The Tsunami of Pro-Homosexual Books from “Gay Christians” and Their Supporters Plus Calls

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Today we started with a review of some of the major works that have come out in support of "gay Christianity" and the normalization of homosexuality within Christianity. I had been on the Janet Mefferd Show the hour before, so I was already "on a roll" you might say. I then took calls and, amazingly, they were all on topic! Even had two calls from the UK on the topic. By the way, yes, we know Tuesday's show hasn't been posted yet. Technical issues. We hope to have it up, but when, I cannot say.

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00:37
And welcome to The Dividing Line, my name is James White, just got off the Janet Mefford show about, I don't know, 45 seconds ago, maybe that.
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And we're right on into The Dividing Line, which is okay. Two hours straight behind the microphone, nothing new.
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Yesterday, we did The Dividing Line, tried to, everybody's asking, where is it, where is it?
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Well, it's going to take some time to fix, we had a sound card fail, basically. And so we're going to have to mess around with the sound and do all that kind of stuff to get it fixed and get it put together.
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So it'll be up maybe someday, eventually, whatever. We're currently running on our backup sound card, which
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I'm really hoping isn't distorting. I'm really hoping sounds good and we'll see how that progresses.
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But if there is a lesson I learned from yesterday at all, it is in the middle of a live program, don't go messing with the sound card, because it'll go from bad to worse.
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It really will. Okay. Well, I'm glad that you learned that important lesson.
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But I don't know what else you could have done, because as soon as we started, everybody's going, oh, I can't hear you,
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I can't hear you, and stuff like that, so it was a mess. But anyways, once that was over, we had, what, just an hour or so?
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Yeah, we had an hour or so. And then I, for the first time, and I'm excited about this, taught a remote class.
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I, for two hours, without a break, I taught a class on apologetics, intro to apologetics.
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Michael Brown asked me to join his students, and we got it all set up, and we did it via Google Hangouts.
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Yeah, Google Hangouts is what it was called. And so, and it really worked well.
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It was really, I could do everything I can do here. I used the, what's it, Wirecast we use, or something like that, is what we used to, you know,
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I could go to Accordance, I could go to Keynote, I could put it all up there. And then
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I could take breaks, and the students would have questions, and they'd take a microphone over. Sort of looked a little bit like how
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Jehovah's Witnesses do that, though. If you've ever been to a Kingdom Hall, you know, they put the microphone down there.
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But we did the whole thing, and two hours was not a long time to do an
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Intro to Apologetics lecture, but we managed to get through it, and it really worked well.
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So, in the future, what we really want to do is try doing some of this with some churches, you know, instead of me having to pack up and visit with all of my wonderful friends at TSA, and to get to unpack my bag and take my shoes off, and all that neat, fun stuff, and all the money it takes to fly places, and get exposed to all sorts of diseases, and hotel costs, and trying to find food that I will eat, that kind of stuff.
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Maybe it's just time to get some folks that have some technical savvy, and put the projection screen up there, and we can either send a
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DVD, or I've got my presentation on it, and then we hook up afterwards, and we can do the live interaction.
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Or, we can just do what we did last night, and I actually do the presentation, and then we have interaction afterwards.
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There's all sorts of stuff that we can do these days. The technology is truly amazing, and yeah, okay,
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Tuesday, yesterday, it threw us a curve. That happens. But it's getting better and better.
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I mean, think about it. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have even thought about something like this. But, you know, there you go.
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So, yeah, Figgy in the channel is going, but how will we share chips and salsa if you are remote? Well, that's true. That's true.
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But just think about how many more churches I could go to. If I gave, you know, two weekends a month, a
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Friday night and a Saturday night type thing, and if we worked it out, you could actually do
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Q &A after a presentation with a church in the East Coast, and then right afterwards do one, you know,
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Central Time and a third one, West Coast. You really could, I mean, if it worked out that way.
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So, that would be very interesting. So, we're going to keep seeing how things work together.
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And I would like, if there's a church out there, if there's a geeky pastor, no such thing, right?
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If there's a geeky pastor out there, you've got good, you know you've got good connection, you've got the projector, you know how
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Google Hangouts works and stuff like that, and you want to give it a shot, contact us. Let's see if we can work something out.
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We might be able to do something real quickly because it's not something where I have to go, well, okay, you know, during that time,
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I'm going to be in this country or something like that. We might be able to work something out and it'd be fun, it'd be fun.
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So, we'll see how that works. That may be one of the only ways we can do things in the future is that kind of direct thing instead of public podcasting, broadcasting, who knows?
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That may be something we really have to look into in the future, I don't know. So, there we go.
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Speaking of traveling, I have to get up very early in the morning and head to New York.
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I will be on Long Island, New Hyde Park Baptist Church on Saturday night and Sunday, and then on Wednesday and Thursday of the week afterwards,
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I will be in... Oh, now they're saying it's starting to sound bad.
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That's not good to hear, but someone's saying it sounds bad.
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But anyways, I will be in prior Oklahoma. I've put that information on the website.
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You may wonder, well, if you're done Sunday in New York, you're not there until Wednesday, what are you doing in between time?
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Actually being interviewed in Nashville, and I haven't gotten permission to actually talk about that yet, so I'll wait and see if I get permission, but maybe afterwards
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I can tell you what it was about, but doing a lengthy interview, it looks like, on Tuesday in Nashville, and then flying from Nashville to Tulsa and then over to prior, and then back from Tulsa on Friday.
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So, what that basically means is I think Rich is going to have plenty of time to be getting everything straightened out out there and working together, because I don't see that we'll be doing any dividing lines next week.
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So it'll probably... Well, it's possible Friday. It's possible Friday. I'm supposed to get in around 11
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Friday, so we'll leave open the possibility of a Friday afternoon dividing line, possibly.
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Who knows? Maybe some stuff will have happened and we end up wanting to do something even earlier than that.
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There might be some time during the day so we can do something, though don't ask me how we would do that remotely. We haven't even gone there.
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Though the Google Hangouts thing might be a possibility when I'm on the road.
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So, we'll see. We'll see. There may be ways around it. Because I have one of these little cameras that I will carry with me if I'm going to do a screen flow type thing.
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So, it might work. We'll see. Anyway, this morning I was directed and yeah, we can open up the phone lines today
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I suppose. 877 -753 -3341 Can barely see that thing anymore underneath those two lights, but that's okay.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. First thing I was directed to this morning
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It's the Mail Online from the UK I found some other postings of the same article, basically.
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But the title is Here Comes the Bride and another one, and another one!
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Meet the world's first married lesbian threesome and they're expecting a baby due in July.
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Doll, Kitten, and Brin There's All from Massachusetts Married last
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August Kitten, 27 had in vitro fertilization using sperm donor
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Uh huh, and let me point out it's not one of the other two sperm donor and is expecting daughter poor thing, in July and there are pictures and all the rest of this stuff and the pictures of them in their white wedding dresses blue hair and so on and so forth and there's just so much that is wrong here so much that is morally repulsive and sad but this poor daughter
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I consider that child abuse I consider the situation this child will be born into to be child abuse instantaneous creation of utter confusion three mommies, no daddy and the chances of it holding together not very good not very good what a sad situation never know who the real daddy is and all the rest but the real question is upon what basis should anyone who is now promoting this moral revolution say this is wrong
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I mean right now we're getting all the monogamous same sex but where does the monogamous part come from why only two why the number two
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I was listening I re -listened to a debate that Michael Brown did with Dr.
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Small a number of years ago I reviewed it on The Dividing Line if you want to go back and look for it and Michael asked the question why the number two and he said it was very frustrating because his opponent said he had agreed with the people who were organizing the debate to not address issues such as incest or polygamy and things like that and Michael said
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I never made an agreement like that I think it was a complete cop out personally so he really wouldn't get into it but Michael had to press him on it so why what is relevant about the number two why not three, why not four, why not five well we all know why it's two because it's a male and a female and that's husband and wife but you're not allowed to believe that anymore in fact you're evil and non -inclusive and all the rest of that stuff so why the number two what's wrong with this why not three women, why not three guys it is perfectly valid to ask for a moral reason a consistent moral and ethical reason why two brothers such as the brothers in Germany should not be allowed to marry if they say that's how they experience love if that's the desires that God has given to them should they not only be allowed to marry but why would someone like Matthew Vines say that would be inappropriate or would he say it would be inappropriate
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I don't know gotta ask the questions gotta ask the questions then my daughter pointed this out in channel and my daughter found out what it's like to write a blog article it gets read by a lot of people this week some of you saw her article her letter to Rachel Held Evans and the follow up article after that and I was just looking at a channel about 15 minutes ago and she said you know after reading all the comments on my blog article
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I now understand why my dad does not have comments on his and I said yes comboxes are
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IIA's internet ignorance aggregators it's exactly what they are so I was like mmhmm but she pointed this one out
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USA Today and the date on it is actually today movie star and Oscar winner
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Jodie Foster has a wife her photographer girlfriend of less than a year Alexandra Hedison Foster's rep
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Jennifer Allen confirmed what E! Online reported today that Foster and Hedison got married this past weekend although the location was not specified the two began dating sometime last summer
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Foster's previous long term partner but not wife was
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Sydney Bernard with whom she is parent to sons Charles and Kit how is she a parent exactly do
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Charles and Kit have a dad somewhere that they know of don't know although they split in 2008
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Foster specifically thanked Bernard when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the
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Golden Globes last year at the time Foster 51 didn't realize we were the exact same age was vague about whether she's a lesbian saying she craved privacy you want a real brilliant observation check out this next line from USA Today this wedding news would seem to clarify matters
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Hedison 44 who dated Ellen DeGeneres for about 3 years before they parted in 2004 is an actor and a photographer whose work has been shown in New York and Los Angeles her acting gigs include playing
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Dylan Moreland on Showtime's hit lesbian drama series the L word for 3 seasons well again we're at that point of saying you know if judgment doesn't come upon this nation there will be an apology required for Sodom and Gomorrah and here we see it happening all around us so in the midst of this as I was just saying to Janet Mefford in the midst of this we are seeing a large number of evangelicals expressing a desire to find a way out to find a way out and there is a veritable flood a tsunami a torrent of books coming out that are specifically designed to give them that way out um for many years the go to text you know you had
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Skenzonian, Mullincott, Countryman Daniel Hominiac's little book was never a go to text but it was out there but it was
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John Boswell John Boswell big, thick, lots of footnotes so it looks very scholarly himself an open, active homosexual died at a very young age of AIDS um and Boswell's book was the go to book and it's still really fundamental to understand it's argumentation because it's still at the root of a lot of what we're seeing but it's getting dated and so now we have these other books coming out and this is one disadvantage unfortunately to the
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Kindle concept is that I have all these books sitting here but I can only show one at a time or I can only bring up one at a time um probably the most important um at least from a scholarly perspective and I think if um if we do the series and a friend over at ADF suggested this and I think he's quite right if we do do a series it'd probably be best to focus upon this because it's sort of become the new
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Boswell though it's coming from a different perspective in the sense that Boswell was a homosexual uh the author of this book is not a homosexual uh but is still, well
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I'll explain that in a moment James V. Brownson Bible, Gender, Sexuality Reframing the
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Church's Debate on Same -Sex Relationships I didn't count it yet but I would be willing to guess that the largest number of reference footnotes in Matthew Vine's book that came out yesterday are to Brownson so now my recollection is and could somebody check on this because I'm pretty certain um when did
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Matthew Vine's video come out? I think it was 2012 so it would have been before Brownson's book came out so it seems that Vine's has grabbed a lot of scholarly uh material from Brownson and so he's utilizing this material.
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Brownson is a credentialed New Testament scholar and had concluded that the biblical message is very clear that there is no such thing as same -sex unions in the sense of marriage that the biblical teaching of marriage has no concept of this and could not have a concept of this then his son came out as a homosexual and within a number of years all of a sudden we've rethought everything now to folks on that side that's a sign of open -mindedness to me it's a sign of compromise to me it is just as Boswell compromised his scholarship in a massive way to promote his sexuality and his sexual experience now you have someone who all of a sudden changes their perspective because of a child and I'm not saying that that's not a vitally important thing in a person's life but what
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I am saying is if your entire understandings as a scholar of the biblical text can become completely reoriented by the change in your own family situation that's not a good thing that's not a good thing because God's word didn't change when were you right is the question and so there's a huge number of books there's another book
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I want to give you the proper subtitle here and I have a lot of books in my kindle library which
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I realize I don't actually own y 'all don't need to send me all the stuff about how Amazon can make all this disappear
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I know that's just the way it is here it is this one is another possibility for being the primary text to review but it's called a letter to my congregation an evangelical pastor's path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender into the company of Jesus Ken Wilson pastor of the
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Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan that's why
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I'm starting to question which book was it in that I just read because I've been reading a bunch of books on this subject recently and have one more to go no one person
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I think could keep up with what's coming out I was amazed back in 2001 when
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Jeff Neal and I wrote our book on homosexuality how many books were coming out then and that was a trickle in comparison to the flood we have right now it really, really was so you have these books and then
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I was directed to an article from yesterday here's the title
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Frontman for Christian Band Jars of Clay speaks out for marriage equality and so Dan Hasseltine on Twitter said, not meaning to stir things up but is there a non -speculative or non -slippery slope reason why gays shouldn't marry?
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I don't hear one. Well obviously Dan has not listened to this program or Michael Brown or Robert Gagnon or any number of other people who have provided those answers.
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He went on to write, I'm trying to make sense of the conservative argument, but it doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny. Feels akin to women's suffrage.
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I just don't see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage.
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Anyone? Um No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage.
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Really? So once you redefine marriage so that you no longer have husbands and wives, no longer have fathers and mothers you already see states that are removing mother and father from birth certificates.
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You blind to that Dan? Didn't see that going on?
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Haven't looked over at Europe to see what's been going on there? That's not a war on traditional marriage?
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Maybe, you know, you might want to look at the article I mentioned just earlier about the three lesbians, one of which is pregnant.
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You think it's good for a little girl to be born into that situation,
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Big Dan? I'm sorry. I don't know Dan. Dan just may be a really ignorant person but it really bothers me when you get this
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I don't see anything going on looks good to me I like this marriage equality thing.
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Dan, you don't believe in marriage equality? Do you think two brothers should get married?
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Why not? How about three? That's marriage equality, Dan! And if three brothers got married, would that really impact your wedding?
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Your marriage? Would the society break down tomorrow? Would the walkers take over?
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You know? Would we have zombies in the streets? Ah. I I I But again
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I finished the Matthew Vines book this morning and I do think
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I had done a search and there was only one reference I could find. There might have been a second but it might not have had my name in it maybe that's why
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I didn't find it but I haven't looked for that yet I finished the book this morning and I felt like I encountered the one place where Matthew tried to respond to the five hour interaction we had and again
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I know some of you don't want to talk about this but I was running this morning and I did my longest run of my life this morning a third marathon one third of a marathon and so it was,
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I had plenty of time especially at my speed and I remember again exactly where I was when
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I went aha aha there it is there's where he started to respond to having listened to what
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I said and it was about the mirror image stuff and he basically tried to argue again if you happen to see in scripture and maybe the world around you gender complementarianism if you happen to look and you see a husband and a wife and their little baby and go yeah you know that makes sense
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I see design here in fact this is how the species continues and in fact there's there's complementarianism here and it's physical there is a clear physical complementarianism here
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I mean I'm not going to get too direct here we may have to put out a warning for children when we do the whole series but they're designed to fit together and to have babies look at that definitely there but two women nope doesn't work two men does not work but there's more than that because you know
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I knew that guy for years before he got married and now that he's married wow he's different I mean he used to do some crazy stuff he really did and I'll be honest with you he didn't really think too much about himself or in the sense of his own safety but he did pretty much think about himself as far as what he did and he really wasn't oriented towards others but you know she's had an effect on him and her too wow you know
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I mean she's willing to do stuff now that she would have never done before there's a complementary relationship between them mentally and spiritually and physically and now look at that cute little baby they've created life yeah if you happen to see that in the bible and the world you're a closed minded bigot shame on you you're not even a good
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Christian you can't even be a good Christian if you think like that how dare you that's what we're being told that's what we're being told you bigot how dare you think that way you should see that picture it's right there on my screen right now these three beautiful ladies and they're so in love just rejoice with them
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I don't rejoice with them and I can't their behavior and their relationship is self destructive they're in love with a mirror so what you'll find in all these books is an attack upon gender complementarity they have to fundamentally undermine this have you ever noticed that when you look at these books the whole thing that they are focused upon is primarily homosexuality but they'll always talk about LGBT they don't talk about B and T because you just cannot make a biblical argument there can you?
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can you make a biblical argument for transgenderism? for man actually taking control and mutilating the physical body to change gender where do you pull that out of scripture and how about bisexuality
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I think there's a reason why they don't mention that because if the same argumentation is going to be utilized then a bisexual would have to be allowed to be a polygamist right?
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I mean given Matthew Vines argument that you should not be alone they might say well no you could have one or the other but what if as a bisexual just one and not the other is not sufficient for you
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God made you that way that's the given isn't it? that's what we're being told gay
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Christians why not bisexual Christians? so if you're a bisexual Christian then you'd have to believe that true covenantal relationship would involve three right?
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where am I wrong? where have I missed the boat here? can someone tell me? why aren't these folks talking about I've got all these books
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I'm reading spend all this money reading all these books spend all these hours for some reason they don't talk about that don't want to go there for obvious reasons obvious reasons folks we've got to think through this stuff we've got to think through this stuff we've got to be ready 877 753 33341 is the phone number let's get some phone calls in here and let's talk with James hi
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James Dr. White good to hear from you well actually I'm hearing from you because if you were hearing from me that would mean that I called you funny funny you got me hey
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I got three points you have a poem? you might not know me but I'm a former former
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UCC pastor I actually left the UCC the United Church of Christ over this issue so I have met somewhere between 200 and 300 people who are gay or lesbian so this is an area that I'm fairly familiar with and I can tell you that none of those people there nobody had ever told me that bigamy or polygamy was wrong and the reason why is because if they say no to one group they've been told no for so long they're afraid to actually draw boundaries they can draw boundaries yeah so the second thing
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I wanted to point out was that I'd actually gone to a couple of these pride parades in Oklahoma City and there were literally thousands of people there and the church
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I used to associate myself with would hand out buttons and flyers and do all kinds of stuff but come
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Sunday night come time for church do you know how many people would show up? no about two or three yeah the
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UCC is not known for having a lot of mega churches yeah the only one is up in Chicago and their doctrinally a lot of a lot of what they do is actually somewhat
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Baptist like I mean they have altar calls but anyway
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I digress and the third thing that I noticed big time and you may have not read it in your books, the books you've read but the books
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I've read from Jack Rogers this one minister out of South Carolina a lot of them draw from liberation theology and so they're comparing their struggle with trying to get equal rights with the struggle of African Americans in this country and so that's very common in the media especially amongst
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Christians liberation theology very closely associated with communism and things like that that would be in the really liberal churches which the
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UCC is these books that I'm reading are much more aimed more in the conservative direction or at least in a much more conservative bent anyways which is why they might not draw quite as much on that kind of a background and source well
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I think the one weakness, the one area that we really need to emphasize and by the way I thank you for your book that was amazing and thank you for signing it too
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I still think the Forgotten Trinity is your best book but the one area we really need to emphasize is the fact that just like you said in that article and you nailed it right at the beginning of the show they do not have boundaries how can you say you are defending equal marriage for all people when you won't define what marriage is or you will so have to redefine marriage there's no longer any way of putting boundaries upon it is really what's going on yeah yeah because when
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I was in the UCC and I tried to say we need to define this as a two people who love each other nobody would go for that they couldn't handle that well there needs to be a basis
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I mean I've heard some very weak attempts to substantiate the idea of two people but they really can't go there because everybody knows why the number is two because there are two genders but they can't go there and so they avoid it so just off topic question are you going to try to stream the thing from fire?
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There's a very good chance I probably won't be able to make it next week I doubt it my recollection was that Grace Life Church didn't really have internet but I'm not sure
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I don't even know where we're meeting so I can't answer you might want to give them a call and maybe
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Derek can tell you or something like that well if you just audio recorded it I'm sure I'm sure it will be recorded but whether it will be live will be the issue alright thanks for your call
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James thanks have a great day you too bye bye alright let's talk with good old
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Johnny how's it going brother still stuck in the People's Republic of California yes
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I am your freedoms will be gone a lot sooner than mine that's all I can say yeah probably
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I was going to ask you I tweeted this to you and I wasn't sure if you had taken a look at it it's an article found on the
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Daily Caller by David Benkoff entitled nobody is born that way gay historians say yeah
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I saw it I was talking and there's only so much only so much multitasking one can do unfortunately right well anyway what the article is basically saying is basically that the whole idea of sexual orientation such as gay and straight that is actually these historians are
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LGBT themselves and they have decisively shown that gayness is a product of western society originating about 150 years ago so it's basically contrasting the idea of sexuality as something that you do versus sexuality as something that you are identity politics
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I didn't know if you had heard of this this is actually kind of new to me so I didn't know what your thoughts were on that whole idea well
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I'd have to look at this but I'd need to know how they're defining things
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I mean the idea that this is a modern kind of an idea is very common in these books but what they mean by this there's always been an unwillingness on their part to believe that it's just simply genetically determined because if a gay gene could be found then the gay gene could be fixed and so there's always been a hesitation on thinking homosexual leaders to view it in that way they want to be a much more complex thing where you can still have it being innate but without it just being merely genetic so I'd have to take a look at it
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I can't comment on an article I haven't read what this is trying to explain is that in the ancient world when you talk about the
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Greeks and so forth that the idea of homosexual relationships was something that was done even by people that were married in other words what they're basically saying is that the idea of saying this person is oriented towards same sex versus this one is oriented towards opposite sex that that would basically be an anachronism that people didn't think along those categories that is a common part of the argument of Matthew Vines and these books they're saying that's why we cannot say that the
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Bible addresses this is because nobody back then understood that what we understand in regards to sexual orientation and so that is pretty much the same argument that is being made and I would disagree only in the sense that very clearly you had all sorts of sexual immorality in the ancient world but it was well known that there were certain men who only wanted to be with other men whether they used the same psychological terminology that would be used today is not relevant to the fact that it was recognized that such people as that did exist and so in Matthew Vines book his constant refrain is well look
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Paul can't be addressing what I am because I want to be a monogamous committed gay
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Christian and they didn't know there were people like that back then and that's what these people are saying and therefore nothing in the
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Bible is actually relevant to me because I'm a category that they didn't know about and that's why
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I say the whole homosexual movement like this destroys confidence in the sufficiency of scripture because it fundamentally has to have us believe that someone like Jesus knew well either
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Jesus did know that there were gay people like Matthew Vines and said nothing to help them said nothing to promote marriage for them said nothing to alleviate their suffering because they would not have been allowed in the people of Israel they would not have been allowed in the synagogue there was no concept of homosexual marriage you have to come up with the idea that Jesus was just a man of his day didn't know about him and that's just the way it is and all their other biblical writers also just ignorant of this or if he did know he didn't do anything about it that's why
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I'd like to see some debates so we could ask these questions but that's not happening so basically
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Matthew Vines though I guess he believes in the inspiration of scripture what you're saying is that he doesn't believe in the sufficiency of scripture well yeah obviously he would say he does but the whole argument that they're making is that we cannot apply these negative texts about homosexuality to him because the authors of scripture did not know about people like him his category of existence was unknown to the scriptural authors and therefore what they said about homosexuality is irrelevant to Matthew Vines wow
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I didn't know that thanks very much brother there you go I hope that's helpful and I'll take a look at that article and I'll keep it up on the screen here and see if I can get through it real quick thank you sir alright let's talk with Corey across the pond hi
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Corey oh hello Dr. White yeah first of all
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I just want to say thanks to your ministry I find it very beneficial over the past few years and especially pertaining to this issue
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I find the your argument which I haven't really heard anywhere else usually you hear the negative side the text brought up against homosexuality what
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I find very interesting is your use of Matthew 18 and Jesus' positive affirmations of human sexuality
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I find that very helpful but my question was often you hear things like okay well
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Christians you got over your reading of the bible concerning slavery those sort of issues that they say we don't have an issue with anymore how would you respond then to somebody who says okay so you know you got over your reading of the bible regarding slavery you'll get over your reading of the bible regarding human sexuality that is exactly the argument that Matthew Vines makes
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I was just on the Janet Mefford show the hour before this raised the exact same issue because that is central to the current apologetic that homosexuals and those supporting them are using and basically the argument is in the vast majority of references to slavery in the bible there is an acceptance of the practice there is a regulation of the practice there is a differentiation of the practice from what was found both in the
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UK and in the United States especially during the slave trading years you respond to that well let's put it this way the vast majority of Christians can't respond to it because they've never thought about it that's why they get away with it same thing back when the we had a television program here in the
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United States called the West Wing they had the famous incident where the president went after this conservative moralist that was supposed to represent
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Dr. Laura and went through the holiness code and says well do you touch a football because that's a pigskin and can
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I sell my daughter and you know showing all this just horrific ignorance of the context of the holiness law just terrific ignorance and they got away with it because most of our people have never read the holiness code and have never thought through any of these things and so the only meaningful answer to that is to turn around and say so you really feel you've got a good grasp on what the bible says about slavery to which if they're honest they're going to say well no
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I read this on the internet some place now you have to have a decent grasp and say well you do recognize there is a difference between Roman slavery and Hebrew slavery that this was an absolutely necessary element of most of the cultures in which the bible was written because without it there would have been mass starvation because in reality a person who finally tipped over the scale into the
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I can't come up with enough food to eat arena could become a slave and hence live
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I mean you do realize that the economies of that day could not produce enough goods and food for the people who were alive and so survival was a major issue and that this was part and parcel of all of those societies you do realize that right and of course they don't and so you say so if you realize that then what you're saying is if the bible didn't attack slavery right from the start then what you're saying is the gospel would not be relevant to any society until there was sufficient economic power in a society to substantiate the banishment of slavery so you couldn't take the gospel into certain cultures because not only would it require revolution but it also would have required the total dismantling of that particular societal structure you do realize that's what you're saying and of course they don't realize what you're saying but I'm just saying this is the way
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I would approach somebody at that point and so I would then say well if you're talking about here in the
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United States in the south and the people that use the bible to defend their unbiblical form of slavery well you know what they would have lost a meaningful public debate on that subject and in the same way that the person promoting homosexuality always loses a meaningful public debate on that particular subject it is not that there have not been people who have misused the bible but the fact that people have misused the bible to defend inexcusable things doesn't change the reality that the bible is clear on what it condemns and why it condemns it because it separates us from life and that's exactly what homosexuality does so could we not utilize these bad arguments and get back to the real issue okay alright well thank you very helpful and again just wanted to repeat that it's something
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I don't hear anywhere else well that's a shame Corey because you should be hearing it that should be exactly how we're addressing it that's how we have to address it it's the only context that makes those six passages relevant is the positive teaching if you're not hearing it that's discouraging to me because I know there are brothers over there that know this but it is interesting in all the times
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I've been on Premiere this is not a subject we've addressed is it well it's a lot more how should we say we're not very open to causing controversy as you are over there believe me
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I know I know alright thanks Corey alright God bless bye bye alright let's let's talk to the crazy man in Georgia hello crazy man hey what's up buddy yeah you're even sounding that way that's good that's good yes sir you've got to make this quick because we've got a guy calling from Hawaii so obviously we want to talk to someone in such a place as Hawaii so you've got to get to it here well that's understandable
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I've asked this question in channel before and I'll just ask it on the air I think we got an answer but here's the question who has the better poker hand in our culture is it the lesbian that goes into the barber shop to get her haircut in a butch style haircut or the
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Muslim barber who refuses to cut her hair and we've got the answer and I wanted you to comment on it briefly
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I've been waiting for something like this the gay games in Cleveland Ohio are happening in August there were either 25 or 35
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Muslim taxi drivers that refused to drive their cabs that had the advertising for the gay games on the side of it you haven't heard very much about this on the mainstream media nobody's going to the supreme court like the florist or the baker or anything like that about this all that was said by the spokesperson for the gay games was oh it's their personal decision and that's it nothing else so they were allowed to not drive those cabs that's correct interesting now they are looking for replacement drivers so people can get to and from the airport but there's been no real public backlash
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I mean you can imagine what would have happened if those would have been Christian cab drivers or if it was a
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Christian Christian owned cab company and the guy said I'm not putting you in that cab the sad thing is
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I wish the Christians had joined them but there you go well maybe there were no other Christian cab drivers
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I mean we are talking about Cleveland come on I mean Alistair Begg and the people from his church are probably okay
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I think that's where he is it will be interesting to see what happens because that is the very type of thing that they want to utilize to create legal precedence
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I just love to see those who are so completely politically correct struggle over this you can't say anything about gays you got
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Islamophobia or homophobia you're stuck with the phobia on that one they have a phobia about discussing that particular issue that's right
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I gotta keep driving and by the way I drive very well I happen to have first hand experience that's not the case and what's worse sir is that you called into my program which means
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I can do that and you can't defend yourself okay let's talk to Eric hello
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Eric Aloha from Hawaii Dr. James it's great to talk to you just want to say that I want to thank you for your faithfulness over the years
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I've been very helped by your work so thank you so my question is this
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I work in the military so I'm on the front lines of defending God's word to people and I often when getting into this conversation am brought up by the subject how does homosexuality hurt everyone else so you've done great work on the revisionists who have tried to revise the bible change the standard of marriage but what about the people who are not
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Christians I believe we are to preach righteousness to the common man and there's just not a lot of talk about that that I see
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I have a book here by Frank Turek I'm not too much of a big fan about him but he wrote a book called
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Correct Not Politically Correct trying to discuss the topic and I want to know what your stance on that is on defending the definition of marriage to the common person who is not a
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Christian well just tweeting to somebody
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Douglas hold on we'll get to you I really do believe that since everyone we're talking to is made in the image of God that there is an innate understanding of the goodness and rightness of what
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God has placed in his creation and the very first human institution that God established is that of the family and that of marriage and so there is an innate understanding and of course it can be twisted it can be suppressed but there is an innate understanding of the goodness of motherhood of the goodness of fatherhood the appropriateness of the sacrificing of the father for the lives of his children the appropriateness of the father providing for wife and child especially when the child is very young that's just part of our humanity that's the way that we're made and in talking to individuals especially to the young generation what
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I want to say to the young generation is your birthright is being stolen from you by secular materialism and all of its ethical and moral collapses that are coming along with it because there is something beautiful about being a young man who matures and looks forward to marriage and looks forward to giving of himself to provide and to love and to nurture that wife who becomes a mother and the children we're putting all that off in our society now men don't get married until they're 127 years old they'll never see their grandkids they don't think about the future in front of them or anything like that and they're losing their birthright and so I do believe that we see a fundamental degradation in our society when you see the fact that we are not having children any longer and that just this morning on the briefing
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Al Moller talked about women who are having their eggs frozen so they can get their degrees and get their careers established and then have kids without having a husband oh yeah
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I mean this is this is what's happening in our society and what's the origin of all of that it is a fundamental degradation of the view of mankind mankind has a creator who has a purpose in them all these things it's all part and parcel the same thing so when people say
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I don't see anything going wrong it's because they've got their eyes closed we need to shine the light so they can see what's going on but that requires us to recognize they're made in the image of God and therefore that's the point at which we have contact with them it's not a neutral thing there's no neutral ground we can stand on to talk to somebody but they are made in the image of God and that's where we can make the connection yes that makes a lot of sense doctor thank you yes that helps a lot you can imagine how difficult it is to talk to people who don't hold to the authority of scripture and you're in Hawaii I was amazed at the secular mindset of so many people in Hawaii it is really thick there and you've heard that they just legalized gay marriage over here
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I know it's going to be everywhere in a very short period of time anyways thank you
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Eric appreciate it thank you let's try to get one more in here all the way over to London hello hello
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Rich why did you put London in there it's Milwaukee my goodness hello Douglas hi
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Dr .Rod I'm well thank you I'm well well
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I've been listening to the show I was listening on my way home from church via my smart phone just hearing the fact that firstly
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Americans I'd like to warn you that barring a total U -turn we in Britain are probably your country's future just the way that this discussion's not even had it's not tolerated as a discussion at least in America you can have this discussion and yes it gets heated here it's just assumed marriage equality is the way forward we now had our
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Prime Minister flopping backwards and forwards like a fish well this is an evangelical nation but also putting all his weight behind the same sex marriage bill when that was getting passed and it's disturbing because you hear
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Christians and Christians barely talk about it and those who do not to the sort of depth and degree that the other side is dealing with it and it's so easy to be frustrated
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I did my degree in journalism so I understand how the media works now
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I work for an advertising agency so I'm dealing with the other side of the media and you see it it's just it's not a discussion this is the way it is all and any and all dissenting voices will be squashed and it's only a matter of time before we're unable to have this discussion even on a webcast like The Dividing Line because it'll just become a thing of we don't like hearing that you have to stop saying that I'm hoping that the internet will be the last bastion of free speech but I recognize that that may not be the case either so yeah this conversation yeah we need to enjoy the opportunity to do it while we can most definitely it's the kind of issue where in a lot of ways you wonder how the church broadly speaking is able to have the discussion because in house the problems in the church are so great that the church almost has a limp voice in speaking to the culture and they know this is biblical principle this is the way
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God has designed it to be the church can no longer say that because the church in and of itself has compromised on so many issues that when the world looks at the church it's just another limp twisted voice and it's unable to speak with any sort of authority to these issues and well that's especially true in the
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UK where you have a state church that is just so massively apostate in almost all of its expressions that it's even worse than here because we don't have a state church
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I at least can look at the super liberal denominations that have abandoned the gospels and go ah you know but you're stuck with you know it's on every street corner oh definitely and you know it's one of those things where we have to in a sense we look to you guys and the freedom you have to have this discussion we value books like the same sex controversy and a queer thing happened to America and we can read those stuff and realize okay this is where it's going and this is how we best can continue to have a voice for biblical morality which is ultimately what we're looking for it's not just well you're still called to be salt and light and as I pray in the pastoral prayers at the church on Sunday mornings we really need
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God's wisdom to understand how it is that in such darkness and in such depravity and such rejoicing in evil we can be salt and light without adopting a mindset of doom and gloom look this is not the first time somebody look at what happened when the
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Roman Empire fell this is not the first time that Christians have lived in the context of an incredibly evil society but we always tend to think that way because we have a very short time frame that we've been able to observe the world but this isn't the first time we need to know what
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God would have us to do to be salt and light to fulfill our calling and yeah that's going to cost us and it's going to cost us dearly and the fact of the matter is our fellow believers around the world pay that price all the time we're just getting ready to do so that's all absolutely, thank you so much for speaking up on these issues being a voice around them alright thank you
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Douglas keep serving the Lord there or in London or Milwaukee or whatever it is we'll see
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God bless alright folks thanks for listening to VineLine today again we will try try for a week from Friday unless something happens so I'm off to the
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PC store to get a new sound card here after the show's over yeah that too so listen to the
01:01:43
Wayback Machine however else it is, we'll be back and look forward to seeing friends in New York and in prior as well