Micro-Aggression Worship Songs, Tweets from MLK50 Conference, Ehrman on the Gospel Writers, Phones

Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. We're doing our program a day early. We've got things due tomorrow. Who knows, though? I mean, there's always another day in the week after Thursday, so who knows what could happen.

Microaggressions in a Worship Song at MLK50

I actually think I'd like to be on a desert island for a while after the past few days. This morning, well, both Facebook and Twitter have been rather interesting today. One of the more interesting ones was someone put on Facebook that they had just heard praise chorus or worship music at a conference, the MLK50 conference going on right now, and that they had somehow managed to put the phrase microaggressions into a worship song.

At first, people were like, that's got to be Babylon B. Come on, seriously? But he insisted, and so I started tweeting out a question that said, can anybody help me out here? And it was confirmed. It is a song written and performed by the, quote, worship team, or as he referred to as the crew, from Matt Chandler's church.

And here is the relevant section. Broken mirrors give us all a false perception. I would play this, but I have a feeling we'd get dinged for copyright violation on YouTube. So what can I say? This is the only way to actually do review.

Broken mirrors give us all a false perception. Broken systems teach us all false lessons. And the evil one so crafty in all of his deception to keep us divided is to keep all of his lies protected. So you can't see that you're treated as superior while I'm left fighting off the lie that I'm inferior.

We're the precious children born to this world where lies are taught as truth. Father, we need our minds to be renewed by you, because it's a daily fight to remind myself that I am worthy when microaggressions lie behind every corner lurking.

We've been hurting for a long time, weary souls. Why does it seem like my brothers in Christ can't understand it, though? I don't know. So whoever was listening caught it and was correct. When microaggressions lie behind every other corner lurking.

And that's the line after, because it's a daily fight to remind myself that I am worthy. As a Christian, the only thing that I remind myself is I'm worthy of God's judgment, and hence I'm completely dependent upon grace.

I'm not worthy of anything. So I don't understand that part at all. But then when microaggressions lie behind every other corner lurking. Now, look, all this microaggression stuff is pretty new to some of us older folks.

I mean, I don't remember having heard that term more than, what, four or five years ago. I certainly didn't grow up with any reference to microaggressions, anything along those lines. I guess this is because we were all just completely socially ignorant and had no conscience.

At least that's seemingly what's being communicated. But I sort of went on Twitter and basically pointed out that when you grow up and you become an adult, you learn to filter what offends you. Because you recognize that if you're in a constant state of offense, you're never going to accomplish anything.

We used to say you're going to have ulcers, but you're going to be depressed, you're going to be unhappy, you're not going to sleep well, you're not going to be healthy, you're not going to be a nice person to be around.

And so at some point in time, you make the choice that I'm not going to be offended by all the things I could be offended by. Well, my daughter mentioned that she watched my grandson Waylon who was being treated badly by some other kids.

And instead of running off to tell Mommy and Daddy or getting violent or stuff, he just walked away from it and did something else. That's called growing up. I remember, I've told the story, I remember the exact day, exactly where I was, which direction I was facing.

It's really weird. When someone had insulted me and I stopped my bike and I was going to run inside and tell my mommy, because that's what you do when you're a child. And I stopped, I said, it doesn't matter.

I'm not hurt and it's going to take too much time to go in there and have too much fun riding my bike. So I kept going, got back on and that's part of growing up, part of being an adult. But we live in a day of safe spaces.

We live in a day when our universities, when someone comes on campus and expresses a different opinion than the dogma of the day, you have places to go where you can cuddle teddy bears because you've been hurt.

And so we have this terminology of microaggressions. And they can be things that people do that people do not intend to be hurtful, but you take them as hurtful. And I'm sorry, but adults recognize that you look at someone's actions and if there was no intent to hurt, there's no reason to be hurt.

There's no reason to take offense. We are human beings. We can make that choice. And now we have it in worship music? Microaggressions in worship music. Okay, well, there you go. And right above that, so you can't see that you're treated as superior while I'm left fighting off the lie that I'm inferior.

That's just the privilege stuff. This is, again, what we talked about last time, this is let's divide. Let's divide people up along these lines, cause division. And then what you do is you break things down to allegedly heal the division, but on the wrong basis for healing the division.

Yeah, well, it's been educational. It's been educational to see just how far this has gone. And the leaders of major Christian institutions who are lockstep with it, just pushing it forward. There you go.

White Evangelicalism, Reparations, and Racial Division

We also saw a, let's see, did that go into Chrome or Safari? There it is. We also saw a tweet this morning. Yes, I'm seeing things and I cannot look over at Twitter. It's way too distracting. This is a book weight, by the way, in case anyone's wondering.

You get these book weights and I never throw them out. Because they're made of leather. They're all nice. And so you end up with them for like decades. So you can't even remember why in the world you got the one you got.

But anyway, they've got some feel to them. Anyway, Kyle J. Howard, whom we mentioned, was it last week or yesterday? Was it yesterday? I don't know. Tweeted this in response to an ERLC note, which in and of itself is interesting these days with George Soros and things like that.

This is what ERLC had tweeted. We are thrilled to announce over $1 million has been raised for the MLK50 Dream Forward Scholarship Initiative.

OK.

All right. So here's Kyle J. Howard's commentary. This is where it's at. White evangelicalism, if it, as if it is an entity, wants to become a true ally to black community. Does everyone see the massive division there?

I mean, just big chasm thing in the thought. It must begin investing financial resources, parentheses, owed, O-W-E-D, parentheses closed, back into it. It must begin not only by giving its word, but action through financial investment into black saints.

MLK50 Conference is the hashtag. So you have the phrase white evangelicalism, which, as I pointed out on Twitter today, when you put a skin color in front of something that describes the evangel, you've totally missed the boat.

It is not a micro aggression, in my opinion, to be willing to throw everybody of a certain melanin count into one big old honking group. I won't do that to Muslims. I won't do that to Roman Catholics.

I won't do that to blacks. I won't do that to Chinese or Japanese or Koreans or you just name the list. I won't do it because it's offensive and it is divisive and it's wrong and it should be repented of.

Remember, he's also one who told me that I just need to repent. Repent of what? I wasn't told, but I just need to repent, period. White evangelicalism, if it wants. What is it? You know, when we prove from Scripture that the Holy Spirit is personal, is a person, how do we do that?

We do that, for example, by demonstrating that the Spirit gives the gifts as He wills. To will something is the action of a person. Only persons can will. And so if it wants is a personification of a group that doesn't exist.

There is no such thing as white evangelicalism. There are far too many distinctions, differences, mixtures for that to even be a semi-meaningful category. It just doesn't exist. It's fantasy. You may make points with people by making reference to it, make it the bogeyman, the bad person over there, but it doesn't exist.

Think of the worst example you can come up with of a racially segregated, racist in the sense of secret members of the KKK in it, backwards church with only whites in it. And then combine that with all the other churches where you have, not by having racial quotas, not by people going out and looking to try to fill the pews with different colored people.

I'm going to pass by the white folks and go, I need some of this color. You know, like going to a paint store. We need to have different colors on the walls. No, but there are all sorts of churches where you'll have 40 of this and 20 of that and 10 of that and 5 of that.

And it's because that's the people that the Spirit of God drew to that place and to the preaching and teaching and the ministry of the word in that place. You throw them all together and that's white evangelicalism.

That's absurd. That does not help anything. It doesn't help anything. It's divisive. It's divisive and it's intended to be. Maybe not by this individual, but by the people who want to see this type of division.

That's what's wanted. That's what's wanted. And then begin investing financial resources owed. Is this a reparations reference? Are we really? That's what's going on here now? Is reparations? I've always found that.

I've told the story before. I remember I was in South Phoenix. I think I had just ridden South Mountain if I recall correctly. Though there's other reasons I'd go down there. I just can't think of any others at this point in time.

This is years ago. Michael Medved was on. And I was listening to Michael Medved. And he had on a black woman who was arguing that blacks cannot be racist. Just can't be racist. It's not possible. You have to have power.

And this issue came up at that time. I've never been able to find that program. But like I said, it was probably too long ago. It's no longer on the listing or whatever. I don't know. This whole concept of reparations.

Michael brought up to this lady. What about people whose ancestors weren't here during the Civil War? I mean, I happen to know that my great-great-grandfather, great-great or great-great-great, anyway, I can trace it back, give you names, didn't arrive in the United States until sometime between 1884 and 1889.

He was in Scotland. And you point that out and people are like, doesn't matter, it's based on skin color.

Really?

What if you're black and your ancestors weren't here until my ancestors were here? It really starts getting crazy. And it all goes back to this idea that, well, you know, you can be held accountable for what your father's father's father's father did, even if they weren't here.

Or they didn't do. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. It just surprises me to see the boldness with which these things are being expressed within a context that just makes you go, have you thought about what you're saying there?

I had a back and forth with the guy, you know, said, I don't think that James's interpretation of Colossians 3, I think I can take it differently. Okay, what's your exegesis? Still waiting on that. But part of it was, well, but we need to be kind and compassionate.

And I'm starting to figure out what those buzzwords mean. I mean, there's a biblical meaning of those words. And then there's the, I guess we call the woke meaning of those words. I hate the destruction of the English language that that utilization of that term means and represents.

But there's the woke meaning, which means you will not be considered to be kind and compassionate until you agree with our founding presuppositions that you actually disagree with. So if you disagree, you're kind and non-compassionate, even though we are kind and compassionate in pointing out your disagreement and saying that you are not kind and compassionate for disagreeing with us.

There's no winning. It's just submit. You know, it's sort of like what was said to me initially. Repent of, just repent.

Okay.

You can't get very far in those situations. It's sort of hard to get much discussion there. There you go. So this might be one of the best arguments I've ever seen for only using the Trinity Hymnal. Because you're not going to get microaggression.

Yeah, exclusive psalmody is starting to sound pretty good right there.

Sadly.

I mean, I like singing Jesus's name, but yeah. There you go. It's been a weird morning. It really, really has. Anyway, I promised yesterday that I would get back to at least a brief... You know, I don't even know if this is on.

Let me see.

No. Did we turn that off? Should be working, huh? One, two, three, four. What?

What?

I don't even know where the light is. Don't even know where the light is. Nope, no light.

You can't hear this at all?

Nope.

Oh well.

Back to the 1980s, which seems to work best. Yeah, maybe it's dead, or I don't know. It shouldn't be dead, but I don't know where the lights are. And it's not doing anything.

Yep.

Oh well.

I promised we were going to do at least a brief section of Ermin, and then we will go to your calls. Why not? Make them on apologetics issues, or things that we've covered, I suppose. It won't take us too long to get through Ermin, so I suppose if you want to line up, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, what?

Not that I know of, I've got it unplugged anyway. Let's get back to, this is just a portion of, this is sort of the, the gospels can't be correct, because they're not just slavish copies of each other type argument, from Bart Ermin.

This is the debate, of course, with Mike Licona, and here's just a couple minutes on that.

Bart Ehrman on Gospel Differences and Repeated Teaching

Matthew's writing a sermon that Jesus gave on this mount. He's writing this account 50 years after the sermon was given. How well can you remember Barack Obama's last State of the Union address from two years ago?

Could you write it down? Two years ago? What if you waited 50 years? Could you write word for word what Barack Obama said in his speech? You were probably paying attention. I was paying attention, and I don't even know what he was talking about.

The Gospel of John has a speech of Jesus that begins in chapter 13. He's giving it to his disciples, his last evening with them. Chapter 13, the speech goes into chapter 14, all of 14, goes through all of chapter 15, and then all of chapter 16, and then chapter 17, he leaps into a prayer that goes all of chapter 17.

Two chapters written 65 years later. What is the likelihood that we know what Jesus said on this occasion? Now, Mike has just told us that the way the Gospel writers knew what was said is because Jesus said these things over and over and over and over.

I'm not going to say how many overs that is because I don't have enough time, but over and over again. You will notice that he never pointed out whether that is ever said in the New Testament. Where in the New Testament does it ever say that Jesus gave the same sermon over and over and over and over and over and over again?

It doesn't say anywhere. Where does he give the same speech over and over again in the New Testament? He never gives the same speech more than once in the New Testament. So why does Mike think that he did?

Because Mike thinks he did. That's just like, well, that makes sense, so that must have been how it happened. But what's the evidence? Historians prefer evidence. And I don't know of any. There's certainly no evidence.

Okay, so there's the argument. And it is central to Ehrman's, what should we call it? Desire to promote skepticism. And when you approach the New Testament as a skeptical agnostic, you don't believe in the activity of the Holy Spirit.

It's just simply, and unfortunately, the perspective of the Laicona Craig-style apologetic approach has no defense against this. Because if you're going to sit there and say, the majority of scholars agree with me on this, then when they turn around and say, the majority of scholars agree with us on this, you've got no place to go there.

You've given in on that concept to begin with. But from a naturalistic historical perspective, which is all you've got in an agnostic worldview, you can't have any type of supernatural activity involved.

The text is not inspired. And so the first thing he asks is, do you remember Barack Obama's last State of the Union speech? I never saw one. So no, I don't remember. Even if I had, I mean, I'm sure I saw clips of some, because you can't avoid that.

But I didn't watch Trump's either, for very different reasons for the two of them. But no, I don't remember any of those things. But is it a valid argument to point out that, well, he goes after two. He goes after the Sermon on the Mount with Matthew, and then he goes after the personal interaction of the Lord with the disciples that is unique to the Gospel of John, and that was specifically not included in the Synoptic Gospels, which is interesting because presuppositionally, I imagine he would say that all of that material in John is not historical in the first place, though he will now expose it to some type of alleged historical criticism.

Anyway, those are two examples he uses. If you have ever compared Matthew and Luke, you will see that Luke has a Sermon on the Plain, Matthew has a Sermon on the Mount, but they contain a lot of the same material.

So some would simply say that Matthew and Luke are contradicting each other, A, as to location, or B, some will harmonize that by saying, well, it was a flat spot on the Mount. I suppose, I don't know.

But they're not verbatim reports. Luke's is much shorter and varies in certain details from Matthew. The assumption of the agnostic, the unbeliever, is, well, this is all supposed to be the same thing.

But since Mark doesn't contain this information, then Matthew and Luke end up being really different. Again, all based upon naturalistic presuppositions and presumptions. Let's try to say those two words together.

So his argument is, why are there differences, and could anyone really remember? And then he tries to respond to an appropriate observation on Lycona's part, and that is that these were, and Lycona did a good job at this point.

Remember, he listened to this and got tired of the over and over and over, but he did it for a reason. He's established the idea, and all Ehrman does is preach against it. He doesn't provide anything of an argument.

Well, that's just Lycona's opinion. No, it makes perfect sense. We have minimally two, possibly three years of ministry on Jesus' part. Are you telling me that in almost daily teaching, frequently, not for the length of time that a professor teaches, well, except for those incredibly long, this type of teaching I normally do because I normally come in for five days, and so you teach all day long.

Most professors don't have to do that. They'll teach for an hour and a half, and then they're done for the day, or at least that class. Jesus often is teaching all day long, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Do you really think, and this is sort of surprising to me, do you really think, Dr. Bart Ehrman, that there was no repetition? That every time Jesus told a parable, it was a new parable he had never told before?

I mean, how many principles of life in the kingdom of God are there? And given that Scripture does repeat things, why would Jesus not repeat things?

He says,.

Well, but there aren't any sermons that are repeated over and over again. That one really caught me, not because it's a good argument, because it's so silly, and I hope you see why it's silly. If you are Matthew, and you are writing your gospel, and you have an idea of how long you want it to be, why would you repeat the same things over and over and over again?

I mean, you're only going to give one representative sample. You have the clear evidence that Matthew, for example, telescopes the story of the woman, well, of Jairus, the raising of Jairus' daughter, and the woman who touched his robe and stuff, removes that, doesn't even tell that part of the story.

You clearly see that the authors are concerned about how in-depth they're going, and when they go very in-depth, as Mark did in that particular instance over against Matthew, that is indicative, plainly, of their wanting to emphasize something about that particular event or incident in Jesus' life.

So it just struck me just what a vacuous argument it is to say, well, he didn't repeat other things, and doesn't say he repeated things, but it's just so obvious. And Bart Ehrman is one of the greatest examples of it.

One of the greatest examples of it. You want an example?

Here.

I don't even have to have this marked.

This is easy.

You as the audience have the pleasure and welcome to Kennesaw State University to tonight's exciting debate. Dr. Bart Ehrman is a distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina.

Oh, wait a minute. I know where it is.

Here it is. Here it is.

All right. How many of you are students here?

Good. Okay.

How many of you here consider yourselves to be Bible-believing Christians?

Wow! Okay. Huh. Ready?

How many of you are here to see me get creamed?

Okay.

How many times have you heard him say that? It's almost in every single debate. It's almost in every single debate. How many of you are here to hear me get creamed? I could go back and I bet you I could pull that out of 10 debates without any problem.

But can I find any place in Bart Ehrman's books where he specifically states that he likes to repeat things?

Yeah. Okay.

So we clearly have gross double standards being used. What about this issue of how long? I mean, obviously, I think Ehrman is expanding the time frames. I think the Gospels are written much closer to the events than he would like to believe.

But be that as it may, is there a parallel between listening to a political sermon, a political speech, and the very essence that the apostles would be teaching and preaching every single day of their lives?

I mean,.

Let's look at the John material. That was not public. That was private. Why then should we think that that would be relevant? Because of the very nature of the fact that this was what was taught on the very night before Jesus' betrayal.

And it was clearly very personally directed to them. Do you really think that the apostles, after the Resurrection and after the Ascension of Jesus, never talked about that again? You know they would have talked about that over and over and over again.

So this idea that what's being put into the mind by Ehrman's presentation is, yeah, man,.

If I tried to.

Remember what my neighbor said to me over the fence 65 years later, I could never get that.

That's not a parallel.

That's not what's going on. What's going on is stuff that was extremely important, stuff that they would have taught on and repeated over and over and over again, privately and in public.

So,.

I'm sorry, there's no argument there. And.

As to, for example,.

The differences between Matthew and Luke in the recording of the Sermon on the Mount, Sermon on the Plain, that makes it very clear they are drawing together material from numerous times.

When,.

I mean,.

We know that Jesus was teaching and preaching on the principles of the Kingdom of God. You think he only did that once?

No,.

He used the same parables, he was teaching the same things in different cities, in different contexts, and these are compilations of these things. I don't see where the argument is, but it is the standard.

Ermanian approach.

To try to inculcate this level of skepticism, but not consistently. There really is no consistency in what he's doing there. So keep that in mind as you listen to Erman's presentations, and sometimes it is somewhat humorous to apply his own words to his own writings.

I mean,.

I've said many times when he addresses the issue of.

Pseudonymity,.

Fraud, forgeries, that using the standards he uses, if you compare his popular books with his academic books,.

Obviously,.

Two different people wrote them. There must be a fraudulent Bart Erman out there. Because he won't allow for.

The.

Fact that when Paul writes to Timothy, when you write to an intimate friend in a personal letter, even if it is deeply theological, that's going to use different vocabulary than when you're writing to a church.

And you're going to use different vocabulary when you're writing to the Philippians than you use when you're writing to the Galatians. Because the Philippians, it's an epistle of joy. Galatians, not so much.

Evidently, that's not allowed.

So,.

As I've said, if you compare Erman's scholarly writings with his popular writings, with his emails, apply the same standard, and there's a bunch of Bart Ermans running around. Need to catch those fraudulent ones and do something bad to them.

Hit him with my.

Book.

Thing that keeps books open so you can type at him. That'll do it. I can't use it on Twitter? What?

Oh, no.

Well, okay. Yeah, I can't.

No. Yeah.

All right.

Huh.

Okay. Don't let me. You're the one who mentioned Twitter, and you shouldn't have mentioned Twitter, because then I look over there and I start seeing stuff on Twitter, and I should just minimize it. I really, really should.

877 -753 -334. I saw you mention something, and I'm not sure that that one topic is anything overly relevant to anything that I would know about. But let's start with Bob in Kansas. Hi, Bob.

Hi, Dr. White.

Hello.

Thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me?

I can, just barely on my end. That's okay.

Yeah, I got a headset on. I'm sitting in my truck.

Okay.

My question is, how do you see the majority text, you know, the view of it and its implementation and translations and things like that being affected by CBGM?

Well, there really isn't.

Any.

Real connection there because fundamentally, majority text advocates already have a assumption that they are functioning on that is different from.

The.

Whole concept of the CBGM. The majority text advocate is basically saying that the Ausgang's text is going to be found in the majority of manuscripts. CBGM is.

Not.

Saying that. It is the nature of coherence in the CBGM is different than just simply a majority reading. There are times when the CBGM will point you to a non-majority reading.

Now,.

It has been pointed out that there does seem.

To be.

A.

Bias toward.

The.

Byzantine texts in CBGM which may be related to the concept of coherence and to the fact that it primarily focuses upon non-fragmentary texts. Of course, the older you get, the more fragmentary texts are.

You can't include them, but there is.

Somewhat of.

An inherent bias against some of the earlier texts because of the form that they're in. CBGM also does not yet. It's not that it can't, but it does not yet take into consideration translations and lectionaries or patristic citations.

All of those things.

Could.

Be included, but it would.

Vastly.

Complicate the mechanics.

And.

It's going to take some time.

If it eventually.

Is included.

To.

Make up those databases. And then there's all sorts of questions you got to go into.

In, you know,.

What version of the fathers do you.

Use?

There has to be critical text analysis of their text and all sorts of stuff that is extremely complicated.

So,.

There really isn't.

A.

Direct.

Impact simply because they're not.

Functioning.

On the same.

Basis.

The majority of text advocates already have their presuppositions and what CBGM is going to say is going to be irrelevant to them one way or the other because of the nature of their presuppositional commitment.

There is a section, I can't reach it from here, but in Dr. Gurry's.

Book.

From Brill, on the impact of CBGM on the Byzantine textual prioritists such as Maurice Robinson.

So,.

He does address that and basically comes to conclusion that it has no impact.

Because,.

Pretty much what I just said about the majority of text, there really.

Isn't.

Any interface because.

They've.

Already made.

A.

Fundamental.

Textual.

Decision.

That sort of determines what their text is.

Going to.

Look like.

And.

Coherence isn't a part of it.

I guess what I mean is, when we see new translations come out, they're always based on the NA27 or 28 or whatever, something like that, with CBGM. And, you know, if it shows that the Byzantine text, for instance, is as reliable as these other texts, might people take a second look at it?

I don't mean people who are like King James only or majority text advocates.

Or whatever.

I just mean in general, in the scholarly world in general.

Well, while CBGM has.

Breathed.

Life.

Into.

Raised.

The.

Stock.

Of the Byzantine manuscript tradition,.

We only mean that in the sense that.

The.

Byzantine manuscript tradition isn't.

Simply dismissed as being always secondary. But it's not like it is.

Said,.

Oh,.

This is.

Wow,.

This is most of.

The time.

This is.

One that's got the right reading. That's not the conclusion that the changes have come to.

I mean, when you.

Look at the number of changes so far.