Report on Salt Lake Missions Trip & Debates, Then the Heresy of “Black Forgiveness”

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:29

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. We're going to sneak a program in here. I hadn't planned to do it, but I leave for Australia tomorrow.

00:37

But it's a little later in the day than I'd thought, so that leaves some time tomorrow to finish repacking.

00:44

Having just landed last evening from Salt Lake, I spoke at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church twice in the morning.

00:51

At least I think I did. I don't have a whole lot of memory of it. But we wanted to get a report in, and then there were a couple things to comment on real quick before I head off to Australia.

01:04

And I'm gone for 13 days, and I don't know, you know, if we're gonna try to sneak any programs from down there in during that time or not.

01:13

We'll see. It's, it's... Excuse me. I knew that was coming.

01:20

Let's hope that doesn't mean anything. That's the biggest thing. If you want to see the debates continuing,

01:26

I need to stay healthy. And I've got a 15 and a half hour flight from LAX to Sydney, and that's a long time in a sealed tube with 300, 400 other people.

01:41

Anyway, so we'll see about programs.

01:46

I just wanted to get a report in while things are still fresh on my mind, or at least relatively fresh on my mind, as to what went down in Salt Lake City.

01:57

Went up there, sort of a joint effort between ourselves and Apologia Church.

02:05

We... I sort of feel sorry on one hand for all the folks from Apologia, because they have never gotten the joy of staying at the downtown

02:21

Motel 6. It's just, it's, and it's still there, and you know what it costs now?

02:28

Oh my goodness, you, it just shows how long it has been. I sent you,

02:34

I know I was there a couple years ago, and I sent you a picture as I drove by, and it was ridiculous amount of money in comparison.

02:41

We paid $29 .99 or... Yeah, I think it was something like that. Yeah, it was, it was, now it's like $59 .99

02:48

or something like that. I don't know. But these poor people have never pushed a 1974

02:55

Sunbeetle around the parking lot of the Motel 6, and I mean, they've had it easy.

03:04

But we've, there was no internet, and there was no

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Airbnb the last time we were up there. There was a Crossroads Plaza the last time we were up there.

03:16

There isn't any longer. Yeah, things had changed a lot. What they definitely will miss out on is the idea that it wasn't just the

03:25

Motel 6. If 12, 14, 20 of us, I think one time we had 20 go up.

03:31

Oh, we did, yeah. And... In satin baseball jackets. Yes, in the satin baseball jackets.

03:36

Yes, we looked great! We were cool. We were. We were very young and stupid. No, I would do them again.

03:43

I'd do them again. What the folks at Apologia should remember is that two of you would go up ahead of time and rent two rooms at Motel 6, and the rest of us would come up, drive all night long, and then the next morning we would get there, and you guys would open up the two rooms, and all 20 of us would shower, sometimes using...

04:11

let's just say there weren't enough towels for everybody sometimes. I don't... I didn't remember all that.

04:17

Yeah, well, you were already up there. I was already up there, and I was already showered, yeah. That worked all day, got in the car, drove all night, did that, then went out, and then...

04:27

That was early on. We started later after that. We started coming up earlier, and...

04:32

We were getting older, that's why. We were getting older and wiser, yeah. But now you see, we've found this house.

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It's a bit of a drive, but we call it the

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Polygamy Palace because it probably was designed for polygamous families.

04:54

It can sleep comfortably 30 in one house, and that's not using any of the couches or air mattresses for the kids, stuff like that.

05:06

So you could probably, once you do the kids stuff, you could probably do 40 in a single house. It's got an indoor pool, an indoor game room, an indoor movie theater in this house, and it's an

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Airbnb. And so, yeah, we had... We pretty much filled the place up, so we had over 30 people up there, including the kids, and they came out on Saturday morning to the conference.

05:32

Little Marley and I started having some fun. She has some carrot -colored hair in the back, dyed in the back, and I was asking her if I could have some for my head.

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She's five, and she thought that was pretty weird. So she was... It was cold.

05:47

It was very, very cold. Anyways, how did we get off on that? Anyways, things have changed going up to Salt Lake City.

05:52

So I wanted to give a report on stuff, and so I flew up.

05:59

I've driven up there many, many, many times. Know that route very, very well, but had to fly up this time.

06:06

I did rent a bike, and I did some riding up there, but I did some riding with other folks who

06:15

I'll not mention, but was establishing relationships and things like that with some folks up there, and rode up Garza Pass, or up to Garza Pass the first day, and then up to the top of it the second day.

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But anyway, I got up there, and we had scheduled an incredible, incredible amount of stuff.

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I mean, normally you just go up there, and you do the conference.

06:44

That's normally enough, especially if you stay there all the way through to the evening. By the way, the priesthood meeting is only in the spring now.

06:54

In the fall, such as this one, there is a ladies' meeting that has taken the place of the priesthood meeting.

07:02

Yes, indeed. Very, very interesting. I was sending rich pictures.

07:09

Since I got there early, I went to Deseret Book, which used to be sort of down the street, catty corner from where the temple was.

07:20

Well, since the church took over the property of Crossroads Plaza, and tore it down, and then rebuilt this sort of open thing,

07:28

Deseret Book is now the first thing directly across from the South Gate. And so I went into Deseret Book, and I'm thinking the

07:38

Deseret Book of 1998. Well, last time we were in there was probably 2001, 2002, 2003, somewhere around there.

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And the same changes that we would recognize in Christian bookstores has taken place at Deseret.

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Massive minimization of books. And now you've got trinkets.

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Amazingly enough, the entire temple section, with the temple garments and everything, was open and visible.

08:15

They had Michelle Obama's book at Deseret. And the thing that struck me the most is when you finally got to the theology section, which used to be huge.

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It's minuscule in comparison to what it once was. And it's in alphabetical order.

08:35

So I looked up McConkie, found

08:40

McConkie. A grand total of five books, three copies of one, two copies of another, so only two books, total of five books tucked in the corner.

08:53

That's all McConkie had. And when I think back on all his stuff on the millennium,

08:59

Mormon doctrine, all that kind of stuff, I'm just like, wow, has this place changed?

09:08

And it had. It had in a massive way. So that just sort of reflected a lot of the changes that have been going on in Mormonism.

09:19

But let's start in chronological order. Some of you have already been watching, and there'll be another two -camera shoot that will be posted later this week,

09:33

I think on Wednesday, from our camera crew from Apologia. The debate that Jeff Durbin and I did with two representatives of the atheists.

09:48

And for some of you who are saying that the one less loquacious individual didn't expect that Dr.

10:01

Clark would behave the way that he did. No, he knew he would.

10:07

And the reason I know this is that the primary thing that I listened to to prepare for debating

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Dr. Clark was a lengthy hour -and -a -half presentation he did at an atheist meeting, and he was introduced by the same guy who introduced him as not a harsh atheist, but a strong atheist.

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And they're all like, ha ha ha ha ha, yeah. And Clark was talking about how he had written letters to the editor complaining about Mother Teresa and stuff like that.

10:40

So there wasn't... No, he knew that that was a possibility. We knew that was a possibility.

10:47

I had, Jeff will tell you, I had hoped for better. I had hoped. Dr. Clark is obviously a very intelligent individual.

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He did not demonstrate that during the debate, but if you listen to, if you look up on YouTube, Utah Atheist, you'll find that it didn't take me much work to find this particular presentation.

11:09

When he's talking about his work in prosthetics, he's not vile.

11:15

He doesn't talk like that. Almost MPD, almost multiple personality disorder.

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There's two different people, two completely different people. So I had hoped that the other person that I had heard talking about his work might show up.

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He didn't. Instead, I first saw him trying to step up on the stage without using the stairs and almost falling flat on his face.

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And I had no idea who, I didn't recognize him. Because as you saw, the atheist did not decide to dress up much for the debate.

11:58

And so once I realized who it was, we had already put our stuff down.

12:04

I had put my books out on the table and stuff. And he said, could we be on this side?

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Because I can only hear out of my left ear. I'm pretty much blind and I can only hear out of my left ear. So you need to be to the left of us.

12:17

So Jeff and I were like, okay, you know, so we packed our stuff up and moved over to the other side. That's fine. And then when we were talking about right before the debate, where we were going to do our presentations from, he's like, well,

12:30

I tend to walk around a lot. Well, okay, you know, we're going to be here at the podium, but I suppose if you want to walk around, well, you know why he was walking around.

12:44

I don't think he could stay behind a podium, to be honest with you. I think it would distract him too much to have to do that.

12:53

So Jeff and I had, I decided, let Jeff go first, cover what

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Jeff wanted to cover. And then I would fill basically, because one of my skills from my youth was

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I was a radio announcer. So I can fill. When I'm at a conference and somebody else goes over time,

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I'm the one that can make my presentation shorter and still make sense, fit into time, get us back on time.

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I've done it for decades. So I'm like, you go first. You cover what you want to cover.

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Then I'll do some illustration, fill in for the time that we've got. 15 minutes ain't much.

13:36

So we did our thing and made our presentation. And you saw what happened in regards to their opening statement.

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Only Dr. Clark spoke and demonstrated that Thor did not exist, that he should never be on a basketball team because he's trying to chuck

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Bibles, Book of Mormon, and the Quran into a trash can, mixed with all of them. And that they really, really, really hate the

14:08

Christian God. But other than that, there was no meaningful interaction whatsoever. There was just a lot of accusation, a lot of strutting around, coming over to us, and sticking fingers in your face, and these people getting paid, and da -da -da -da -da -da, and all this kind of stuff.

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Just, you might say, you know, why can't you find anybody better?

14:27

Because this is atheism. In the 1980s, the

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American atheists had their convention in Scottsdale, Arizona. They're going to be back next year in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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And we decided that we were going to go out and hold signs outside the resort they were staying at.

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I forgot which resort. It was right on Scottsdale Road. I remember that. And we had atheists almost coming up on the curb in their cars and cussing us out and giving us the finger.

15:00

We had employees from the resort coming out and saying, we are so glad you're here, and telling us about the behavior of the atheists overnight in the hotel, where they dress somebody up like Jesus, and they're chasing him through the door.

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You saw it. Atheism breeds that kind of behavior.

15:34

It speaks to one's heart, and that ends up leaking out, or sometimes just flowing out.

15:42

So you saw the attempt at cross -examination. That might have been one situation where, though it wouldn't have worked either, where you have 30 seconds to ask a question, one minute to answer, 30 seconds to rebut, something along those lines, because the free -flowing form of debate requires self -restraint on both sides.

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It requires both sides to actually want the debate to be done well, and both sides to be heard, and for there to be meaningful interaction.

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And obviously, that wasn't the situation with the atheist side. And so, then we got to the closing statements.

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And, oh, by the way, he interrupted my comments because I held up my iPad, and he was objecting because I was using visual aids.

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And we had agreed not to use visual aids, that is, PowerPoint or Keynote. I wasn't using

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PowerPoint or Keynote. I was referring to a single manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a molecule.

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Well, he had come. What was amazing is he was objecting. He had come with all his visual aids.

16:54

He was just mad that I got to it before he did. He was going to check those Bibles and the Book of Mormon and the

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Quran in the trash, and he had that bottle of Prestone with him. So we get into the closing statement after that level of hypocrisy, and we get into the closing statement, and so he pours

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Prestone into a clear plastic cup, and based on the longer ending of Mark, about drinking poison, and this should be some of the signs, asks if there is anyone in the audience who will stand up for Jesus and drink the stuff.

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There was a guy about two rows from the top in the back that stood up and volunteered, and Jeff is going, sit down, sit down.

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And I just don't think he saw him. He says he's pretty much blind, so I just don't think he saw him. I don't know what would have happened if he had said, come on down.

17:57

Something would have gone terribly wrong, but it didn't. And so we wrapped up, and I shake the nice atheist hands, but you see in some of the video pretty quickly,

18:15

Dr. Clark's in my face, and if you want to know what that conversation was, it is recorded.

18:21

We both still had our microphones on, and I would imagine our cameras were still on that, but basically he was just sitting literally, this was the level of interaction.

18:35

He just comes up to me, so buddy, show me, show me, show me, show me, show me, show me, show me, show me, show me, and he's getting closer and closer and closer and closer, just going, show me, show me, show me, and I honestly, like I said,

18:48

I was really tempted at that point to go, demon, identify yourself, because I mean, there's not a rational thought going on in this mind right now, and this is a brilliant man, but totally taken over by something, either an incredible hatred or something else, something else indeed.

19:08

But my fellow elder Zach sort of stepped between and put an end to that, and so anyway, we ended up having, one thing

19:19

I want to mention, after this debate, after the dialogue the next night, the debate on Saturday night, out on the streets in Salt Lake City, I just, it's hard to express how encouraging it is to meet person after person after person who says, your ministry has meant the world to me, either in the sense of,

19:51

I'm a Christian, but I'm in a non -Christian environment, and man, the dividing line encourages me, or when

19:56

Jeff and I are together, you know, around the world, what I get is,

20:02

I found you through Jeff Durbin, or I found Jeff Durbin through you, Jeff Durbin led me to James White, it's like, we're joined at the hip as far as that goes, and people find us in multiple different ways, and that's great, that's wonderful, however you get there, we're all trying to do the same thing, but what

20:22

I got up there was, I, you know, I even said to the guys yesterday,

20:28

I said, we can't get used to hearing this, but the number, every single night,

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I was a Mormon, sometimes six months ago, sometimes four years ago, but normally in that time frame,

20:43

I was a Mormon, and I'm not anymore, but I know Jesus, and I'm in a good church, and it's because of what you all have been doing up here for years, years and years and years, and it was truly,

20:58

I mean, at conference, I'm sitting there talking with a man who's now in ministry, and it was our ministries that were involved in bringing this about, and the backdoor of Mormonism is huge right now, it really is big, there's a lot of people leaving, but a lot of those people don't know where to go, or don't want to go anywhere, because they're leaving because they found out

21:26

Mormonism isn't true, not because they found out something else is true. And so, yeah, we'll talk a little more about that when

21:37

I get to the Saturday night debate, and some of the applications to make there. So, yeah,

21:43

I think that debate's going to be very useful, I mean, it's going to be criticized by, oh man, those atheists were worthless.

21:53

No, they were really representative of what atheism is, go watch that presentation

22:00

I told you about. And in fact, Clark was more profane in his opening comments on God and the absurdity of belief in God in that presentation than he was during the debate.

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He was dropping f -bombs, and that's when they all get together. Don't tell me that's not what they do.

22:19

It is what they do, that's who they are. That represents, there's no moral restraint in that situation.

22:27

Yes. Well, I wanted to point out here, we get criticized a lot because we don't have

22:33

YouTube comments open, and... Yeah, and the reason for that... This is one of those reasons, either it's the

22:41

Muslims or these guys that want to go on there, they know if you use profanity with a

22:48

Christian, it shuts the conversation down, and they're more than happy to do it. And so we limit where and how the interaction can happen, and we have rules to do it.

22:58

Can't do that on YouTube, I just shut it off. We started... I made that decision back when

23:05

I was trying to crank out lots of YouTube videos, I don't know when, it was like 2004, 2005.

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Oh, that's back when you were doing just your own channel with the 10 -minute limit. Right, right, right. And I could not...

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It didn't matter what the subject of the video was, the atheist would jump onto it and fill it with profanity. That's just, they have no restraint.

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That's just the way they are. I'm convinced they know that's the quickest way to shut the Christian down, so therefore you shut them up, and now you have the floor, and...

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Yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah. So I think there was definitely usefulness to it, and it's a fine contrast, a fine contrast that will be made available for that.

23:48

Then on Friday evening, same stage, same room. And it's the same stage, same room where we did this a couple years ago, the first time that Alma Allred and I did a conversation.

24:01

Last year we did it at the church, this year we did it again back at the U, same room. Alma and I discussed what is truth, and it was interesting.

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Jason mentioned that he was sent a note from a self -identified King James Onlyist who had attended, and had said it was great, that he really enjoyed it.

24:30

He said it was a little slow the first half, but then, boom, you got to what was the most important.

24:37

And that wasn't my intention. I had no... You'll notice I had no notes.

24:44

I didn't have any notes for... I had no notes for any of the debate, anything

24:49

I did this weekend, to be very honest with you. But Alma and I can have conversations, and they're going to get to the point eventually.

25:02

They may take a little while to establish some of the parameters and to figure out exactly how it's going to be approached, but we got to some pretty important issues that you almost never hear being discussed between Christians and Mormons, and really got to some fundamental differences.

25:26

And I kept saying to Alma, he's saying, well, the church will never go there. The church will never go there.

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And I'm like, so what if we meet 10 years from now and sit here, and the church has gone there?

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Nope, can't happen. What if it does? And he wouldn't answer that, because he's, no, it can't happen.

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I have reason to believe that it most definitely can, and probably most definitely will.

25:57

Maybe not in 10 years, but the speed with which things are moving is pretty surprising to me.

26:05

So again, if there has been any criticism out there about that particular discussion, that you always have those people that you shouldn't be giving a

26:28

Mormon a platform, you shouldn't be talking nicely and respectfully to a

26:33

Mormon, but I don't think it's quite the same type of attitude as people have toward Muslims.

26:41

I don't think Mormon hatred, because they look like us, is the same as Muslim hatred, which we, of course, have experienced in the past in having, for example, the

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Asercadi Dialogue. But I'm sure there are people who still were like, you're sitting there talking about how you're both grandparents.

27:03

It's like, you just shouldn't do that with a Mormon. Well, okay, as long as you're willing to understand that you will never, ever, ever get to the point of having the depth of dialogue that we ended up having, because you don't treat people like human beings.

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So as long as you're willing to never treat people like human beings, well, great, fine, wonderful.

27:28

But it was a very useful conversation. It got down to some fundamental issues. And I did ask the question, this is what

27:36

I would really want for you, what would you really want for me? And it was interesting that what he wanted from me was to acknowledge the truth and the primary focus.

27:49

It was really, really interesting. I mean, what I had said for him was, come to know the true and living

27:54

Jesus Christ, who's eternally been God, the creator of all things, you know, sort of gave the gospel.

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And for him, what he wanted for me was that I would come to know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.

28:11

And in light of what we had said before, because what some people probably thought was just slowly dancing around, we were talking about epistemology, we were talking about the clarity of Revelation, we were talking about the abiding nature of Revelation.

28:27

Basically, what I was arguing to him was, there seems to me to be an inherent flaw in Mormonism that will not allow it to survive a secularizing culture in its birthplace, in where it lives.

28:45

And that Mormonism is changing because it doesn't have that internal structure to be able to resist those changes that are coming from the society around it.

28:54

And this goes back to its nature, its doctrine of God, its God changes. And since it doesn't have, you know, there are today, and in fact,

29:04

I talked afterwards to a Mormon who basically is a solo scriptural Mormon, we have a canon. Yeah, well

29:09

Joseph Smith never intended you to have a canon. That's just it. It's obvious when you read

29:14

Joseph Smith. He never intended there to be a fixed canon. He intended there to be continuous

29:20

Revelation. And that's not what has happened.

29:28

But Mormonism lives in this in -between land. They can't affirm scriptural sufficiency. But at the same time, they're scared to death of new

29:37

Revelation. Sort of puts you in a tough spot, and that's the tough spot that they're in.

29:43

And so it's difficult for them. So it was a very, very interesting conversation.

29:52

Again, I thank Alma for engaging it. I'd had someone else up there and say, oh, he's an Institute of Religion teacher.

29:59

I'm not sure what that's really going to get you. I was like, no, Alma's more than that. Again, one of the better -read

30:07

Mormons that I've ever dialogued with, and certainly one with a character that allows meaningful conversation and interaction.

30:21

And so I'll just let the critics get all angry that we obviously like each other and respect each other.

30:31

But obviously desire, that's why we talked about it at the end. What do you want for the other? We're not sitting there going, ah, we're all just fine.

30:38

No, we recognize that's not the case. Either one of us is right and one of us wrong, and we're both wrong, but there's no possibility we're both right.

30:47

And that's just the nature of that. So we get home late from the

30:54

U to the Polygamy Palace and catch as much sleep as you can, get up in the morning and head for conference.

31:07

It took us a little while to get there, and we've got a bunch of kids, and getting them out the door, getting them dressed, getting them out the door, get breakfast.

31:15

And then we parked up north of the State Capitol, and then a local fellow kindly shuttled us down to the area down there.

31:29

I don't remember where we would park. Didn't we used to park and then stick quarters in all day long?

31:37

Didn't we do that a few times? A couple of times we did that, but if you'll recall in the early days, what we did, there was two parking lots.

31:46

The first one was where the tabernacle is currently there. That was usually full up when we got there, and so we would park

31:55

Kitty Corner to the Temple property in a parking area over there, which I would think is probably still there, but it's probably just chock full now of cars and stuff.

32:06

And so the one that was directly across from the office building. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's the new library.

32:13

Oh, okay. It's been a while since I've been up there. I've got to get up there next time. That's where the library and archives are. They're not in the church office building anymore.

32:19

Big, beautiful building. It's fairly new, but yeah. It's harder to find parking than it used to be.

32:26

So anyway, so we get there, and it is cold. It's 38 degrees.

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I did not even bring a sweater. No, I didn't bring any coogies.

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No, no coogies. I am taking a coogie to Australia though. I mean, it's Australian. So I mean, that makes sense.

32:46

You bring it to Australia. But I went, once everybody got there, the street screechers were there in full force.

32:57

Reuben Israel and Lonnie Percival were both there. Reuben was on the north side of the street and right at the front door, yelling into the building.

33:10

And with his voice, that actually accomplishes something, I would imagine, as far as acoustics go. And I never walked by them, never saw them, didn't want to even give them a chance.

33:22

I crossed the street to the south side of North Temple, and there were two

33:28

Mormon youth choirs along the sidewalks singing songs, which was interesting.

33:36

Then as I got toward the north gate, I saw Lonnie Percival. And I'm like, oh, man.

33:45

So I walked by the first time, and I just kept my eyes down, had a hat on, and I just kept walking.

33:56

And as I walked by, I heard a voice of one of Lonnie's people say, isn't that James White?

34:04

And Lonnie's response was, too skinny. Because we had stopped going up there right toward the end of my weightlifting period, where I was in the 40s, 250s.

34:21

And I'm heavy right now for riding, but I'm still a whole lot lighter than I was in those days.

34:30

So I just sort of chuckled to myself. I didn't even look. I just kept going. And found some of the folks from Christ Presbyterian Church over toward the west side, which unfortunately at that time was in the shade.

34:44

So it was cold, but I just stayed with them while they distributed their little cards with all of Jason's videos on Mormonism and stuff.

34:54

And when missionaries come by, I'd pop out and give them the men is not God tract and things like that.

35:02

And then when the session started, we walked up to the corner, and Thomas was with me.

35:09

And Thomas, all of Jason's boys are big boys. And so I kept

35:17

Thomas between me and Lonnie. And the three of them sort of walked in a line and just made a little shield for me.

35:25

And I got past them again without being seen, up to the corner. And then we met with a lot of other

35:31

Christians from the area that were up there passing out tracts and stuff. They knew who we were.

35:37

They were there to meet Jeff, myself, so on and so forth. And so we were greeting people and encouraging people.

35:44

A lot of the people up there do regular Mormon ministry and stuff like that. Well, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but we were contacted during that time by a couple who had written a letter to Jeff and wanted to talk because they've come to understand

36:05

Mormonism is not true, but what is. And so, all

36:10

I'm going to say is, pray. We really, I really felt like that the gospel was proclaimed clearly and there was an acceptance of that gospel.

36:27

But we spoke for over an hour and covered pretty much all the gospel and truth issues and everything else you could cover in that time period.

36:39

And so, pray for fruit in that. If I'm correct, then sometime, someday, you may get to listen into that conversation because it was recorded.

36:50

And they fully accepted that. They knew that was happening and didn't have any problem with that because that's how they knew who we were.

36:56

They had watched these videos. They knew we were out in the streets doing this type of stuff. So, we'll see what happens. Just pray very much, because leaving, there are a lot of people leaving

37:05

Mormonism. That doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean that it's a simple thing. So, pray for that.

37:12

Again, just as it was a tremendous joy in the atheism debate, which was my 170th

37:20

Moderated Public Debate, to do it with Jeff, and I felt that we worked very, very well together.

37:27

This conversation was the exact same type of situation. We're just going back and forth, back and forth, just speaking.

37:35

It's still one presentation just being done by two people, and it was really enjoyable to engage in that.

37:45

I went back to get some rest because Saturday evening, and if someone had told me back in the olden days that sometime in the future, as I was pushing 60,

37:58

I would schedule two debates and a dialogue, conference weekend, and have one of them the night of conference.

38:08

I would have told them, no, I would assume by the time I'm getting towards 60, I'd be smart by then, that I would realize that's stupid, but that's not what's happened.

38:18

So, unfortunately, we had scheduled the first two.

38:26

We had had the dialogue with Alma and the debate with the atheists all lined up when,

38:34

I don't know, maybe, was it two weeks? It was barely two weeks out.

38:40

Jason Wallace contacts me on Facebook and says, so, you already got two things going.

38:48

You got Saturday night. Would you debate Lee Baker?

38:54

Now, some of you don't know who Lee Baker is. I didn't know who Lee Baker was until just recently.

39:01

You'll remember that a couple weeks ago on this program, I went through a number of alleged deceptive errors and corruptions of the

39:17

Bible. Remember, there are 15 of them, and I answered each of these alleged errors, and that was the issue in regards to those that were produced by Lee Baker.

39:33

And so, he is a former Mormon bishop who,

39:43

I don't remember where he left Mormonism, but I talked to at least one person who had said that they had worked with him for six years as a

39:49

Christian, as an evangelical. So, it was a little while back, at least 10 years, had left

39:54

Mormonism, and had gone into what might be called the ex -Mormons ministry area.

40:03

And then, I think it was in March, and I remember seeing this stuff popping up in my

40:09

Facebook feed. In March, people sending me messages, you got to respond to this guy, etc.,

40:15

etc., etc. He announced that he had left Christianity and had joined the

40:21

Noahide Jewish movement, the Sons of Noah, or something along those lines, and no longer believed that Jesus was the

40:31

Messiah, he was a false messiah, and things like this. And so,

40:39

I said to Jason, well, he would never do that. And Jason said, you want to bet? And so,

40:46

I said, yeah, dinner at Taco Time. And so, I owe Jason dinner at Taco Time, because he comes back within 24 hours,

40:53

I think less, and says, yep, he wants to do it. And I'm just sort of like, ugh. Okay, all right.

41:00

So, this debate was at the church, and I think we had about six seats, and we had all the seats out we could.

41:09

And the only reason those six seats weren't taken was because they were all the way down front, literally behind where we were.

41:16

We opened the door to Jason's office and had people in his office sitting in chairs.

41:22

That's how many people were there. And all the... I mean, let's just put it this way, the fire marshal would not have been pleased with the number of people that were crammed into that building.

41:33

So, we had it at the OPC, and it was live streamed as best you can on Facebook.

41:42

The problem with live streaming on Facebook is always audio, because it's normally somebody's phone, and they normally do not have an audio input device attached to it.

41:57

Uh, it was not a challenging debate, obviously. The only thing that was challenging about it was... well, there's two things that are challenging about it.

42:04

It was a teaching... it was a fast -paced teaching situation, because Lee Baker just doesn't know what he's talking about.

42:14

He has no training. He'd said that in his opening statement. He said, I don't... I don't know anything about criticism, which most people would then go, so why are you standing up here, is the question.

42:30

But we were supposed to discuss six texts. He mentioned one of them in his opening statement. The other thing that made it difficult, that you're trying to teach on subjects in very brief periods of time, is that Lee doesn't know how a debate's supposed to work.

42:48

He admitted, this is my first debate. He doesn't know that your opening statement is the only time you're supposed to have to present data.

42:58

That's when your argument's presented. And then the rebuttals, you're supposed to be rebutting what the other person said.

43:05

You don't use the rebuttal as the continuation of your opening statement. Now, I have had, I would say, 60%, 65 % of my opponents down through the years, have chosen, because they cannot manage their time, they cannot watch a stopwatch, they cannot organize their notes, 65 % of the time,

43:28

I will have someone get to the end of their time, the moderator goes, time, they're in the middle of a sentence, they still have three points to go.

43:37

And they go, okay, I'll pick up with this later. No, you're not supposed to. That's it. If you didn't get your case made, your case won't get made.

43:44

If this was a formal debate with judges, you would be disqualified at that point, and we wouldn't even continue.

43:52

Wouldn't even go on. Because your rebuttal, if you start presenting new information, turn off the mic, you're out, you lose.

44:01

But that's what he did. And so, what that means is, one side ends up taking advantage of the situation, being able to make claims and stuff, the other side will never be able to respond to.

44:14

And there are a lot of people who do that purposefully. Catholic Answers does that purposefully, did it purposely, at least in the days of Jerry Maditax.

44:21

They would do it all the time. They'd bring up canon issues and rebuttals, knowing there was never enough time to actually provide a meaningful response.

44:28

So this was my 171st moderated public debate. I've been around the block a few times,

44:34

I've seen this over and over and over again. It's not respectful to the person you're debating, and it's certainly not respectful to the audience either.

44:42

But most people who are doing debates aren't doing it to be respectful to other people, unfortunately. That's a problem.

44:52

So, in his closing statement, for example, he's throwing all sorts of stuff out, you know, calling

44:57

Jesus a false messiah, and all sorts of new texts that I'm going to have no time to respond to.

45:06

And I would have to violate the rules of the debate to even do so. So that makes it a little bit challenging.

45:11

But despite all that, it was not a challenging debate because the man could not make coherent, consistent arguments.

45:22

And he kept talking about the elders of the church he had left, you know, six months ago or so. I don't know if they were watching,

45:28

I assume they were. But he kept, he seemed to have the idea that since they wouldn't debate him,

45:38

I picked up the challenge. No, no, no, that was all

45:43

Jason Wallace's stuff. If you want to thank anybody for that leap, wasn't me. I didn't,

45:48

I was like, I don't, you know. No, that was, that was Jason. Jason just, you know,

45:54

Jeff Durbin has a phrase that we use at the church, and that is getting into godly trouble.

46:01

Causing godly trouble. Bringing the claims of Christ against a godless society causes godly trouble.

46:08

And that's, I think, what Jason Wallace likes to do in Salt Lake City, is cause godly trouble.

46:14

And so, more power to him in doing that. He's certainly doing it a lot. He's very good at it, and we're probably doing it again in April, because I had not realized until this morning,

46:25

I sent you the thing that I received, that General Conference next year is the 200th anniversary.

46:32

Well, it's not. That's just it. It's not the 200th anniversary of the First Vision. But according to modern -day

46:39

Mormonism, it is. Nothing happened the spring of 1820. The Smiths didn't live where they claimed to live in the spring of 1820.

46:48

There was no revival going on in Palmyra in the spring of 1820. That took place in 1824.

46:55

And so, we have an excellent tract on that particular subject that we're going to need to get reformatted and reprinted quickly for distribution next

47:06

April. But we were talking with a campus group at BYU. They actually allow non -Mormon religious campus groups at BYU now.

47:16

And we're going to try to set up a dialogue down there at the Y. I would love to talk to this fellow.

47:27

Alma and I talked about this, and let me mention this. I mentioned this briefly on the program, the

47:35

New Testament, a translation of Latter -day Saints. I brought this up with Alma. And I said,

47:41

Alma, I see this as a real road sign of where Mormonism is going.

47:53

This book could not have existed when I first started studying Mormonism. There is no way.

47:59

I mean, I got this back then. Here's the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. I got this at a Deseret bookstore. And we have put out tracts about what

48:11

Joseph Smith said. And let me just mention one change that Joseph Smith made.

48:18

In Romans 4 -5, you know the Romans 4 -4 -4 -5, the one who works, his wage is not considered as grace, but what is the one who does not work, but believes in him who what?

48:34

Believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.

48:41

Joseph Smith, not understanding the whole concept of justification in Paul, changed

48:50

Romans 4 -5, and I can show it to you here, he changed it to has faith in the one who does not justify the ungodly.

49:02

So, he turned the entire text on its head, upside down, had no concept of justification, did not understand

49:12

Paul. Joseph Smith was not the sharpest knife in the drawer by any stretch of the imagination.

49:18

And what he said about New Testament stuff is normally shockingly bad.

49:26

Shockingly bad. So, I wondered when I bought this, what do you do when you have the

49:33

Joseph Smith translation saying not, and there is not a single

49:39

Greek manuscript in the world that says that? And I checked just for the program, I checked the that has the word not, does not justify the ungodly.

49:55

This is a translation of the Nestle Allen 28th edition. It's not a translation of the

50:00

TR, it's a translation of the same text that is being used as the same text that's foundation for the current

50:07

ESV. And so, what is Romans, here's Romans 4 -4.

50:14

Man, this is small print. The wage for the one who works is not reckoned according to grace, but according to an obligation.

50:24

The one who does not work, but has faith in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.

50:32

I have not found anything that I consider a mistranslation in this so far. And there's no note talking about the

50:39

JST or explaining the JST. And so, this could not have happened in the 1980s and the 1990s.

50:51

Couldn't have. So, what has changed? A lot of stuff is changing.

50:56

A lot of stuff is changing. And in that conversation Jeff and I had with the soon to be former

51:03

Mormon couple that we were sharing the gospel with, one of the things they mentioned was there's just so much out there now about all of Joseph Smith's wives and the competing editions of the first vision.

51:19

And they even mentioned the seer stone, which we've talked about in this program before.

51:24

I mean, when that was published, when that picture came out, you and I were both like, are you serious?

51:32

How many Mormons had we talked to in Mesa and in Salt Lake?

51:38

They said, no, no, no, no, just a bunch of anti -Mormon blah, blah, blah. And now they all know it had been sitting in that building because the office building was right there.

51:49

We're going, it was in a box in there all along. And they knew it. And they knew it.

51:57

And so, the backdoor is big. And what we need to be doing is getting to those people and saying, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

52:09

Because the tendency, and they even said this, the tendency when Mormons leave is just to say, that's it, to everything.

52:17

To Jesus, resurrection, eternal life, everything. Because Mormonism has redefined all of that.

52:24

And so it's like, so anyway, yeah, I thought that was a fascinating aspect to all of that was going on.

52:33

So I can tell you, it was a, I did remember what

52:39

I preached about Sunday morning at the OPC. And again, met folks after the debate, met a young lady at the church on Saturday, met a young lady, said, you probably don't remember me.

52:51

I hate when people do that because they're probably right. But she said, you and I talked here after the thing you did with Alma a year ago.

53:03

And I was LDS at the time. And I didn't like your answers.

53:11

And I was mad at you. But you directed me to your books. And I went ahead and I got them.

53:21

And I've known the Lord for nine months now. It just, I can't tell you how many times we've been sowing seed up there for a long, long time.

53:35

Well, the crop's coming in. And there are churches up there because of the fact that we've been going up there forever and a day.

53:43

And there are people going into ministry. And it's fantastic.

53:49

It really, really is. And we just can't get, we can't become accustomed to it. And there's a lot more people that, there were still tens of thousands of well -dressed folks and, and a gay, queer, and transgender

54:08

Mormon standing on the corner, holding signs, hug a latter gay

54:14

Christian, or embrace a transgender saint. And there were people coming up to him all the time, giving them big hugs.

54:23

Now there was nobody in between. The Mormons were either keeping a wide birth and not even making eye contact, or they were going up and,

54:36

Oh, this is so wonderful to have you here. We were there when they first showed up. I remember the first conference that any homosexuals showed up.

54:44

There were no transgender people. They were queer. They used the term queer, but they didn't use their word. No, not that, that was too long ago.

54:54

I don't remember, however, people going out of their way to go over and hug them when they first showed up.

55:03

Not where they could be seen. That's right. No, no, no. Yeah. Things are, things, they do be a change in, in Salt Lake City.

55:10

They do be a change in, in Mormonism. And, uh, we are having a tremendous impact in seeing people not just walk out the back door, but, but walk into the front door of faith.

55:24

And that's exactly what we want. We don't want people to leave a religion just simply to be swallowed up by a hostile soul destroying world.

55:33

We want them to come to know truth. And we've been doing that. Um, I forget when our first 85, 86, somewhere around there was our first, uh, organized trip to, uh, to general conference and, uh, 85, yeah, 18 years we were doing that.

55:50

So it was, uh, yeah, yeah. So anyways, um, one last thing

55:56

I want to discuss, uh, on the program today. And like I said, please pray for my travel tomorrow to, uh,

56:03

Sydney and then down to Melbourne. Uh, I think we've put up banner ads and stuff. You guys still put the

56:11

Melbourne one up, but I, I saw the, the actual schedule today. So that information should be all up there.

56:16

So you'll know what, what's going on down there. So you can be a part of things if you're in the either Sydney or Melbourne area. Uh, and I will be back next year.

56:23

I'll be in Brisbane, uh, next year, uh, for a conference there. And so we'll, we'll be, uh, we'll be crossing the ocean a few times, uh, going, going down under.

56:33

So, uh, if you can't make these, then, uh, we can, we can talk about when we're going to be there next year as well.

56:39

Um, but there was one subject that I wanted to address. I mean, there's just so many things going on, uh, in, uh, in our culture, uh, that the one thing that really, really, really struck me,

56:56

I woke up one of these mornings, I forget which morning it was, but I woke up one of these mornings and the hug heard around the world was every other tweet in my feed in regards to the

57:12

Dallas police woman trial and the fallout that has come from that.

57:19

Um, for example, the ethics complaint against the judge who gave to the convict that she had just convicted, uh, and sentenced to 10 years in prison, uh, gave her, her personal

57:32

Bible. Well, of course, Dan Barker and the Freedom from Religion Foundation controlled by their irrational hatred of God, uh, immediately filed a ethics complaint, uh, in regards to what the, uh, what the judge did because, oh, you can't have redemption going on.

57:50

Uh, and these people just turned my stomach. And of course, there's a simple fact.

57:59

Historically, there is not a single person who put pen to parchment in the writing of the

58:08

Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights that would have done anything but spit in Dan Barker's face if he had done anything like that back then.

58:19

That's a fact. That is a fact. There is no way on God doing it.

58:24

I know later jurisprudence, development, yes, moving away from that. But the fact of the matter is this nation was founded in such a fashion that that would have been expected behavior when it was founded.

58:38

These people want a secular state. Um, just look at the debates we've done with Dan Barker, and others.

58:45

Doug Wilson's taken them on. Other people have debated them. Um, it'll, it'll help you to understand.

58:50

Anyway, um, Freedom from Religion Foundation simply exists.

58:55

They simply exist to express their hatred of God by using a cadre of lawyers.

59:02

That's, that's why they exist. And it's, um, anyway, um, so what happened, however, in woke

59:15

Twitter, in the woke church, as a result of that video, and of that hug, and that extension of forgiveness, should be a wake -up call to all of you who have been sitting around going, well, you know, the one side says this, and I get that, but the other side says this, and I get that.

59:39

If you've been dancing around on the fence, and don't understand, and are not aware of what the real danger of critical theory is, when it sneaks into the

59:53

Christian faith, you've been given all the warning you need over the past couple of days.

01:00:00

Because, folks, I have seen people, Jamar Tisbee wrote an article for a major news publication, and if you carefully listen to what he says, if you cannot detect the tremendous danger, the terminology of black forgiveness, black forgiveness, what on earth, speaking as a

01:00:42

Christian, is that? Up till now, you might have made the case with some of the more evangelical -sounding advocates of the social justice movement.

01:00:56

It's just all terminology. Think about this. Black forgiveness.

01:01:05

Once you start importing the categories that critical race theory demands into the heart of the gospel itself, it doesn't fit, it becomes a different gospel.

01:01:21

So, instead of that being a redeemed man reaching out with the forgiveness of Jesus Christ to the woman who killed his brother, saying that this is what my brother would want, instead of that being one sinner, redeemed by grace, reaching out to another sinner and saying, here's the

01:01:44

Savior, oh no, now it's about the oppressed being oppressed, because she's a part of the oppressors, because she's white, and he's black, so he's been oppressed, and so it's black forgiveness, and this is black slave syndrome, and I about vomited.

01:02:02

It's disgusting. If this doesn't make you go, whoa, wow, it really does change the gospel.

01:02:12

It really does change all the categories of the gospel. What you've been saying all along was right, because it sounds like as long as you're in a certain group, who you are individually doesn't matter.

01:02:26

Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, that's critical race theory, and that's what Jamar Tisby and all these people are pushing into the church.

01:02:38

Who he is as an individual doesn't matter. He's black. Who she is as an individual doesn't matter. She's white.

01:02:43

They're in those groups. Don't mess with the narrative. The gospel messes with that narrative. It destroys that narrative, and that narrative was destroyed 2 ,000 years ago on a cross, and now we've got people putting it right back together again, and the process promoting black racism, and that's what it is.

01:03:04

It's black racism, the bad kind. You know, the racism that we used to understand, not the redefinition, silly stuff about power and things like that, this is treating people in a prejudicial fashion based upon their color, and this is black people doing it to white people, because if it's a sin, black people can do it, too.

01:03:28

Where'd this come from? Where'd this come from? Let me read you something.

01:03:36

Let me read you something. White people have short memories.

01:03:41

Otherwise, how are black people to interpret questions about reconciliation, love, and other white values?

01:03:48

Is it human to expect black people to pretend that their parents were not chattels in society?

01:03:54

Do they really expect black people to believe that their status today is unrelated to the slavery of the past, or do they expect black people to believe that this society is not basically racist from top to bottom, and now white religious people want to know what can be done about the wall of hostility between blacks and whites?

01:04:14

Some critics of black theology are certainly going to suggest that my approach to theology will do more toward the separation of black and white

01:04:21

Americans than toward reconciliation. That's true. And yet, there is an appropriate concluding word to be spoken about reconciliation.

01:04:31

First, let me say that reconciliation on white racist terms is impossible, since it would crush the dignity of black people.

01:04:40

Under these conditions, blacks must treasure their hostility, bringing it fully into consciousness as an irreducible quality of their identity.

01:04:55

If white people insist on laying the ground rules for reconciliation, which can only mean black people denying the beauty of their blackness, then black people must do everything within their power to destroy the white thing.

01:05:12

Black people can only speak of reconciliation when the black community is permitted to do its thing.

01:05:19

The black community has experienced the crushing white thing too long. Therefore, black theology believes that in order for reconciliation to be meaningful and productive, black people must have room to do their thing.

01:05:32

The black community itself must lay down the rules of the game. White oppressors are incompetent to dictate the terms of reconciliation because they are enslaved by their own racism and will inevitably seek to base the terms on their right to play

01:05:47

God in human relationships. Now, who might I be quoting?

01:05:53

Well, everybody knows Dr. James Cone, the father of black theology.

01:06:02

The man that we have seen far too many professors in Reformed and Evangelical theological seminaries going, you know,

01:06:15

I learned a lot from reading James Cone. I mean, yes, he's not orthodox on the resurrection and certain, but you know, there's just, there's just certain insights you can gain.

01:06:26

Really? Well, you know, I can gain certain insights about meeting with your family on a certain evening of the night of the week, and this is a good thing for your family, from reading

01:06:39

Mormon sources. And I can get insights on how to treat your neighbor from reading

01:06:46

Jehovah's Witness sources. But I don't need to get them there. Why should

01:06:52

I have to have to get rid of all the dirt to find the few gems?

01:06:57

Those things can be found anywhere and anything, anything that is good and biblical that is found in James Cone, you could found someplace else in the middle of orthodoxy and biblical teaching rather than this vile racism.

01:07:16

I would like to hear those professors who continue to say, I'm just,

01:07:22

I'm just using it as, you know, we're using it critically. I would like to see in your class notes, in your lectures, your statement.

01:07:33

We're going to look at some of the things James Cone said, but we need to be straightforward. This man was not a

01:07:39

Christian. He was a heretic and he was a racist. I've not seen that.

01:07:45

Could someone forward that to me? Because I'm, because those are the facts. Those are the facts.

01:07:52

Under these conditions, blacks must treasure their hostility. Yeah, that's exactly what

01:07:59

Paul said to the Jews and the Gentiles, both, right? I thought he said something about hostility having been done away with.

01:08:07

Yeah, Cone didn't understand that. And no one who incorporates critical race theory into their theology can long understand the biblical message of what reconciliation actually is.

01:08:21

It's poison. It cannot be put into the same schema.

01:08:29

You either have a reconciliation that takes place for all people in which who your grandpappy was is irrelevant, or you've got this, or you've got this.

01:08:43

And who knew that a hug, an expression of love and forgiveness in a court would shed such a bright light upon what this movement really is and how destructive and dangerous it is.

01:09:01

Mark anybody who can put a racial description on forgiveness.

01:09:07

Mark them. Because when they try to defend themselves, and there's going to be people who go, well, what do you say about that?

01:09:14

When they try to defend themselves, listen carefully. Where are they going to derive their authority for this new concept of black forgiveness?

01:09:25

Is there Asian forgiveness? Is there Hispanic forgiveness? There certainly can't be anything called white forgiveness, right?

01:09:34

Watch where they get it from. They ain't going to be getting it from Colossians. They ain't getting it from Ephesians or Romans.

01:09:40

No, no, no, no, no. It's going to come from, well, you know, if we think about maybe the parable of this and an application in this and yeah, you'll see what will happen.

01:09:54

You'll see what will happen. Remember, blacks must treasure their hostility, bringing it fully into consciousness as an irreducible quality of their identity.

01:10:10

Those are not the words of a Christian. Those are the words of an angry man, an angry man.

01:10:19

So I saw that blowing up, had to address it because we'll have moved on to the there'll be seven more egregious examples of this kind of stuff by the time

01:10:31

I get back from Australia. So it's just the way it is. So yeah, there are a couple of things we could address, but got a lot of stuff yet to do before that flight tomorrow.

01:10:42

So if it's even still relevant and hasn't been thoroughly taken apart in regards to David and Bathsheba by the time we get back, we'll talk about it.

01:10:56

That may just get bigger and bigger. Who knows? We'll see. But thanks for watching the program today.

01:11:03

Thanks for everybody who makes the trip down to Australia possible and everything up in Salt Lake City and because I flew up there and back again and all the rest of that stuff.