, that's what critical theory is about now so I simply reiterate my challenge to Dr.

25:28

DeWitt of Cedarville University and of the ERLC, you have made public slanderous accusations that are false you either need to substantiate them and you see, the reason

25:42

I want to do this the reason I want to have him on is because when you attempt to substantiate this kind of rhetoric you and I both know it collapses immediately okay

25:57

Dr. DeWitt, let's read my tweet again and let's see what is hate -mongering here and what that does is either they're going to stay as far away as possible from ever being exposed to cross -examination which is,

26:14

I think, what's going to happen or once cross -examination takes place you begin to see the categories and they have to become plain well, it's hate -mongering because, and in flies the critical theory, in flies the intersectionality, in flies the categories of oppressor and oppressed and then it's literally child's play at that point in a

26:37

Christian context, demonstrate your use of the term oppression there isn't the biblical use of the term oppression there, and let's see how that is and the whole thing collapses does the left in our culture politically actually engage in meaningful debate?

26:54

after last night, do we really need to ask that question? we didn't need to ask that question before last night, but now we can go even farther with it no, of course it doesn't they can't, because intersectional categories are irrational, they can't survive cross -examination and so Dr.

27:20

DeWitt never met you I didn't know of your work before looks like you've got some children's books which

27:27

I think is really super cool because I've said to a lot of people before,

27:32

I've said if you really want to know if you know the doctrine of the trinity explain it to 10 year olds if you can do that then you really know your stuff and so I've not seen them, they're probably great, they're probably wonderful there's lots of folks at both

27:51

Southern and Cedarville that like both of us I'm sorry you've chosen to take this action I hope you'll do the right thing because the right thing,

27:59

Dr. DeWitt, will be to withdraw and apologize withdraw and apologize, you were wrong I think you went on really bad partial information listen to the last dividing line

28:10

I did and if you can still think that you can substantiate the allegation of hate -mongering and cruel comments we will set you up and bring you on, if you really believe that.

28:23

Yes sir? I just saw something on Twitter that disturbs me just a little bit and I want to the issue here, part of this is that he's called for deplatforming this is what this is called, you look at what

28:36

James O 'Keefe has been talking about about his Google video and he's talking about the fact that he's running out of places to get it out there because the news media is embargoing him,

28:48

Google is now shutting him down at every turn, I posted that video yesterday I linked to it on Vimeo and that's gone, within hours after my linking it was gone so they're hitting him everywhere they can this is called deplatforming, where eventually you get debanked, you get deplatformed nobody knows you, you just take away your voice, and I just saw somebody call for a show we say a tit for tat with Dr.

29:14

DeWitt and I don't want to see that I know you don't want to see that, that's not what we are calling for here, we're calling for an open and honest conversation, we want more conversation not less, exactly so please don't go there, it's just not not right yeah, no it's not, yeah, no

29:31

I mean, I don't know the only if Dr.

29:37

DeWitt is, and this is how does anyone do apologetics once you have begun to embrace categories of critical theory race theory, gender theory, whatever

29:53

I would say that would be like pouring acid on any argument for the

30:01

Christian faith I cannot see how there can be any consistent apologetic methodology once you embrace critical theory, it's it's the nullification of the message we're seeking to proclaim so the question would be is that what

30:21

Dr. DeWitt is doing? I don't know I had not heard of him before yesterday or the day before yesterday, whatever it was sorry there's lots of great guys out there

30:32

I didn't know him and Dan, if we've met I apologize, I mean I'm really bad with names you just remind me when we did but anyways

30:42

I just hope you'll do the right thing but yeah, calling for my deplatforming on the basis of one tweet after 166 moderated public debates, 24 books almost 40 years does that tell you something?

30:59

I think it tells you something I think it tells you what's going on, and this is not going to be the last time by any stretch of the imagination it's not going to be the last time so yeah, there you go which then brings me to I mentioned and I'm not going to put this on the screen

31:26

I'm just going to read it I mentioned yesterday Tuesday that a particular individual

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Keisha Atkinson who I guess has been going after my daughter for quite some time

31:42

I wasn't aware of that so I guess this isn't overly surprising I would not normally respond to this but it's just so helpful in illustrating a major problem in the thought processes of people today

32:01

Keisha Atkinson on June 25 3 .41pm updated her status and it said, someone tell

32:07

James R. White I don't know who James Cone is listen to this can't be influenced by someone

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I don't know homie that's what it says can't be influenced by someone

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I don't know homie now, I put up a

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Facebook article about that because there are so many people who think that's true this is part of the modern plague modern individuals, especially millennials looks like she's a millennial modern individuals do not recognize, because they have not been challenged to have a meaningful worldview that recognizes their place in history

32:59

I don't think I'm being overblown to say that we've never seen a generation so self -absorbed and so ignorant of where they came from as the millennial generation well,

33:13

Z -gens are probably out doing them now but all those jaywalking episodes even after Jay stopped doing them asking people basic fundamental questions about not only modern political leaders, but I mean, can you really imagine if you went to your local university today and started asking basic questions who won the battle of Midway?

33:45

who were the primary antagonists in World War I? who was who were

33:53

General Grant and General Lee, and why were they why are they relevant to each other? what was

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Hiroshima? basic issues of history you know that the vast majority of the people that you would talk to on a university campus wouldn't have a clue they don't read about history they don't see that there is an absolute necessity to understand where you've come from because they don't think there's anything about your nation or your culture that is relevant and so I get it amongst the worldly but as Christians we are specifically told we are given the instruction we are to look to the scriptures because they're going to give us an example of what

34:52

God has done in the past we are to learn from these things and so look at Hebrews chapter 11 this long long story of what

35:08

God has done and what he's done with all the people and their faith and what you're to learn from that and all the rest of that stuff and then the reality is every single person in an evangelical

35:24

Christian church has been influenced by Basil the

35:32

Great and Cyril of Alexandria though 99 .99998

35:41

% of all American evangelicals have never read so much as one sentence let alone a paragraph of either one of them and yet you've been influenced by them why?

35:50

because they were important in the development of the theological vocabulary that becomes the very foundation of what you and I say to one another all the time so you've been influenced by them you cannot help but have been influenced by them, you've been influenced by Calvin, you've been influenced by Luther at least most of this audience has read a couple paragraphs of Calvin though I'd be willing to bet the majority have not read the

36:16

Institutes of the Christian Religion I haven't read all of Calvin, I haven't read all of his commentaries for example great resource but I haven't and so the very idea that you would actually have to read someone's book to be influenced by them is tremendously naive if you are in a church in America that interacts with or is a part of the black church whatever that's called, whatever that means you've been influenced by Cone one way or another you may not know it directly but the seminary professors and university professors all know

37:08

Cone now your church may be pastored by a man who didn't even go to Bible college but he has interaction with others who did and so that influence becomes mediated person to person to person it may be seven generations down the road before it gets to you and it may no longer be super accurate but you're still being influenced you're still being influenced he's called the father of black theology in the

37:44

United States you've been influenced now here's the issue, the modern millennial the

37:52

ZGen seems to be proud of his or her ignorance of their historical background and if you don't know how you've been influenced and who you've been influenced by, you cannot critically analyze them you can't filter things out so we want to for example examine any kind of influence that would influence our exegesis of the text of scripture but if you don't know anything about your history, you don't know what's come before you, you can't filter those things out.

38:31

There's nothing to be proud of about how little you know about what defined the very categories that make you who you are that should be something to be ashamed of not proud of and so every one of us is influenced in this way and the wise person is going to garner as much information as possible given where God has put us in our lives and in the midst of our responsibilities to know what framed our language, what framed our categories, what framed our theology what framed our worldview and the more you know about that the better off you are when looking at other worldviews and being able to go oh well

39:22

I see that in this particular area there's a fundamental difference between us and it's because of this it's because of this area and wow the contributions of this person all of a sudden you can now start building bridges to other people you can communicate with greater clarity, you can analyze arguments better doesn't seem like analyzing arguments is much of a big thing these days unfortunately but seeing that just reminded me um

39:58

I've threatened to do this before and I think I'm going to um it is absolutely time to work through a basic outline on something called logic formal fallacies bad argumentation what's modus ponens, what's modus tollens what's the law of the excluded middle what are these things nobody gotta go watch a movie they are the laws of thought and what happened last week there have been various people who have attacked me people like Steve Hayes, oh my gosh,

40:49

Steve dude that was one of the worst things that has ever appeared on TriBlog I mean you can't even pretend any longer to be even slightly unbiased at all you missed the forest for the trees so badly on that it was just shameful

41:10

I'm sorry dude you've lost it but there are people out there who should know better who just reacted to the fact that 99 % of the response to that tweet was not based upon a logical, calm reflection of the actual statement of the words it wasn't now there's a spectrum there are people who weren't overly emotional but were still not rational and then you had the people who just you know just huge cloud of emotion you can't reason with folks like that but here's a fact the fact is that if you were willing to be calm charitable fair and dismiss identity politics you could have read that tweet and perfectly understood my point, my argument and its validity there is a way to read that tweet in that way if you're calm fair, unbiased don't bring in identity politics there's no question about that, that's not indisputable there was nothing inherent in what

42:49

I said that would cause a fair minded person to go any other direction but there are a lot of unfair minded people out there that's the point and so when

43:01

I responded to people when I responded to people that's what

43:09

I would push on okay, can you show me please where in these words where is this back up your accusation you made this accusation what's the grounding of this let's be logical, let's be rational and in our day the call for logic, rationality consistency is considered to be arrogant mean spirited, offensive you just can't hear yourself no

43:43

I recognize that in today's world, asking for that kind of thought is not popular but I don't have any choice

43:53

I don't have any choice the scriptures I believe call me to have the mind of Christ are you saying he was irrational the one who made the universe and all its laws calls me to violate those laws and not think like him just because my society has chosen to do so,

44:14

I can't do that I can't do that so let's keep that in mind uh anyway um so there's the

44:33

Keisha Atkinson thing um let's do something fun before I do something more serious again the thing

44:42

I mentioned earlier but I had an interesting give and take with Dr.

44:50

Moeller yesterday or day before yesterday and some of you will remember that a couple weeks ago

44:59

Dr. Moeller on the briefing which is going to wrap up here uh he always takes

45:06

July off so for everybody that's just part of your morning routine July is that one month where you just get the jitters um but uh

45:18

I don't know, about a month or so ago he had a story at the end of the briefing about dodgeball and you've heard the stories about bullying and you know, it's because somebody has to win somebody has to lose and all this stuff and I loved dodgeball dodgeball was great those playground balls that we used for kickball, dodgeball, whatever you know, the way they do when you hit them, that sound any of us from the 60s and 70s you know exactly what

45:49

I'm talking about and I was pretty good at dodgeball and you know, there were some kids that were better than others, but it it was a game that pretty much everybody could play you know, it was sort of the equalizer everybody could have fun with it and yeah, when it pinged off your face off your face it made an especially loud ping especially when you heard it we had a variation on dodgeball our

46:22

PE teacher called it murder ball murder ball, okay, well there you go well, PE teachers that's another subject anyway so he had this thing about dodgeball and so I linked to an

46:36

Amazon thing of dodgeball and sent it to him and he followed me on Twitter and so he responded to it and he said, hey let's make this happen, let's challenge the

46:47

Armenians to a dodgeball tournament on the lawn of the cemetery and of course everybody went crazy we could sell tickets to this and it was fun so, yesterday day for yesterday he posts this tweet that I have up and it's a picture of a

47:11

Whataburger with fries and a coke and if you don't have

47:17

Whataburger in your area, well I like Whataburger, Whataburger's pretty good

47:24

I mean, I don't if I had a choice between Whataburger and Arby's I'd go to Arby's, but Whataburger and I remember when we first moved out here everybody was like, you gotta go to Whatever, you gotta get

47:35

Whataburger's, so I was like, well, okay yeah, they're sometimes really, really good burgers but, you know it's just, it's a burger and a fry joint, but not all states have them, so anyway, so,

47:50

Albert Mueller puts, honestly I had to do this, if I left Texas without doing this, Riley M.

47:57

Barnes would be ashamed of me, and then tagged Whataburger well, I had to respond to that, and so I responded and said, well there goes your girlish figure

48:07

I thought you were in training for the 2020 Olympics dodgeball competition and so, he he responded, well

48:17

I will need calories to burn in the great dodgeball championship game, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it so I appreciate when

48:29

Dr. Mueller sort of lets the the Christian worldview analysis thing slip and and has some fun, so yeah, there you go okay, so here's the here's the thing that I just know

48:51

I've talked about this I just Rich doesn't remember it and I looked at the program we did from Living Waters, and it wasn't there so maybe

49:09

I didn't, I don't know but I'm gonna do it again, and I'm gonna keep it short but I had saved this and I have a clear recollection of talking about how many times the word received was used, but anyways this is from June 11th

49:26

Robert Truelove in announcing the Text and Canon conference again which is

49:32

October 25th and 26th in Atlanta, Georgia this is a three paragraph introduction that I think is useful for the position of comparison and contrast and I think

49:47

Robert Truelove would admit contrast between a very minority position and the majority position so here's what it says, and that really looks small to me let me see if I can, yeah, that's too small to read, let me see if I can hold on a second let me see if I can, that's better that's better on my side anyways yeah, that's readable now, yay anyways advocacy for the received text is not founded upon critical proofs to the corruption of manuscripts like the

50:26

Papyri, Sinaiticus, or Vaticanus when we take up the argumentation of a critic, we give ground to the critics we receive the received text because it is the providentially vindicated text being received at the time of the

50:41

Reformation when all matters pertaining to the canon and its text were finally settled. Why do we reject all of those readings not in the received text?

50:50

Because they are not received in so doing, we follow Christ and the

50:55

Apostles who received the text in their day without resort to critical inquiry canon is vindicated and authenticated by God and the text is the very substance of canon so, there's a lot of really important concepts here that I think are extremely important first advocacy for the received text is not founded upon critical proofs for the corruption of manuscripts like the

51:24

Papyri, Sinaiticus, or Vaticanus so, I think what was being said there was that the primary argumentation is not to be found in what you find in King James Only stuff, where the

51:40

King James Onlyists are constantly saying, well, do you know what Sinaiticus says at this verse? It's got a completely whacked out reading here, so it's totally corrupted and so on and so forth.

51:51

So, I think what it's saying is that's not we're not saying don't use those texts because they're just bad our positive argument is a theological one about the nature of the received text not necessarily about the nature of these other things, and then it says when we take up the argumentation of a critic we give ground to the critics so, it's hard not to read that as saying well,

52:23

I almost grabbed Sinaiticus down there, but it's just too heavy um it's hard not to read that as basically stating if you start looking at variance in those manuscripts then you've got to start looking at variance in our manuscripts too and we want to get away from looking at variance we want to get away from weighing manuscripts we want to get away from well, everything, and this is my point everything that Erasmus and Stephanus and Beza did to give us our text the last time

53:01

I talked about this I didn't have this and you guys, you know you're jealous you know that this drives you insane because if you didn't see the last program where I showed you the

53:15

Stephanus text yeah, this is the Stephanus text if you didn't see it and I can hold it like this now

53:21

I'm not having to do this number because we had it recovered now, it looks even better than it did and yet it looks like it did because brother

53:32

Jeffrey is a master craftsman at what he does so, post -Oedipus

53:39

Lux did this, it's 1550 Stephanus but it now has a beautiful reinforced leather binding on it, antiqued he even got the kind of leather that was recommended for older books and stuff like that but here's the point

53:56

I wasn't able to show you this before but in the columns there are these little notations you can just sort of see them generally and what they refer to is a partial not complete collation of a series of manuscripts that Robert Estienne at the time in Paris was able to obtain one of the fascinating realities is that the beta text the indicated by the

54:38

Greek letter in Stephanus' 1550 edition

54:44

Beza used that exact edition in his textual choices for his later edition, that one right there could have used that one, we don't know who knows but the beta manuscript in Stephanus is actually

55:02

Codex Bezae Canterburgiensis Codex D in our modern Greek texts, which Beza himself was given later on but Beza didn't know that he didn't know that that's what

55:13

Stephanus had had access to and so there were times when looking at a text

55:20

Beza would look at what Stephanus had and then he'd look at Codex D, which we call it

55:25

D today Oh! Here's two manuscripts with the same unique reading and that influenced his decisions, it wasn't two manuscripts, it was just one, he didn't know

55:36

Stephanus had that just one of the very human realities of the origination of what would eventually become known as the received text, now the point is that the

55:52

TR was created utilizing rudimentary textual critical principles

56:04

Erasmus used them, Stephanus to a lesser extent used them, Beza used them both were heavily influenced by the

56:13

Latin Vulgate and by Latin readings but the point is that whatever you want to call the received text, it came to us by the very critical process that Dr.

56:28

Truelove is saying we need to avoid we can't go there when we take up the argumentation of a critic, we give ground to the critics but if you're going to look at the

56:41

Papyri, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, then you have to look at every manuscript Erasmus had, every manuscript

56:47

Beza had every manuscript Robert Estienne had because they produced the text if you close your eyes to the one you're not engaging in meaningful argumentation that's yeah, someone in the channel, is that a print?

57:07

Nope, that's the real thing, that's a 1550 Stephanus they made real paper back then folks we don't make real paper, honestly seriously look at the gold edge that's original but look at the whiteness of the paper

57:23

I have seminary textbooks from the 1980s that are more yellowed than this is and this is from 479 years

57:35

I think that's about right, 479 years ago yeah, there's no acid in that paper um and I can verify

57:45

I saw Al Mohler's 1550 Stephanus and it was same thing, so they, it's not that we don't know how to do that, we do it's just we're cheap we don't do a lot of really nice book stuff anymore, it's a bummer anyways,

58:02

I'm not even through this and it's, alright, let me hurry up, I'm sorry and Robert can you see

58:08

I'm not being mean, nasty or super argumentative at the moment I'm just,

58:13

I think I've accurately represented where you're coming from I really have so, we receive the received text, now

58:22

I want you to listen to how many times the verb received is used here, we receive the received text because it is the providentially vindicated text being received at the time of the

58:36

Reformation when all matters pertaining to the canon and its text were finally settled now there is, that is a mouthful, that's a that's only one sentence, it's not even a paragraph it's one sentence um, that's a theological assertion it is not a historical assertion um

58:57

I think most of the Reformers would be stunned by the assertion they'd go that we, that was happening we didn't know had no idea um, for example all matters pertaining to the canon and its text were finally settled the canon and its text you will not find a word in Erasmus in Stephanus or Bezos that would substantiate anything like that I think that is pure anachronism, that is reading back, that's wishful historical anachronism

59:36

I think that's what it is um I think the Reformers would go uh, well, you're giving us a little more credit there than maybe you should, um later generations in fighting against Rome might be tempted to do like what happened in the early church where, when the

59:58

Gnostics came along and professed their revelations, and I got this from Peter, so on and so forth you know, the error of many in the early church was to start to elevate apostolic tradition, apostolic traditions which weren't apostolic in origin um,

01:00:15

I think we can be honest in saying 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation Reformers, in fighting against the

01:00:21

Jesuits, um made claims that they shouldn't have made regarding the

01:00:27

Reformers possibility but this is a there's just so much here uh the providentially vindicated text being received the church did not receive anything she utilized a minimal number of manuscripts without meaningful analysis of their history, their date, their provenance there was no committee for the reception of the providentially vindicated text you can make it up you can assert it it just could never be defended

01:01:19

I think in debate and then when all matters pertaining to the canon's text were finally settled so I guess they weren't settled up until the

01:01:30

Reformation I mean that's highly problematic in and of itself that raises a whole bunch of issues but I've been going too long because I was showing off the text why do we reject all of those readings not in the received text so at least that's a full admission any reading which would include the fact that I can we have documented on this program errors in the

01:02:04

TR fundamental, obvious errors that were made by Erasmus or by Beza just basic errors that here's the manuscript they were copying but they missed this

01:02:21

Revelation 14 .1 so there's an error and it was just in the production of the text and there's a lot of errors in Revelation in particular but there are others elsewhere but basically this system this position is saying we accept them we accept all those readings because something happened some providential event took place we have decided even though it would have been easier

01:02:57

I would think to look at Nicaea or Chalcedon you could even go to the medieval period well not quite medieval but getting closer, look at Gottschalk in the days of Gottschalk he was still holding firm so let's look at the text then, there's all sorts of places let's go to Wycliffe I mean there's wow, brilliant man look at how he influenced the

01:03:19

English language there's all sorts of places we could go once you just want to go well, I see

01:03:25

Providence acting here and therefore boom it was like when

01:03:30

I debated Doug Wilson in our written book I say which one and he said that one, 1550

01:03:39

Stephanos and it was like why? why not? we didn't get a particular reason why not?

01:03:49

could have been the 4th edition of Erasmus, could have been the 2nd edition it's just sort of like which one was it?

01:03:54

Ah, 1550 Stephanos there you go well, alright because so why do we reject all those readings not in the received text?

01:04:05

because they are not received so in Revelation 16 every generation of Christians from the start had read one way but the

01:04:17

TR reads another way so all those other generations of Christians eh, doesn't matter they read it differently doesn't matter

01:04:26

Revelation 14 .1 his name and his father's name it's an important point, it's theological don't have to worry about those preceding generations they hadn't received the text that's very problematic from a historical perspective and a theological perspective really is in so doing this is getting more problematic in so doing, we follow

01:04:52

Christ and the Apostles who received the text in their day without resort to critical inquiry talk about opening

01:05:07

Pandora's box because any any meaningful analysis of the

01:05:16

New Testament's utilization of the Old Testament will demonstrate what we have discovered from archaeological and historical and text critical study as well that there were a number of streams you had what would become the

01:05:34

Masoretic text but there are variations within the Masoretic text there are what becomes the

01:05:43

Masoretic text existed in the days of Jesus but it's not necessary it was quoted by the

01:05:48

Apostles now,

01:05:55

Robert no offense but you've never debated a Muslim in a mosque in another country you haven't

01:06:05

I don't think any of you guys have I remember it's funny

01:06:12

I was talking to my next door neighbor and my next door the neighbor the next door house used to be his house many many moons ago and I remember very clearly the dividing line used to be recorded in the garage of that house which was once an office they were very surprised to discover that was once an office they had no idea, just a garage to them it's like, nope, used to be an entire had a noisy air conditioner and the whole nine yards you could hear it in the background of all the dividing lines we did but I remember, one night

01:06:53

I was doing a radio program with I'm not sure if Martin Tanner was hosting it, but Van Hale the

01:07:02

Mormon apologist it was dark I had my little green desk lamp on I remember right where my desk was in the room and that Mormon apologist threw at me the variant utilization of the

01:07:28

Greek Septuagint over against the Masoretic text by the New Testament apostles as evidence of the corruption of the transmission of the text of the

01:07:39

Bible and I could tell he expected that to be pretty much the end of it not realizing

01:07:45

I went to Fuller Seminary and hence had already been hit with that stuff in a different context, but realized how important it was from an apologetic perspective years before that these folks will raise these issues and you simply can't stand there and go

01:08:04

I won't deal with that because the received text has been received because Robert in the exact same context let's use

01:08:17

Mormonism there first I can't tell you how many Mormons I've talked to who've used that reasoning that specific reasoning as a defense of the

01:08:29

Book of Mormon I have a testimony there are millions of us that have a testimony that the

01:08:35

Book of Mormon comes from God I'm just not going to subject it to any type of analysis if you raise archaeological issues if you raise textual issues the changes that have taken place in the text of the

01:08:46

Book of Mormon even since its publication I'm not going there and once you have taken the stance you can't go there either not consistently but you go into the mosque with a well trained

01:09:02

Muslim well trained, notice the difference there there are a lot of Muslims who don't have any idea but there are a lot to do they're the ones that I debate and they're going to go wait a minute if you want to criticize inconsistencies in the

01:09:21

Quran if you want to say that there is a development in Muhammad's theology in the

01:09:28

Quran and that's against our belief that the Quran has eternally existed and there's no part of Muhammad within it, so on and so forth then we're going to come back and we're going to point these things out to you.

01:09:37

I can respond to that what can you do? in fact when I did the debate in London with Adnan Rashid it became very clear

01:09:47

I talked about how the New Testament was transmitted over time freely over against the controlled transmission of the

01:09:54

Quran Adnan had not run into that before and that gave me a tremendously strong position from which to demonstrate that his argumentation was inconsistent but he was the one going hey, as long as you get back to Uthman, that's good enough that's good enough for me and you'd have to say hey, as long as you get back to the

01:10:18

TR, that's good enough for you and now you're at an impasse now you're at an impasse so there's a lot packed into that sentence and finally, real quickly canon is vindicated and authenticated by God and the text is the very substance of canon so this is

01:10:36

I think going to be a fundamental element of the text and canon conference and that is the attempt to associate the presuppositional defense of canon with a

01:10:54

TR only view of the text I think, again, this is a really bad misuse of Michael Kruger's argumentation

01:11:05

I think it confuses the fact that you can talk about the gospel of John as the gospel of John without talking about whether it is theos or huios at John 1 .18

01:11:19

but this is saying, no, you cannot and the only way to do that is the way they're doing it in other words a

01:11:29

Byzantine priority approach can't do this because there are variants within the

01:11:35

Byzantine text as to what John is no, you have to say it's the TR now

01:11:41

I'm wondering guys, are you going to do what Doug Wilson did? is this going to be it?

01:11:48

is this the final one? or are you going to go with the Trinitarian Bible Society?

01:11:55

what are you going to go with? because there's no middle ground here you either have to say, and you said it why do we reject how many?

01:12:06

all of those readings not in the received text so you have to have an identifiable received text no ifs, ands, or buts this is it everything else is a corruption that's the only way to make it work so the

01:12:22

Byzantine priority guys can't go the direction you're going because like in Revelation the

01:12:27

Byzantine text goes all over the place the AK split and there's splits in that so you've got to go all the way it still doesn't work but that's the only way to do it important stuff a lot of people, it's not important it is, it is folks it really, really is yeah it was

01:12:53

Van Hale, not Van Halen thank you Mutato believe me when

01:12:58

I first encountered Van Hale was the first debate

01:13:04

I did with Van Hale on Family Radio or on was it

01:13:09

Family Radio and then we did Family Life Radio but then we did

01:13:17

KFYI one day later ok yeah that was a long time ago sometime in the 80s and we all thought that Van Hale was a very odd thing back then because Van Halen was so well known anyways

01:13:37

I went 15 minutes long, I'm sorry about that but we appreciate you watching the program hope it is a blessing to you

01:13:45

Dr. Witt, hope to hear from you very, very soon and we'll talk with all of you later,