April 5, 2005

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from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. Had a good day to you. Welcome to The Dividing Line on this
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Tuesday, April, hmm, it should be April 5th, according to... Need to remind my computer what day it is.
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Of course, the computer is as confused as I am. We have a tremendous amount of things to talk about today.
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I would like to start off with a couple of clips. Let me start off with a clip.
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This first one, the sound quality isn't all that good, but here is the clip.
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The issue, my friends, this evening has become very clear. Not necessarily intentionally so, but it's become clear, thanks be to the
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Lord. So, the issue truly here is, is salvation not just a plan, not sacraments, not possibilities, but is salvation itself totally and completely of God, or is it not?
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I submit to you that it cannot be otherwise, cannot be otherwise. The dichotomy upon which
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Mr. Medetics has denied the force of the clear passages from John 6, John 10, Colossians 3, 1
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Corinthians 1, in each of these places where the force of these passages is thought to be deflected upon the basis of the creation of a false dichotomy of an elect and a non -elect, but the elect somehow are saved anyways, is just that.
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It's an attempt to avoid the force of the clear teaching of Scripture. This evening,
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I do not want you to leave this place thinking that the representation has been made of the
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Protestant position by such statements that we feel that it is not necessary to pursue holiness.
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Any person who has been changed by the Spirit of God will desire to pursue holiness. And now let me play you a second brief clip.
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I come to you with a heavy heart because as I have listened to many evangelical leaders over the past 48 hours,
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I have been forced to the conclusion that for many today who are not Roman Catholics, they are not simply because they don't wear plaid or they don't like blue or they don't like spinach.
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It's just simply a matter of taste. It's not a matter of conviction. It's not an issue of the gospel.
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It's just, well, I don't happen to like candles as much as somebody else does. And that's not a good reason.
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That's not the reason that prompted the Reformation. The songs we have sung today, the song that was just sung in soul, the song that we sang together today, if you will listen to the words and if you believe the words, they speak of foundational truths that are denied by the
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Roman Catholic system. And if we believe that our standing this day, the peace that we have with God this day is based upon the truth that Jesus Christ stood in our place, that we were united with Him in His death, that His death is perfect, it admits of no addition, it cannot be represented over and over and over again upon any altar anywhere.
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If we believe that, then we should be troubled by what we have been hearing over the past 48 hours.
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In fact, if you're a former Roman Catholic sitting here today, you've probably thought the same thing
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I've thought, and that is, you know, in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, that many of the great saints of that faith had visions of former popes in purgatory centuries after they had died.
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I wonder what's going on today, for the Vatican official came out and said that Mary is throwing open the door of heaven to Pope John Paul II.
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But if you know Roman Catholic theology, you had to sit back and go, no, wait a minute. No, wait a minute.
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That's only done for saints. And we don't know in this situation, there's this issue of purgatory.
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There's this issue of the cleansing of temporal sins and the punishment for those sins. You can't go into the presence of Christ unless you are perfected.
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And to be perfected requires the finishing of sanctification. That's what purgatory is all about in the
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Roman Catholic system. And so you may have even sat back and wondered a little bit at what was being said.
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But much more so, I hope you wondered at what is being said by evangelical leaders.
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I listened to one very well -known evangelical leader who has assured us that Pope John Paul II was the greatest evangelist of our lifetime.
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That makes me think, what is an evangelist? What does an evangelist do? Does an evangelist take strong stands on moral issues?
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Pope John Paul II did, but that's not what makes you an evangelist. Does an evangelist live a moral life?
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Well, they certainly should, but that's not what makes you an evangelist. An evangelist is a person who proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And it seems in our day and age, that gospel has lost all specificity.
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Now, those two clips were both me. I know it didn't sound that way.
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The first one, I think the tape had stretched over the years.
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And, of course, it was also about 14 years plus between those two clips.
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The reason I played them, the second clip being from the sermon that I delivered at Cornerstone Baptist Church on this past Lord's Day.
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The reason I played them is very simple. We have said the same things about the subject of Roman Catholicism.
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We have said the same things about the reasons for rejecting Roman Catholicism all along.
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I'm saying nothing new today as far as the gospel, as far as salvation, as far as the issues that are important in regards to Roman Catholicism that I said in that debate in December of 1990 against Jerry Matytix in Phoenix.
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Years, just a few years after that in 1993, Rich Pearce and I went up to Denver to World Youth Day.
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I debated Jerry Matytix twice up there on the papacy. But we also went to the World Youth Day activities.
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We passed out gospel tracts about justification, about how it is a person knows
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God. We stood on the pilgrimage route and passed out tracts, the people walking the number of miles to where the
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Mass was going to be said. And our message was the same. When the
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Pope came to Phoenix, I think it was 1986, if I recall correctly, and said
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Mass at Sun Devil Stadium at Arizona State University, I and others from this ministry walked up and down the snaking line of people waiting to get in distributing literature until we were completely out of literature.
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1987, someone just told me. The point is, we have said the same things all along.
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I'm not saying anything today that I did not say before, but it seems that the mindset is that the gospel is not and cannot be so important to be the center of what we do say and believe.
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Therefore. That concern about the gospel should be muted for now.
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Oh, it's OK to talk about that some other time. However, now that John Paul II has passed away, you need to shut up.
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You need to be quiet. You see, if you talk about the gospel, if you say Rome doesn't have the gospel, we're going to call you an anti -Catholic.
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Never mind that Rome has anathematized your gospel and they're never anti -Protestants.
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We're not going to use a singular standard. We're not going to be consistent here. We don't have to be consistent.
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We have to be. We have the Fox News channel. We have the media eating out of the palms of our hands.
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We can say anything we want on television today. We can describe the bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter, and we can talk about two thousand year old traditions that are not anywhere near two thousand years old.
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But we know that nobody in the press is ever going to challenge us on anything like that. And we can talk about the pope as the holy father, and we can refer to him as the vicar of Christ, both titles of deity.
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And we can talk about the pope going directly into the presence of God, and we can quote all sorts of allegedly
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Protestant evangelical ministers who agree with us. But don't you dare bring up the issue of the gospel.
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Don't you dare bring up your belief that there's only one way to stand before a holy God. Or we will attack you.
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We will attack your character. We will attack your we will say you're mean spirited and nasty.
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We won't deal with any of the biblical issues you bring up. When you talk about.
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Romans, five, one, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God and that that's the only foundation that anyone can have peace with God.
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Past tense justification, looking back upon that justification that has been explicated in Romans, chapter four, you can bring those things that we won't talk about those things, we're not going to discuss those things.
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We're just going to shout you down, we're going to insult you. We're going to appeal to the postmodernism of our day and recognize that the non -religious, the people who, interestingly enough, until last last few days could have cared less what
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John Paul II said about almost any issue of morality. We know that they're going to agree with us that you're a big, mean, nasty person.
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Because. Of the fact that you are raising these issues and you won't join the great.
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Explosion of worship, because that's what it is. I mean, when you've got Brit Hume on the Fox News channel talking about how the
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Pope. Has suffered for the world when you've got
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Vatican representatives talking about how the Pope's suffering has undoubtedly released many souls from purgatory.
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I'm sorry, but if you love the gospel, if you love the word of God, if you love the truth about these things, you cannot sit on your hands and keep your mouth shut.
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It's not possible. It can't be done. That's called compromise, and folks, let it be known that is exactly what we're being told to do by all the
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Roman Catholics that have been just exploding.
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With their by two attacks upon anyone who would speak about these issues now,
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I am very thankful. I'm very thankful. I'm sorry, I saw where did
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I guess I lost it here in the thing. That's a shame. There was a I'm really distorting really badly in my headsets, by the way.
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I lost a here it is. Here it is. This is a statement from a pastor,
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Ralph Avedal, Pilgrim's Covenant Church, and he said, you know,
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I'm going to let somebody else say what I've been saying all along here. Just just to demonstrate there's at least two of us.
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The tragedy which is upon us is not the death of the Pope, although neither will we revel in the death nor damnation of any man.
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The tragedy which is upon us and which the Pope's death will clearly emphasize once more is the dearth of integrity, discernment and courage among evangelical or should
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I say neo evangelical leaders in our nation. Remaining silent at this time, as reprehensible as that is, would be a vast improvement to the message many such leaders will feel the need to proclaim.
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The world's impression of Pope John Paul II was a true Christian man leading the true Christian church, teaching the true
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Christian gospel will be strongly reinforced by the accolades heaped upon the Pope by evangelical leaders.
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At the same time, the great milling mixture of sheep and goats which fill up the evangelical churches in our land will be further compromised and confused.
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The death of Pope John Paul II is a defining moment which will reveal the hearts of many who present themselves as born again, blood washed followers of Jesus Christ, but by their words will reveal that they are either not his or that they should not publicly represent him.
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To which I say a man. But since I have said amen, there are many.
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Who have rushed to their keyboards and have decided to blast me and anyone who would speak out at this point in time.
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I have invited those individuals to call in, especially since many of them, what they've decided to do.
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Is to once again avoid, avoid discussing.
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Any of the important issues they've managed to avoid the text of scripture because that's just not their their strong point anyway.
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Instead, they decided to attack me personally and any amount of lying is acceptable in the service of Mother Church.
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I have seen things said on the Steve Ray web board, the
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Catholic answers forums, the Envoy magazine forum, Planet Envoy, I think it's called.
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And see, it doesn't matter what anybody says, as long as a Catholic says it, it must be true. So you get third, fourth, fifth hand stuff that is just so absolutely absurd.
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That to repeat it is, of course, to engage in rumor mongering. To lie.
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But that's OK in the service of Mother Church. And so. I've provided some of the comments on our blog.
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And you can see that instead of responding. In a meaningful fashion.
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To what's actually been said, the idea is, of course, to just simply attempt to shout down what is being said.
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And to attack the person who brings it brings it to you. That's what's going on. And so we have the lines open.
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We have two callers online. We will take the calls and your they came in. But I would like to invite those individuals,
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Catholic dude and was the other guy named Gary. I forget who's what's name was, but these individuals who have been repeating these unfounded rumors that have absolutely no basis whatsoever to give us a call.
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Stand up. If you're actually going to have the temerity to put something in print, then stand up. Be counted.
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I'm not going to sit here and be a doormat. I will refute you. I have the facts. I'm confident of the facts.
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And if you think you've got the facts, then the number is 877 -753 -3341.
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I make myself available. There are very few people who do what
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I do that do a webcast like this and have a have a toll free number and you can get and get in touch.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And so we're going to hope that some of those folks who are so brave out in the
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Web boards. Who are so quick with a word of falsehood.
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Let's see if you'll back that up. Let's see if you will if you can basically, you know, if you're going to make the claim, let's see if you can talk to talk and see if you can walk what you talk demands that you do.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. So let's
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I see the phones ringing and I'm going to scroll back here and talk to Keith in Dayton, Ohio.
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Hi, Keith. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? I'm doing all right. Yeah. Oh, that's good.
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I appreciate you taking my call. And I I've been reading your blog and I've been reading a lot of the emails that have been written in response to your blog.
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And let me say from the outset that I I'm a questioning Catholic, I guess you might say
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I'm reassessing many aspects of my faith. So I I'm trying to look at this as objectively as I can, and let me say also from the outset that I appreciate your search for truth and your your tenacious way of standing by it, especially in the face of a lot of well,
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I think you're right, ad hominem type arguments and and personal attacks, which I would never tolerate or defend.
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But I wonder under the circumstances, your opening blog,
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I didn't see any anything bad about that. And then, of course, I think you probably could have predicted the reaction, couldn't you?
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Under the circumstances, I this sort of snuck up on me. I I honestly, though I had discussed on the program before the opportunities that were going to be raised by the election of a new pope to discuss the relevant issues, the specificity of the emotional attachment
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I really had not given much thought to. This this came on rather suddenly, at least
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I thought it did. I'd heard positive things and, you know, talked about recovery and things like that.
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So I really didn't see it coming from certain quarters. There is no question that no matter what
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I say, that's going to be the response. I realize that many of these people, especially on Steve Ray's board, they've never listened to a debate that I've done.
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They've never read a book that I've written. They have no idea whatsoever. So they're just going on second and third hand stuff anyway.
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So I can expect that. But, you know, I would have to think that a serious minded
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Catholic, at least a conservative Catholic, would have to go in and wait a minute.
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We say the same thing about their perspective. If you go back to our dogmatic writings, you know, this man's just being consistent with the position that he has announced for a long, long time.
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And this idea of of basically saying shut up just doesn't have any any foundation anywhere.
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But I'm not seeing that. I'm not seeing anyone coming out and saying that. It's it's you know, there's certainly been nobody on the on the
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Roman Catholic side that I've seen who has defended a discussion of the gospel at this time. Everyone has said the same thing.
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And that is put that aside. It's time to elect a new pope. And and, you know, and I go, excuse me, but I'm never putting the gospel aside because that is the whole issue.
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That is the very that's the only way of salvation. That's the only way that anyone will ever have peace with God is the gospel.
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And to simply sweep under the rug the differences that exist, I've never done that, never will do that.
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So I've been consistent. I've been consistent all the way along on this. And it just surprises me that there are so many
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Roman Catholics that, quite honestly, have been deeply compromised by postmodern thought. You know, it's funny.
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It's this pope. When he came to Phoenix in eighty seven, he then went over to L .A. And in L .A.,
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he said something I've repeated a number of times. He spoke out against what he called cafeteria style
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Catholicism, where you pick and choose what you will and will not believe. Well, you know what?
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I can I have a much easier time talking to a Roman Catholic who actually believes something than talking to a
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Roman Catholic who believes nothing. It's a whole lot easier to do that. And and I respect that a whole lot more than I do anybody else.
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So I agree. And you have been consistent. I would not argue against that.
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And I think that's admirable. I I yeah, you want to defend the gospel at all costs.
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And I of course, you're going to get a lot of responses depending on the state of affairs.
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And I think it's the state of affairs that I'm worried about, because I would never ask you to stop doing what you're doing in the sense you want to keep promoting the gospel.
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But I wonder, OK, look at look at it like this. If you have let's say there's this individual who believes in ancestor worship and their parents have died in a tragic accident.
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Now, of course, you and I don't believe in ancestor worship and we think it's sinful and we wouldn't want anybody to practice that.
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But they're so they're going through a period of grief. They're emotionally distraught. Now, would we wouldn't want to under that set of circumstances?
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Maybe. I don't know. I'm not saying compromise, but maybe just. I guess maybe
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I'm not I can't think of the right word adapt. Well, I understand that's our evangelical techniques, because I'm telling you,
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Dr. White, and, you know, you know, Catholics very well, they have a certain way of looking at the pope.
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It's almost like, well, many of them look at him like he's their father. Oh, I understand that. Yeah. And they're emotionally distraught.
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They're emotionally. I understand that. Believe me, I hear what you're saying. There's there's one major difference, though, in the illustration that you offered, and it's very similar to what someone else offered on the
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Planet Envoy web forum. And that is if you had a person who was into ancestor worship, there would have to be one point one billion ancestor worshipers who look to this person who then sent hundreds, if not thousands of their representatives to the major news outlets to promote his infallibility, to promote their theology, to promote the wonderful nature of this person and his teachings and to promote the the the beliefs of ancestor worship.
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And because that then becomes the very substance of the discussion in the culture for the next period of time, then you would have a parallel.
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And I think I could make a very strong argument that if that then becomes the parallel, yes, it becomes incumbent upon the believer that if this is what the culture is talking about, if this is what people are talking about around the water cooler, over lunch, in the classroom, all around our culture, you don't sit back and go, well, you know, everything that's being said is directly opposite to what
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I know to be the truth. It's directly opposite to to the gospel. There could be people who are going to be deceived by these things.
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But you know what? I'm not going to say anything because, you know, they might be a little emotional about this.
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Well, you know what? I'm a little emotional about the fact that I'm listening to the truth about the gospel of grace being drug through the mud on a regular basis on the
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Fox News channel right now. That's got me a little emotional, too. So am
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I supposed to say, hey, you folks need to be quiet because my emotions might be
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I might be offended by something that said you will find nowhere in in my in my blogs where I have said
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I am so offended. Will someone please stop the offense? Look, I understand that that's that that's going to happen.
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I'm not a postmodernist. I don't think that, you know, so so. But what
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I'm saying is, though, give you know, there's no parallel between those two because the fact that this is a cultural phenomenon, is it not?
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Is is this not what everyone's talking about? In fact, I got an email from one of the one of the pastors that was at my.
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Yeah, it's right here. This this pastor said he attended the Toledo Reformed Conference this past weekend and joined.
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Here you speak. He said, thank you for your sound biblical approach to the pope and the gospel, which he preached.
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The question came up in my youth group that Sunday evening as I knew it would with love. I explained the gospel of Pope John Paul II, showed how that was different from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So here here is the point. What is more important, the the feelings that people have or the fact that in our culture right now, there is a major discussion about how people get to heaven.
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And it seems to me that on both sides of the aisle, the majority viewpoint is you get to heaven by being a good person.
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And the fact of the matter is there's no such thing as a good person. And so what do we do?
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Do we sit on our hands? No, I don't believe that we can. Not if we not if we love. And I see
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I'm defining love very differently. Well, I know you're not defining it in the postmodernist. And I wouldn't either.
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I know I'm not going to take up your time. I know you probably have to hang up here. But the analogy that I was using wasn't used in the sense that I would tell the person, the people who are trying to evangelize the person who believes in ancestor worship,
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I wouldn't tell them to shut up and stop evangelizing. I would just say, maybe we should modify our evangelistic technique.
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I'm not saying abandon logic, use logic. But Dr. White, you probably know as well as I do, because you argue with people all the time.
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And I do too. Logic is a very powerful weapon. And oftentimes when people are in mourning or they're in states of grief, they don't want to be logically decapitated as easy as it might be to do it.
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Well, there's there's no trust me. I'm I recognize that there are many
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Roman Catholics who are only being confirmed in their Catholicism by the preaching of the gospel to them.
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I understand that to be the case. I do not I do not believe it is the it is logic that's going to break.
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Most of these people that I've quoted on my blog wouldn't know a logical statement if it hit him in the face right now.
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There's no question about that. My point is that I also know that there were a number of people who came up to me
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Sunday morning after my sermon who said, I am a former Roman Catholic. I was Roman Catholic for 30 years.
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I was involved in the church. God got hold of me. He broke through to me. I, I, I found out what salvation truly was all about.
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And you don't know how I needed that encouragement. You don't know how I am going to go speak to my family now.
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And I'm not going to just sit on my hands. There's there's two aspects here. There's first the encouragement of the saints.
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And on the other side, I obviously believe that the Holy Spirit of God is bringing conviction of sin upon a person's heart, that that this is the time.
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This is the day of salvation. This is the time to address it. This is not the time to be silent.
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And so are there are there lots of people on both sides of the aisle that disagree with me about that?
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You better believe it. There are no question about it. I, I stand by what
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I've said. I really believe that that we have to address it this time. And you're right. Our lines are full.
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I appreciate the character that you displayed in your call. I appreciate your call. Thank you very, very much.
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And I'm going to let Rich take care of handling things like that. Let's go to Apollonio.
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Hi, Apollonio. Well, hello, sir. Hey, I have a couple of minutes with you, but I was just expressing what
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I think represents what the Catholics are feeling or what they thought of your blog, because when
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I read the first first couple of your blog, I haven't listened to your sermons. I can't judge that.
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But on on your first couple of blogs, I think it was like, as Keith says, it was a sensitive moment for us and other people.
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And I mean, I'm not saying that you should be absolutely silent on these issues, but could you be specific, please?
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Could you be specific, please? Could you quote from the blog what, for example, was where I made fun of the pope, for example?
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No, I'm not saying that you did. OK, could you could you show me where I was rejoicing in his death?
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No, no, that's not what I think some Catholics are worried about. I think it was because the person's dying and it seemed like you were just going about your everyday routine of apologetics.
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Actually, actually, Apollonio, wasn't wasn't the fact the matter is that what I was doing was responding to the major coverage of a theological apologetic issue by every news outlet on the face of planet
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Earth. Isn't that what I was responding to? Isn't that what every person reading my blog was likewise going to be seeing and hearing and thinking about?
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Right. Yeah. So I don't think. Yeah, I would like to get back. The thing is, for example,
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I'm looking like a complaint about how the media covers the whole thing, but a person was dying and and he was, you know, dead like the day after,
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I think. And it seemed like you just went about your everyday routine now.
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Well, Apollonio, wait a minute. Let me point something out to you. Is it not true that every Monsignor, every father, every cardinal, every
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Vatican representative that showed up on Fox News and CNN was likewise?
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Pursuing their everyday promotion of the bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ, the head of Christ Church, they called him your holiness.
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They did they not say that the doors of heaven were being opened to him? Aren't these all issues that the
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Roman Catholics who had the microphones and the television cameras were themselves raising?
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Yeah, but that that's like ordinarily if a person dies, for example, if your father dies. And you would probably hear that from a person who's giving the sermon on his funeral.
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So I'm not going to stand up and say, no, he's blatant, false, obscura and that's heretical.
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But Apollonio, there's no parallel there. How can you say there's a parallel? No one knows.
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No one knows who my father is. Fox News Channel is not going to be covering the death of my father.
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CNN is not going to cancel its commercial time to say that my father is going to heaven while teaching such things as indulgences and purgatory.
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There is no parallel here. I'm sorry, but can you show me where there would be a parallel there? Well, there is a parallel in the sense that both of them are dying and people are praising people who supported them, supported him.
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And I wasn't quarreling with you because you you're criticizing what the media is doing.
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I think it's just like improper timing of how you do it, how you did it. But Apollonio, again, again, are you saying then let me see if I understand what your statement is.
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You admit this is a unique event, first time in 26 years. You admit that the media invested a huge amount of of time going wall to wall coverage for what, 48 hours or more, canceling even for a while their commercial schedules.
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I mean, that's that's last time that happened was like 9 -11. They're the ones who are bringing
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Roman Catholics on, including Roman Catholic apologists, Apollonio. I don't know. Were you on? Everybody else was.
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Jimmy Akin was on. Dave Armstrong was on. Mark Brumley was on. All these people are out there and they are they're not they're not avoiding the theology, are they?
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And so in the midst of all this, but because someone's dying, these folks get free reign to promote this stuff, even if I believe it's wrong.
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Is that the point? I think what most apologists did and some theologians did was they simply praised what he was doing or what he did in life.
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And I think that's ordinary if a person dies, that you would get that kind of response.
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You don't think you don't think they talked about him as the successor of Peter, as the spiritual leader of one point one billion
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Catholics. They didn't speak of his suffering. Again, I'm not criticizing you because you are criticizing the media.
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I think you could have, for example, you could have. I'm not criticizing the media. Apollonio, I'm not criticizing the media.
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I'm simply saying the fact of what the media did is a fact. It made it a cultural event and it brought the issue of the gospel to the forefront, or at least it should have.
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It didn't for the vast majority of people. And I think the only way you could be fair in criticizing me is to recognize that the vast majority of my strongest criticism was not for Roman Catholicism, was it?
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It was for alleged Protestant evangelicals who say they believe one thing.
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And then when the time comes for the rubber to meet the road, they don't actually believe it. But I think, for example, you criticize
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Pat Robertson for saying the things he said, throwing away the gospel, I think.
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Yes, yes. I said he threw it on the trash heap. Yeah, I think I mean, you could have said that, for example, send him a letter or called him and said that, look,
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I think you're throwing away the gospel when you said those things on TV. And when you write a public post for everyone to see, especially
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Catholics who apparently read their blog, of course, we're going to get the same kind of reaction you'll get.
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Now, wait a minute, Apollonio, this man has a television network.
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He couldn't be more of a public teacher. People have tried to get him to focus upon the gospel for a long, long time.
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And he makes a statement to millions of people. And my response should be to write him a letter? Or, yeah,
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I don't see a problem with that, because you could like praise God about it, because if you do, it is in God's hands.
36:52
OK, so when you have your hands and you have to write every public. So when you so when you criticized me on the
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Planet Envoy blog, you had written that to me personally first, right? Answer, no, you didn't.
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I didn't. OK, so we're a little bit inconsistent there, aren't we? Well, first of all,
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I don't think I criticize of how you said a thing. I don't criticize you personally.
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And I'll tell you one thing, I'll tell you one thing. You know, the people on that blog did and you know that they've attacked me personally.
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And I have not seen one Roman Catholic other than Jonathan Prejean in one place.
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I think it was over on the Catholic Answers Forums say, I don't think you should. I mean,
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I mean, I mean, I've seen I've seen foul language being used by Roman Catholics to describe me.
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I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, too. I contacted some Catholics who what they said was really foul.
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And I told them to calm the language down a little bit because it isn't helping at all.
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No, actually, the response from from your side has not has not helped out at all. But there are other people who are online to respond even right now.
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So you said you only had a few minutes. Was there something else you want to say before you go? OK. Yeah, God bless.
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And I'll probably talk to you about Roman something in the summer. All right. Thanks for calling.
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All right. Bye bye. All right. Well, let me see here. We're not taking a break today, folks.
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We're obviously going to try to leave as much time. There are two lines, at least two lines open right now.
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We have two lines full. So if you wanted to comment today, this is your opportunity. We've got the lines open.
38:41
Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one. Yes, I think that we will be continuing this on Thursday evening because there are especially back east.
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It's the afternoon. People are very busy. I'm just trying to look which one I'm supposed to go here.
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All right. Let's talk to Chris in Evansville. Hi, Chris. Hi, Dr. White. How you doing?
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Fine, sir. First of all, I just want to thank you for addressing this. I don't think there are many people who have the courage that you do.
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Some people would use a different term. Well, you certainly have much opposition. And, you know,
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I've watched so much of this hoopla on television the last couple of days. You know, I've gotten the impression that with the news, even though they use religious terms, they look at the pope more as a political figure than they.
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You know, I'm sure they look at him as a religious leader also. But basically, it almost seems to take a back seat to the politics of the of the thing.
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And, you know, the news media is very interested in politics. Yes. Fox News, I know
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I've heard many of their journalists mention that they are Roman Catholics. I kind of wonder if the main man behind Fox News is a
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Roman Catholic. I don't know that. I honestly don't know. And to be honest with you, I was I was taken aback a little bit during that first day at the comments of basically every single one that I saw of the new commentators on Fox News directly saying they're
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Roman Catholics talking about such things as the pope's suffering for us. And and, you know, when the
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Roman Catholic representatives came on, they could say they could say anything they wanted to. They could refer to 2000 year old traditions that are not 2000 year old traditions.
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And they could they could talk about the pope's sufferings, releasing people from purgatory. They could talk about Mary.
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I mean, when it first broke, when they had the false reports of the pope's death and then started the death watch, when it first broke,
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I couldn't believe the amount of Marian devotion demonstrated in what was seen from the
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Vatican. It was all over the place. And that's why, as I said to the last two callers, how can how can we not address this issue?
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I mean, how can we let this kind of thing just simply go by the boards and go, well, don't want to offend anybody.
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I'm glad you are addressing it. I'd like to ask you something, because I know you are a Greek scholar and in the word heresy is used several times in scripture by the
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King James Version and the New King James Version of the Bible. It's used in the book of Galatians as a work of the flesh.
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And I know like the NASB translates that faction, but yet, according to my understanding of heresy, it is a is the idea of a body of men following their own tenets and not really the the word of God.
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So, you know, if Catholicism biblically is a heresy, especially by what it teaches about sacramentalism and all the means of getting to heaven other than just faith alone in Christ alone, then does it not fall under what
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Paul would condemn as a heresy in Galatians? Well, I have argued very strenuously for many years that the primary reason that we need to actively and aggressively evangelize members of the
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Roman Catholic Church, especially in light of the fact that so many Protestants, they do not feel that's necessary anymore.
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The reason we need to do so is because Rome does not possess the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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I am convinced through my study of scripture and through my study of the Roman Catholic faith that because of the book of Galatians, because of what you just mentioned, and specifically because of Galatians chapter one, verses six through nine, that the additions and subtractions from the gospel of Christ that are a part of the dogmatic teachings, the
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Roman Catholic Church, and I refer to such things as their view of baptism, the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, the concept of purgatory and purgation, the nature of justification, the relationship of faith to justification, all these things, when you look at those things, you recognize that if Paul anathematized the
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Judaizers for their gospel, which was significantly simpler and the perversion was significantly less in the case of the
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Judaizers than it is with Rome, then as long as the book of Galatians is inspired scripture, we need to evangelize
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Roman Catholics because the gospel of Rome cannot and will not save. I have said that the first book
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I wrote was called The Fatal Flaw, and that came out in, I believe, late 89, early 90, and that's what
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I said there. I've said that from the beginning, so it's somewhat humorous to me that so many
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Roman Catholics there just having a cowl that anyone would ever say that. All it proves is that their dislike of me all along has been based solely upon rumors and second -hand information.
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They've never actually taken the time to do what I do with Roman Catholics, and that is I read their stuff and listen to what they have to say, and they don't return that to favor.
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So yes, the particular term you're referring to appears, for example, in 2 Peter 2 .1, their destructive heresies or divisions or factions.
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Sometimes it can refer to what we would traditionally call heresies, but other times it refers to factions and divisions, and that's why it's translated that way.
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But yes, there's no question that Rome, I have said for a long, long time, Rome's gospel is heretical.
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That is, it falls under the condemnation of the Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 1. So I stand by that.
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We have defended that. People can go on our website today and listen to debates over that very issue.
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Going all the way back, the earliest one would be against Father Mitchell Pacwa in El Cajon, California, in January of 1991 on the subject of justification.
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So I've got a track record there. We've been consistent. We're going to keep going that direction. Why do you feel like that?
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I mean, because there are so many, I mean, learned men that call themselves evangelicals.
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I mean, why do you think that the drift is becoming more to not worry about this?
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And it's almost like that so many evangelicals in the news media, they bring them up front, just like the
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Catholics do on their journey home, you know, program, and parade them. And why have they basically abandoned the solos of the
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Reformation and succumb to this ecumenism of our day? And it's like it's not important anymore.
45:59
Excellent point. Excellent question. I was reading an email on the Reformed Baptist Discussion List this morning from a student at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.
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His professor in his class had just stated that John Paul II had gone to heaven, and this was in the theology class of what would be called a conservative
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Reformed seminary. And the reasons are many, and I could really start preaching here.
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I'm going to have to try to resist the temptation to do so. But the reasons are many, and the reasons are primarily focused,
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I believe, upon the conjugation of two major movements. One is the downgrade of the view of Scripture.
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Because of destructive modern perspectives, most theologians today do not believe, or even if they do, they feel somewhat embarrassed about believing.
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They don't believe in inerrancy. They don't believe the scriptures are consistent with one another. Their seminary training taught them to study
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Paul separately from Peter, separately from John, because they all contradict one another anyway. And so there's this downgrade which cannot help but result in a lessening of confidence in the clarity and power of the gospel.
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If you don't have a solid divine foundation upon which to present the gospel, you are going to begin to compromise it.
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You have to. That's first thing. And secondly then, along with that, the influx of postmodern thinking into the church that makes people feel uncomfortable in believing that they know truth and someone else doesn't know truth.
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That all truth is relative, and your truth is as good as my truth, and all the rest of that stuff.
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You put the two of those together, and you have, I think, the primary reason, I think on a spiritual level, our nation and Western culture as a whole is under the wrath of God for the fact that we've turned our back against God's law.
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We have blood on our hands. God will not be mocked. And as a result, a discerning, sound church is a blessing upon a nation, and Western culture does not deserve that blessing.
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And so you see a downgrade in all aspects of the church at that point that comes along with it as well.
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So you got a free sermon there. I've got other callers. Thank you very much for your call, Alan. Thank you.
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God bless. Before we go to Alan in Atlanta, let me mention the number again in case you forgot it, 877 -753 -3341.
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We haven't heard, to my knowledge yet, from Catholic Dude or the other guy. I suppose I should look at my blog and see what the other guy's name was here.
48:44
Let's see. Where did I go? Yeah, there. Yeah. No, that's not it.
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Oh, Steve Ray sends in the troops. There it is. Doug C. in Houston. Doug C. in Houston.
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That's the fellow I was referring to. Sorry, Glenn or whoever I was referring to.
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But Doug C. in Houston. On the April 2nd blog entry, Steve Ray sends the troops.
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Still looking for Doug C. to call in, but he hasn't yet. If you're listening,
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Doug, 877 -753 -3341, even though we're getting toward the end of the program, hey, you know what?
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We'll stay on just for you if you'd like to call Doug. Yes, indeed. We would be happy to talk to you or talk to Catholic Dude, either one or any of the others that we've quoted on the blog.
49:31
We've quoted a number of them. You all feel free to call in and we'll talk about what you had to say. Let's talk to Allen in Atlanta.
49:39
Hi, Allen. Hi, Doc. What's up? How you doing? Doing pretty good. So am I, except for a couple things.
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One, papal Protestant. I thought that I was just as freaked out as I could be talking to a
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Calvinist the other night who was saying, Pope went to heaven, absolutely no question about it.
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And I was like, you're a Calvinist. How could you be saying this? Until your little comment there about Reformed Theological Seminary.
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Now I'm ready to fall down and have a heart attack. I can't believe that. But I'd like to say that I think, and I think you shared something in your sermon on Sunday, this gives us an opportunity to present the gospel.
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Friday, while I was at work, before I came home to watch the news, somebody was saying something about, you know, if I was in that condition,
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I wish, you know, I would pray that God would just take me. And I said, well, you're assuming that God is going to take you to heaven.
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And the response is, and if you, just like you're saying, in the workplace, it's all over the place in the workplace. If you dare to say that you think the
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Pope is going to go to hell, or if he believed what he taught, then he will, then you better be ready to defend your statement.
50:49
Yeah, you better, yeah, you better be ready to deal with a whole lot, whole lot of postmodern emotionalism coming down on top of your head.
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And obviously the best way, I think, to approach that is as soon as someone says, how can you possibly say that, is to say, how can you possibly ask me to compromise my faith?
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That automatically puts them back on their heels. Another way to go about it, though, is to turn around and say, well, on what basis do you think he went to heaven?
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Well, I realize that, but I'm talking about turning off the constant postmodern offense switch.
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That is, they're taking all sorts of offense. If you say, how can you ask me to compromise my faith, automatically you might get a few moments to do exactly what you just said, and that is, is say, look, you know, my faith says this is the only way you go to heaven, and here's why.
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And you're telling me that that's wrong. So you're condemning me, and what's your basis for condemning me?
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Very, very rarely do we get the opportunity in the media, in Western culture today, to ever put it on the proper basis of really discussing this.
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And that's what I'm suggesting that we do, as we have opportunities to do so, is that as soon as you get that, how can you say that, you're so closed -minded, you're so judgmental, is to immediately shut that switch down by saying, you're the one who is saying to me,
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I must compromise my faith. I must compromise, in fact, not only what I believe, but the funny thing is, that 150 years ago, go back and read the papal syllabus of errors.
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That's what the Pope was saying. I mean, the long -term, this is going to be the nature of the debate that we're going to have on Long Island, the long -term position of Rome has been extra -ecclesium nulla solis, there's no salvation outside the church.
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You're reading my mind here. Oh yes, yes, I am reading your mind, yes. That's exactly what
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I'm doing. This Pope would have been anathematized by Popes of the 1500s for his view on Jews and Muslims, I think.
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Oh, you know, in fact, I quoted someone on my blog, from Jason Sabalo, said, this is the
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Pope who prayed that Islam would be defended, this is the Pope who told the pagans of Assisi that they were all praying to one
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God, the Pope talks about the consensus of the Fathers, what was the consensus of the Fathers about prayers of a synagogue, if Augustine, Chrysostom, Jerome, Aquinas, Loyola, and Bellarmine could speak, they would not speak jointly with Luther and Count, would they not speak jointly with Luther and Calvin in condemning the interfaith activities of this
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Pope? So, yeah, there are a number who would point to that very issue as well, no question about it.
53:47
Two more things before I go, in the next Pope, I was talking with my roommate, John Mark, of course, and talking about hoping that the next
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Pope would bring reform to the Roman Catholic Church, God willing, but if that doesn't happen, hoping that he would go so far to the liberal end of theology, with inclusivism, there would be no way that apologists like Matatix and other people can play word games and work around the fact, or say they nuance their doctrine, and somebody would just go so far, radically, to the left, to the liberalness of theology, that we could say, look, this clearly contradicts
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Trent and other councils and things like that, and hopefully it would be the other way, that he would come more towards reform theology, if that were possible, but that's an epistemological quandary,
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I think, as you put it. But one more thing, I have some very, very, very bad news. This morning,
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I lost my black Oakley 20s, and then this morning,
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Mark sent me a text message, and said he found them, and they were outside in the parking lot, and somebody had run them over.
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I feel like, I want to have... You've had a real loss. No one should talk to you right now, because you've had a real loss, you might get very emotional, so I will have to let you go.
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But in regards to the next Pope, the consensus opinion seems to be, that he'll be an older man, who will not have a long pontificate.
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That frequently happens after a very long papacy, like John Paul II's, and that he would be someone who would be very much in the same mindset as John Paul II.
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But the fact of the matter is, John Paul himself said many things very reflective of an inclusivistic perspective, and the majority of the theologians in the
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Curia, in the Magisterium of the Church as a whole, are definitely trending that direction, and hence, they're really...
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I don't see how Rome is going to be able, over time, unless they just abandon the influx of Western thinking, they can avoid following that perspective, and then at that point, yeah, you are going to see,
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I think, a growth in the Sedevacantist movement, that concept that the Chair of Peter is abandoned, it's vacant, because you can make a very, very strong argument, without having any difficulty at all, going back into the history of the
56:24
Roman Catholic Church itself, what Rome has proclaimed to be infallible in the past, and demonstrate that extracleisim noisalis did not mean to those people in their day, and in their generation, what it is now being turned into, in the post -modern, let's make
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Roman Catholicism really attractive to people, movement you have going on. And at that point, to remain in union with the
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Bishop of Rome, you're going to have to, in essence, sacrifice any meaningful epistemological or apologetic ground, and those types of folks don't engage in debates, they don't engage in apologetics for the simple reason that they don't really think it's important, that no one can really know the truth one way or the other, and so, yeah, the
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Church is definitely, and I heard this a number of times on Fox News, of course they just simply say, the
57:20
Church, instead of the Roman Catholic Church, but the Roman Catholic Church is at a crossroads, and maybe not the next
57:29
Pope, but the Pope after that, the next Pope who has a pontificate of at least, let's say a decade or more, is going to be faced with an ever greater challenge, it's a challenge
57:43
John Paul II was very good at handling, if you know over the past 15 years, one year you'd get a papal pronouncement that would be very conservative, that would reaffirm many historical beliefs, and the conservatives are like, yeah, and the liberals are like, boo, boo, and then the next year you get a whole series of maybe smaller statements, maybe just papal, not even an encyclical, but just papal comments that would throw a bunch of bones to the liberals, and then the conservatives start getting upset, but then the next year here comes the conservative encyclical, and so he was very good at keeping both sides very happy, but that can't go on forever, you can't keep people happy that way, it's sort of the bread and circuses mentality, and it just doesn't work that way, so eventually there's going to have to be a break one direction or the other, and some pontiff is going to get in there who doesn't have the political machismo that John Paul II had, and you're going to have that as a result.
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So I'm sorry, very, very, very sorry for your Oakleys, that's a great loss, but thanks for calling today.
58:56
All right, folks, well, there you go. For those of you who are sitting there saying, oh,
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I didn't get a chance to call in, we're going to be back. We're going to be back on Thursday evening at 4 p .m.
59:12
Pacific Daylight Time, and that's now 7 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time, and same number, same place.
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You'll have your opportunity again. Until then, God bless. Standing at the crossroads, let this moment slip away.
59:34
We must contend for the faith above us far more. We need a new
59:39
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