September 2, 2003

Webcasts around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line as we lie by the seat of our pants with our hair on fire. We don't have a file server to be able to play our spots today, so we're doing it live.

So I'm going to introduce him. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here he is, Dr. James White.

And I even get to pop the music down. See, whoa, there we go, really fast. Well, hey, you know, you do what you got to do.

I forgot to mention the bailing wire and the tuning gun.

That's exactly what's going on. We can't get one of our computers to work. It is very, very unhappy, and I personally think it's just due to the fact that it's a Windows 98 unit and time has expired. I think it was built into the system somewhere.

That said, all right, color it somewhere around 2003. We'll just die. Five years is enough for an operating system. That's it. So it just, it's dead.

I can't take it anymore. I've had enough.

That's exactly right. Well, welcome. We just decided to, hey, I've still got the song. It's called Run to the Battle. That's Steve Camp's stuff, you know. I know his music pretty well. We thought we'd just sort of play it and go from there.

Skyman likes your voice, too. I tell you, you really ought to think of another career there. You might sell mattresses.

Well, I think they really need to come up with a better way to describe it than they do in the room. That's embarrassing, I have to tell you.

But you would be able to sell the Tempur-Pedic mattress or something like that. 1998 was five years. That's what I said. Five years. Windows 98, it's now 2003. It's five years.

Actually, didn't 98 actually come out in 99, isn't that how it works? 1995 started out as Chicago, but then Chicago burned to a terrible death.

I don't know. Does it really matter? I don't know that it really matters. All I know is you've got to get that thing fixed. Are we even recording this?

Yes, yes, we are. We have a good old-fashioned tape deck up here rolling along just fine. We're laying hands on it, being Pentecostal today, making sure that it doesn't die.

There you go. See? Back to the old yellow pad and pencil. It's sort of like when the Americans went into space. Everybody went into space, we discovered that ballpoint pens don't work in space. So what did the Americans do?

The Americans invested millions of dollars in developing the space pen. And you can buy them. You can give them for Christmas presents and things like that. And it's under pressure, and it'll write at every angle.

You know what the Russians did? They used pencils. Because pencils work fine in space. That's the difference between us. Anyway, welcome to the Dividing Line. We aren't the only ones having problems. Because we've been getting a bunch of folks writing to us and saying, hey, I can't get anything to work on Straitgate.

Well, neither can we. And we can't get hold of Steven Luker. We've tried, and we're leaving him messages here on the channel. His nick is right there on the channel. See, I'm waving at it. But nobody's home.

So we'll just keep trying to get hold of Steven, let him know what's going on. He probably does know. But we'll just keep trying. We have no control over Straitgate .com. That's not our baby. And so we're trying to get hold of Steven, let him know that, yeah, we know that nothing's working there.

So there seems to be problems all over the place. But that's what happens when you are dependent upon technology, as we are dependent upon technology. That also, unfortunately, kept me from getting all sorts of neat, fun stuff queued up that I wanted to have queued up, not as far as stuff to play.

In fact, for some reason, and I'm not exactly 100 certain why, one of the URLs that I had just went, just disappeared. And I don't know where it went. Obviously, I've shut down the wrong thing. Ah, here it is.

Unfortunately, this may never come up. And it'll probably knock us off the air for me to try to bring it up. But starting off this morning, ah, here we go. It's actually loading. A couple things. A few days ago, I was watching.

And believe me, the only reason I was watching it was because it was the only thing available where I was at the time. But I was watching CNN's news coverage. And man, those folks, I mean, they don't even bother to try to be fair.

It's just, the term bias is no longer, it doesn't even mean anything. It's worn as a pledge of, see, I'm a good person in the media. I'm biased. It used to be a bad thing.

Now it's just like, ah. We're all citizens of the world.

Yeah, aren't we all? We all need the village idiot to raise our children or something like that. But anyway, I think Wonky's too busy to do that. But anyhow, I was watching CNN. And they had two lead stories.

The first lead story, let me get the second lead story. The second lead story went throughout the day. And it was the video of the removal of the Ten Commandments monument down in Alabama. And if you've gone to morallaw .comorder .net, try them all.

I'm not sure which one it is. And if you've read the stuff that's there, then you know that basically everything on that monument comes from the Alabama Constitution, which very clearly recognizes the foundation of the scriptures in the moral law of man and so on and so forth.

Well, they're showing it being wheeled off. And, you know, you think about it for just a second. Here you've got a bunch of lawyers walking through this building. And exactly what is it about having to walk by that monument that is so absolutely positively offensive to men?

I can guarantee you if somebody put up a statue of a naked woman in a suggestive pose, that there would be lawyers all over the place defending this as an expression of free speech. And you know that I'm right.

But here is something, it's rooted in history. I mean, even if, and I don't take this position, but even if you did take this position, you could take the position, look, this is absolutely historical.

This is a historical thing. It goes directly back to our own history. You know, say what you will about anybody else, but it's pretty obvious the folks who wrote the Alabama State Constitution believed in God's moral law.

And they found that it was to be read in the holy word of God called the Bible. There's no question of that. You can't question that without completely rewriting history. So what is so absolutely offensive about being reminded about the history of the practice that you allegedly are going about in that building, which is the practice of law?

Well, because the vast majority of people in that building are doing everything they can every single day to erase and efface the history of this nation in regards to that one thing. Because as long as we are a nation of laws, and those laws are as unchanging as scripture, then they cannot utilize the judicial system to accomplish their social engineering.

And so they as individuals are offended by the reminder that God is God and they are not. And they are offended by the recognition that God's law is not going to change, it's going to be the same after they are dead and gone as it is today.

So there's the second story, is rolling that thing out of sight. We can't have people looking at that. Oh no, no, no. The government should give money to those who wish to produce art with a crucifix and a bottle of urine, but we can't have our lawyers, these poor impressionable souls, looking at that monument.

It will corrupt them. That's the second story. First story, man walks into business. Now I didn't get all the details, it was a breaking story, so maybe I got this city wrong or something, but if I recall it was in Chicago.

Man walks into, I think it was his former place of employment, starts blowing people away. I don't know how many people he killed, five, six people. I honestly didn't see any more about it the whole week, interestingly enough.

But there's, here's a man, he goes into a place of business and he starts shooting people. Anybody else find it just slightly, maybe ironic, that the thing that we're pushing out of the judicial building in Alabama says what?

Thou shalt not kill, murder. Positive application, human life is sacred. Oh, we can't hear that, we're killing our children right and left for convenience sake, as a form of sexual liberation, so we can't hear that.

And then we go, oh, isn't it terrible, a man went into a place and started shooting people.

What do you expect? What do you expect?

It's judgment, it's blindness. To not be able to see the judgment of God that's falling on this nation is absolute blindness.

Just amazing. Just absolutely amazing.

I stood there and I sort of looked around at the other people that were passing by and were sort of watching stuff and I thought, you know, how many people are actually observing this and realize, wow, there's something wrong here.

There's something wrong that the force of government is being used to just remove a monument. I mean, what happened to all the free speech advocates? Oh, the only speech that's not free is religious. Because, see, we've turned history on its head.

What was meant to protect the free and public expression of religion, the founding fathers did not intend this to be a secular society. They did not intend this to be a religionless society or a religionless government.

How anyone can read what anyone back there was saying and come to that conclusion leaves me breathless. I can understand why Barry Lynn does it. I can understand why the ACLU does it. The Americans deny of separation of church and state.

Amazing. Amazing. Well, folks, let me tell you something. Yeah, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Dan Barker and the boys, that's what they want. They want freedom from religion, not freedom of religion, freedom from religion.

Don't think for a second it is not their intention to curb the freedoms that we have to do what we're doing right now. The battle's been going on for a long time, folks. We're real late arriving on the battlefield.

And I say that to myself as well as anybody else. Anyway, on to other things. Well, we still have the opportunity of doing these things. Debates go on. Don't forget the debate coming up October 3rd at the University of Utah.

Myself and Jerry Matitix. And speaking of Jerry Matitix, I saw on his website recently a plea for funding. It seems his credit card had been frozen and he may not get to travel and go do some debates.

Well, evidently he got the funding he needed. Because I'm looking at a report from a Reformed friend of mine, email correspondent, who attended a debate recently. A debate on Sola Scriptura between Jerry Matitix and a local Baptist pastor.

Local Baptist pastors, warning! Please do not debate Jerry Matitix unless you know what you're doing. Please go listen to his tapes first. He's not come up with anything new in a dozen years. Reading over this report, the arguments that he presented are the same arguments that he presented against me in 1992 and in 1997.

He's not coming up with new stuff. He just keeps retreading the old stuff, even when it's been refuted. And that's what makes me so tremendously angry. Is that this man is going around and he is specifically calling out non-specialists.

And then when he debates me or debates Eric Svensson, what does he do? Oh, well, you know, I'm living on a coke, man. You know, I drove here at 98 miles an hour and all my notes are on a yellow pad that I can't read because I was scribbling and I was at stop signs.

But you don't hear that when he debates the local Baptist pastor, do you? No, you don't. When I think of all the effort that we put out, I was on the phone with Chris Arnson just today. And we're trying to arrange next year's debate on Long Island.

And we can't get Roman Catholic apologists to even write an endorsement for Roman Catholic apologists that they recommend to be part of the debate. I mean, we put effort into obtaining the best opponents we can get.

And Jerry Manetix is running around taking on the worst that he can get. The people he knows have never heard him speak before. Well, what does it say? It says, I went to a debate last night on Sola Scriptura between seasoned Catholic apologist Jerry Manetix and a local Baptist pastor.

In spite of the fact that Manetix, a former Reformed Presbyterian, was on the wrong side of the debate arguing against Sola Scriptura. It was clear he won on points. The pastor was clearly a man who loved God, but he was in over his head in terms of debating Manetix.

Manetix began his opening statement by affirming, as the Roman Catholic Church does, the inspiration, fallibility and inerrancy of Scripture. Again, that's the traditionalist Roman Catholic Church. That's not the current papal commission on biblical issues.

It reminded me of the many things we conservative Reforms share with Roman Catholics. A belief in absolute truth, a trust, love to say scriptures, affirmation, historic creeds of the Church. I would disagree with that.

I would suggest to you that someone like Fitzmyer or Brown is significantly more representative of modern Roman Catholic belief and that of the Magisterium than the historical statements of the Roman Catholic Church.

Then it goes on, I won't read all of it because it's off a blog spot thing anyways. As I said, Manetix won the debate. He did so by setting up a straw man, Sola Scriptura, and then knocking it down. Nothing new there.

That's why if you're going to debate the man, don't let him do it. That's exactly what happened in the Cure debate years ago in Los Angeles. Set up a straw man, knock it down. If you're going to come to a battle, bring your sword.

Don't go there expecting to get treated fairly by Jerry Manetix. He is the king of the lousy argument, of the cheap debating tricks. So you better be ready for whatever he's going to throw at you. The thrust of his argument was that the Bible itself contains many indications of oral transmission of God's word.

Well, congratulations, it certainly does. For example, Adam and Eve heard the word of God. God didn't write it down for them. He used the Obadiah stuff. I mean, he hasn't even changed his notes in years.

All you've got to do is change a couple of names and it's... So Jerry Manetix went around and beat up on somebody who probably shouldn't have... Yeah, you don't go to a gun fight with a knife. That was actually what I was thinking about, but I decided not to say that.

It is very distressing to me, not because the cause of truth is somehow going to be derailed. God's truth isn't dependent upon us running around doing debates, obviously. But it is, you know, when you have defeated a person in debate, and then they turn around and continue to use the same arguments.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but two years ago, there was this fellow at the Bay of Long Island, and I walked up to him at the tables outside, and I had a conversation with him out there, and eventually he just threw his hands up in the air and said, Why am I debating you?

You're the professional. Because everything he threw at me, I had a cogent, logical, truthful, consistent response to. And eventually he just gave up, threw his hands up. Why am I... You know, you're the professional.

A few hours later, we're leaving. As I'm walking outside, I hear him with a group of Protestants. And what's he doing? Using the very same arguments that I had responded to, and he didn't have an answer to before.

Those of you who've dealt with Roman Catholic apologists of every stripe and level, we can sit here and start naming names, you know exactly how it works. You've seen it happen over and over again, haven't you?

You literally shred somebody on a particular subject, and they admit, well, you know, I need to do some more study, and you've done more study on this than I do, and yada, yada, yada, yada. And all of a sudden the conversation turns to something else.

And then the next day, three weeks later, six weeks later, you stumble into maybe a chat channel, you stumble into an email list. In some way or another, you hear the exact same arguments being presented by the exact same person in the exact same context.

They have not changed their arguments at all. I don't know how that works. How do you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning? I don't know. I don't understand it. It definitely leaves me completely and totally befuddled.

877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341. I don't think we'll be taking a break today, unless you've got a bunch of scripts. Actually, I have a great idea. What's that? You want me to start some music up, and then we can...

You can start some music up, run it gently in the background. Gently in the background. Well, you probably may not want to use music with this one. I've got music running. I've got a couple of books in my hand here that you're familiar with.

I've got music running. You're not playing my music. Oh, well, here. Oh, oh, oh, too loud, too loud. Back it off, back it off. There you go. Isn't that pretty? Well, this would be good for you to talk about The Sovereign Grace of God.

And that is a book that has just been re-released. So tell folks about that, James. Huh? Yeah, you get to do the commercials today.

Wait a minute, that's not time for a break anyway.

Well, okay, then you put the music away, but then when it's time for a break...

Oh, so I need to find some, like, instrumental music.

That would be good. And then The Same Sex Controversy. I want you to tell folks about that book. We need to be bringing the... This summer, I think, a lot of wild things have happened. Oh, yeah. And I think people need to get their hands on this book and start seeing through the huge...

Sorry, that doesn't go with that. I'm finding... That doesn't go with that. Actually, nothing does. Nothing goes with that one. What are you supposed to put behind that one? I wouldn't, you know, maybe something really gothic and dreary or something.

I don't know, but...

Well, yeah, you know, we've got that video out there. We could probably use that as an introduction there. Yeah, I agree. Well, let's go ahead and take our first caller, and then we'll get around to the other thing eventually.

And I'll find some music even while we're doing it to make it all work. What do you think? Sounds good to me. Okay. Let's go ahead and let's talk with Brian in Illinois. Make sure to turn the computer down for a second.

And there we go. I'm ready to... That's got some music going.

Hi, Brian. Hey, Dr. White. How are you? I'm doing all right. Good. Looking forward to sailing with you in December.

Ah, yes. Well, you know, that's... I probably should arrange, like, a time for everybody. In fact, I've wanted to do this. I want to try to arrange a time for when everybody who's going in December, we get together in groups of, like, ten, because that's the most you can do, and pal talk.

And I can talk to everybody about what we're going to be doing. And have you ever taken a cruise before? Never before. Well, especially the newbies. We should have a newbie night, a newbie cruiser night, because I just got back from a cruise.

It was a working cruise. I was writing a book. I didn't finish it, but I've gotten... I know what the book is all about now, and it's just a matter of filling in the pieces. And I was on the sister ship to the one we'll be on in December.

So I know the ship backwards and forwards. I'm staring at a gorgeous picture. In fact, you know, Rich, I would love to... Is there some way that I could put this picture on our website so people could download it?

Because I think people would like this. Like, maybe in... I don't know. You could try to scan it. Do you have a scanner there? JPEG, dude. Oh. Oh, okay. It's already there. I just need to put a link.

I guess you wouldn't need to scan it. You could do that, yes.

Yeah, scanning a JPEG doesn't work real well. You don't need my permission to do that. Well, that's true. Well, you get a little nervous when I start playing with the index file, but I'll put it up there.

I have a gorgeous picture I took from the front end of the Volendam of Glacier Bay. And it is just... Now, we're not going to Alaska, so that's irrelevant. But anyhow, hey, I just got a hold of Steven Luker, and now he knows.

Yes, you do. So anyway, if that's not why you called, Brian, other than we should do that, and I can let you know how everything works and how to go here, there, and everywhere. And there's all sorts of little tricks of the trade that make things a little bit easier.

Okay?

Good. That's great. So your call, sir, is... My question, I'm a pastor, and I am trying to get a new perspective on Paul, mainly for my own clarity, but then also for my people. Right. And I'm wondering if you can just help me with that.

You get in by grace, but you maintain your way to summarize covenantal gnomism.

Well, that depends on whether you're talking about Sanders' view of it, Dunn's view of it, N .T. Wright's view of it, and any number of 16 ,000 other interpreters. Wright would have a cow, basically, if it was put in that particular perspective.

He probably would not embrace that kind of view of it at all. But basically, the foundational aspect of it is that the Jews of Paul's day were not, as N .T. Wright likes to constantly put it, what he was taught they were, and that is early forms of the Pelagian heresy, and that they believed that they were graciously put into the covenant, and as he expresses it in what St. Paul really said, which is probably the one book you'd want to read by him that expresses very well, by the way.

I think D .A. Carson was right to describe N .T. Wright's writing as theologizing. It's not strict theology. It's not strict exegesis. It's create a point and run with it and make it sound very plausible, and he does a very good job of it.

But he, in essence, would say that the covenant was with Israel to vindicate Israel, and that through Israel all the nations would be blessed, everything would be set right, and so when Paul is converted, then that old pharisaical idea he had, he believes he was a Shammite Pharisee, not a Hillelian Pharisee, and that viewpoint, which had strong political implications, was then transformed by his encounter with Christ, but that theory that he has of what Paul believed as a Pharisee beforehand, it's still really the bedrock of how he then reads everything that Paul writes.

The problem, of course, there are lots of problems, but one of the main problems is the view of Judaism in the days of Paul. It has been well said that it's a brave man who thinks that he knows 1st century Judaism better than Paul did, and you almost, and many people are willing to do this, not the more conservative ones, but the other, the more liberal New Perspectivists don't have any problem in saying that Paul did misrepresent 1st century Judaism.

He did sort of twist the facts, but all you have to do is go back to the words of Jesus. Read Matthew 23, read his description in Luke 16 of the Pharisee who stands in the temple and boasts of all his rightness before God because of who he was and what he did.

That part tends to sort of fall out of the New Perspectivist view of things, but one thing I would mention to everybody is as you read this material, because it's separated from the text and you only have text being pulled in there once in a while, it's incredibly easy to create a system if you don't have to be bothered by actually going verse by verse through passages.

And I think that's what all forms of New Perspectivism are guilty of.

I've got a little book by Michael Thompson and he does, I guess. My concern, and I guess half the problem is figuring out is there a cohesive view of the New Perspective?

Not yet. It's hard to describe because the fact that since it is quote-unquote, and people need to understand when I use this term what I mean by it, because it is quote-unquote cutting edge scholarship, each new person that writes on it in a compelling way, they have to come up with something new to differentiate themselves from someone else.

And so the people that are writing in that field, because that field has become so, in my opinion, secularized in its orientation, the only way to stand out from anyone else is to come up with a new spin on it.

So how can you ever end up defining a position? I mean, you'd basically have to really stop using the phrase and just simply say, alright, the writers who represent a broad spectrum of what's called New Perspectivism, which they are held together by their common view that first century Judaism was not a legalistic system, but was based upon a gracious covenantal concept, are these, and therefore they are united in their redefinition of justification in this way, making it primarily eschatological.

That's about as much as you can say that's going to pretty much tie everybody together, and then it goes every which direction from there. I mean, Wright obviously wants to hold on to some element of forensic justification, but on what basis?

What scripture texts are left upon which to base forensic justification? I don't know of any. I mean, all of them that used to refer to it have either been made eschatological in their orientation, or have been understood in a completely different way.

Or they've said works of the law are not referring to any kind of... Exactly, exactly.

Now, would Wright hold to that view? Yeah, well, as far as the idea of works of law being signs of national identity, and that that's the big issue. The big issue is not salvation, how you made right before God, all the rest of that stuff.

The big issue is that the works of law that are being discussed are in fact symbols of national identity, and that the problem that the Judaizers are representing is based upon that, yeah. But then you read other stuff, and because he's an Anglican, and because he's got tradition, he'll use terms that we're accustomed to hearing.

The problem is they've now been transported into a completely different context, therefore they don't carry the same meaning they once had. So it is very hard to get a bead. What you've got to try to do is get a bead on whoever the most popular writer is right now, which would be N .T. Wright.

Probably Wright. My concern, if he really does hold to the idea that works of the law are referring to circumcision and food laws and so forth, and all Paul is saying is those things don't justify, then it opens it up to virtually a Roman Catholic perspective that says there are other things that do justify, other works that do justify.

Am I correct in thinking along those lines, that that's where the battle line needs to be drawn?

Well, I wouldn't want to speak for him, but certainly that is the danger that all of us are seeing, and certainly those of us who are familiar with Roman Catholic apologists are well aware of the fact that people like Scott Hahn are extremely happy and pleased with the existence of new perspectivism.

They see it as a vindication of their own Catholic perspective on justification. Interestingly enough, Robertson, Jennis and Art Sippo have gone at each other rather voraciously, which both of those men I don't think know how to go at each other in any other way than voraciously.

At least all of us who have ever been on the other end of their swords recognize that. And over that very issue, because the fact Sippo just thinks the new perspective is wonderful, that it's a vindication that the Protestants are realizing the Catholic view has been right all along, so Jennis argues that new perspectivism is not consistent with Trentian views of justification.

And he probably has a point there, but Trent's views on justification are not what is represented by the Papal Biblical Commission or the people who worked on the Accord with the Lutherans or anything like that.

So, again, you're left going, well, who defines even Roman Catholic theology for that matter? But yeah, if you're going to define, I mean, that argument that works of law is only in regards to that kind of ceremonial law is one of the oldest Roman Catholic arguments around.

And you dealt with that with both Natatix and Pacwa.

Exactly. I mean, Paul very clearly indicates that by the law is the knowledge of sin. And that's not circumcision, and that's not ceremonial laws. He even defines that when he talks about covetousness and all the rest of that stuff.

It's a completely incoherent view of what works of law, actually how they function in Romans. But once you completely redefine what Romans is all about, then you don't have to worry about those things.

So, that's sort of how it works. Let me ask you this. How much of a threat, I mean, really, this is trying to form view of justification by faith alone, yet, except at a scholarly level, I'm not hearing anything.

You mean at a pastoral level?

You mean in response to it? Yeah. Oh yeah, there's responses to it. I mean, D .A. Carson, his first volume of a whole series. You know, I think Dr. Carson really does recognize how important this is. The first volume is nauseatingly scholarly.

I mean, let's face it. No one is going to read through this thing on covenant of Lenomism and first century Judaism without, I mean, you just have to reread things, reread things. But the reason he started where he started is due to the fact that that's the foundation of all of new perspectivism is this redefinition of first century Judaism.

And, by the way, interestingly enough, the most important elements of that have come out since World War II and have been very deeply influenced by a cultural concern for anyone to ever be seen as, quote unquote, anti-Semite.

So, there's a political correctness that goes around in scholarship. And if you say what Paul said in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, if you say what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 23, then you're going to be identified as an anti-Semite.

Or if you're Mel Gibson. Well, exactly. If you even narrate the crucifixion events, you're going to be attacked as being an anti-Semite. So, there's a political correctness thing going on there. And that has deeply influenced the development of new perspectivism.

Let's face it.

How much of even the evangelicals who are buying into this are motivated by not only the caution about anti-Semitism, but an ecumenical spirit to find common ground with Catholicism?

Well, some of them are. Some of them, for whatever reason, mainly I think due to standing side by side with Roman Catholics on social issues, are looking for ways of reorienting the theology of the Reformation.

And that involves reorienting both one's view of justification and one's view of Scripture as the infallible and sole infallible rule of faith of the Church. And so, I think for some, whether it is they recognize it directly, or whether it just is functional in their thinking without them really knowing it, yeah, I think it's definitely an element of the issue that is promoting it.

Let's face it. The vast majority of Protestants don't, let me change that, the vast majority of evangelical conservatives don't have the foggiest idea what the new perspective is or why it would be relevant one way or the other.

I mean, let's face it. Most evangelicals, they couldn't define the doctrine of justification for you. They couldn't tell you whether it is a forensic declaration or an internal transformation. So, they're not even on the battlefield.

And so, yeah, it is very troubling to see the speed with which and the ease with which it makes its entrance into denominations and into the thinking of people. But I'm not overly shocked by it. And the reason I say that is I haven't seen a tremendous amount of true passion for the underlying truths, which I would include Sola Scriptura in that because, let's face it, new perspectivism does not come from a conservative view of Scripture.

But Sola Scriptura and justification, there isn't any... I was way too much of a reach there. There isn't a whole lot of passion. And therefore, it's not surprising to see people abandoning it when something attractive comes along its place.

Wow. So... Would you say...

And I'm talking about being able to use it at a lay level to teach lay people. Is there any author that you would recommend to read?

I can't think of lay level published responses because it's a scholarly issue right now. And I'm going to be doing some presentations on it in... I think that's what I'm speaking on in Austin later this month.

And so that'll be my attempt to present a lay level understanding of what's going on and why it's important. But it's really difficult to do because you have to start off, first of all, with a presentation of what justification is, how it's been historically understood, why that's important, and then go to this.

And it's, you know, believe me, I do a lot of traveling around. And I'm used to talking to groups of a dozen people because, you know, if I was traveling around talking about prophecy or something like that, I could pack them out.

But, you know, that's just not the case.

And I don't want to take up all your time. But would you... My concern with even studying it is that it opens the door to losing justification by faith alone. Is that your main concern with it? Yes, obviously.

It does involve a... The only reason that I can see that N .T. Wright still maintains any belief in what I understand to be the truly biblical nature of justification, the... Well, for example, he denies the imputation of the righteousness of Christ as, you know, the dual imputation, the imputation of our sins to Christ, the imputation of his righteousness to us.