Tom Buck Gives an Update from the SBC then James Responds to the Recent Issues from the IM Guys

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00:01

Okay, try to be really quiet here, as you're gonna hear the music come up here. And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line, my name is

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James White, coming to you from the Master's Seminary in Southern Baptist right now.

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And what we are attempting to do—I'm not sure if it's gonna work real well, but we're gonna give it a shot—is, of course, the

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Southern Baptist Convention is going on right now, and we sent our super -secret representative—no,

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I'm not gonna ruin Tom's reputation by saying that, but Pastor Tom Buck from Lindale, Texas is one of the messengers to the conference, the convention, and so he's on Skype, as I am on Skype.

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All of this could fall apart at any second, which is what some people are saying about the

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Southern Baptist Convention, too, but that's a whole other issue. So, Brother Tom, it looks like you're outside, isn't it a tad bit warm in Dallas?

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It is a tad bit warm, but I'm sitting outside, I had to find a place outside because the convention is pretty much over, and I found a place where I could sit, and it's a little bit humid, but I'll survive.

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So it's pretty much over in what way? It's pretty much over as in finished, or over?

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Well, the meeting is over, and the humidity outside is better than it was on the inside.

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Okay, all right, I gotcha. So I've been pretty much out of it.

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I've been teaching here at the Master's Seminary for the past couple days and getting up uber early in the morning, and so I'm not up on everything, but I did see a bunch of flurry of this resolution goes down in flames, and that resolution is passed, and all sorts of stuff like that.

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So I imagine you're keeping track of all that stuff. So what happened?

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Did they get rid of you? Well no, they didn't get rid of me, though. Right after I left, or right before I was leaving,

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I guess, they were finishing something up, and someone apparently got escorted out by the

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Dallas police. The report is on Twitter that the individual was asking questions that a member of the

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ERLC found threatening, so they asked the police to escort that messenger out of the building. But it was not me, so just so everybody knows, that was not me.

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It wasn't me either. I didn't really keep up much with all of the resolutions.

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It's the most amount of resolutions that I remember seeing in a long, long time. They had another resolution on racial reconciliation that was targeting the curse of Ham, which

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I have never heard that taught in any Southern Baptist church that I've ever been in. Supposedly, apparently,

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Dr. Aiken, who is the president of Southeastern, along with Dr. Dwight McKissick, who is a pastor in Fort Worth, and a couple of other authors

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I'm not aware of, four of them authored that. They believe, because this is what they wrote, that many

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Southern Baptist churches have taught the curse of Ham. You grew up in a Southern Baptist church, or at least had some experience.

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Do you ever remember the curse of Ham being taught? No, no, no. I've not met one.

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I've asked more than a dozen guys who are my age, 51, or older guys like yourself, and none of them, but you're in much better shape than I am.

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I know that, so we'll go ahead and get that out of the way. But none of them have ever heard any pastors teaching that.

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So I was a little bit concerned, you know, that we're passing a resolution that everybody would say the curse of Ham is horrific, it's abhorrent teaching, and now the media is going to think,

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I assume, that this was common teaching in Southern Baptist churches not that long ago. Hmm.

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Okay. Okay, so obviously J .D. Greer is the president.

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Correct. And what was the story with that? What were the dynamics of that?

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It was really interesting, because when I got there, some guys were panicking to some degree or another, coming to me saying, hey, you've got to make sure you vote for J .D.

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They knew that I had issues with J .D. Greer regarding his, what

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I believe to be, weak positions on complementarity. And so there was a sense of panic that he might not win.

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We've got to get everybody's vote. He ended up winning close to 70 percent to 30 percent.

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And who was the other person? What is his position on complementarianism? Who was the other candidate?

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Oh, I'm sorry. Ken Hemphill. Okay. He was a former president of Southwestern, but he's been out of the loop for some time.

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The traditionalists dusted him off and brought him out and propped him up.

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It was almost like a weekend at Bernie's. I'm just telling you like it is.

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I didn't know the guy was still alive. That clip's going to end up on YouTube somewhere.

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I don't care. I have nothing left to lose. Okay. So but what was the what was the dynamic theologically and position wise between the two?

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Well, the traditionalists had put him forward. Now, this was this doesn't mean that everybody that voted for him feel was that way, but the traditionalists put him forward because I had deep concerns about J .D.

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Greer. I did not support J .D. Greer. But they put him forward as an answer to J .D.

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Greer being the Calvinist. But there were many people that were

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I mean, obviously, 70 percent voted for him. So many of them were Calvinist. Ken Witten, who nominated

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J .D. Greer, he's not a Calvinist as far as I'm aware. He's certainly not one overtly because I'm not aware of it.

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And J .D. Greer is an evangelist and a missions minded guy and so forth and so on.

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So it was it was a shot that didn't need to be taken.

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He's he's not an ad, a guy that's constantly pushing Calvinism. Greer isn't.

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But that was the concern because he is a guy. OK, and so by traditionalist, you mean like the

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Layton Flowers wing of people? Oh, I do know that David Hankins from Louisiana was involved and he is very strong against anything that even smells

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Calvinistic. So I would say he's you know, he wouldn't even want tulips planted in his garden.

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So that's pretty much what we're doing. OK, I'm sorry, I have had a little sleep, so I might be a little punchy.

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Well, I don't know what would be keeping you all up late at night. But so. Oh, you've been driving back and forth to Lindale.

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Yeah, Jean Client squirrels been staying with me. And so in order to, you know, help a couple of guys out, they stayed with me and we drive back and forth.

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That's a very long drive. Well, you've you've done it, so, you know, it's yes,

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I have. So now I know why you're not sleeping. OK, so anyway, so what's your take?

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What's were you disappointed that Beth Moore wasn't made president?

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Yeah, I mean, I shed many tears over that. I was expecting at any moment for her to be nominated at some level.

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In fact, when they made announcement that they were going to make a major change in the Baptist News, Baptist Press was going to be making an announcement.

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It ended up being Pence. I thought it was going to be something along the lines of Beth Moore, potentially that they were announcing.

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So while I was fearful, it was Beth Moore. And when I found that it wasn't, I was happy.

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But then another crowd was mortified that that Pence, vice president Pence, was coming. And so were you there for that?

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I was. How'd that go? I mean, I think that, you know, it's it's one of those things where that I was

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I wouldn't have chosen to do it because I you know, it becomes what you know, it will a mini political in my political rally to one degree or another.

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But he said some very important or very good things that I would agree with. I think we all would agree with regarding abortion, a variety of things.

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But, you know, whenever you have a political person speak and they begin to, as Trump is, it's going to be a difficult thing in a in a religious setting.

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So that there were two sets of people, people that were ecstatic by everything he said.

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And then there were people that were just angry and had their arms crossed. And there was a guy that was booing him behind me.

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Oh, really? He booed him. Yeah. Wow. Trump was mentioned, boo. That's what it's like.

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It was weird. But anyway. OK, all right.

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So what about on the resolutions front? Was there anything significant? I mean, obviously everyone is coming into this thing with Southwestern and Page Patterson and the

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Pressler trial and all this stuff front and center. Was it was it dealt with?

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Was it mentioned? What happened? Oh, it absolutely was. In fact, the resolutions became secondary because, in fact, you know, in the past, it's the past two years, the

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Confederate flag to racism resolution to disinvite tents.

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So that became front and center. As soon as they announced he was coming, that became a big issue.

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And and so motion was made. He got defeated, was defeated.

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The next next day became front and center.

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The second issue front and center was the issue of women. And therefore it became a predominant discussion report.

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There was that asked the question about the issue of women and the issue of abuse, even though it was answered to ask the question about it.

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I got part of that. Unfortunately, you're breaking up really badly right now.

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I'm not sure if it's just the location or if it's buffering or something like that. But now it seems to have caught back up.

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But it seems to be going back and forth a little bit. Is there going to be what what's as we look back other than Pence, what's what's going to be the takeaway?

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I mean, from your from your perspective, is it more stuff that's still got to be dealt with in the future or is this could be remembered as the convention that meaningfully dealt with things or what?

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Now, I think I think that there is a huge question mark from as I leave here.

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And I think this is true with a lot of other guys of where is the convention going to go, particularly regarding regarding complementarianism.

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There is no doubt in my mind about that, whether Beth Moore's presented forward or someone else.

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I was very grateful for Dr. Moeller's response. And that's where I was going when I think it buffered.

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And Dr. Moeller was asked a question specifically. And he gave a wonderful answer.

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He is clearly holding strong to what I believe we would both hold to regarding complementarianism.

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He made it clear that when he came to the School of Theology, that every person that taught in the

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School of Theology needed to be someone who was qualified to be a pastor, and therefore that they will never have a woman teach in that role.

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He said that explicitly. I think that's at the shrine of a lot of people.

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Yeah, who had read my art and that were at Josh Byte, he came up to me and he appreciated my exegetical work and that he believed that because I'm a biblicist, 10 years,

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I will be egalitarian. So, OK, so who was it that said that to you?

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Because we missed that. Wade Burleson was talking with me. OK. And he said that because I am such a strong biblicist, that he is sure that in 10 years

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I'll be an egalitarian. OK, so what's pigging backing on what here?

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Is it the ethnic racial reconciliation movement that's kicked open the door and egalitarianism is running in behind it?

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Or is it the other way around? Or did they come to the door at the same time?

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Or because was any of this super front and center last year?

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Has it been knocking on the door a little bit each year or what? No, it came out of the blue for me.

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That's why I was so shocked when when people were talking that way so quickly. So I do think it is you know,

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I think it's it's the next car in the train. And so they're using the same language of oppression and so forth and so on that you find within the racial discussion.

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But I will say that there are guys who who are in the convention who feel strongly about social justice and the race issue.

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Buy into the the egalitarian arguments or soft complementarianism, whatever you want to call it.

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So not everybody's following in line, but a good majority of the people are falling in line where they move to the next level with this.

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So I think I'm saying that you're but. Yeah, you were buffering a little bit, too, but I was able to follow most of what you were saying as far as, you know, the exact relationship between these two movements.

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I was just surprised to see the egalitarian complementarian issue coming in so quickly.

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And was it was it just sort of taking advantage of the

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Page Patterson situation or was that almost, you know, they were looking for something and found it in digging through stuff with Page Patterson?

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Well, I missed a lot of your question. I'm sorry. You were buffering at the time. Did you say where you said something about taking advantage?

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Are you saying that were they are you asking whether I believe this was an opportunistic thing for them as they saw it, an open door with what happened with Page?

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Yeah, pretty much. Yes, that's exactly what I would. That's exactly what I think. Now, let me clarify so that people know what page value are not going back.

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But I still believe that they want to push the convention towards an egalitarian position, have seen this as an open door, and they are kicking that door as hard as it can.

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Yeah, I only got a part of that, too. You know, Rich, what we might need to do here is it maybe if Tom just goes to audio only, because he's on a cell phone.

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So I think that's where the the stuff is going. So maybe if if Tom could go to that, we could just be stuck with me.

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Maybe he'll be able to hear me better and I'll be able to hear him better. I'm not I'm not sure. But nothing personal there,

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Tom. I mean, I think most people got to look at you than me anyways. But it's the bandwidth issue.

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And since I'm I'm currently I'm not sure if you do you know where I am right now, Tom? I believe

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I do know where you are. I think you are in one of the most wonderful places on Earth, which would be

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Dr. MacArthur's office. Is that correct? This is at the at the seminary.

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And at the door says John MacArthur. They tell me he almost never uses it. But as I'm looking around there, all these rare Bibles in in in cases all around me.

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So, yeah, it's a nice, quiet place to be. But it's pretty snazzy.

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I mean, this huge thing up on the wall about the roots of the King James Bible, which I find somewhat ironic given who's doing the program here.

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But yes, that's that's where I am at the moment. So so I have a nice, strong wireless connection here.

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So maybe that's that's that's help. So what I had asked was and you seem to indicate that, yes, there was a that you do feel there was a hey, we have an opportunity type thing here.

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Now, did was was Patterson even at the meeting? No, his first time in 60 years.

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Wow. Wow. That's a change. It was.

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There's no doubt that it was a felt change. I didn't see there were Southwestern people there, but they're not the same ones that I normally see.

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I think they were probably there, but they weren't weren't prominent. And let me go back to say repeat what

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I said earlier. So it's clear I don't believe that everybody that was concerned with what page

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Patterson happened with Page Patterson is we all are concerned about that.

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We're all concerned about the value of women. And therefore, it's not everybody that's concerned is trying to move towards egalitarianism, but there is a crack in the door and they're kicking that door as hard as they can to knock it down.

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And it's evident. So who is going to who's going to lead the lead the resistance?

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Well. I don't know, because I know this and I want to be very careful about how

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I say this, but I do know that there is a very threatening environment within the

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SBC that if you speak out on this and you're any one of importance, it's a dangerous environment right now.

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Yeah, I know that firsthand. But, you know, the thing is with me, they don't have anything that I want and they don't

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I don't have anything they can take from me. Right. But that's not true of everybody that is involved with this.

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That's right. Yeah, that is something that is extremely troubling. The the evidence that has been brought forward on a number of fronts that I've heard both publicly and privately, where if you dare engage the the subject and you are at all involved with any of the

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Southern Baptist entities, you know, the Eleventh Commandment comes into full force and you are you are threatened immediately.

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So, yeah, that's that's not a good a good environment for meaningful debate to be taking to be taking place.

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But is it does it only does it normally these things only go one direction?

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Is it only going one direction? I mean, is it also going the other direction to where the people promoting this stuff are getting shut down?

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It doesn't sound like it. No, of course it's not. And let's let's just be honest, you know,

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J .D. Greer is president and I respect him for many, many things. But this is one area that deeply concerns me.

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He has been very vocal and open about his view on the role of women. And the only in his own writing in 2015, he's published from his church.

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His church has put up on their website that the only thing that they think a woman cannot do is teach.

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And this is a quote in an elder like way. So like way.

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So he described. Go ahead. So in the context of the state and worship services of the church.

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Correct, although he would even allow a woman to speak and even he said is it's a very fine line of defining what the sermon is.

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So he says if he has a woman like he did a few years ago, had at least Fitzpatrick come and speak, he makes sure to get up at the end to do the final application.

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So everybody and and kind of wrap it all together so people know that he's the elder and she's not. So that's what he means by an elder like way.

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He never wants to confuse the sermon being given by a woman when it really ought to be that it's very convoluted, to be honest with you.

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It's not even walking a tightrope to me. I think he just might as well just go the whole way.

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But he he believes that teaching and authority that that the the word for authority there is modifying teaching that we both know that's not exegetically possible.

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It's not the grammatically possible in First Timothy two twelve. It's not about teaching in a way that's authoritative.

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It's two separate things. So he says that's not he sees it that it's an elder like way.

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That's how he views the word authority in First Timothy two twelve. OK, so did the did the resolution on racial reconciliation pass?

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Is there was there anything new in it? Well, I mean, the only thing that was new was the curse of Ham. And and the fact that they wanted to inject that the

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ERLC had celebrated Martin Luther King's 50 year anniversary of his death. And so they inserted that.

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So we have resolved as a convention to despise a teaching that we already abhorred and never knew was even being taught.

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Yes. Well, now I heard something. Robert Gagnon on Facebook was talking about a resolution that I guess didn't pass about graciousness in social media.

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What was that about? Well, see, I missed that when I thought it did pass. So I'm glad that it didn't.

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I know I wasn't in there when that occurred. Particular one, I thought it did pass. It was

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I did you know, I figured it it would I'm glad it didn't based on what this wording was, but we certainly should be gracious in social media.

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But it just it's this continued wanting to shut us down to have any level of opposition.

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So, yeah, well, that's that's how he had interpreted it. And and I just didn't know if that was a an accurate interpretation or I mean, was that derived from who brought it up or or just I had no idea.

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I think it's just the language of it. The language was clear that it was, you know, basically saying if you if you if you if you critique in any way or criticize, it's going to be viewed as as attacking your brother and sister in Christ and all of these type of things.

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So I'm very thankful that it was defeated. If it was, I didn't hear that it was, but but it's just another it follows right along with all the other stuff that opposition must be silenced.

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Here's what I understand. I hear the word dialogue all the time. I haven't experienced it in a long time.

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Yeah, yeah. There's something in that actual word that has to I believe me.

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I've I had to defend that in regards to my encounter with Yasser Kady that it takes takes two to have a dialogue.

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Everything else is called a monologue. And yeah, I yeah, we need we need to have more dialogues.

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So shut up. It seems to be the thing is, is that in this social media thing they talk about the shaming, shaming is allowed.

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And even last night, there was a comment that was made by Matt Chandler, and he makes the comment that if people if people want to call me a social

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Marxist, let them call me that. I'll just embrace it. I don't care. And I mean, and then everybody applauds.

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It's just. There's just constantly a dismissal of even engaging in any level of argumentation that disagrees with them, they mock it, they shun it and they shut you down.

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And I think that's what the social media thing was trying to do as well. It's wanting to remove all opposition as much as possible.

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So were these various groups very prevalent, they're very easily seen as far as the racial reconciliation stuff, or is that just sort of an undertone or what is all women this time, all the issue of women, women's rally and Wade Burleson spoke at the women's rally.

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He had written an article a day or two before that, and he had said that these are the type of things they're saying.

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And he wouldn't mind me saying this because he told me to my face, this is what he believes or an article. He said that he believes that when you have a church without women in power is the same thing as having a homosexual marriage.

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Oh, it's not it's not complimentary. So he's defining compliment.

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If you're going to have complementarity, you must have equal power with men and women.

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They must share the same same structures of power. Wow. So.

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I would ask how he interprets the qualifications sections in First Timothy and Titus, but I'm not sure that that's really where this is coming from anyways.

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No, I don't think so. Yeah, I think there's an agenda. Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely.

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So peer into your crystal ball, brother, because I was only to keep you about half an hour here into your crystal ball.

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Take a take a wild guess what SBC 2019 is going to look like.

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Well, I think that. Twenty nineteen will be more orchestrated and structured and everything will be planned out more than it ever has been before.

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And there will this is my opinion. I think that there will be less.

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Here's the funny thing. They talk about diversity, but there will be less diversity in opinions about this than there ever was.

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It'll be one opinion that will be moving forward. I honestly believe that unless certain individuals not

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I believe Dr. Mueller is one who holds strong to a complementarian view. I think that it's very possible and probably likely that by 2020 we will have a female president elected.

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Now, people see that as crazy talk, but that's my feeling. If things continue in the path that they're going,

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I don't see how it doesn't go to that. And what about real quickly? Obviously, I think there's a president pro tem at Southwestern right now, right?

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Yes. So do you see the final selection there as being an indication of fundamental changes in the power structure in the

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SBC? I don't know, Dr. Bingham. I want to reserve and be cautious there.

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Dr. Bingham gave a very good speech. One of the things that was interesting that he said was that Southwestern is not going to be in the future defined by what we're against in small sections of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Now, I saw that as a signal of we're not going to be anti -Calvinistic anymore.

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I could be wrong, but he said that very and Gene and I both looked at each other when he said it and said, hmm, that's a change.

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Yeah, it certainly has been seen itself as being the bastion of traditional traditionalism.

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So I want to reserve judgment on that. I want to give Dr. Bingham the time as the interim and not make any predictions regarding that.

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I felt his speech was really good. I felt he was well balanced in how he dealt with the issue of we're going to protect women and we're going to make sure that that's handled rightly and that we address this situation rightly.

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But we're not going to change with our our beliefs on the word of God and we're going to stand strong on this street.

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So I felt he I felt his presentation was was good as well. So I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But if there is a major shift, you know, it does strike me that there must be a tremendous amount of political capital going into the determination of where Southwestern goes from here.

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Oh, no doubt about that. So at the end of the day, I will say this. Yes. Whoever becomes president of Southwestern will be a flare shot into the air that is going to signal to us where the convention is going, if they're going in the direction

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I'm thinking. So I think that's something we need to keep our eye on for sure.

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OK. All right. All right. Well, Tom, thank you very, very much. We were able to hear you much better once we once we uncomplicated the stream there.

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So that was probably a good idea. But thank you for your report. And I hate to tell you, but I'm headed your direction in a couple of days.

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So we'll see you later. OK, I appreciate you having me on. Hopefully it was helpful. All right.

32:20

It was. Thank you. All right. We'll see you. Bye bye. All right. Well, it just sort of put me back on the screen, so I'm hoping that means we're still connected.

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I could sit here for the next half hour talking myself. For all I know, I would hope that Rich would text me or something.

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But sometimes I think he would probably just let me just go on, just make me feel better or something like that.

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I don't know. I don't like looking at myself, especially with these the angle and stuff like that.

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You just look really weird on these computer things. But I look weird. So let's shift our attention for the last part of the program here.

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Obviously, I would rather do this and will do this when

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I have opportunity. I don't get back. Well, I'm home for three hours between when

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I get back and when I have to head to the airport for Dallas. But I get back middle next week.

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So hopefully like on Thursday, probably Thursday, we'll try to do a dividing line, try to make something work there.

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But it would be easier to do this in the context of the studio and having citations to deal with.

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But instead, I'll just have to make some rather basic comments. And clarifications in light of some of the stuff that's gone on over the past couple of days.

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People have probably seen that there was a social media exchange, fairly brief, between myself and David Wood.

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And as it seemed to me that David was becoming more and more agitated,

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I said, hey, yeah, why don't you take a deep breath? Let's, you know, let's let's not do this here.

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And and it kept going for quite some time, unfortunately. And of course, what that does is then you get other people piling into the conversation who are even less self -controlled than the original people who started the whole thing.

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And it just seems like like Twitter, Facebook, the comment sections, that kind of thing is just designed to bring out the worst in us when it comes to conversations and things like that.

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And, you know, it was it was bothersome for me to see discussions of my alleged followers as if I have this legion of followers that I say, go get such and such a person, go get such and such a person.

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That's not the case, of course. And I don't respond by saying, well, your followers do this, the other thing or Woods followers or Shimonians or whatever.

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I'm old school and you're accountable for what you say, not what other people who like you say.

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But that's, as I said, old school, I very frequently get held accountable for what people

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I don't even know, don't even know who they're referring to say. But, well, if they're on your side, then you're accountable for it.

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Today, in today's edition of Islamicize Me, which

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I think is getting right toward the end, there was obviously a change.

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We know it was a change because the video that was used and inserted into this particular episode was from my response to Islamicize Me.

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So obviously this was not what was intended, but was put in.

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And for what reason, I don't know. It could be an olive branch, it could be taken the other way.

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I mean, in light of the fact that when I logged into Facebook this morning, there was a list, you know, yay, yay tall of articles that I had been tagged in by Sam Shamoon attacking me, digging up stuff from the past and recycling all sorts of stuff that's been refuted and dealt with in years gone by.

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If it was meant as any type of positive thing, it doesn't represent everybody.

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There are different perspectives, obviously, amongst the gang that is producing the videos.

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And then, was it either yesterday or the day before yesterday, Robert Spencer started getting involved.

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And I'm still trying to process his assertion that he'd be willing to debate me on the

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Gospel. This is a man that, as far as I can tell, I've never heard the man do exegesis of anything. I have no knowledge of anything that he's done whatsoever from a theological perspective.

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Biblical exegesis, Gospel teaching, books on the side, nothing. So for someone to say,

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I'll debate White on the Gospel, it's like, I had to, even in the little bit of communication we had in email,

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I forget when it was, I guess it was last year, 2016, 2017, somewhere around there, I had to almost drag out of him what kind of a

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Catholic church, which of the various, because it's not Roman, so it's like a Byzantine, right?

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Or something. I had to drag that out of him and did not seem overly comfortable at all even discussing it.

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And so I'm just, aside from just the constant snide attacks and just, you know, utilization of language, you know,

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I said to Rich, don't even bother, because there's no one better at Twitter warfare in controlling the conversation, not truthfully, but through language, through, oh, you're implying this, or you're attacking me this way.

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I think one of the issues I think we're seeing here, and I think this has relevance to both

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Sam and David as well, when you limit your exchanges primarily to the worst, most violent, angry elements of the other side.

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And you'll notice when you, this isn't completely true of Sam, but it is with Robert and David, the primary, primary religious group that they are opposed to and are dealing with is

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Islam. Sam will do some other, small amount of other things with other groups.

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But for all of them, Islam is the primary thing. And when you then focus primarily upon the worst that the other side has to offer, the people that are violent,

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I mean, I've always been troubled, and I've expressed this concern, in seeing

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David posting these vile threats against his life, or his wife, or his children, or everybody,

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I've just always been, and especially the responses, you know, sometimes it's a gracious response, but often it's a, let's escalate this type of response, a mockery type of response.

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And this has always concerned me. You may say, well, that's because you're a wimp. Okay, fine, if that's what you want to believe.

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But it concerns me because it creates a spiral. And if that's all you're ever dealing with, people who are trying to kill you, people who are threatening your life, the result is you start putting everybody into just one box.

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And you are going to, therefore, the level of your approach is going to be determined by the constant level of activity and intellect and argument of the people that you're normally dealing with.

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And so, yes, you do have to deal with people like that, but they are not, in fact, representative of the entire whole, just as we have to, as Christians, recognize there are people who claim the name of Christ and yet behave in ways that we have to fundamentally say is completely outside the borders of Christian behavior and morals and ethics and everything else.

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One of the big differences that I'm certainly seeing as I see this playing out, as I honestly am shocked that a

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Christian minister, and of course from Sam Shimon's perspective, even that's irrelevant,

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I guess, from what he said about the church that I've been at for most of his life.

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But as a Christian minister, I've expressed sincere, biblically -based concerns about the methodology, and it's not just methodology, it's methodology in regards to Christian behavior and how we present the

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Gospel in such a way that we do not present an impediment to the

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Spirit of God. I mentioned, for example, that in the entirety of the response to me that was done by the guys, the three of the guys, in Islamicize Me, the

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Holy Spirit was never mentioned, and no one pointed out to where I was wrong about that, and I listened to it more than once.

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The Holy Spirit was never mentioned, and all of this has cast a very sharp light on the fact that you have to have a clear understanding of why you're doing what you're doing.

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As I said, theology determines apologetics, and so if you believe, for example, that apologetics is done in the service of the

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Church, then your view of the Church is going to be very central.

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Building up the Church, when you evangelize a people, if you want to see them come out of a false religion, you don't want them just to come out of a false religion, you want to bring them into an understanding of the

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Lordship of Christ, a life of repentance, and service and ministry in Christ's Church.

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Alpha and Omega Ministries has had an extended, lengthy history of being committed to being servants to the

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Church. We are not a Church, we will not take place in the Church, but our people have to be involved with the Church.

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Being involved with the Church has been one of the things that has helped to give me balance and resiliency, but a firm foundation.

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I think one of the greatest blessings for me is that even while doing apologetic work,

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I am, you know, in August, for example, I'll be preaching most of the time in August, and so I have studied to be doing in Acts, and since we preach verse by verse, we preach expositionally, exegetically, that really helps provide balance to anything else that I'm doing in the apologetic realm.

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I think it's vitally important, we have said this for a very, very long time, and I think this particular dispute has illustrated the difference between Church -servant apologetics and apologetics as an end unto itself.

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It was made very plainly clear that there are certain individuals who believe, hey, as long as you get people out of Islam, it doesn't matter where they end up.

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Well, I suppose if people want to adopt, that's sort of how

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I've always viewed Robert Spencer's work, is primarily just anti -Muslim, anti -Islam.

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But that's not Christian ministry, it's not

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Christian apologetics. The Gospel is what motivates the work of the

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Church, that's the only message that has been given to the Church, is the Gospel.

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And you can say, well, this is preparatory work. Well, as long as it has anything to do with the

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Gospel, then all those texts and what they say about how we are to comport ourselves, and the words we're to use, and our dependence upon the

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Spirit, and the focus upon the Gospel, even if it's preparatory, what that means is, let's say you're doing preparatory work for the

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Gospel. Well, that means that the same mouth with which you are going to explain the self -giving of Jesus Christ, the love of God the

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Father, or even the reality of eternal judgments and separation from God, and the punishment of sin, which is going to explain who the

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Lamb of God is, that very mouth is thereby constrained as to what can and cannot be said, so that there is a consistency under the guidance of the

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Holy Spirit in light of the revelation that's been given to us in the New Testament as to how we are to think, and how we are to speak, and how we are to act.

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There needs to be consistency even in the preparatory work, even if you're not actually addressing the

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Gospel at that point. It's the same mouth of the same person that is eventually going to be the one speaking these truths, and so there needs to be a consistency there.

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So I don't see it that the church has been entrusted with a ministry of anti -anything.

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The elder is to refute those who contradict, we are to be able to respond to those who present falsehoods, either claiming to be

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Christians or claiming some other truth other than Christ, we are to be able to respond to those things, but it's always a sub -part, it is underneath the actual command of the church to present what's been given to us.

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The Gospel is the power of God and the salvation. We have the Word and the Spirit. I'm a Reformed theologian,

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Word and Spirit, Word and Spirit, Word and Spirit. That's what we've been given. And when we have that as our ultimate authority,

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I do not believe that it will result in us having the comfort to be able to engage in a mockumentary.

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And I do not believe that it gives us a foundation of saying, well we're going to use this one standard in mocking the

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Islamic sources, when we know that if that, let's say a person leaves

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Islam because of this, let's say even somehow they're graciously brought into the church, but then in many situations, they still have to engage with Islam because of family situations or the context in which they live, and now someone who is trained, as many people in Islam are, to do dawah, the da 'ikam, and they start pointing out the inconsistencies and the double standards that were used in the original mockery of the

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Islamic sources, and this is, again, here's this whole thing I said before, the consistency thing, now you're having to on the one hand say, well we need to contextualize these things, you need to listen to the best of what we have, and here's responses based upon looking at what the context and the time was, and what the religious beliefs of the day were, and this is the background of this part of the law that seems so out of place today, and this is the background of that part of the law, and we have to start doing all those things, and we didn't give that freedom in our mockumentary, and so now we're using a double standard.

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And this to me is highly problematic, because my ultimate goal is to see people in the church growing in the grace and knowledge of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, serving Christ in that way, and raising their families, raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the

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Lord, and that requires the utilization of the highest standards of truth and truthfulness, fidelity to the message.

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And so what we've been, you know, I showed one of the videos to one of the scholars here who's also in the administration, and I was,

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I almost felt dirty doing it, but we only had a brief period of time, and so I had to go for what was plain and obvious, and so I, just looking at it,

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I had to stop it, okay? Like I said, there are some of them, some of the episodes walked right up to the line and then sort of kicked some dirt over it, but there are others that just went so far beyond that I don't even know how you defend it.

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Well, I do know how you defend it. You defend it by ignoring the clearly offensive, and not just offensive to Western Christians, but offensive to Biblical standards of what we are to be saying, seeing, portraying, and you go, well, but the

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Apostles did this, or the Prophets did this, and you jump into a completely different context, and even with that, it is the portrayal of obviously sinful action, or the portrayal of what is just simply slapstick, juvenile behavior.

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Trying to tie that together with the Gospel is where the real problem is, and unfortunately what

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I'm seeing on behalf of most people is, oh, well, let's talk about Ezekiel, or let's talk about harsh words �

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I'm not talking about harsh words. I've used harsh words. I've given the illustration. I'll give the illustration real quickly here, because I only want to go to the top of the hour � well, a little bit afterward, because we got started a little bit late, but let me give an illustration that demonstrates that so much of the argumentation that's been presented has missed what it is

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I've been talking about. I very clearly remember debating in a mosque in Lanasia, South Africa, and during the question and answer period, this guy gets up and he asks a rather,

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I'll call it a cheeky question. It was a little disrespectful, it was a little aggressive, and he's wearing an

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FBI cap, which I found odd in South Africa. And so,

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I felt that it was appropriate on a spiritual level.

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There was sort of a delay as I pondered this in a prayerful manner, and I fired back.

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And I slapped the guy down, not in a mean -spirited way, but I used advantages that I have that he doesn't have, specifically the

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Biblical languages, and pointed out that he did not have those advantages, and hence put him down commensurate with the cheekiness of his question.

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And that was not my normal inclination, but I try to be sensitive to the spirits leading in those situations.

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Well, interestingly enough, the next night at the University of Johannesburg, after a debate there,

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I'm trying to talk to a young Muslim girl who's telling me, do not say three, do not say three, and I'm trying to reason with her and talk with her about what is said in surahs four and five and so on and so forth.

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And the Muslim men are disrespecting her, because she's a young girl, so they don't... And they're talking over her, and all of a sudden

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I hear this voice over my shoulder that shuts all these men down, shuts them up, and says, let him talk to the girl.

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I turn around, it's the guy in the FBI cap. In other words, the way I responded to him was exactly the way he needed to be responded to, with sharp, strong words.

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There is a place for those things. That's not the same thing as what we're talking about in so many of the

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Islamicize Me videos. But I mentioned the one, I mentioned the one on adoption, but even then, limiting it merely to the emotional, it could have been so much stronger when you use the power that's been given to us of the

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Gospel message. You know, I mean, you could have even done that part, but then have it continue into Ephesians 1 and Romans 8, and just, it could have been done, used what we've been given rather than relying upon the emotional reaction to seeing your prophet mocked or put down.

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This is where the concern lies, even in, you know, that one video where you don't have like what you have with the breastfeeding video or the things in the mosque and things like that.

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So, when we get back, you know, there have been things, I'm assuming that Sam Shamoon will continue to post things and continue his attacks, they're vicious personal attacks, and very few people take them seriously,

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I understand that, but there are some things that again could be made into a teachable moment.

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But there are some others who are writing on the issue who have a long history of being snipers.

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In other words, the only time I ever hear anything about them is when a controversy starts over here, and I get involved with it, and they'll run out and spit at me.

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Other than that, I never even think about them, I don't read their stuff, they have a long history of being incredibly biased and prejudiced in regards to anything that I have to say, and then all of a sudden they're touted as these great experts when they all of a sudden, oh cool, another controversy,

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I can come out and spit at James White. There are some people like that, and whether you even take the time to respond to that kind of stuff is something you really have to put some serious thought into.

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But as I said, really important stuff, let me just mention really quickly, aside from all this stuff that's happening out in the

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Twitterverse and things like that, really exciting things going on. I had a meeting yesterday where we were talking about evangelizing the

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Muslim world and doing it in the right way. This is what was so exciting about it, was providing real, solid, consistent

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Biblical resources. We're talking about resources that, we're talking about the very same materials that are in Bukhari and Muslim and other works of Islamic history and the

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Quran itself, exact same material, many of the same subjects, but done in the local church, in a

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Biblical context, with fairness, accuracy, and most importantly, the primary approach being the

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Gospel, and translation into all sorts of languages, and it's really exciting.

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The Lord has done a great work here at the Master's Seminary, and these folks know how to do things, they really do.

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And they have a heart for the Lord, they have a heart for the Gospel, and it's exciting to be in a place like this.

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And so, I'm excited about all that. I'm not going to let Robert Spencer or other people get me down when

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I'm sitting here in the middle of seeing and being involved with such great things in bringing the

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Gospel all around the world. And the class that I'm doing, man, we've got the seminary students, and then they open it up to the church.

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And so, we've had like 120, at least, each evening, maybe more than that,

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I'm not counting, but they had at least that many sign -ups. People who have been in attendance, you know, three hours a night for the whole week is quite a commitment that people are making, and really enjoying.

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We've laid the foundation, I'll actually start on the subject of Islam this evening, so we've laid the foundation, and we've still got a lot of material to cover, but it's really, really been great.

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So, really exciting stuff, and I'm very thankful for the opportunity of being here and doing this.

01:00:01

So, anyway, thanks for watching the program today. Thanks to Tom Buck for joining us via Skype, giving us a little bit of an insight inside of the

01:00:12

Southern Baptist Convention there, what happened. And certainly, we'll be praying for that situation and observing very carefully, because it's not just the

01:00:22

Southern Baptist Convention. The Presbyterians have their issues in these areas, and now it's coming in at high speed within the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And the next few years are going to be really going to give us an idea of what the future is going to be looking like in American evangelicalism.

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And remember, America is not the sum of all things. God has his people all over this world, and that's something to always keep in mind.

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We can tend to forget that. So, thanks for watching the program, and Lord Willen, we'll be seeing you a week from tomorrow is when