James White - The Davinci Code Controversy

How many of you have read the Da Vinci Code? What would you estimate that as, about 5 %?

How many of you have seen someone else reading the Da Vinci Code? Yeah.

How many of you are sick and tired of seeing the Da Vinci Code? Okay, all right. I don't know about you,

I do a lot of traveling. We call me the traveling elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and I travel through airports, and not only do

I see the Da Vinci Code in every bookstore right out front, but what was significantly more of a concern to me was the number of people that I saw reading the book.

It's one thing for people to buy a book and not read it. It's another thing for them to buy it and read it, and everybody hopefully knows that in May of next year, a major motion picture starring

Tom Hanks on this subject is going to appear. And so we cannot ignore this.

If you have not read it, you have not heard about this, I think you're going to be somewhat shocked at what this book says and why it says it.

And hopefully this evening, by putting some of these quotes on the screen, we'll be able to help prepare you for quite literally the onslaught against the

Scriptures represented by this particular book. More than 20 million copies, and that was in hardback, sold worldwide.

If you know anything about publishing, that is just simply outlandish. It is incredible, and what that does is it opens up a lot of doors for you, if you're the author, to do pretty much anything you want to do in the future.

It really does. It's also pretty much a guarantee your next book's going to flop, but anyways. Ask Jabez, or whatever that guy's name is.

Some of you may have noticed that when it was at the top of the sales charts, all of the, especially

ABC, for some reason ABC really likes to go after anything that is opposed to the

Christian faith. I think ABC stands for Anything But Christianity. I think that's the call letters there.

And so they had specials, and they had scholars on discussing various sundry aspects, the theories of the book, and so on and so forth.

And, of course, we also have the fact that, like I said, in May of, hello, hello, computer, there we go, remember that one?

Computer, my best Scottish voice. May of 2006, I think it's May 16th.

The Da Vinci Code, I've already seen the posters up in the movie theaters, so on and so forth.

I don't know if they're going to try to clean it up a little bit. I doubt it. I really, really doubt it.

I imagine the same things that are causing, that are such a problem factually and historically will be in the next section of the movie as well.

Now, the Da Vinci Code is fiction that is written as fact.

Very clearly, as we listen to Dan Brown speaking today, he has come to believe most of the things that he says in the book.

But you see, by placing it in the form of fiction, he is then able to dodge the challenge that would be made if he wrote it as a factual treatise.

Now, obviously, it's a page turner. It wouldn't have sold 20 million copies if it wasn't interesting to read.

And so it's easy to put this kind of conspiratorial information in the form of fiction while presenting it as fact and then use that as your shield, your defense, so you don't feel that you have to defend what, in fact, the book itself is saying.

Unfortunately, my clicker has died, so I'm going to do this. Now, from Dan Brown's website, we have a question asked of him.

What do you think of clerical scholars attempting to disprove the

Da Vinci Code? Now, immediately, think about what that means about a book of fiction. Disprove a book of fiction.

Obviously, people recognize this book is making claims beyond merely what is found within that context.

He says, the dialogue is wonderful. Isn't that a wonderful postmodern phrase? The dialogue is wonderful.

These authors and I obviously disagree about what, Mr. Brown? Fiction? How can you be disagreeing about something that's fictional?

But the debate that is being generated is a positive, powerful force. The more vigorously we debate these topics, the better our understanding of our own spirituality.

Controversy and dialogue are healthy for religion as a whole. Religion has only one true enemy, apathy.

And passionate debate is a superb antidote. Well, it's funny. The debate tomorrow evening was actually arranged after we attempted to get

Dan Brown to debate up here on this very subject. And he wasn't going to do that.

Another thing from his website, some of the history in this novel contradicts what I learned in school.

That's because it contradicts everything anyone's ever learned in school. What should

I believe? Well, since the beginning of recorded time, listen to this, history has been written by the winners, those societies and belief systems that conquered and survived.

Despite an obvious bias in this accounting method, we still measure the historical accuracy of a given concept by examining how well it concurs with our existing historical record.

Well, we're going to apply that same record of consistency to the Da Vinci Code. Many historians now believe, as I do, that engaging the historical accuracy of a given concept, we should first ask ourselves a far deeper question.

How historically accurate is history itself? Well, given that we're going to discover that Mr.

Brown can't even get people into the right centuries, I'm not really sure that this is really his best way of defending his particular position.

Now, of course, the grab of the Da Vinci Code and what makes people so interested in it and what makes people who are looking for an excuse not to believe so amenable to this particular book is that conspiracy theory element.

There are just certain people that are susceptible to conspiracy theories. Now, there is political conspiracy theories and things like that.

But when it comes to the Christian faith, isn't it amazing? What do you think would have happened if the

Da Vinci Code was about the Quran? Would Dan Brown be jetting around the world as a millionaire or would he be hiding from a fatwa?

Would they have done multimedia presentations? Would ABC have been interviewing him about a book about the

Quran? No. Of course not. This is about Christianity and that's politically correct to attack the

Christian faith. And that's what this book is. It is an attack upon the Christian faith as we will see. And so, when it comes to the

Christian faith, even the wildest conspiracy theories, well, that's okay.

That will sell. That will make you a multi -millionaire. Now, while the book is aimed primarily at Roman Catholicism and that in particular and by name,

I mean the Vatican ends up existing centuries before it was ever built and things like that and organizations existing long before they actually came into existence in regards to Roman Catholicism.

Still, it's what we would call collateral damage spreads to all the Christian faith because the fundamental assertions have to do with who

Jesus is, how the scriptures were written, rewritten, amended, changed, so on and so forth.

Those are a part of what we have. Now, major spoiler here, not that you didn't expect you were going to find out what the book was about, but if you, for some strange reason, have just been dying to read it, you might want to plug your ears for a few moments here and not read the screen.

The central theme of the Da Vinci Code, of course, is the search for the

Holy Grail. And except for those of you who immediately are beginning to think of things regarding Monty Python, I can guarantee you

Monty Python is more historically accurate than Dan Brown is. Quite, quite more historically accurate, actually.

The whole idea is you're not searching for that cup from the Last Supper.

That's not what the Holy Grail is. Mary Magdalene is the Holy Grail for she was married to Jesus and she bore him a daughter named

Sarah. And so she is the Holy Grail. And the fact that she was supposed to lead the church and Jesus was a mortal man with mortal passions and children and so on and so forth, this is the great secret.

After the crucifixion of Jesus, she lives in France and a group grows up around her that is meant to protect her and so on and so forth because of all the people trying to get rid of her, because the people who hijacked the

Christian movement as soon as Jesus was dead, which of course wasn't supposed to happen anyways.

And so they are trying to protect the truth about the mortal Jesus from the agents of the

Vatican who are out to get her and to suppress her story and the history of the church becomes this suppression of the woman -led church by the male hierarchy, etc.,

etc., etc. And you can see how that kind of a conspiracy fits in so well with people who today are pushing, for example, even within Roman Catholicism for women priests and a change in the hierarchy of the church and so on and so forth.

Now the work blatantly, by citation, mentions numerous other books that in essence it sort of plagiarizes from.

It borrows from them so heavily in regards to this alleged conspiracy regarding Jesus that you would think that there have been some lawsuits filed and I think if I'm, I might be correct that there may have been one because of how much money, of course,

Dan Brown ended up making out of all this. He mentions these books that talk about this secret.

And then the expert storyteller, a guy named Teebing, and I'm not sure, but I would imagine this is probably the role that Tom Hanks will have,

I would assume, I'm not sure, says of the response of Rome to these books, quote, Outrage, of course, but that was to be expected.

After all, this was a secret the Vatican had tried to bury in the 4th century. Let me stop for a moment. The Vatican in the 4th century?

I'm not just talking about the building. All of these conspiracy theories are so historically laughable that there was actually that kind of a centrally located power base and a group of people with that kind of power.

It's absolutely absurd to anyone who knows anything about history at all. Beyond that, we're going to discover that Dan Brown does not understand something that a lot of us struggled with back at the turn of the millennium.

Remember back in 2000? There was all the argumentation about whether 2000 was the end of the last century or the beginning of the next century.

Remember all those arguments we had about that when we weren't arguing about Y2K? Remember Y2K? Y2K, what is that?

I don't know. In reality, when we talk about, we are in the, what century are we in?

21st century. Except the number starts with 20, right? Well, so what would the numbers be at the beginning of the 4th century?

Three. Dan Brown doesn't know that. With consistency, he keeps putting, for example,

Emperor Constantine 100 years out of when he actually lived. Because he doesn't understand the difference between 3rd century and the 300s.

4th century and the 400s. Just an amazing thing. You can be rich and not really know your history well.

It doesn't really matter. So, the Vatican had tried to burn the 4th century, which he's probably thinking of as the 400s and not the 300s.

That's part of what the Crusades were about. Gathering and destroying information. The threat Mary Magdalene posed to the men of the early church was potentially ruinous.

And so you have all the people that are into goddesses and all that kind of stuff are really into this kind of conspiracy.

Because see, those Catholics have been after us women all along. See, and here's proof of it. Not only was she the woman to whom

Jesus had assigned the task of founding the church. Not Peter, but to Mary.

But she also had physical proof that the church's, listen to this, newly proclaimed deity had spawned a mortal bloodline.

The church, in order to defend itself against the Magdalene's power, perpetuated her image as a whore and buried evidence of Christ's marriage to her, thereby defusing any potential claims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal prophet.

Page 254 of the Da Vinci Code. So there you have the idea of the

Da Vinci Code. Now, what can you base something like this on? Well, Dan Brown utilizes a very poorly documented source.

When I say very poorly documented, we don't have almost any evidence of it going way back.

We have very small fragments of this Gospel of Mary. And it's very clearly influenced by Gnosticism.

It comes from at the earliest of the second century. Now, obviously, Dan Brown would argue, well, the reason you don't have more manuscripts of it is because the church suppressed it.

That's what the crusades were all about, etc., etc., etc. But this Gospel of Mary is the material that he utilizes to demonstrate that Mary was supposed to be the head of the apostles.

And so, here is a citation from the actual Gospel of Mary. It says, Then Mary stood up.

This is Mary Magdalene, not the Virgin Mary. That can be confusing to people. Greeted them all, and said to her brethren,

Do not weep, and do not grieve, nor be irresolute. For His grace will be entirely with you, and will protect you.

But rather, let us praise His greatness. For He has prepared us, and made us into men. Remember that phrase.

We're going to see it in another source in just a few moments. When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the good, and they began to discuss the words of the

Savior. Now, listen to this. Peter said to Mary. Now, who is Peter according to Roman Catholicism?

First Pope, the one upon whom the Church is founded, Matthew 16, 18, etc., etc. Peter said to Mary, Sister, we know that the

Savior loved you more than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the Savior, which you remember, which you know, and we do not, nor have we heard them.

Mary answered and said, What is hidden from you, I will proclaim to you. So, you see why he finds this so important.

Here is this idea of Mary having knowledge that even

Peter, the head of the male -dominated church, does not understand.

That's why this gospel has to be, quote -unquote, suppressed. Let's look at some other examples from the

Gospel of Mary. Section 4, verses 30 and 31. Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature.

Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body. That is why it said to you, Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged, be encouraged in the presence of the different forms of nature.

What in the world is that? That's called a different worldview than Christianity. That's called Gnosticism.

Okay, that's called Gnosticism. It's dualistic in its understanding. Matter is evil, spirit is good, and very clearly, this is a part of that literature that developed in the second century when

Christianity was indeed at war with Gnosticism, not because of some male -female thing, but because of the very nature of the two religions.

And they remained at war with one another for quite some time. Anyone who studies church history is aware of that fact.

And it's very clearly a part of this Gospel of Mary. In this eighth section, the first form is darkness, the second, desire, the third, ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death.

Yeah, right. The fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom.

These are the seven powers of wrath. They asked the soul, whence do you come, slayer of men, and where are you going, conqueror of space?

The soul answered and said, what binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died.

There you go. There's a good idea of what the Gospel of Mary is all about.

But similar in genre, we'll get back to the Da Vinci Code in just a moment, but I just want to give you some background here.

Similar in genre is the ever -popular Gospel of Thomas, a mid -2nd century work that has been, for all practical purposes, canonized by the

Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar has published a book called The Five Gospels, and it is their translation of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the

Gospel of Thomas. And one could very easily say that the Gospel of Thomas is considered more important to many of the

Jesus Seminar fellows in their reconstruction of Christ than is the Gospel of John. Or maybe even

Matthew and Luke. Here's just a few representative samples of the character of this work. When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces in worship, that one is your father.

If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels, yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty.

I marvel anyone can figure that out. Where there are three deities, they are divine, where there are two or one,

I am with that one. I'll just let you figure these ones out, it's not because of the heat that you're not figuring it out either.

It has something to do with something else. How miserable is the body that depends on a body, and how miserable is the soul that depends on these two.

Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me, I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.

My mom said I could never say this word, so darn the flesh that depends on the soul, and darn the soul that depends on the flesh.

I actually couldn't say darn either, so I'm not really sure how to read these things. This one's my favorite though.

Gospel of Thomas, section 114. Simon Peter said to them, make Mary leave us. Remember Mary?

Mary Magdalene. Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life. Jesus said, look,

I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males.

For every female who makes herself male will enter the domain of heaven. Now I've never figured out why the

Gospel of Thomas is so popular with left wingers. Because, I don't know, doesn't seem like this would really be what they would find to be overly exciting.

But it gives you an idea of the genre of the 2nd century Gnostic literature that tried to fill in the gaps, in essence, from what the canonical

Gospels did not reveal. For example, about the childhood of Christ, or about other aspects of his ministry.

They are ahistorical. They do not have historical validity or meaning to them.

When you see a quotation like this, 231 down there, that is the citation from the

Da Vinci Code. If you want to write that down, on page 231 we read, The Bible is a product of man, not of God.

The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times.

And it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.

Does that sound like fiction to you? Does that sound like someone who is writing a fictional novel?

Or does that sound like someone who is promoting an agenda? Sounds to me like an agenda -driven work, indeed.

And of course, each one of these statements is quite easily challenged. What does it mean, has evolved through countless translations?

Does he think that the Hebrew is translated into the Greek, which is translated into Latin, which is translated into German, which is translated into French, which is translated into English, and it's sort of like the old, you lose something in each translation.

Is that how he thinks we get the Bible? I don't know. It almost sounds that way from that. Same page, more than 80

Gospels were considered for the New Testament. And yet only a relative, now follow this very carefully.

And yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.

And which others were there? The Bible as we know it today was collated by the pagan

Roman emperor, Constantine the Great. Well, you know, it's so easy to vilify

Constantine. And long before the Da Vinci Code came out, I wrote an article for the

CRI Journal back in the 90's called, What Really Happened at the Council of Nicaea? And I told a story at the beginning of the article about standing outside the

Mormon temple in Salt Lake City arguing with a Mormon who said, Well, the canon of Scripture was made up at the

Council of Nicaea anyways. Well, here we have the same completely false assertion that anyone who studied their church history knows is false being repeated by Dan Brown.

Now, 80 Gospels. I've tried to think of all of the Gospel fragments

I've ever heard of and I cannot come up with 80. Not even close to 80.

Where does this stuff come from? Well, the neat thing is when you write fiction, you don't have to use footnotes. You just get to throw that stuff out there and if someone doesn't like it you go,

Yes, it's fiction. I don't have to worry about these things. But again, it doesn't sound to me like this is being presented as fiction.

Here are some miscellaneous silly errors presented as facts in the Da Vinci Code. Early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sexual activity in the

Temple. Page 309. Yeah, right. Yahweh is derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine

Ja and the pre -Hebraic name for Eve, Havah. What?

Now, that kind of an assertion, again, it'll pack out seminars and it'll sell books, but how do you even begin to try to substantiate such an assertion?

Well, you don't have to worry about substantiating it. You're writing fiction, right? Well, how do you disprove something like that?

Well, first of all, maybe reading Hebrew might help and then realizing that Ja, Jehovah, that's a

Germanic adulteration of the Tetragrammaton from centuries after this point in time and long after, thankfully,

Constantine was dead. We can't blame him for this one. I mean, this kind of assertion is beyond the pale.

This one's a real good one. Heretic derived from the time of Constantine and refers to someone who chooses to believe the original story of Christ.

Now, let's put this in context. You know what he's saying there? That a heretic is one who believes his theory about Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene and having a daughter.

And so you are identified as a heretic if you chose to believe the truth about who Jesus really was.

As if that term didn't even appear in, like, the New Testament in regards to divisions and those who divide.

Again, complete absurdity could not be defended in argumentation at all but presented as a factual concept.

Because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death.

Let me ask you a question. The date of Jesus' death is approximately when? Say about 30?

What's four centuries after 30? About 430? When did

Constantine live? When was the Council of Nicaea? 325. So Constantine lived for, what, about 155 years?

I'm sorry, but people who get filthy rich out of not even knowing which centuries Constantine lived in bother me who has taught church history, okay?

It's just, it's sort of a pet peeve there. Anyways, because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling his life as a mortal man.

Thousands of them. Let's try to keep some decorum here.

To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke.

From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history. We don't know which century it was in, but it was a profound moment.

Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those Gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those

Gospels that made him godlike. The earlier Gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.

Amazing how somehow history has no recollection of this event taking place.

History has no recollection of Constantine being involved in such a thing. Has no recollection of these

Gospels. First of all, are there not human traits of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

You better believe there are if you read them fairly anyways. And so we have this pure fiction being presented here about these thousands of documents.

We have manuscript evidence of the New Testament that precedes Constantine. So why don't we have manuscript evidence that shows these

Gospels? We have papyri manuscripts that precede the birth of Constantine.

Why do we not have papyri manuscripts of these others? They were already buried at the time of Constantine. No one could have ever gotten to them.

And yet nothing has ever showed up. Nothing has ever been unearthed. To even begin to substantiate such an absurd claim as what is found in this type of argumentation.

Until that moment in history, that is the Council of Nicaea, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet.

You hear what's being said there? That up until the Council of Nicaea, Christians had suffered and died for a mortal prophet.

They had not believed in the deity of Christ. I had a Jehovah's Witness tell me that once. I had a Jehovah's Witness who walked into our offices.

I'm not sure if he just missed the sign or just what it was, but walked into our offices, sat down in the front offices of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and informed me that no one had believed in the deity of Christ until the 12th century.

Now that was not overly difficult to disprove. He's moving it back a little bit here.

No one before the Council of Nicaea believed in the deity of Christ. Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet, a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless, a mortal.

Jesus' establishment as the Son of God was officially proposed and voted on by the

Council of Nicaea. Now, let me tell you something. Once again, no footnotes, because no one would be even slightly outrageous enough to suggest that the title,

Son of God, was proposed by Constantine. That that was not a part of the original

Scriptures. Again, we have manuscripts of the New Testament, of New Testament books, I should be very clear, of New Testament books that long precede

Constantine that call Jesus the Son of God. We know why Dan Brown isn't going to be debating this issue anytime soon.

Brown has his expert historian opine that the vote on Jesus' divinity at Nicaea was a relatively close vote at that.

I guess at the end of the Nicaea, at Council of Nicaea, they were looking for hanging chads. Now, as you can tell, to identify these claims is absurd is to be absolutely kind to them.

There was no relatively close vote at the Council of Nicaea. The issue was not whether Jesus was the

Son of God. Every person, and numbers disagree, but let's say there were about 318 bishops that attended the

Council of Nicaea. Every single one of them that attended that council believed that Jesus was the

Son of God. Even Arius believed that. In fact, Arius believed Jesus was a god.

There was no one there who denied the deity of Christ. Nobody. Zero. That wasn't even the issue.

Had nothing to do with the canonization of Scripture. Had nothing to do with whether Jesus was the Son of God. And I don't know about you, but I think a vote of 99 to 1 is not overly close.

And yet that's what we were talking about. And again, it wasn't even on the issues that he's talking about there. It was whether Jesus Christ is homoousios, same substance, homoiousios or heteroousios, of a different substance than the

Father. It was about the mode and meaning of Jesus' deity and his relationship with the Father and the

Godhead. That's what the discussion was over. But is

Mr. Brown right? I'd like to demonstrate his error here in such a way as to also encourage you as believers.

For me, looking back and seeing what early Christians said, where I believe the same thing, is extremely encouraging.

We do sometimes lose our connection to Christian history when we think church history only goes back about 50 years.

There is great encouragement when we agree together with one another. I was greatly encouraged to listen to my brother Renahan preaching because those who've heard me address the exact same subject, you're probably going, now wait a minute.

And we did not collude on the presentation. Other than the fact that we're both Reformed Baptists and we tend to say the same things.

But it was greatly encouraging. Same material, same importance of the same things because I've had to defend that belief so many times.

Scripture is theanousos, it's God breathed. We need to look at the origin of Scripture, what its nature is. All of that is extremely important.

Saying the same things, hearing someone else saying the same things, very encouraging. And it's wonderful to see people who lived,

Ignatius, who was also called Theophorus, died in 107 or 108. For Mr.

Brown's benefit, that's the early 2nd century. 107 -108,

Bishop of Antioch, he writes seven letters as he's going to Rome to be martyred there. And those letters are filled with references to the very things that Dan Brown says

Constantine invented 200 years later. For example, in his letter to the

Ephesians, Ignatius, who was also called Theophorus, to her who has been blessed in greatness through the fullness of God the

Father, ordained before time to be always resulting in permanent glory, unchangeably united and chosen in true passion by the will of the

Father and of Jesus Christ, our God, to the church which is in Ephesus of Asia, worthy of felicitation, abundant greetings in Jesus Christ and in blameless joy.

Sounds like he believed in the deity of Christ before Constantine was ever born. He also wrote to the

Ephesians, My spirit is but an offscouring of the cross, which is a scandal to the unbelieving. But to us it is salvation and life eternal.

Where is the wise man? Where is the disputer? Sounds like Ignatius had read 1 Corinthians. Doesn't sound like that way to you?

Where is the boasting of those who are called understanding? For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to a dispensation of God from the seed of David, yes, but of the

Holy Spirit as well. Sounds like he has a very high view of Christ, doesn't it? Await the one who is above every season, the eternal, the invisible, the one who for our sakes became visible, the untouched, the impassable, who for our sakes suffered, who endured in every way for our sake.

Sounds like he believed in the deity of Christ. One of my favorite passages from the ancient writers,

Ephesians 7, there is one physician, listen to this, there is one physician of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate,

God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first passable and then impassable,

Jesus Christ our Lord. Talk about a high Christology. And that in 107 wasn't made up by Constantine.

But my favorite is Melito Sardis. Melito was a politically incorrect guy.

That's maybe why I like him. He ended up on the wrong end of a debate that to us seems a little bit silly. It was about when to date

Easter, the quarter decimal controversy. He ended up on the wrong side of that. He was in the Eastern view instead of the side that won.

And so his writing sort of fell into disuse because of that. But around 178 -ish, 180, around there, he wrote a

Paschal Sermon, a sermon on the Passover. And so here's someone, again, well over a century before Constantine's birth, and listen to the sermon, this section of the sermon, and also even beyond the da

Vinci issue, just listen to what our forefathers in the faith believed that we believe.

And so he was lifted up upon a cross, and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed.

Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen as you tremble before Him on whose account the earth trembled.

He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.

He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree. The sovereign is insulted. God is murdered.

The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand. This is the one who made the heavens and the earth and formed mankind in the beginning.

The one proclaimed by the law and the prophets. The one enfleshed in a virgin. The one hanged on a tree. The one buried in the earth.

The one raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven. The one sitting at the right hand of the Father. The one having all authority to judge and save.

Through whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time. This one is the Alpha and the Omega. This one is the beginning and the end.

The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible. This one is the Christ. This one is the King. This one is

Jesus. This one is the leader. This one is the Lord. This one is the one who rose from the dead. This one is the one sitting on the right hand of the

Father. He bears the Father and is born by the Father. To Him be the glory and power forever.

Amen. Don't tell me, Mr. Brown, that Constantine made up my faith. And I don't know about you, but I would not want to stand before God, the

Heavenly Father someday to answer for the publication of lies about Christ and lies about history that made you a multi -millionaire in this life.

You ain't going to take it with you, Mr. Brown. Facts are facts.

Now, Dan Brown's attack upon the Christian faith, allegedly fictional, is very easily refuted.

But he's not the only one attacking the Christian faith today. Tomorrow night, I will have a debate with Dr.

John Dominick Crossan. As most of you know, he is the co -founder of the Jesus Seminar. Some of you may not know that the other founder of the

Jesus Seminar is a man by the name of Dr. Robert Funk. Dr.

Robert Funk. Dr. Funk has written 21 theses to the coming Reformation.

I would like to read you some of these theses to give you an idea of the worldview and perspective of one of the co -founders of the

Jesus Seminar. The God of the metaphysical age is dead. There is not a personal

God out there, external to human beings in the material world. We must reckon with a deep crisis in God -talk and replace it with talk about whether the universe has meaning and whether human life has purpose.

That doesn't even sound like a theistic system to me. That sounds like atheism. The doctrine of special creation of the species died with the advent of Darwinism and the new understanding of the age of the earth and magnitude of the physical universe.

Special creation goes together with the notion that the earth and human beings are at the center of the galaxy. The galaxy is anthropocentric.

The demise of a geocentric universe took the doctrine of special creation with it. Number 3.

The deliteralization of the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis brought an end to the dogma of original sin as something inherited from the first human being.

Death is not punishment for sin, but is entirely natural. And sin is not transmitted from generation to generation by means of male sperm, as suggested by Augustine.

Number 4. The notion that God interferes with the order of nature from time to time in order to aid or punish is no longer credible.

Those are miracles, by the way. In spite of the fact that most people still believe it. Miracles are an affront to the justice and integrity of God, however understood.

Miracles are conceivable only as the inexplicable, otherwise they contradict the regularity of the order of the physical universe.

Dr. Funk seems to be a naturalistic materialist at that point. Don't worry, I'm not going to read all 21.

I couldn't take it either. Number 5. Prayer is meaningless when understood as requests addressed to an external

God for favor or forgiveness and meaningless if God does not interfere with the laws of nature.

Prayer as praise is a remnant of the age of kingship in the ancient Near East and is beneath the dignity of deity.

Prayer should be understood principally as meditation, as listening rather than talking, and as attention to the needs of neighbor.

Number 6. We should give Jesus a demotion. It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine.

Jesus' divinity goes together with the old theistic way of thinking about God. Well, how else do you think about God anyways?

Should we have the atheistic way of thinking about God? What exactly does that mean? I've not quite figured that one out.

Last one. The plot early Christians invented for a divine redeemer figure is as archaic as the mythology in which it is framed.

A Jesus who drops down out of heaven, performs a magical act that frees human beings from the power of sin, rises from the dead, returns to heaven, is simply no longer credible.

As if that's ever how anybody put it. The notion that He will return at the end of time and sit in cosmic judgment is equally incredible.

We must find a new plot for a more credible Jesus. Now think about this.

This is the co -founder of the Jesus Seminar. These are the people that are being touted as the cutting edge of scholarly research.

Sounds like Dr. Funk has an agenda. He's looking for a new, more credible

Jesus. You think that might influence his research? Might just do that.

1989, I had an interesting experience, and with this we'll be wrapping up because Steve's got his stuff ready to go back there, and when

Steve's ready to go, you just get out of the way or he'll start playing music and I won't be able to finish. 1989,

I was in my last semester of seminary. I guess

I should go ahead and tell you it was Fuller Theological Seminary, which proves that there are still miracles in this world.

I had the opportunity. The Jesus Seminar started in 1985. This is four years later. They get together each year and they discuss certain elements of what

Jesus allegedly said and didn't say. You remember how they vote with marbles and stuff like that. They had just come to the conclusion that Jesus did not say he was rising from the dead.

I'm sorry. Jesus did not say he was coming back, so he's not. That was the big media blitz at the time.

Jesus never said he was returning, so he's not, so we can stop worrying about that. Local radio station,

KFYI, which is still on. In fact, the fellow that you're going to hear, Barry Young, is still on in the same time slot, actually, that he was on at this particular time.

I had been on the program numerous times. If any of you have ever seen the shock jock Tom Likas, I was on with Tom Likas 16 times when

I was 21 years old on KFYI, debating various sundry subjects.

That's where I got the thick skin, or the thick head, one of the two, I'm not sure which. Anyway, I was called and asked to join a group of people that were going to talk with Dr.

Funk about the Jesus Seminar's decision that Jesus never said he was returning, and so he's not.

I can't play the whole thing for you. It's on our website, and I think it's out there. Is the CD back there?

The CD's out on the table. I'm going to play you three short little clips, and they are in order.

You'll be able to hear the escalation in the conversation. He was on for about 90 minutes.

I want you to just listen to what Dr. Funk said in my interaction with him. Let's hope that this doesn't blow up when

I press the button here. Moreover, I don't know of a single critical scholar who really mounts an argument that any of the

Gospels were written by followers of Jesus, immediate followers of Jesus. Excuse me, would you consider

Dr. F .F. Bruce as being a scholar? Well, he's really marginal to the modern Christian movement.

He's the only one. Marginal? Wait a minute now, he's just about the only one that can be cited. How about Dr.

Leon Morris? Dr. Morris? How about that? Same character.

You see, what you're talking about are people that are really on the fringes of modern biblical scholarship.

I'd like to point out that, for example, my graduate work is at Fuller Theological Seminary, and individuals such as that would be considered very mainline.

I'm afraid that this is a hopeless kind of conversation. I want to point out to you the very obvious fact that you don't have anybody representing any of the mainline churches in this conversation, other than myself.

What do you mean? That says an awful lot about the kind of people you have to find who can champion this sort of view.

Do you think we're kind of scratching the bottom of the barrel here? Who would you identify as mainline churches?

Would you consider, for example, the 14 million member Southern Baptist Convention to have anything to do with the mainline? You're really being dominated by a very small group,

I'm sorry to say. Most of the Southern Baptists I know would like to be a part of this process, but are being forced by many people in the

Southern Baptist Convention, who are on a whip -shunt these days, out of this conversation. And I think that's really very unfortunate that we're having the

Inquisition all over again. Well, I'm not a part of any kind of Inquisition, sir. You were just referring to that as something which you approve,

I take it. No, I don't necessarily approve of that at all, but I am pointing out that, for example, individuals such as Dr.

F .F. Bruce or Dr. Leon Morris are not in any way, shape, or form fringe element scholars at all.

Your definition of scholarship... I do, sir.

I do, sir. No, I'm afraid you don't. So, we start off with the assertion of what is and what is not scholarship.

It's scholarship if it agrees with Dr. Funk. And someone like F .F. Bruce is on the fringe.

Okay, keep that in mind. It continued to get a little warmer, shall we say. And obviously you are in the minority amongst all

Christians. Well, I'm not on a witch hunt, sir. I'm attempting to point out what you're actually saying.

I'm fascinated... He called you stupid. I'm fascinated to find out why you feel this is an

Inquisition. I don't see it as that. It's just a discussion with three guys dressed in, you know, coat and tie sitting here.

And I imagine you're probably the same way. The reason it turns out... I mean, they killed people in an Inquisition.

That's what these people are doing around the country. I don't think they've threatened your life.

I haven't heard that. Okay, so we've got the Inquisition and the witch hunt going on.

And now, finally, during the break at the half hour of the second hour,

I saw the host looking into the control room. Now, I did radio. I grew up doing radio. I started doing radio when

I was 16. I did on -the -air work for many, many years. And so, I was watching what was going on here.

I knew something was happening. And so, we came back on the air. And this is what happened.

Dr. Funk, are you there? Oh, we're going to try to call him. Hello? Dr. Funk, we lost the line here.

Yes, you lost the line intentionally. Why is that, sir? Well, I really don't... This conversation is not a good conversation.

I'm not interested in carrying it on. I'm sorry. Did you tell our producer to tell us to go to hell?

Yes, I did. You told... You lied to me yesterday. Your producer lied to me yesterday.

Nobody lied to you, sir. Oh, yes, you did. No, no. You told our producer and our guest and all and me to go to hell?

I did, indeed. And you're a biblical scholar? Yes, I did. Why do you want us to go to hell, sir?

Well, hell is a good place to go. Hell is a good place to go? Yes. Why is that? Well, I'm sorry.

I'm not interested in pursuing the conversation. Why is that, sir? Well, because it's not a profitable... Have you been mistreated in some way?

It's not a profitable conversation. Have you been mistreated in some way? Only I was misled.

You were misled in what way? Well, I was told I would not carry on the conversation from people who represented the fundamentalist point of view.

No, sir, you were not. Yes, I was told that. No, of course you weren't. I was guaranteed that. You were not.

And, sir, if you were guaranteed that, why did you go on the air for 90 minutes? You were not guaranteed that.

All right, well, I'm going to cease right now. Thank you very much. So you want us to go to hell. Okay. Well, there you have it, biblical scholar

Dr. Robert Frost. Yeah, well, it proved to be an interesting experience.

No two ways about it. Did you notice, though, the statement there? I was promised

I would not have to talk to a fundamentalist. That's someone who actually believes the

Bible is the Word of God, evidently. That's a nice term that's utilized along those lines. Now, I don't expect tomorrow night to be like my encounter with Dr.

Frost. Dr. Croston is a very different type of individual. And, in fact, I really am expecting that the level of dialogue will be the same at the beginning of the debate that it is at the end of the debate.

You won't have that little graph going upwards toward the end. I think it will be a very civil conversation.

And besides that, he's not on the phone, so he can't hang up on us anyway. But he approaches the issue from a very different perspective.

Not that the conclusions are different, but as far as just on a personal level. The faith is under attack from every which direction.

And the Jesus Seminar, you see their citations, their conclusions, on those wonderful scholarly journals that we put next to the cash register at the grocery store.

Biblical scholars say Jesus never said He's returning, so He's not right above Elvis spotted in Memphis again, and so on and so forth.

And Time Magazine puts them on every Easter. I'm so sick of it. Every Christmas, every Easter, these are the folks that get there.

Or it's Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code. As long as it attacks the

Word of God and the person of Christ, it will get the media's attention. You'll notice that the only cameras back there we bought.

They were not brought by the local television stations. They were not brought by the local media outlets, because this kind of discussion is not interesting to them.

Folks, when we send our young people off to university, this is the kind of stuff that they get shot with right here.

And because we don't talk about it in our own churches, because we don't discuss the canon of Scripture, because we don't discuss church history, because we don't discuss the transmission of Scripture, because we don't discuss the development of doctrine, what happened to the

Council of Nicaea, they're left defenseless. They've never heard this stuff before.

Now, we talk about this stuff in my church, but then again, we're weird. I teach the adult Bible study. But in most churches, what's the idea today?

Don't challenge people. I remember, and I'll let Brother Askell comment upon this in his own time, but years ago when

I was still at a Southern Baptist church, I was teaching the adult Sunday school class, and I was brought in after teaching through Romans.

They gave us one week to cover Romans 9, 10, and 11. That was fun. And I was brought into the

Minister of Education's office, and I was told, Jim, what you need to do when you're teaching is to assume that every person in front of you, this is the first Sunday they've ever been in a church.

And you're to do that every week. Don't challenge. Don't call to a higher level.

Folks, that is the perfect recipe for creating apostates. The world is not going to cut us a break.

The world's not going to cut our kids a break. We live in a post -Christian society that hates the

Word of God. If God, by His Spirit, as Dr. Renahan said, if God is by His Spirit, has given us that testimony, has made our heart new,

I believe the regenerate heart loves the Word of God. If that is our testimony, then we need to realize that that faith will always be under attack.

The world can't be neutral to the Word of God. And so we cannot sit back.

We don't live in the 1860s anymore when the society in general had a respect for the

Bible and would blush to say the things that these people print and say openly.

That's not our context anymore. And we'll be the better for it when we realize it isn't.

That's why we're doing this conference. That's why we're doing the debate. That's why we're doing everything that we're doing. We can trust the

Spirit of God will apply that to the hearts of His people and encourage you to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that's within you.