Post-Debate Review

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. 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. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

Cruise Conference, Debate Prep, and Travel Challenges

And welcome to the dividing line Tuesday October let's see. I think it's 23rd, isn't it? Yeah, it's October 23rd. Welcome to the dividing line good to be back after a week away. Not a week off in any way shape or form but a week away from From the dividing line.

We have been very very very busy. I have provided a brief discussion of our goings-on On the blog, but it's a whole lot easier to talk about things Than it is to write things up. And so we're gonna take some time today to fill you in on What took place last week and possibly if you'd like to comment on Maybe what you saw at the debate, for example, please feel free to do so at eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one is the is the computer up because I'm hearing some really weird Odd sounds yeah, go ahead leave it down because I'm don't it's making it's make a good bit of noise.

I'm getting a lot of And stuff like that from it. So anyway Last last week where where do we begin? Well, hmm I suppose we can start with the conference that took place pretty much on on The MS Mercury or Ms. Mercury as job would like to say Which didn't all take place there for Sunday night we started off with a group there at the SeaTac Marriott and we began with the subject of the gospel and the Trinitarian nature of that gospel we went through Ephesians chapter 1 and then we got on board the ship and even as We had only a few minutes after getting into our cabins.

We had another session beginning at 2 o 'clock Did have a nice place to meet it was a little too warm But except when we managed to get the window door open, but then we ran into a gale-force winds. We had we had to give up on that and close the doors and get get warm again, but The fellowship was warm as well shall we say and I didn't get through nearly as much as I had hoped to.

I will confess I For a couple reasons first of all, I'm just long-winded naturally and I didn't have as much time as I expected and Even more to the point on Thursday We had what was called a sea day and You see got realized the ship was doing is doing two cruises a week so it's doing a four day in a three day a four day in a three day a four day in a three day and So the three day just goes out to Victoria and back again, and that's all there is to it.

We're on the four day. So there's an extra day in there. Now what I would have liked to have done is sailed through the inside passage and you know seen beautiful Mountains rising from the quiet waters and blah blah blah.

Nah, it's not what you do when you're on a cruise line and cruise lines want to make money. So they Want to be able to open their shops and their casino and the only way to do that is get three miles offshore into international waters and so So you do that by going out to sea?

There's just one little problem. That storm that is just now clearing out of you know yesterday cleared out of Arizona. That was just a southern tip of it. Which create all that wind here and which hits Seattle Thursday night with the wind gusts up to 80 miles an hour knocked out power in some areas is what we sailed right into and I've been on a number of cruises now and Had never seen a ship rocking and rolling quite as much as it as it was at that time so we ended up not having our about two and a half hours worth of Lecture that we could have had and I really think if I had had that time.

Because that's when I would have been dealing specifically with the historical issues Related to Islam. I think our people clearly would have Been prepared for everything That should be early raised with one possible exception from Luke chapter 13 Which I had never heard him raise and which is only marginally related to the issue of the Atonement to begin with so Other than that, I really think that I accomplished one of my goals and that is the people who were on the cruise and who?

Attended the conference. Got the most out of this debate were the most prepared to listen to it and hence derived the most out of it. We had a really good time together. Primarily in the Word of God I was projecting Bible works up on the screen and I have this little tablet device that allows me to you know write down stuff and go over to a whiteboard and things like that and and We just spent most of time in in the text of Scripture and having a good time together we had a morning session and an afternoon session and We had our one formal night and formal nights are always a lot of fun.

Everybody gets all all dressed up and and the ladies look Beautiful and the men look as well as good as men can look and You get lots of pictures taken. That's the best way to get family portraits taken if you guys and we had one one family brought well a couple families brought the Whole family, but for one family that was how many kids?

At least four. Yeah. That's a lot of kids and parents and everything else. Yeah, grandma and grandpa and the whole nine yards. We're on the we're on the on the cruise and the only way folks can do things like that is because our cruises actually happen to be pretty affordable.

Believe me with most of the situations that wouldn't happen. So anyway In the evenings, there is a theology talk that sometimes I went to sometimes didn't and so it depends because When I go to theology talks, nobody wants to do anything, but just ask questions.

So I had a great time on the ship and then we got off on Friday morning had a pretty easy transition over to the hotel and In the evening was the debate now, of course a whole lot of work goes into these things.

You come walking in and it looks like it just sort of you know Was set up by by little gremlins to come running in and do it. That's not how it works and So Friday was probably riches biggest workday of the of the whole cruise even though he was toting the camera around for these sessions as well.

That's the the toughest thing is to get that set up and when you put a you know We could take that same sound system and put it back in the same room next week. And it would still be different than it was last week it's just you you when you have a portable sound system and you're going into a Room where you know things change the size the room changes where things are located changes no matter what you do.

You are going to have sound issues and it takes a long time to get that working until you got the actual people up there Doing it. I don't care how much testing you do beforehand a sound system changes over time and so lots and lots of challenges along there had lots of great volunteers to help and We've mentioned some of those folks on the blog as well and so very very thankful for for them, but then Come come the afternoon or evening.

I somehow did not notice this until afterwards when I was told about it, but The the rain the heavens opened and the rain started coming down like I said Once we you know once we pulled into Seattle on the ship.

It was nice that more is windy breezy cool you could tell it had rained, but It was it was pretty nice out and it would have been a real real pain to try to get into the buses and load the buses like that in a absolute deluge, but anyway, I was already in the ballroom or Something I don't know how I didn't notice it.

But the the heavens opened and the rains really started coming down and not like your Seattle rain Where it's sort of a strong mist drizzle for hours and hours and hours on end. This was a gully washer thunderstorm downpour type rain that Really is a little bit unusual and So we had a lot of no-shows that means people who had already purchased tickets But simply didn't make it and Not quite half of those had Islamic names.

So it was you know pretty much a straight division along the lines there. We didn't have nearly as many Muslims there as we would like to have had. We did do everything by the way we could to advertise the debate in the Islamic community.

We sent flyers to every mosque in the Seattle area and yet even at that We had two young Muslim men come up to us after the bait and basically said they had only found out about on the web. They had heard nothing about it locally now I understand you know KGNW is not probably the first station that Muslims are listening to for advertising and I sort of wonder if there was a station that Had as its primary audience an Islamic audience if they would even accept such advertising for such things to be perfectly honest with you I mean, let's face it the debates like this don't happen in Islamic countries.

They just don't they can only happen here in the in the West and the irony is in essence. If if the one side wins that debate and wins the culture war those debates end. That's that's just how it works and so One of the young gentlemen suggested.

We should have gone to the mosques and passed out flyers. And I sort of looked at him like do you really think that would be you know taken in a positive way? And I mentioned that Shabir later. He said well.

You know if you talk to the To the mosque leadership and got their permission then that would be one thing well obviously. But we had already sent the flyers to the mosque leadership anyways. So you know like I said we had at least 50 Islamic no-shows.

At least from what we can gather. I mean obviously can't tell everything just by names could have been 50. You know names that are of Arabic type Christians or something who knows but we did our best because we really did want to have a very good representation of Muslims at at the debate and So I'm hoping honestly that the majority of the reason they weren't there was simply They're gonna be traveling together in a group or something like that and maybe from a distance and the weather just simply didn't allow it.

I mean there was there was street flooding and things like that so you just you just never know. By the way like I said if you were there I'd like to comment on the debate eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

We will keep the phone lines open for you today and for those of you watching on the webcam we have Found a new place to put one. It's an unusual location. But it does sort of give a you know broader perspective to the to the studio here.

So you can sort of catch that as well the debate itself. Shabir was there the day before and We we chatted before the the debate began and The debate of course was on the subject that Jesus Christ give himself Willingly as a sacrifice for God's people.

Hadn't didn't have any Armenians come up and go hey you sound like Calvinist. Even though I think if you'll listen I was quite consistent in my statements on that subject and interestingly enough It didn't come up.

I honestly am not certain that Shabir is aware of the differences at that point. He never met he never said anything about it. I mean he did say that Shriner would be closer to my position than the others.

Well, okay? That's because substitutionary atonement. You know is a historically reformed doctrine obviously. But I just don't know that you know it just didn't come up even though I was very consistent in talking about the union of the elect with Christ, and you know issues along those lines, but It just it just the specificity of Particular atonement just quite simply did not did not come up.

As far as an objection goes I mean I my presentation was was consistent with it and based upon it obviously but Be that as it may so what I have in front of me I do not have any clips as yet rich is gonna start listening to the materials this afternoon.

Maybe Thursday I might have an mp3 of some things. I'm not going to put a you know major pressure upon that because I suppose I should mention in passing Appreciate the prayers of God's people. Clearly for the conference and debate as well.

But also in regards to what happened the first night the rich and I were up there. And that is at 352 in the morning my cell phone is ringing and it is the alarm company calling us once again that alarms going off in our offices and We have we have done a lot my office for example I mean obviously a professional thief can get in almost anywhere.

But a professional thief who has the skills to do that is not going to be breaking into my office in the first place. Because you know unless he is just has a massive desire for you know sound theological books That aren't very rare anyways or just you know wants to steal my special leather-bound Greek Hebrew text or something.

They're just aren't gonna be bothering with us so the people that are gonna be bothering with us are the smash-grab drug dealing Need money to buy drugs or do whatever type Neighborhood punks quite honestly, and that's what we've been fighting with and the first two break-ins and and now I Even what I rolled the video back, and I watched this guy Check one of the doors and just walk right away from it because they I can tell you something I've seen considerably less imposing doors on banks.

I I have I'm not making that up I mean there that some some might argue that there's a tad bit of overkill but these are Impressive doors with lots of locks and They're they're solid they they didn't even bother so what they what they did is They went after the biggest the biggest window, and and I'm you know what I don't think they got anything.

It was so freaky being up there. Because I get this phone call, and I'm like oh, man if they've called me. I bet you they've called rich, okay. So what are we gonna? Do I'm in my hotel room Rich's in his hotel room with his family I find out later.

What'd you you went in the bathroom? You you were actually had your laptop in the bathroom is that is that I was on Wi-Fi.

The hotel Wi-Fi. I was in the rest of the bathroom trying to be as quiet as I could while I was talking to the.

Operator and then you and I jumped into the chat channel. We jump into the chat so we. You're telling me things and then I'm telling that to the 911 operator because you lost your ability to see the. We have the ability.

To see what's going on here over the internet. Yeah, we've got we have technology and Unfortunately when you do that over the internet it slows it down a good bit, so it's very herky-jerky. But I can still see things.

I could still see it on my laptop, so I'm sitting in my room I'm watching the video on my laptop. And then I'm rich is asking me questions in the chat channel to relate to the police so the police are asking arrived yet.

Yeah, that's the point we're sitting there, and it's 10 15 minutes after the alarms gone off. And there's nobody out here. I mean I can see the light on in Rich's office. We see where they've gotten in.

We can see on the video and.

We're going. Um where is everybody. Enough time had gone by for the alarm company to call me. My telling them call the police then turn around. They call you after they call the police. I presume I guess I don't know.

And then. Then they have the presence of mind to tell the 9 -1 -1 operator that they called here's. They gave him my number so the 9 -1 -1 operator had been turned and called me. And there's still nobody there, and I'm logged in.

I'm telling the 9 -1 -1 operator what I'm seeing. And I'm saying what I'm not seeing. Our police officers.

And you know the whole reason for this is they had to we found out later or that morning. I guess when did we find out that they had to later on the conversation. On the conversation? They had to bring officers from North Phoenix.

It was the local gentleman that we had.

That's right, that's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. All the local police were already busy. And we had to bring folks down from who knows how many miles to the north just simply to do this.

But finally I start seeing Some figures out there. I see a cop you know out front. I see another one down at the other end of the building. They've got the place surrounded because they don't know if the guys still in here or not.

And that's because I'm sitting here, and I'm trying to review this, but I'm reviewing this Via the internet, so I'm only getting one frame per second divided by four different frames. So I'm getting one frame about every four seconds.

You can miss a lot in when it's skipping four seconds down the road that keep rolling this back going over things. I eventually got a decent shot of the guy's face and Uploaded to the website to offer the police department.

They wanted to download it so he so he then.

Texts me and tells me okay. Tell them this is the URL where you can get the picture and so I tell the lady, okay? You can look at this guy yourself right now on the internet, and she goes well. We don't have internet access.

I thought all of them had internet access. Isn't that what they're doing in their cars? You know come on. Wow amazing. I I'm in Seattle, and I can put a picture of the perpetrator up on the web, but they can't get it.

That was like oh my goodness all right that was that was fascinating. But anyways we are spending a lot of time talking about this and make a long story short. Thank you, sir. Make a long story short.

I was a little distracting for one day, but we had some great guys back here That jumped on immediately took care of it set our minds at ease. That's a this wasn't gonna happen again and be there get everything cleaned up and by the time we got back and walked in Other than the board that had bored up the window briefly for a period of time The the glass had been had been taken care of everything had been cleaned up.

Everything was fine by the time we got back. We wouldn't have even been able to tell anything it happened if we hadn't watched the whole thing. Ourselves, but it was really freaky. They sent a canine unit in to the offices to you know check out see if there's anybody in here and stuff like that and and of course By five something in the morning I had already posted stuff on the blog and then later in the day Posted another thing on the blog pictures of the guy running away.

I eventually found the frames where there he is running off into the into the darkness and Like I said, I could hope that as he ran through that area out there. You know ran right into a pole or something.

Give him at least a bloody nose for his efforts. You know, but that probably isn't gonna happen either, but anyways that was a little bit Disconcerting but again all of that to say many. Thanks to the people here in the valley who took care of things those of you who Heard our pleas and stepped up to assist us at that time and even even today more things arrived to Make us evermore shall we say secure?

Eventually We may be contacted by the US government and asked to store gold here. Because things are so secure but That's that's that's just the way it's gonna be. Of course it takes me 20 minutes to get out of here.

Okay, lock this lock that gonna like Eric out there turn this on that on you. But hey, that's that's that's the price you pay living in the big city so having said that and repeating once again eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one the debate itself I realized after I mentioned on the blog that I was going to be reviewing it based upon the notes.

That I shipped my notes back. At least for the end of the debate. In a box that hasn't arrived yet. And the reason for that was I forgot to change the battery in this little tablet sitting right here.

Which I'm now using as the phone computer. And So the battery croaked and so right as we're going into the final statements up on the screen comes low battery. Bye-bye, and it's in the hibernation mode.

And if I had had a moment, I you know had another battery sitting there. I could have popped it in but I didn't and so I used a pen and paper. For the last part of the debate it's amazing, but that's okay.

I had done that for many one of those screaming sound effects. Yeah, I have I oh you want you want a screaming sound effect. Okay sound scream that way. Yeah like that. That's a little loud that hurt that woke everybody up anyway.

Yeah, I use pen and paper and there were a couple really need points on that. And I I actually remember where they were on the page I still remember what they were so I remember one of them, and I will get to that one.

But so what I have here is interesting. On my little tablet here is a program. It's one of the most useful Microsoft programs ever designed, and I'm not a big fan of Microsoft to be honest with you because they they write.

What's called bloatware? It's a whole lot bigger. It needs to be it's not only efficient. But there is one program That they have created that is just really good, and it's called Microsoft Journal. It is a basically if you have a touchscreen you can sit there and write with it.

It is like a pad of paper, and it works well it. You can write well with it. You can color things erase things move text around insert text from other programs into it around your handwritten notes for doing debates there just isn't anything better which means We're looking at upgrading my tablet for debates.

It probably will go out of existence. Before I do that because I hadn't like it so you know that's how that works anyway. What I have is I was able to save. What's really neat is this program can convert to e-text or export as an HTML file.

So I just export it over to my my computer here the notes that I wrote and so I can go through. At least the first three-quarters of the debate using the actual notes that I wrote at that time. And then the last one if there are particular points that I don't cover here.

That I want to cover we'll do it on Thursday or maybe next week. Depending on when that gets here. It's probably not gonna get here. It's by Thursday. It might I don't know. We shipped at UPS didn't we?

It'll probably be here. It's coming on Thursday. Yeah, you know when they deliver those at 430 halfway through the dividing line so. Maybe not Thursday. Maybe maybe next Tuesday or something like that.

We'll see. Well something tells me our driver is not gonna want all of that stuff sitting on his truck. Over.

We might we would be higher higher on the priority list this time. Yeah, who knows? Anyway, so that's what I'm gonna be drawing from here. And so if there's this seems a little bit herky-jerky it's because I'm just going down my notes and Making comments as as I go down.

Shabir Ali’s Opening Claims and the Nature of the Atonement

He began. Shabir began by the way. Hi Shabir. I know that should be real probably listening. He mentioned he listens to dividing line. Mainly when someone emails him and says dr. White mentioned you on such-and-such date and then he can listen.

So hello Shabir.

Thanks again for the. So. The logical way of getting Shabir to listen to every single program is to say Shabir.

It's to say something put it in every every blog article as just put the word in there and then then she will be listening to every debate every Start off saying that he's not here to show one side better than another.

I you know what I'll be very very straight up and honest I am because I believe that and I think Shabir believes that Islam is is true and is right and I don't fully understand the postmodern emphasis upon.

Well, you know, we're really not here to say one side's right and one side's wrong. In this issue the Quran says X the Bible says not X or the Bible says X and the Quran says not X. They both can't be true at the same time.

So let's be straightforward and say actually Both of us here believe it's far better for your soul that you believe what we believe than what the other guy believes and and let's be Unapologetic in the not classical use that term about that that particular thing.

He made reference to recent research. And that recent research is almost all sort of naturalistic Liberal Christianity so liberal Christianity is recent research. Shabir is so dependent upon liberal Christianity and I I mentioned it briefly, but I would just like to point out Liberal Islam cannot live in Islamic countries.

Never thought about that only in the West. Can you even have liberal Christianity? Liberal Islam, you know people who would dare run afoul of the Taliban like Sharia Imams. Find themselves in in great difficulty, you know having acid there on their faces and things like that.

So that's that's not you know I think people need to realize that as is one of the major differences one of the reasons that there is less Quote-unquote liberal Islamic material to quote from is simply because liberal Muslims can't live in Sharia Islamic countries.

Without you know losing their lives or their freedom or their ability to speak. That's a major thing. He kept making Repeated references to the list of books that I provided for the class now. There were two lists and actually almost all of his references were not to the primary reading list at all.

But to the background reading list the background reading list was quite wide. It contained all sorts of reading that in and it's very common in seminary classes in conservative seminary classes. You actually give your students the opportunity to read the other side.

It's liberal seminary classes where they don't think there is another side. So therefore you don't bother reading them and In conservative seminary classes since you know, you're gonna have to deal with these things.

You want to be able to give an answer for it you make reference to them? Well for some reason should be Seemed to think or wanted the audience to think that because I made reference to these things because I had Raymond Brown's book listed.

But actually to I am set listed in regards to death of Christ that this somehow meant that in some uncritical fashion. I think you know Raymond Brown's book is wonderful things like that. Look I went to fuller seminary.

I learned how to utilize Liberal resources and recognize liberals can be very good at data mining at getting facts. It's the interpretation of the facts that you then have to filter through. Because they're taking the facts and they're putting them in a foreign context and the results are frequently very confusing.

And so that reading list was in no way shape or form meant to indicate An agreement with everybody. In fact, I guess because I had mentioned N .T. Wright in our Biola debate. It was said that I greatly honor him or something like that.

You know N .T. Wright is a brilliant guy. So if that means greatly honoring him then again, so is Richard Dawkins. They're brilliant doesn't mean that what they're saying is right or even close to right.

But there are people who have the capacity of Great learning and remembering a great deal of complicated factual material. That means they're brilliant on that level doesn't mean they're right and Obviously N .T. Wright and I would be at at loggerheads and at disagreement over a vast landscape of issues and all I had mentioned about N .T. Wright was we don't know the order in which the Gospels were written and that is a fact and it's going to remain a fact until some massive archaeological discovery that that might throw some light on the issue, but The fact is we don't know and so to create theories and then base entire conclusions based upon those theories without admitting the theoretical nature of those things just doesn't make any sense and so I Guess and I do try to control this but I guess from what some of the people in the in the chat channel said That when he said this my face did reflect my inner emotions at that point in time I Think it caught me so by surprise That I must have looked up like yeah.

What was that? I don't know if that was on the on the video or not, but it's like oh, okay, whatever. Let's see continuing down here. The primary argument and this at least this came up. You know some people have been a little bit Disappointed in the debate in that there was a lot of wasted time discussing things that were not directly relevant to the thesis and The the assertion was made by Shabir Ali says no one dies the sins of another person and He really did try to develop that that concept some and when I got my my rebuttal period I Said well what needs to be understood is that no sinner can die for the sins of another sinner.

That is not the same statement as saying no one dies the sins of another person the issue has to do with the voluntariness of the offering and the character and ability of the person that that is At stake here a person who himself is under the curse Cannot give himself in the place of another but one who is not that's you know certainly clear in the biblical teaching.

But that was one of the problems. Was that I really and I can't completely blame him for this. Because there is a wide variety of expression once again because the fact we live in a day where there is a Tremendous amount of apostasy.

There's a tremendous amount of sub biblical teaching notice. Those are not necessarily the same things you can have apostasy you can have heresy. You know people be our heretics who have never been never actually confessed to faith, so they wouldn't be an apostate.

They'd be a heretic you can have apostasy people who once profess the faith who then abandon that and You can have a lot of sub biblical teaching people that you would consider to be your brother and sister in Christ.

But because of their traditions or whatever else it might be They they are not complete in their proclamation of the truth and where you draw those lines is obviously a matter that requires a tremendous amount of maturity, but We can't totally expect someone like like Shabir Ali to be utilizing our Standards of examination in evaluating these particular things he mentioned the the Torah Referred to evolution over time.

This is one of the reasons that one of the things we want to do especially because of the the fact that Shabir takes a Small minority view in the Islamic community regarding the nature of surah 4 157.

Surah 4 157. I emphasize this in my opening statement and throughout the debate the 40 lonely Arabic words that deny the crucifixion or Do they that's the whole problem. Surah 4 157 is an isolated text it comes out of nowhere.

No commentaries is provided on surah 4 157 in the Quran. It is in essence a hapaks legomena a a single appearance. Normally hapaks legomena refers to a single word used only one time in a particular text this is a wider application it is a single assertion and Nowhere else is the Quran mentioned anything related to surah 4 157.

In fact I would argue that in surah 355 and 1933 you have Assertions made that are contradictory to the majority reading of surah 4 157 but that has become the surah that that is read as the denial of the crucifixion.

It is unclear in what it's saying and the majority of Muslims take it to mean that Jesus was not crucified and He was not killed by the Jews instead. It was made to appear to them. That is it was made to appear to the Jews that he had been crucified so somebody else was Miraculously made to look like Jesus whether it's Simon the Cyrene Judas a Roman soldier a volunteer one of the disciples there's all sorts of Theories that have been put forward, but the majority of Muslims do not believe that Jesus was ever nailed to a cross.

Shabir Ali Accepts at least the possibility that Jesus was nailed to a cross, but that he didn't die. So this is sort of this is this isn't the whole I'm a DF stuff where he then You know swoons gets out of the tomb walks off to Indian starts religion gets buried over there.

But it is the idea of allowing for Jesus to have been crucified and a lot of Muslims have really struggled with that. Because it is the very act of crucifixion they would find to be so completely repulsive that a that God that Allah would allow one of his razzles to to experience this and so I would like to find an Islamic apologist and We're certainly going to be extending some invitations to some folks that first come to mind who hold the substitution theory hold to the the Real Islamic understanding of surah 4 1 2 7 to debate that issue because I really think that that would be Be very very useful to debate surah 4 1 2 7 specifically that that specific text.

I believe you could do an entire debate simply on that that single text because it raises so many issues both in its own interpretation as well as its is its interaction with the Christian scriptures and it is certainly from the viewpoint of many Muslims one of the primary texts that Demonstrates the alleged corruption in the New Testament because if Jesus was not crucified the New Testament says he was then the New Testament has to be grossly corrupted and So that would be a an excellent debate to have.

I Did also find interesting and this is one of the notes that was on the piece of paper that will arrive later on a couple times surah 547 came up that speaks the people the book judging by the things contained therein.