Jason Stellman

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded 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. Hey, good morning, afternoon, evening, whoever it is, you are listening to the Dividing Line.

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I realize there are many of you who do not listen live, you listen on the podcast, you're on a rowing machine, you are on a treadmill, you're riding your bike someplace, wherever it is, welcome to the program.

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We definitely have one of the most unique audiences in all of podcastdom. I was thinking this morning, only, what, 15 years ago, there wasn't any such thing.

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You couldn't have even explained to people what a podcast was. I remember when

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I first heard it, oh, come on, what are you talking about? But many people going this direction, this is how you talk to folks.

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This is how you get to folks these days. I was just looking, by the way, I had never looked at it before. I just,

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I don't know why, I just had never, ever looked since I'm a YouTube partner guy, which means

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I can put long videos up and have been for years. There's this analytical stuff, there's this, you know, who's watching and where are they from and all that stuff.

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Our eighth largest national audience is Saudi Arabia. Our fourth is

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Malaysia. That tells you that the Muslims are watching our videos.

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And I just put up a new video. I've floated a new theory that Muslim by choice is actually trying, is actually like a

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Christian who's trying to make the Muslims look bad. Because he's putting all these things up where he'll play like,

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I think in the last one that I linked to, I actually just put on the blog, he'll play like 11, 12 minutes of me explaining, well, this was the

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Kama Yohaniam. And I'm talking about, you know, having examined the manuscript and I've got all the information about when it first appears and all this stuff.

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And then he switches to Adnan Rashid, who just shows a slide of it and says, this is the only verse that supports the trinity of the

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Bible. And they put it in the Bible. And it just makes it look so bad that he just must be on our side and is just pretending to be a

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Muslim. It must be how it's how it's working. Anyways, I put that up. And what it reminds me of is you've got those kind of folks that just don't seem to understand what the issues are.

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And then you've got Paul Belal Williams. And we are going to I am going to finish up, by the way, the

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Jason Stelman stuff today. But I couldn't I just couldn't do the dividing line without mentioning this.

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The Assyrian Encyclopedia sent me this link over the weekend. And at first I was a little confused because we're reviewing

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Paul Williams debate with Chris Green. And we're just about done with Paul's presentation.

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And I was going to play some of what Chris Green said. And I was actually going to criticize some of the approach that he took.

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You don't ask people questions during your rebuttal period. And there were just a few things like that.

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And so I was a little confused when I saw this article. But lo and behold, after reading it a little bit more and figuring out what's going on, they just had another debate.

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Now, what surprises me is twofold. First of all, what he's actually said here, you know,

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Williams goes through his his seven reasons Jesus cannot be God. And of course, they're the exact same facile, simplistic

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Muslim fundamentalist arguments, since he seems to think the term fundamentalist is a is a bad word or something.

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It's a denigration. Well, his arguments are fundamentalistic. So how's that? Anyway, we've gone through and debunked all of them.

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They're very bad. The worst one, of course, is the Jesus did not know the identity of a woman who touched him and had to ask his disciples for help in Mark 530.

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And, you know, this kind of really lame stuff. But he repeats them because he doesn't.

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There is a certain people like Ahmed Didat, Zakir Naik, Paul Blau Williams. They don't care if their arguments are true or not.

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Doesn't matter to them. If they work in exciting your base, that's all that matters.

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That's all you need to worry about. And, you know, so, you know, he goes to that.

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But then we had this statement here.

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Where did it go here? Hopefully this will be up on YouTube soon.

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And I hope that it will be. Um, but there is there was the assertion in here.

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Where did it go? Uh, he claims that he wasn't dealing with the topic of the debate and and issues like that.

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But at one point that there it is. We each had a further 10 minutes rebuttals, and I hope for something relevant and challenging from him.

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But sadly, he produced a little substance. At one point, he lost his temper and threw a Greek New Testament at me.

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He had lost his cool with me during our first debate at East London Mosque. He clearly has a very short fuse. Well, I've listened to the entirety of that debate.

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I don't know where he lost his temper. I mean, like I said, there was a couple of times I was like, well, why are you going there?

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But I really want to see what this now or was it something like, oh, you said, as it says, it slides is

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Greek New Testament. You show me or something like that. I have a feeling that's probably what it is, but I don't know. Haven't seen it yet. It could have happened.

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I don't know. Um, but the funny thing is, of all this is you got to remember, remember

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Paul Williams? We challenged him to debate when I went to London. He wouldn't do it. Why? Because I'm an ultra fundamentalist with no standing in the scholarly community.

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But he's debating Chris Green, who's throwing Greek New Testaments at him. And he even and he even says, in conclusion, the evening was a missed opportunity to have an advanced quasi academic discussion of who

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Jesus was. For all Chris's obvious talent as a preacher and expositor of evangelical theology, he is not a debater and has demonstrated little interest in engaging the issues in a rigorous and scholarly manner.

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His fundamentalist approach to the Bible is surely a major handicap. Oh, hmm. I won't debate

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James White because he's a fundamentalist. But I've done two debates with Chris Green, and I admit that he loses his cool in both of them.

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But I'll keep debating him. Just like Zakir Naik, just like Akhmed Didat.

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These guys know who can they can debate and who they cannot. They know who is going to expose their arguments and who will not.

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And Paul Williams knows that his seven lame reasons would collapse if he actually debated someone who actually believed what they say and are able to engage the debates.

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So, you know, it just strikes me as. Well, we'll get back to Paul Williams later on, but this is on the

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Muslim Debate Initiative blog dated November 22nd. So five days ago, if you want to see that and it's

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I'm looking forward to seeing the videos I I've it's not up yet as far as I know, but I am definitely looking forward to that's what

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I'm going to have to watch and not just not just listen to. But anyways, so there is the

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Paul Williams stuff that we will get to a little bit later on. Now, a

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Turden fan is not joining with me to complete this review, mainly because we got through all the material that Turden fan had really felt was was worthwhile to to engage with and stuff like that.

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And so I'm going to I'm going to get through the rest of this fairly quickly. I think maybe I hope we'll find out. I am sitting here doing some

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I've never done before. And the rookie out there will will testify. It doesn't stay hot very long, unfortunately.

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And I've never been a drinker of hot drinks, especially living in Arizona.

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I mean, honestly. And, you know, but Mutato, especially in our channel, convinced me that that herbal teas because I can't do caffeine.

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So I'm doing this a very good orange and spice herbal tea, but it's cooling down very quickly.

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And it's good when it's hot or it's good if it's cold in between. Not so much, though.

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I should try to drop some ice into it and see what it tastes like iced. That would be that would be interesting. But anyways,

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I'm trying to, you know, I'm going to be 50. So I might as well act my age finally.

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Anyhow, let's get back to the Jason Stelman thing. Now, I saw a note this morning that James Swan over on his blog site that Jason Stelman had left a note over there basically saying, if this is supposed to represent my position,

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I don't even recognize it as my position. I'm trying to remember what the specifics of it were. So something tells me that the

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Jason is listening, maybe not live, but certainly is well aware of the fact that we have been providing a response to the claims he's been making.

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If it's his intention, just get on the circuit and start speaking and start defending

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Roman Catholicism. Well, many have come before him and we stand ready.

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I told him, go all the way. I'll debate you on the Marian dogmas anytime. I'll debate you on soul scripture or the papacy, issues like that.

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We'll be happy to do that. But I'll still challenge you until you're willing to debate the

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Marian dogmas. You're deceived. You're deceiving yourself and everybody else. Gotta go all the way, man.

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And when you go all the way and say, yeah, this is divine revelation, well, then you have become a true

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Roman Catholic because you no longer are concerned in any way, shape, or form about what is in the scripture or what the early church believed.

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And that is really where you gotta go. That's where you gotta go. That's what

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Rome has done. So anyways, let's go back to right where we left off in the podcast on Call to Confusion and pick up right there.

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And so how did that happen? How did the regulative principle of worship, for example, kick in when the people who were still alive after all the apostles had died had loads and loads of hours of memory that the apostles had taught them things about worship, about communion?

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OK, Jason, and where has Rome dogmatically defined a single word that Jesus or any of the apostles ever said outside of scripture?

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Just one. A phrase, a specific teaching. Oh, they'll say, well, the apostles taught

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X, Y, or Z. But how did they teach it?

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What words did they use? You don't know. And you know that. You know that Rome has not defined anything that Jesus ever said, anything that Paul ever taught outside of what's found in scripture.

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You know that. You should know that. So why are you making this argument? Because you don't have access to what

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Paul taught the Corinthians. You do not. You can say, well, it was passed down through the bishops. Really?

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So you actually can defend the idea that Paul taught the Corinthians the concept of transubstantiation in the mass.

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Right? You can trace that back, right? And the Marian dogmas, papal infallibility, all the things that Rome has defined on the basis of this alleged sacred tradition, right?

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I'll look forward to that debate because I've challenged so many others and somehow they didn't know.

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But you're already teaching. You've only been on that side of the Tiber River for a matter of weeks and you're already teaching in your parish.

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So maybe you've already been elevated to a position of having access to knowledge that Mitch Pacwa and Jimmy Akin and Tim Staples and Patrick Madrid and all the other guys just have no knowledge of.

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It's a possibility. Don't know. But we'll look forward to that. How did they know to immediately discount upon the death of the last apostle all the oral tradition that they had been given?

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And go back to a canon, which, by the way, wasn't even decided yet.

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Right. Now, no one, of course, is saying anything about discounting tradition.

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What's the assumption there? And it's a false assumption that there is a difference between what is in the tradition, the oral tradition and what is in the written scripture.

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Now, he would say, well, it's just a fuller explanation. Well, maybe. But there is no difference in the content. There is no bodily assumption of Mary.

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There is no immaculate conception. There is no Aristotelian categories of accidents and substance for transubstantiation, etc.,

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etc., etc. There is nothing there about celibate priests. There is nothing there about a sacerdotal priesthood.

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There is nothing there about purgatory. There's nothing there about indulgences. This is the Thars Maritorum. All the rest of this stuff,

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Jason, it ain't there. And you know that. Well, maybe you don't. You didn't pay attention to church history. But if you start paying attention to church history and read something other than just Roman Catholic compilations like Jurgens, you will discover that it's not there.

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It's not there. So what are you going to do? And what are you going to do with this canon issue?

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Man, I just, I wish you had raised that. If you did,

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I know I pointed something out to you. If you think you need an infallible definition of the canon for Scripture to function, then nobody prior to Christ had one, right?

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Jesus had no right to hold anybody accountable, Jason, to the Scriptures, because there was no infallible word on it, right?

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If you make the Jews infallible in their decision on the canon, you've got to reject your own church because they didn't come to the same conclusion on the

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Old Testament canon, right? Exactly. And not only that, that that means that there was no infallible canon, and there would be no means of functioning on the basis of Scripture at all until April of 1546.

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Because that's when your communion claims the first dogmatic, infallible definition of the canon.

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Ironically, they did so in such a way as to react against the Protestant Reformation and to go against the best of the minds that came before them in rejecting the apocryphal books.

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Hmm, doesn't look like much of a tenable position. Because that, to me, is the burden that the

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Reformed Protestant has. It's not enough, and I know guys have made a, you know, a cyber living on poking holes in the

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Catholic claim. Wait a minute, how could anyone actually do that if Rome's infallible? How can anyone poke holes in the

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Catholic claim if the Catholic claim is infallibly true? If it's actually consistent with history?

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Sounds like there's an admission here that, well, you know, you sorta gotta read history in a particular way, and you sorta gotta let the church define what is and what is not tradition, and what tradition does and does not say, because you certainly gotta do that with the

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Scriptures. Remember, this is the same fella who says, well, we know what the Westminster Standards are. We can understand what they're saying, but we can't understand what

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Romans 5 -1 says. So, evidently, the framers of the

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Westminster Confession were considerably more perspicuous in their statements than the writers of Scripture were, and so now you've got, well, you know, the inconsistencies, again, amazing.

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And, you know, that's, you can, that's, I mean, on a cursory glance, it's easy to do, especially because the claim sounds so preposterous and audacious.

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It has nothing to do with preposterous or audacious. It has to do with ahistorical and unbiblical. It has to do with changing history.

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Have you ever read Satus Cognitum? I can almost guarantee you, I can almost guarantee you that Jason Stellman has not read either

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Indulgentiarum Doctrina or Satus Cognitum. I even took the time of uploading, for free, a number of the major debates, all the

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PACWA debates, and giving them the links to them. I don't get the feeling you listen to them. I really don't.

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I got a feeling when he left that, you know, mind was made up, he was doing his thing. But you have to, that's your dogma now, man.

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You can't, you cannot criticize that. You're just a lay person. You're not even a priest, for crying out loud, let alone a bishop or a cardinal or anything else.

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And besides that, you can't really interpret any of this stuff yourself. Anyways, you got to go to the church. Now, I'm not sure which prelate of the church you're going to go to, but that's just one of those problems when you first hear it.

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But that's not enough, and that's what I tried to tell people. Why isn't it enough, Jason?

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Why isn't it enough? It would not be enough if I didn't give you anything positive, and you know, sir, that I did.

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And I know I did, and God is my witness. And I can say that with a clear conscience, and you know it.

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But why wouldn't it be enough for you not to join Rome if Rome's theory is full of holes?

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I can understand why it wouldn't be enough to stay someplace else and need something positive, which you were given. But if you can poke holes through Rome's claims, then there's no reason for you to embrace

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Rome, is there? You're just going to make me either an agnostic or an

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Eastern Orthodox if all you're going to do is tell me that papal infallibility is false or that the

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Marian dogmas weren't held. Ironically, at the very next section, he's going to say the only choice he had was

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Rome. So this seems somewhat, you know, a little bit disingenuous to me.

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You know, from early on. That's not sufficient. What you need to do is make a positive case for the uniquely

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Protestant formulations of ecclesial authority. And it's impossible.

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It's not impossible. It was done in my office, and you know it. Asking a question like, well, how do you know which church is the right church to 10 years after John dies when

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Rome cannot answer that in the way you want it answered? How about the question that I asked

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Jerry Matitix back when you were doing missions work over in Europe some places,

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I recall. How did the believing Jewish man know that Isaiah and Second Chronicles were scripture 50 years before Christ?

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How about you answer that one? Never had a Roman Catholic come up with an even semi -rational explanation of that one.

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I may have had people say, well, it's the infallible Jewish magisterium. But of course, that Jewish magisterium contradicts your infallible magisterium.

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That doesn't work very well to you. He'd have to go to the high priest and ask for the

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Urim and the Thummim and toss the dice. I had that one before. That was an interesting one. But how is that,

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Jason? How does that work? See, I can ask you a tough question. Does that mean

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Rome's wrong in and of itself? Well, I think as far as the argument that you need an infallible authority to know what scripture is, yes.

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And the same thing with the idea that you need some infallible authority to tell you what the church is. There are marks of the church, but it has never been

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God's intention that we have a big green glowing neon sign that says, this is the true church.

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Everything else isn't. If the gospel and the spirit of God working that gospel in a person's life isn't enough, then you're looking for something more than God has provided.

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And when you start going beyond what God has provided, you'll find it, Jason. You could have found it up in Salt Lake City.

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You could have found it in Brooklyn. You could have found it a lot of different places. I say to you, regeneration.

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Regeneration brings to the heart of the believer and obedience to the word.

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And that obedience would likewise preclude a person from making rash decisions based upon bad argumentation.

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Can't be done. And that's why I was unconvinced by the guys I went and talked to. It's not, they're all smarter than me.

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Every one of them is head and shoulders more brilliant. They've all got PhDs, or at least most of them do.

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They know their history better than I ever will. Steve Baugh is a better exegete with a better command of Greek than I'll ever have.

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But if something's true, there just aren't good arguments against it. Now, did you catch that? If something's true, there just aren't good arguments.

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And what was he just saying? There are people that poke holes in Rome's arguments all the time. And he didn't want me doing that.

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But then when he gets to the final solution, well, there just aren't any good arguments against the truth.

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Excuse me? Does that make sense to anybody? It doesn't make any sense to me.

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And obviously, I can speak directly to this one because he's talking about me. I'm one of those folks he was just talking about.

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And I'm the main person he was complaining poked holes in Rome's position. Why did

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I do that? Because Rome has no answers to these questions. And hence to say, well,

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I'm going to go to Rome because I don't like the answers that I give to these questions when Rome can't answer the questions is an irrational act.

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And what that means is there's something more going on there. There's something else involved in the motivations and the activity than just simply, well,

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I looked at these questions and this is what I had to do. And that's kind of what

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I came out of that sabbatical realizing is there's got to be a reason why all these guys who are way smarter than I am didn't didn't have good arguments against these claims

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I'm trying to trying to make. He didn't make any claims. Oh, I knew it.

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I knew what they were. But I had to read between the lines because he didn't want to have to defend Rome.

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So on the one hand, he tells everybody, oh, they didn't convince me because, you know, they just wanted to tell me what's wrong with Rome.

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And I didn't want to argue about any of that. But then they couldn't they couldn't answer my claims about Rome.

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Now, I don't know what he said to Horton. I don't know what he said to Baugh. I don't know what he said.

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He's I know what he said to me, and he would not defend the Roman position. So he made no arguments that I failed to refute.

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None. Didn't do it. Didn't put on the table specifically said he wouldn't, even though in the very first full email

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I sent to him once he told me it was going on. I said both positions will be put on the table.

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And if I have to post it, I'll post it. I keep all my emails. I especially knew in this situation

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I had to because I knew what I was walking into. This isn't the first time. It's not because they're just not smart enough to really understand me or, you know,

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I'm just more brilliant than they are. No, it's that when something's true, even the smartest guy in the world isn't going to be able to come up with a very good argument against it because truth just always wins.

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Instead of Rob Bell's love wins, you have truth wins now. Yeah. So yeah, truth wins.

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That's that. That's great. Except there was not a single time when

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Jason Stelman pressed or presented any Roman claims against me.

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Sitting in my office, 10 feet that direction. Walk right past that window right there.

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Going in, going out. Didn't do it. Didn't want to do it. I wonder why. Didn't want to defend any of Rome's claims.

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Now, no, I'm just I just want a positive presentation. And I gave him that. But I would not allow that to be the substance of the conversation.

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Only I know what knew where he was going. I knew what the background of his questions were.

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And therefore, you have to apply the same standards to Rome. And when you do, she fails.

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And Jason, hear me. It may be two years.

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It may be five years. It may be 10 years. But someday you're going to be sitting someplace alone.

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And you're going to understand. You're going to realize. What have

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I done? What have I done? All those people at exile.

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All the pressure I've put upon my family. Because they haven't converted with him. The divisions.

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And for what? Start looking around on that side of the

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Tiber, Jason. Look closely. Don't wear the rose colored glasses or the papal colored glasses.

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Look carefully. Look at the people that the Pope places on the biblical commission.

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The papal biblical commission. Look at their views. Look at what they write.

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You're going to discover. You gain nothing. Absolutely.

27:27

Positively. Nothing. Someday. You'll find out.

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Well, it's one thing to reject sola scriptura and sola fide. But it's quite another to embrace the whole of the

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Catholic faith. The claims of the Catholic Church about herself and uniquely Catholic dogmas, such as the Marian dogmas, purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and so on.

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So how did you finally make this decision to become Catholic and embrace all of that? Especially knowing that it would cost you your job and involve leaving your congregation.

27:53

But I wish I would love to hear him talk about his first prayers to Mary.

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Because like I said, I'll never forget when Frank Beckwith was asked that question on Catholic Answers Live.

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It was like, he just he didn't want to go there for love nor money.

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And and I can certainly understand why. I can certainly understand why. I mean, it really would require you to completely abandon everything you've ever been taught.

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And to throw yourself completely into the arms of Mama Church. Abandon the

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Bible. Abandon the history of the people of Israel. Everything you know about idolatry and everything else. And go ahead, pray to the one to whom you can give hyperdulia.

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And Jason, you know, you know, sir, that the idea of distinguishing between Lotteria and hyperdulia is pure foolishness.

29:00

It's pure foolishness. Semantic games. You know, someone's brought before Moses going,

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I wasn't given Lotteria, Moses. I was given hyperdulia. He'd end up under a pile of rocks and you know it.

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You know it. Just be honest with yourself. Well, there was never any other option.

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There was never any other option. What happened to agnostic in Eastern Orthodox?

29:34

Well, you know, when it comes to when it comes to, you know, why become

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Catholic? I've had people like when I have discussions with people about just the soteriology, they say, you don't have to do it.

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You don't have to stop being reformed. You can be like a Douglas Moo type guy. You can you can you can have a robust view of the spirit and still be reformed.

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Like you don't have to quit. You're making this rash decision. You know, which for me is funny because like rash decision.

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Wow. Because this took me forever to do. By the way, rash can refer to something other than speed.

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It can refer to the basis upon which one makes the decision. And that can be done very slowly, but still base the decision upon thin air, which is what we're seeing here.

30:18

Um, but when when you look at the the authority claims.

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They're just it just it just became clear to me, I guess. Now, listen to this, because I played this at the very beginning, but we haven't commented.

30:37

Listen to what's said here. That if Jesus founded a church, an actual visible church, you know, with a

30:43

P .O. box, you know, so to speak, one, you could find that you can say there it is not there, but there and if that church, first of all, if he did that, he would have he never would have instituted sola scriptura as the only infallible way of guiding that church because he wasn't an idiot.

31:02

Well, there you go. I'd love to see Jason defend that statement in debate.

31:10

Only an idiot will believe this is right after talking about how much respect he has for Michael Horton and Dr.

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Baugh and all the rest of it. But Jesus wasn't an idiot because only an idiot would found the church and sola scriptura.

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Well, no one ever said the church was founded on sola scriptura. The church is found on Jesus Christ. The question is what Jesus Christ teach.

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And Jesus Christ taught us in places like Matthew, Chapter 15, that when you encounter people who claim to have extra biblical revelation, claim to have traditions from God passed down outside of written revelation, even amongst godly people, you test their teachings by scripture.

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And you, Jason Stelman, can't do that anymore. And that's the apostasy I warned you of, sir.

31:53

And you've committed it. And, you know, that in the same way that our founding fathers didn't just write a constitution, mail it to everybody and say, all right, good luck.

32:01

But they put in place other branches of government whose job it was to interpret it and execute it and all that. And so it's like,

32:09

OK, if Jesus founded a church, he would have he would have he just would have set it up in such a way that you can actually find it.

32:17

Did you catch that? He just would have. I almost I almost made this whole review titled, he just would have.

32:25

Because there you have it, what is the infallible foundation for Jason Stelman's conversion to Roman Catholicism?

32:31

He just would have. He just would have done it this way. I just I just decided that if Jesus was going to do it, he would have done it this way and he would have done it that way.

32:40

And that's what Rome is. So there I am. And that's supposed to make us go, oh, we convert.

32:48

I ain't impressed. He just would have. Really? OK, all right.

32:54

And the only way to do that is not, you know, whoever has the right interpretation of the Bible is the church.

33:01

But it's whoever was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who's ordained by Jesus and an apostle is the bishop who you submit to.

33:08

Oh, OK. So. The apostles forgot to mention that in the

33:16

New Testament, right? Because I don't I don't remember that. I remember Tertullian coming up with that and I know why he came up with it.

33:23

And I know a bunch of people in the early church, those are people you thought were idiots. You know, you didn't really pay attention to them.

33:30

But when I read them and not just in jurgens and these little collections, but actually read them like when when

33:38

I taught development of patristic theology for Golden Gate, we sat there and we actually translated from Clemens and Ignatius and people like that.

33:45

When you actually read them, people who made that very claim ended up saying that the apostles taught them to do things and to believe things that you don't believe,

33:56

Jason, and that Rome says isn't true. So it seems that there is a filter functioning here that maybe you're not aware of.

34:07

Hmm. But I'm just sort of wondering. So you have to trace this line back, that's how you define the church.

34:19

Huh. But then you admit that there are people that can point out all sorts of breaks in that line and there's all sorts of people who make the same claim.

34:29

I was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone and they taught things that, well, aren't aren't true from the

34:35

Roman Catholic perspective. Right. And we know, I mean, certainly you've taken the time to read books on the papacy written by even non -Catholic scholars, right,

34:47

Jason? And you know that there's a number of times when there are people who are made popes by political authority and not by the church, and there were anti -popes and there are times that you don't even know which one's the anti -pope and which one's the real pope.

35:01

And then you had the pornocracy and oh, that was pretty bad and and things got really bad for a while. And then, of course, you've got the

35:06

Avignon papacy and they leave Rome and then you've got one pope in Athenaeus and another pope and and then you got three popes and they try to fix that mess and and then you have to depend upon a council to fix all that.

35:21

And you really, really, really think that the church is identified by a genealogy that says, well, this guy ordained this guy and this guy ordained that guy?

35:32

That's how the church is recognized? Hmm, yeah,

35:39

I see that in the New Testament. I see it all over the place. Well, not really.

35:45

That's just how if you're going to found a visible church at all, that's just kind of how you do it. That's just kind of how you get there.

35:55

That's just how. That's just how. I sat down with all these people and what

36:01

I came up with is that's just how. I can't give you a biblical phrase, verse or anything, but that's just how.

36:11

That's just how it works. That that's why we have, you know, presidents in this country who succeed other presidents and there are ways of knowing who the president is, even if other people stand up and claim to be the president.

36:22

Really? This is how you know the true church is based upon presidential succession in the constitutional form of government.

36:33

OK, all right. If I'm not even going to go to the many, many, many holes in that one, because it's just too obvious.

36:43

But then even more, because that's, you know, you can still be Eastern Orthodox and accept all that. But just what happens when there's a tie?

36:54

You know, what if you've got six apostles against six? Let's say Jesus is gone and the apostles are all still ministering and they divide against each other six against six.

37:01

Now, think about this. Think about this. What's missing here? The objective reality of the gospel itself and the and amazingly for the guy who's talking about the spirit all the time, the spirit spirit's gone.

37:20

Ah, that's the spirit can't. There's this election stuff and, you know, the hearts and minds of the elected.

37:26

I don't have to worry about that. We need to worry about apostolic succession and voting. That's what we need to worry about.

37:32

Where did this come from? Amazing. Should Jesus have chosen an odd number of apostles so that that couldn't happen?

37:40

No, he chose an even number. He certainly must have known that six, you know, the 12 divided by two comes out six against.

37:46

I remember all these votes there. Then you'd kind of you'd side with Peter, right? Wouldn't you? I mean, Peter was side with Peter. So I guess

37:51

Paul was wrong in in in Galatia and when he went to the Galatians and what he did at Antioch, he was stood.

37:59

He he withstood multiple apostles to the face. Bad Paul.

38:06

Bad. Oh, the leader. I think it's clear in the New Testament that Peter was the leader of the apostles. You'd side with Peter if if they were.

38:12

But what if they're, you know, divided nine against three and Peter is one of the three? Well, I still think you side with Peter and the two other guys, right?

38:21

And that's just how that's just how it would have it's how it would have been set up.

38:28

I think just basic logic even dictates that. But then you start looking at the claims of the

38:33

Catholic Church about, you know, the Marian dogmas and, you know, the papal infallibility and all the ecumenical councils, you know, and you kind of compare that to Eastern Orthodoxy, which is sort of.

38:42

You know, Eastern Orthodoxy, you've got you've got the tradition, you've got the antiquity, you've got the apostolic succession, but you just don't have all the stuff that people hate.

38:51

You know, you don't have the pope. You don't have the the Marian stuff to that same degree, at least all the stuff that people hate.

39:01

I hate all that stuff. You know why I hate all that stuff? Because it's not Christian. It's anti -biblical.

39:07

It is enforced upon the souls of individuals by an authority that has not been ordained by Christ and yet claims to be ordained by Christ.

39:17

But it's not just because, well, I don't think you should ever say anything nice about Mary. I have said things nice about Mary.

39:23

You would wish to add something. I just have to wonder, how is what he is giving us an answer to anything?

39:31

It's essentially shoulda, coulda, woulda, and he just would have done it like that.

39:36

Right. It is not an answer. It's not at all. It's not.

39:42

But I guess the only way that I can

39:49

I can look at it is sometimes people, if their foundations are not strong, they latch on to an issue.

39:59

And I've seen this. I've seen many different. It can be eschatology. It can be ecclesiology.

40:06

It can be some odd element of the theological spectrum.

40:14

And they just can't shake the absolute necessity of coming to a conclusion about that particular subject.

40:25

And they lose their balance. I've seen it happen. And you meet with them and you're like, you know, brother, you're still on this subject.

40:35

Have you have you thought much about the sacrifice of Christ recently? Have you considered the hypostatic union?

40:41

Have you considered the resurrection? Have you considered justification by faith? And they just they just lose balance.

40:50

And obviously, from my perspective, trying to step back from that, it would seem to me part of persevering in faith, part of being preserved by faith, the preserving of our souls, as Hebrews 10 .39

41:14

says, that part of that work of the Spirit of God is the ability to maintain balance.

41:21

And that at times God demonstrates his justice and his judgment by allowing people to slip off the side and lose their balance.

41:39

And it's unpopular to have to say this, but we have to ask the question, is this not a sign of judgment?

41:48

What a tremendous and remember what before we started specifically playing this podcast.

41:55

What did I do? I spent almost half an hour on Hebrews chapter six to say, what do you say about a man who stood before the people of God, proclaimed the gospel.

42:09

And then turns his back on it. You just heard him say, well, Jesus wasn't an idiot. You know, he's going to say it's just so obvious.

42:18

What do you say about someone like that? And isn't it, doesn't it take us back?

42:25

If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But so that it might be demonstrated that they were not truly of us.

42:32

That's why they went out. Maybe hard to say. But to me, it just became clear that if Jesus founded a church that was going to be identifiable and visible because of apostolic succession, it would have been a church that just would have continued to hold ecumenical councils every time it needed to.

42:50

And it would have had a way in principle to distinguish between what is and what is not an ecumenical council. That's just how it would be.

42:57

That's just how how many times he said that now? Are we are we losing count? That's just how it would be.

43:03

It just he would have done it that way. That's just how it is. I mean, it's so obvious that this is.

43:11

And the funny thing is, what did he start off talking about? This is what's so amazing about what about the nature of of theological apostasy.

43:24

What's he doing right now? He's fired his arrow and he is painting his target.

43:32

He's fired his arrow. He's converted. And now shoulda, woulda, coulda.

43:39

There's the there's the circles right around the arrow. Look, I got it right. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

43:47

I can't explain any better than that. But it's just shoulda, woulda, coulda. Or as Algo just said in Channel Survey says.

43:55

That's how it worked. And and moreover, it would be any church that Jesus founded that's still around after 2000 years would just be as audacious as the

44:05

Catholic Church just would be. It just would. I mean, Jesus was audacious. He ran around, you know, claiming all these things about himself and driving out the money changers and calling.

44:14

Which I guess is why the pope can run around claiming to be the Holy Father and letting people kiss his rings and bow down before him.

44:20

And so just audacious, not idolatrous, but audacious. To question the entire pharisaical tradition.

44:27

I mean, he just walked around kind of throwing his weight around, you know, in a manner of speaking, forcing people to reckon with who he was.

44:38

And it seems to me that his body, his visible body would would be that way.

44:43

But it would say, you know what, I don't care if it's the year, you know, 1960, we're going to have an ecumenical council because there's some stuff that we need to talk about and we're going to have one.

44:54

And we're going to we're not going to care whether we contradict what we said in previous ecumenical councils or not, because you aren't authorized to make that determination.

45:05

So, you know, we could have very clearly said things in the past about heretics and those people outside the fellowship, the church and how they're going to hell.

45:15

But it's a new day. And so now we adore the same

45:20

God as the Muslims. Isn't that nice? Even though they deny the deity of Christ, we adore that's worship, by the way.

45:26

We adore the same. OK, but let's not go there. And you can know it's an ecumenical council because because Peter's successor is presiding or at least ratifying the conclusions.

45:39

So so which was utterly irrelevant. And I see it, but I diverge from the topic.

45:46

You know, how did I make the decision to, you know, to become Catholic? It was almost like there is no other decision.

45:52

There is no other option. And it's like, yeah, OK, so I walked away from, you know, my ministry and all that.

46:00

And that's been really hard. But it's like, I don't know, a lot of people have sacrificed a lot more than I have for the truth.

46:10

And as difficult as it has been, you know, to me, it's just there's something there's just something unseemly about about making too much out of out of a sacrifice that one makes for Christ.

46:26

When given what he's done for us. So, you know, yeah, it's been tough and it still is.

46:32

But in the face of in the face of what is just so biblically obvious and historically compelling and philosophically necessary, it just there's almost a no brainer.

46:45

So there you go. I want to play that phrase again. I played that at the beginning, too. But what are the three things in the face of in the face of what is just so biblically obvious, biblically obvious.

46:58

So the papacy is biblically obvious. I don't know why Newman didn't get that way to come with that whole development hypothesis thing.

47:07

And, you know, the acorn, the tree thing, because it's biblically obvious. I mean, isn't the isn't the bodily assumption of Mary biblically obvious?

47:15

So is the Immaculate Conception biblically obvious? Purgatory. It's all over the place.

47:21

It's all over. First Corinthians chapter three. Just watch my my debate with Peter Stravinskas on that. You'll see that.

47:27

I mean, his brilliant insightful responses on first Corinthians three and indulgences just biblically obvious.

47:34

It's right there. There's nothing biblically obvious about any of this stuff. And historically compelling.

47:42

Historically compelling. We can sit around and poke holes in the Catholic claims.

47:47

You can show me all these contradictions. It doesn't matter. You just need to give me a positive thing. But it's historically compelling.

47:54

I don't know. I'm I'm sensing some real contradiction here and philosophically necessary. OK, whatever it just there's almost a no brainer.

48:01

No brainer. When you announced on your blog your resignation from exile in the

48:07

PCA, there were so many insulting and mean spirited comments that were left in your comeback, as you know.

48:13

Oh, have these folks ever looked at what's said about me in the Catholic answers forums?

48:19

Oh, come on. Get it. Get a backbone there, guys.

48:25

And in other public places, there were a number of uncharitable things that were uncharitable blogs and so forth.

48:30

I know that many reform pastors and reform seminarians and laymen are listening to this podcast.

48:36

Some would be strongly opposed to what you have done, and some would be on the other end of the spectrum, much more sympathetic, but not wanting to lose their careers or subject themselves to the kind of public scourging that you experienced this spring.

48:48

Public scourging. There is a martyrdom complex amongst

48:55

Roman Catholics. There is no question about that public scourging. OK, all right.

49:02

OK. Sorry, just really hard to take that very seriously. What would you say to reform persons, whether they're pastors or seminarians, who are also considering the

49:11

Catholic claim? Well, you know, we all,

49:18

Catholic, Reformed, whatever, talk about sacrifice, and we talk about Christ's sacrifice, and we talk about cross bearing, and we talk about the need to follow

49:27

Him and to imitate Him and to count the cost and put your hand to the plow and all that stuff.

49:37

I remember thinking to myself, because seriously, there were times when even before hitting send on my resignation letter to my session in the presbytery,

49:49

I wrote the thing and left it sitting on my screen for a whole day, thinking like, there's got to be a way out of this.

49:55

There's got to be an argument out there I can find, or at least some rationale for not sending this.

50:03

Because I don't have any other background. I don't have a career that I had before I was a pastor that I can just go back to.

50:11

There's got to be some other way. But I just remember thinking, I will never be able to live with myself if I don't do this.

50:21

If I blink now and flinch at the prospect of paying a price for what

50:28

I believe is true, then the self -loathing is going to just go to a whole new level here, because I'm never going to be able to look at myself in the mirror.

50:38

That's what I'd say. I'd say, look, I'm not going to candy coat it and say like, oh yeah, the minute you become a Catholic and receive the

50:44

Eucharist, all of your sins go away, and all of your desire for sin goes away, and you immediately get all these job offers and all this.

50:51

No, that's not how it is. And I think any convert to Rome would say the same. But it's like, oops,

50:59

I really sort of surprised they allowed that through. You're going, what? Listen again.

51:04

That's not how it is. And I think any convert to Rome would catch that. That's right. Again, that's not how it is.

51:09

And I think any convert to Rome would how many times have many people who are very charitable to me gotten angry at me because I talk about converting to Rome, the

51:23

Roman church. It's the Roman Catholic church or just the Catholic church to you.

51:28

You're being I'm not even going to talk to you because you're an anti -Catholic because you talk about Rome. Evidently, poor

51:35

Jason hasn't gotten the inoculations he needs quite yet to get all the terminology right. That's not how it is. And I think any convert to Rome would say the same.

51:43

That's Brian Cross twitching across the table from. But it's like, look, if you're not.

51:51

I mean, if you're even dabbling in Catholic theology, then you've read a lot about sacrifice and redemptive suffering and are suffering having significance because it's wedded to Christ's suffering.

52:04

Well, now's the time to put up or shut up. You know, now's the time to to put your money where your mouth is.

52:10

If you if you think something's true, but you're not willing to to pay some measly price for it, for standing up for it, then you like don't even know the basic gist of what

52:23

Christianity is about in the first place, because that's what Christianity is. It's it's following Jesus.

52:28

And last I checked, Jesus surrendered everything and was handsomely rewarded in the resurrection.

52:35

And we will be handsomely rewarded in the age to come and maybe not a minute sooner. But that's that's life.

52:41

That's that's semi realized eschatology right there. That's taking up our cross. Yeah. Yeah.

52:47

What are your plans for the future now? And now listen, the second book will be published shortly. Tell us about that. Yeah, I wrote a book called

52:55

The Destiny of the Species, which, you know, it's sort of a project.

53:01

It's just the latest incarnation of a of a ongoing project that started when

53:06

I was a brand new Christian and probably will never end. And that's trying to trying to wrestle with the idea that we're exiles and pilgrims on the earth, as Hebrews 11 says.

53:17

And this is this is just the latest attempt to articulate that. It's sort of taking

53:23

Darwin's famous origin of species and twisting it a little bit and saying, you know what?

53:28

It's not it's not it's not our origin. Ultimately, that defines us. It's not our past. It defines us. It's our future that defines us.

53:34

We're not pushed. We're pulled. We're not driven. We're drawn. And so that submitted to Wipf and Stock.

53:40

And now it's got to go through, you know, copy editing and all of that. I'm hoping it'll be out.

53:46

I don't know when it's going to be out. Hopefully, hopefully within the next six months, but I'm not sure. And I'm working on a

53:53

I've submitted a proposal to another publisher. Sort of for a book, kind of talking about the stuff we've talked about in this in this interview, just the kind of process of coming out of Protestantism into the

54:05

Catholic Church. So there you go. We've got a book forthcoming, probably proposed to Ignatius if I was going to take a wild guess.

54:14

But yet another convert story, home to Rome and all the rest of that stuff.

54:21

One of the reasons we responded to it right here, right now. And so that's that's submitted.

54:27

But it's just a proposal at this point. And I'm teaching classes at the

54:33

Catholic parish that I'm a member of. As soon as I heard that, I'm like, what?

54:40

You're you're you're you're doing what? What does that say about Rome? That a brand new convert,

54:48

September 23rd. So within what, a month? Five weeks?

54:55

Hey, how about you start teaching? I mean, that means he's learned this faster than Dave Hunt learned

55:04

Reformed Theology. I mean, he did it all in six months. He does it in a month and a half.

55:11

Amazing. I just I heard that and I'm like, seriously?

55:17

And I just could not help but think of how many times I've talked to cradle Catholics. And I heard him say, man, these converts, they're still

55:26

Protestants. They don't get it. They've brought their Protestant faith right into the church with them.

55:32

And we just let them do that. And they're not happy about it. And I'm teaching classes at the Catholic parish that I'm a member of.

55:39

Those started last night, Wednesday evening classes for adults. And I've got a couple of conferences lined up next year to speak at.

55:47

So I'm kind of hoping that. Conferences to speak at. Looks like he's getting on the speaker circuit.

55:53

He says that somehow writing and teaching and speaking will translate into some form of income for for my family so that we could, you know, we could make it doing that because it's just what

56:05

I've always done since I was a teenager is teach the Bible. And but but but but but Jason, you can't do that anymore.

56:14

Don't you realize what you were doing was wrong all that time? You have to teach the teachings of the church.

56:22

You have to teach and lay the mat. And you're not a member of the magisterium. I mean, you just you just have to be submitted to the bishops.

56:30

And well, anyways, you get the point. It's amazing. It is absolutely positively amazing.

56:37

So there you go. I didn't think it would take the rest of the hour, but I played more than I probably should have. But I want to get to, you know, public scourging and now teaching books coming out.

56:47

If you found a church on Sola Scriptura, make it as an idiot. Gives you an idea of, you know, what's really going on there.

56:56

My hope is that by Thursday, the video of the debate between Paul Bilal Williams and Chris Green, the second debate, that that video will appear and I will be able to maybe make some comments on that.

57:12

But be it as it may, I certainly have that material queued up and ready to go and thought

57:20

I would actually get into it today. But as often is the case, you end up making more comments than you thought you were going to anyways.

57:28

So we will continue with that on the next edition of The Dividing Line. We need to have some time for some phone calls,

57:35

I guess. It's been a while since we have done that as well. But yeah, by the way,

57:41

I will be in St. Charles, Missouri this coming weekend, as I almost always am first weekend in December.

57:48

This will be the 13th year at Covenant of Grace Church there. We're going to be doing the doctrine of the

57:53

Trinity, which we've done in the past, but that was over a decade ago. And it's good to review things like the Trinity more than once a decade.

58:01

We're going to be doing that. And so we'd invite you to join with us there in St. Charles Friday night, all day

58:07

Saturday. And I'll be speaking Sunday morning. And this time, first time I've done this,

58:13

I'll be speaking Sunday evening as well there and then coming back on Monday. So that will not interrupt our

58:19

Dividing Line schedule. But if you're in that area, looks like they're talking 70 for a high on Saturday.

58:26

I'm not even going to get to enjoy some cold weather this time around.

58:31

So probably the next week it'll snow or something. But anyhow, thanks for being with us today. We'll catch you next time on the

58:36

Dividing Line. God bless. I stand up for the truth.

59:31

I want to live for the Lord. Cause we're piling up, piling up, waiting.

59:37

The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

59:46

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

59:51

World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.