July 7, 2005

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

John Dominic Crossan’s Religious Practice and Catholic Identity

And welcome to The Dividing Line on this Thursday afternoon. Got a lot of very positive feedback last week from The Dividing Line. Very, very nice to hear that. Not sure exactly why, but I'm glad everybody did.

Oh, I forgot, just a word to our British friends. Certainly thinking about them today as they go through their own version of 9 -11. And I'll tell you one thing, I understand our friend Phil Johnson was not very far away from the action today.

And just as I said on the blog, just another example of how far unregenerate men will go in the worship of false God. It is, anyone who calls that a religion of peace has just simply lost their ever-loving mind.

Anyway, a lot of positive response to the program last Tuesday in regards to John Dominic Cross. In fact, if you were listening in live to the pre-show, I just played an NPR, National Public Radio interview with Cross.

And it was quite interesting. Toward the end, sort of covered a little bit of the little clip I want to play for you here before we do some other things. I wanted to give you a little more insight because a lot of people ask the question, well, where is he theologically?

What does he believe? Does he worship somewhere? Is he a member of a church? And he certainly was a Roman Catholic. He was a priest and a monk. And if he was ordained, then my understanding of Roman Catholic theology, at least old-time Roman Catholic theology, was that he remains a priest.

That that is not something you can just lay aside. That that ordination remains valid. And again, to my knowledge, he has not been excommunicated or anything along those lines. So a question came up in an interview at Grace Cathedral between John Dominic Cross and the person who was interviewing him.

And he asked him about his religious practice. And here is how he responded to John Dominic Cross.

The last thing I wanted to ask before opening up is your interesting, complex relationship with Roman Catholicism, where it's been and where it is now, and what your own sort of Christian practice is, where it falls down.

Inside I feel myself incurably Irish and incurably Roman Catholic. I wouldn't know how not to be Roman Catholic. That doesn't mean that I am not deeply, not disappointed, not angry, but shocked by the present abuse of power in the Roman Catholic Church.

And that's what I've learned, of course, from Jesus, that God stands against the abuse of power. So when I left the monastery and the priesthood in 1969, I made a very deliberate decision that I wanted to keep as far away as I could from the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

I'm not what is technically called a fallen away. I am a staying away Roman Catholic. That is, I'm staying a separation between me and this church because I will not spend my life opposing them. That is the final trap, that you're trapped in their negativity.

All you have to say is what's wrong with them. I had something to say about the historical Jesus. I had something to say about Christianity. It wasn't that I was totally convinced I'm absolutely right.

The scholar's only integrity is to say what you found. I wanted to do that without having constantly to adapt it in opposition. In a way, I don't want to end up as angry as Gary Wills. I did my best in the book to say how serious I think the distortion is, but also to keep a sense of humor by suggesting that we give back the gift of infallibility and ask for the gift of accuracy.

The Third Vatican Council. The Third Vatican Council. That's my program for the Third Vatican Council. It really is necessary both to say how wrong something is, but also to keep your sense of humor. So I'm keeping that distance.

It's reminding me, actually, George Terrell, the Jesuit, said, put on my gravestone that I stood for Catholic truth against Vatican heresies. That was his kind of epitaph on that. What about in practice?

I mean, what do you do? In practice, I should tell you that I don't know the difference between prayer and study. Now, remember, I spent 20 years in a monastery where I prayed up to four hours a day, and I certainly don't want you to think that I was not doing anything or I thought it was boring or anything else.

But I recognize that none of that changed me as much as study did. So I'm interested not in how I talk to God, but how God gets through to me. I mean, you can set up such a screen of prayer that God couldn't get through.

It's like a typical modern conversation, two simultaneous monologues and nobody listening to the other. So the only way I know that God can get through to me is that I have to spend an awful lot of time reading people telling me how wrong I am.

In fact, I spend very little time reading people telling me how right I am. They must be out there somewhere. But I have to read that, and I have to think about it, and I have to change. I'm changed by questions from an audience.

I'm changed by criticism from my peers. That's the only way I can imagine the Holy Spirit actually working. Otherwise, I can go down on my knees and come up an hour later with whatever I think certified by God.

I don't know how to break that unless somebody can come through at you with criticism. And that's what you mean when you say God is clearly the best game in town, the most exciting adventure there is in your book.

You say that excitement, which is not mere intellectualism. No, it's not. It's what you call a sensibility. It affects heart and mind. I've never been able to make that disjunction. Even when I seem to be just being intellectual, I don't understand that separation of the heart and the head.

It doesn't work for me. It has to resonate in both places. And does the Eucharist mean anything still? Absolutely, because we could have, for example, we could have made light the center of Christianity instead of food.

We did two things. We made food, which is the material basis of life, the center of Christianity. It is the center of the historical Jesus, because it is about God's world being distributed the way God wants, food as the material basis of life.

Because more land in the rural Old Testament, it's more food in the urban New Testament. And secondly, we have conjoined that with not the death of Jesus, really. The separation of body and soul is death.

The separation of body and blood is execution. What we have in the Eucharist is the statement that if you try and make fair, just distribution of the material basis of God's earth, you are liable to get killed.

I think that is absolutely correct. The Romans did not kill people for being generous, for being kind, for being loving, for being charitable. They killed people for talking about whether their distribution of the world was God's.

So that conjunction, which is at the heart of Christianity, between food and wine, bread and wine, I mean, that's the Mediterranean food. If God had become incarnate as an Irish peasant, we'd have what?

Buttermilk and potatoes. Personally, at this point, I'm rather... Mediterranean. I am Mediterranean, I'm afraid. But what I... I'll conclude. What I was convicted of in reading you...

I'll go ahead and stop it right there because they move on to, well, actually some political questions, which we were listening to further in the interview with the National Public Radio in the pre-show.

But I found it interesting his description of himself in regards to his own journey, his own religiosity. I don't know how, of course, you know, this is the old stickler in me, how he can say the Eucharist is important to him when he clearly does not even believe what Rome believes concerning the Eucharist.

He seems to believe that it's absolutely necessary to be able to redefine in a fashion utterly unlike what Rome says or anybody says, pretty much anything that he encounters and place it in the grid of these presuppositions we talked about last time.

That really is why I said last week, or in the last program, as far as I can tell, this debate's going to be quite different than what I expected. In fact, I was just about to type this in the channel, but I'll say it this way.

It's a lot faster that way. Someone had come in the channel talking about Vantillian presuppositionalism and so on and so forth, and then somehow the crossing debate had come up, and he was starting to talk about how you need to approach this presuppositionally.

And, you know, that was still a time when I'm going, well, you know, we're actually going to be discussing, you know, the relationship of the synoptics and mark and priority issues and cue source issues and da-da-da-da-da-da.

But the more I have read Crossan and the more I have listened to Crossan, the more I think whoever it was that came in the channel, which I disagreed with at the time, was actually right, and that is this is a presuppositional issue.

And we can discuss all the facts in the world, and we can chat about theories of how you take the synoptic Gospels and theories about how they're to be related and theories about the Gospel of Peter, for example, and go around and around and around and never get anywhere and never actually end up proclaiming anything, because at its root, John Dominic Crossan's worldview does not allow you to proclaim anything with any authority.

In essence, his God does not have authority. His God is merely persuasive in his argumentation and certainly not sovereign over the creation itself, certainly not sovereign over time itself. We heard that in the second question on Tuesday, where in essence the idea of a God who is in charge of time itself is completely beyond what he's willing to allow.

And so how you can look at the historical information, how you can be as intelligent as obviously John Dominic Crossan is, and come to the conclusion that Jesus' body was taken down and thrown in a garbage dump and eaten by dogs and all the apostles were having visions of Jesus and apparitions and all these other things that just make no sense from our worldview, this really does illustrate just how very, very important the worldview presuppositions you bring to the table really are.

And honestly, in listening to the discussions that I have heard between Dr. Crossan and others, that's the issue that has not been addressed. There have been people who have addressed the synoptic issue and people who have addressed all the historical stuff, but I've not heard a presuppositional approach.

And I just don't see how, in the period of time we have, you can do anything other meaningfully than to address that fundamental foundational issue of the presuppositions that determine where Dr. Crossan ends up.

I just don't see how else you can possibly do that. And so we'll see if that's how it ends up working out. I am certainly not to the point of, and won't be to the point until right before the debate, of putting together exactly how I want to approach it.

I have a hard time doing, I don't do sermons, for example. I don't prepare sermons a week or two weeks or three weeks ahead of time, other than possibly if I'm going to be preaching a bunch of sermons, doing some brief outlines.

For me, it's far better to be immersed in the subject immediately before speaking on it, so that it's fresh in the mind and it's still passionate and so on and so forth. So I won't exactly be making the final decisions on how I'm going to approach this until sometime in August.

I've probably got about a month, month and a half or more, until I'm down to that exact point. It's getting very, very close. It's amazing that I'm not getting more done than I need to be getting done right now.

So I'm not really sure exactly how to put that into 20, 25 minutes, however amount of time we have. And in doing it in such a way as to really try to challenge Dr. Crossman from a perspective that possibly he has not been challenged from before.

Listening to the NPR debate, it certainly sounds that his view of a fundamentalist does partake of some of the standard Jesus seminar dislike, shall we say. So I'm not really sure what he's expecting from me, but we will see what will take place in that.

Responding to Art Sippo’s Critique of Christian Definition

I wanted to, today on the program, respond to a couple of things on the net. I also have the Adrian Rogers material lined up, and if there are phone calls lined up after the break, then we'll see exactly what we get to.

But over on the Planet Envoy forums, I rarely respond to Dr. Art Sippo on this program, other than just to mention when he's blown another gasket or done another thing. But I did want to, because it was so long and had so many Bible passages in it, which is fairly unusual for the argumentation there, to address something that was said.

This is from the 28th of June. Dr. Sippo says, The following are excerpts from the recent debate between my good friend Bill Rutland and Mr. James Pseudo-Podeo White. And he frequently refers to me just as pseudo or pseudo-podeo.

That is from my AOL screen name, which is a Greek verb, ortho-podeo. And a number of years ago, he changed that to pseudo-podeo. He frequently lies about my background, things like that, even though he's been corrected, but he just doesn't seem to understand those things.

But anyways, the quote, Bill Rutland said, Dr. White, in my opening statement I defined the term Christian as, quote, a believer in Jesus Christ as Savior, someone who believes that Jesus was sent into the world to save humanity and who tries to follow his teachings and examples.

Would you agree with this definition that I've given? If not, would you please offer an alternative definition? I said, no, sir, I do not. It is an unbiblical and sub-biblical definition, and I've attempted to offer a better definition in the sense of allowing the scriptures to define what the gospel is and defining it not so much as describing a Christian as describing what God does in making a Christian.

So, no, I do not believe that it is a sufficient or biblical definition of a Christian. And so, I think those of you who have downloaded the MP3, you've ordered the DVD, you know exactly what I was talking about.

To define a Christian, for example, as someone who tries to follow Jesus' teachings and examples, that could be said of a Muslim. That could be said of a Buddhist. That Jesus was sent into the world to save humanity.

Does that mean to try to save and he's failing miserably? What does that mean? This entire definition was sub-biblical, especially because it's focused, as it would have to be coming from a dictionary, it's focused not upon what God does, but upon what man does.

It, as is normal, looks from the underside, and it describes a Christian not in the context of what the Bible says God does in regeneration and in justification and in sanctification and in adoption and forgiveness and the renewing of the mind and all these other things.

Instead, it is exceptionally shallow and sub-biblical. And that's what I said. That's what I tried to explain. Well, Dr. Seppo decided to go after me on that. This entire thread he described is titled, Pseudo-Podeo and His Pseudo-Christianity.

And so after quoting this, he says, unbiblical, sub-biblical. Let's unpack what Bill Rutland actually said and compare it to the Bible. A Christian is, one, a believer in Jesus Christ as Savior. And then he quotes from John 3 and 1 John 4.

Well, nobody questions that a Christian believes that Jesus Christ is Savior. What that means and how to unpack that and apply that is completely different. But no one would question that Jesus Christ is Savior or that a Christian claims that.

However, I would also point out that Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is Savior and Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ is Savior. So that element alone is insufficient to make the actual determination that is important to our debate.

Because the debate was, can a non-Christian enter into heaven? And so I would prefer a biblical definition. So the first one is fairly relevant. Number two, someone who believes that Jesus was sent to the world to save humanity.

And Luke chapter 9 is quoted, which ends with, For the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. That's a rather odd rendering. It's probably from one of those horrible Roman Catholic translations that are just really, really, really bad.

But the whole idea is that, well, you've got this concept that Jesus has come to do something. Well, of course. But what does that mean? The same passage is found in Matthew. What does it mean when it says he's come to seek and save the lost?

What does that mean? When it says save humanity, is men's lives identical to all of humanity? So the issue of the scope of the atonement. What's that all about? Again, it's a question we have to bring up.

And that is one of the reasons that I brought this up. Because again, Jesus sent the world to save humanity. Mormons believe that. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that. Oneness Pentecostals believe that. That's insufficient to answer the question.

Then John 3 .17. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through him might be saved. Okay? Issues of extent. Once again, nobody disagrees with that, but is that enough?

John chapter 12. Again, same issues. It's not enough. It's all man-centered, not God-centered. Number three. Someone who tries to follow Jesus' teachings and examples. Hmm. Alright. Once again, Matthew chapter 10 is cited.

And is it true that Christians follow Jesus' teachings and examples? Yes, all of that is true as well. So do Mormons, and so do Jehovah's Witnesses, and so do Oneness Pentecostals, and so do a lot of Buddhists, and you know what?

There are some atheists who think he got it right there, too. So a number of citations. Matthew 10, Matthew 19, John 12, Matthew 28, da-da-da-da-da-da, Matthew 7 about doing good works, which again, no one, absolutely positively no one, would question any of these things.

However, I brought up other issues. What were the other issues? The issues were things like regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption into the family of God, etc., etc., etc., etc. Isn't that more important?

Isn't that more relevant to the issue of the debate itself? I would think that it is. It obviously is important to the Roman Catholic Protestant debate. For what reason? Well, we've debated it before, haven't we?

Haven't we debated justification, both in the justification debate and in the purgatory debate, in essence? Yes, we did. We did. And so I was focusing upon those issues that are relevant to the subject of the debate and a biblical doctrine of the gospel.

As a result, Dr. Art Sippo, who by the way is a medical doctor to my knowledge, he is unable to handle the biblical languages, has no training in exegesis or in any theological field whatsoever, and at least I have the respect for his work to call him by his proper title.

He does not have that respect for others, of course. He goes on to say, Pseudo-Padeo does not like Bill's answer and he alleges that it is not biblical, but as we can see, notice, I said unbiblical and sub-biblical.

Unbiblical because it's not complete, sub-biblical also because it's not complete. That was the whole point. Pseudo-Padeo, oh, is that why I stumbled on that? Oh, because there is a textual variant.

I'm just watching what's going on in the channel here. It's hard to keep the eyes from going down there and seeing that. I'm watching this conversation between people who post on the Envoy forums and it's interesting to see that passing by.

Anyways, he says, Pseudo-Padeo does not like Bill's answer and alleges it is not biblical, but as we can see, Bill's answer is supported by many scriptures. What scriptures does Pseudo give in response?

None. Well, actually, we could give lots of passages because, as I pointed out, I focus upon what God does in salvation, and so we need to start in Ephesians 1 and work our way through the description of what God does there.

We need to work through the golden chain of redemption and all the attendant issues of God's work of salvation. So he goes on to say, here we see Pseudo's hypocrisy. While claiming to be biblical, he denies what the Bible actually says.

Why? Let us read further so we can see the reason for Pseudo's perfidy. Then he quotes from the debate once again. Do not look at this line of text, Dr. White. It's like Pavlov's dog. You just can't help it.

Anyway, Rutland says, if we are to discuss the question of can a non-Christian enter heaven, whether he be Muslim or any other non-Christian faith, it seems to me that first we have to have a working definition, understanding of what a Christian is.

So would you please give me a definition of what you believe a Christian is? A Christian is a person, I said, who has been redeemed and justified by the work of God in his life. That is, the Holy Spirit has brought spiritual life into this individual.

It's called regeneration. A person who has been adopted into the family of God, who has been forgiven of their sins, declared righteous on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ on their behalf, and is now being conformed to the image of Christ by the work of the Spirit of God within him.

Now, I didn't have that written down. That's just a quick summary. And you know what? Reading it, I managed to hit the highlights. No two ways about it. And notice what the focus is. This really does illustrate the fundamental focus difference between Roman Catholics and Reformed folk.

And that is, what's the focus? A person who has been redeemed, that's God's work, has been justified by the work of God in his life. The Holy Spirit has brought spiritual life into this individual. Again, that's God's work.

Regeneration. A person who has been adopted into the family of God, that's God's work. Who has been forgiven of their sins, that's God's work. Declared righteous on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ on their behalf, that's God's work.

And is now being conformed to the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit within him. That's called a monergistic definition of what salvation is, all to the praise and glory of His grace. Couldn't have a stronger contrast there.

Well, what does Dr. Sippo say? What is wrong with Pseudo's definition? First of all, there is no mention of faith. Well, of course, I said justified. And what do I believe by justification? I've only written a 400-page hardback book and done numerous debates on the subject with him.

I did a debate with him, remember, on this subject and defended justification by faith. Fair analysis here, isn't it? Since a man is allegedly justified by faith alone in Pseudo's system, why does it play no role whatsoever in his definition of a Christian?

Well, you know what? It's real obvious, Dr. Sippo, that I believe that Christians believe in Jesus Christ. I'm sorry if in answering briefly a question asked of me during cross-examination that I did not give an exhaustive definition of every single thing that could be listed.

But the fair person, and I would not ever accuse Dr. Sippo of being fair, because I think many Roman Catholics would admit that is the last thing he is, that he cannot be fair, and I've never seen him be fair.

But a fair person would evaluate what I said in the context of my own belief and would know that I believe that faith is in fact very much a part. And in fact, I would argue that it is the gift of God given to those that he calls to himself.

Second of all, there is no mention of Christian discipleship. Oh, he pays lip service to being conformed to the image of Christ, but that is by the work of the Holy Spirit, not by following Jesus. So if the work of the Holy Spirit is to produce discipleship within you, and is to, as Paul said, it is God who is at work within me, both to will and do according to his own pleasure, then that doesn't count.

I'm sorry, that is a tremendous example of completely missing the point and completely failing in the criticism of the position, because I did say he is now being conformed to the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit within him, which of course involves Christian discipleship.

And remember, I was the one who was defending the issue of faith producing works that are descriptive of the people who are zealous for good deeds against Bob Wilkin only a couple of months ago. And you'll notice you don't get any kudos for being balanced from these folks, because that would require them to be fair.

That would require them to give you significantly more credit than they are willing to do, because their primary argument against you is that you shouldn't be given any credit at all. And so we're going to take our break.

I'm going to finish responding to this, and then your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341 are right after this.

The Monergistic Definition of a Christian

Such a rarity today. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.

This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 930 a .m., and the worship service is at 1045. Evening services are at 630 p .m. on Sunday, and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.

The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26-GRACE. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org, where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Is the Bible True? The Crossan Debate and the Same-Sex Controversy

Is the Bible true? Never before in history has the authority and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures been so viciously attacked by those outside the pale of orthodoxy and within the walls of traditional evangelicalism itself.

Join us August 27, 2005 at the Sea-Tac Marriott for an historic debate between Evangelical Christian apologist Dr. James R. White and world-renowned Jesus Seminar co-founder and Bible skeptic Dr. John Dominic Crossan as they debate a topic which every Christian should be concerned about.

Is the Bible true? Seating and tickets are limited, so call today 877 -753 -3341 or visit AOMIN .org to reserve your seat today. That's 877 -753 -3341 to be a part of this historic event that will illuminate the fault lines of faith between conservative and liberal Christians alike.

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality. Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

In their book, The Same-Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on the subject explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality including Genesis, Leviticus and Romans.

Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

The Same-Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMIN .org.

How the pilgrims progress is not an easy way. It's a journey to the sun day by day.

Reformed Theology, the Elect, and the New Birth

And welcome back to Dividing Line. We are providing audio response, which saves me typing time, to Dr. Art Sippo's web posting on the Envoy web board called Pseudo-Podeo and His Pseudo-Christianity.

That's yours truly. And whenever you read anything by Art Sippo, you do need to engage your asbestos filters. And go from there. Next, third, the definition he gives is the Calvinoid definition of the elect.

There is no recognition of the wheat and the tares that Jesus said would always be in His church. Nor is there a place for pilgrims struggling to lose themselves in order to find themselves in Christ.

Not all Christians are elect. Not all the elect are Christians, at least during their entire lives. And many true Christians struggle in their walk with Christ. And even the Calvinoids believe in deathbed conversions.

As you can tell, Art really wants to make a real deep impression on us Calvinoids. And so the language is always somewhat enjoyable. But of course, this is the position of many individuals, that you can be a true Christian and not be of the elect.

Of course, I do not believe that is the case. You can profess to be a Christian. But unless it is God who has regenerated you, and He regenerates only His elect, and unless it is Christ that you have been joined to in His death so that your sins are forgiven, so there's a ground for justification and a ground for being made right before God, then there is no salvation.

So this confuses those who have a false profession. As John described in 1 John 2, they went out from us because they were not truly of us. So it might be shown they were not truly of us. Because if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.

But they went out. And so they departed from us. And these false brethren that depart from the faith were not united with Christ. And they were not united with Him in His death. And so on and so forth.

So my description of a believer is Paul's description of what a Christian is. Obviously, the term Christian is only used a couple of times in the New Testament. But hopefully we are, well, I can't say anything about the envoy boards.

But in a serious discussion, we're not going to devolve down to a level of arguing about the use of the term Christian. We're using that in an understandable way here. At least we were in the debate. And that is of a person who truly does make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

So this is, yes, Calvinoids do believe in deathbed conversions. We do believe that God can save anyone at any time. But what Dr. Sippel does not either understand or dishonestly does not wish to address is the fact that it doesn't matter when the conversion is.

It is always God's work of conversion that brings about true salvation. And so we would disagree very strongly at the people that he is identifying as Christians in this particular context. He continues on.

We cannot know the hearts of our fellow men, and so we are in no position to judge or stand before God. To try and define as Christians only those who are elect creates a series of impossible problems.

Let me just stop right here. Of course, right now, the impossible problem is that, for some reason, Dr. Sippel doesn't believe that these scriptures are sufficient to define what a true Christian is. And, in fact, that is the only true definition that can be done because we're right.

We can't read someone's heart, so we have to go with what the scriptures give us. But that's not what he does. I continue on with him. The most serious problem is that it puffs us up and makes us think that we are qualified to sit in judgment on our fellow humans as if we were God.

Let me stop and respond to that saying, why? Why is it that if I say this is what a true Christian is, I'm not then being able to claim the ability to look into someone's heart? I'm just simply saying I need to be obedient to the apostolic definition that is given of what a true Christian is.

Let's just talk about what the work of the Spirit of God is. That doesn't result in my sitting in some position of judgment. That's why when people keep focusing upon individual Roman Catholics, for example, I say, look, the issue with Rome is the gospel.

Focus on the gospel. Rome doesn't have the gospel. Now, what are the ramifications of that? Well, if all a person's ever, ever heard is Rome's definition, and that's not the gospel, then that brings about tremendous danger.

No two ways about it. But the point is, you focus upon the gospel, you focus upon something that you can actually define and demonstrate, and you don't get into all this other stuff regarding who's applying what and who's believed and all the rest of this type of stuff.

This was precisely the problem of the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. What appeared to be true to man was actually the exact opposite before God. No problem. Has nothing to do with what I was saying in the context in which the conversation and debate was taking place.

Being a Christian is to be a work in progress. Sometimes the work of the Holy Spirit comes to completion, and sometimes it does not. I don't know what that means. It sounds like he's talking about actual salvation here, because he goes on to say, The good seed sometimes does not take root and withers.

The servant who should emulate the mercy of God towards him and his dealings with his fellow servants does not do so, and so is lost. Sometimes people follow Jesus until he tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, and then they turn away and walk with him no more.

So notice once again, Art Sippo is consistent in his very man-centered gospel, and his semi-Pelagian anthropology, and his limitation of the grace of God. This is very much, you know, I wish, I wish, I wish Catholic Answers hadn't lost the debate tapes of the debate that I had with Sippo, because at one point, and unfortunately I believe it is in the second half that was not recorded, at one point he was quite riled up and he was talking about Jesus' statement to Telestai, It is finished.

And he said it was not finished, it was just begun. And he limited the application of those words in that fashion. And this is just a very, very consistent application of that, to the point where you have this idea that, well, you see, you know, the good seed sometimes does not take root and withers, as if those plants in the parable of the soils that do not ever bring forth fruit are true Christians.