June 14, 2005

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. And welcome to Dividing Line, Tuesday morning, 11 a .m.

out here in the mountain west. It was only a three hour difference back there in the east and any more three hours is pretty much irrelevant.

It was the nine hour shift from Italy that threw me the curve.

Feel great today. First time I've actually felt great in weeks now. And I'm glad for that.

Got a chance to get on the bike and ride this morning. It's only going to be 107 degrees here in Phoenix today.

But it wasn't half bad this morning because let me tell you something. I was back there and it was humid in Massachusetts, in New York and New Jersey.

Blah, blah, blah. You can have the humidity. I don't want it. Give me 105 degrees and dry over 90 degrees and 90 % humidity any day.

Blah. No, thank you. It is nice out here. Anyway, hey,

I just went over to the Envoy magazine web forums. The meltdown continues.

Evidently, Bill Rutland and Art Sippo together and their small band of followers absolutely positively have no interest whatsoever in saying anything to anybody who reasons in a logical or rational fashion.

I mean, the number of pure falsehoods, logical contradictions and utterly vacuous reasoning that has been posted on the

Internet since last Thursday absolutely leaves me amazed. I cannot believe this stuff.

I log on here and Bill Rutland has posted

White's Hysterics. Hi, gang. I'm getting a bit tired of James's hysterics.

If he wants to keep going postal about our debate, well, let him. I have another debate in November that I must prepare for.

When my kids were young and we put them to sleep, they would cry and protest. We found the best way to handle it was just to let them cry.

Good night, James. So if you've actually met, the only reason this type of stuff works is because he's trusting that the people who read this stuff don't read the other side.

They're not going to read their books and I can listen to the debates. They're not going to read their blog. They're not going to. They're not going to listen to both sides.

The only people that could possibly buy this type of thing. How many errors have

I documented so far in what Bill Rutland has said? Here's a man who's talking about my hysterics and yet he, on his web, is talking about how his wife feared for his life.

He stays there. He's one of the last people to leave. When we left, 1240 -ish, I think I was asking

Rich about this, about 1240 -ish, when we left, he was talking to like two people. All the chairs had been taken up and there was like two or three people over there and a group of us left.

We just finished packing everything up. We did, with and with people's help, Rich mentioned that John Doxwell, and I didn't put the name together with the person at the debate.

I wish I had. I probably would have talked with him a little bit more than I did, but huge Roman Catholic police officer who comes to all these debates.

When I say huge, he's not actually, in fact, I think I may be taller than John is. I'm not sure, but he is a weightlifter.

He is a bodybuilder. He's got at least 20 -inch, 21 -inch guns and that's not his service pistol we're talking about there.

He and some of the other Roman Catholics helped Rich with like, you know, we shipped four speakers out there.

We did the house sound. Remember the house sound the past few years? We've been having problems, okay? Places like townhouses just don't do a good job with sound.

When you put those stupid little round speakers up in the ceiling, you're not going to get good sound out of that.

People need to be able to hear. They shouldn't be struggling to hear. You shouldn't have feedback issues, all the rest of that stuff.

This year, we bought the speakers. We shipped them out there. Rich spent 14 hours in that room getting it all set up, and it took a long time to break that stuff down.

For Rutland to be saying, you just signed a few books and left. The debate was over in 11.

I leave an hour and 40 minutes later with everybody else, and I'm signing a few books and leaving.

Well, if he was afraid for his life, why was he one of the last people to leave?

If I had John Doxwell standing next to me, I wouldn't be afraid for my life. That's like having

Eddie Delcor staying next to me. I'm not afraid of my life with Eddie Delcor standing next to me. That's not going to happen.

So, I mean, who is hysterical? Where are the hysterics? They were so mean, we were fearing for our lives.

This is how you get past the fact that you have just lied through your teeth.

I mean, you've tried to create a completely false perspective, paint a completely false picture.

I imagine what they're hoping for is that this will keep Catholics from listening to the debate.

I went on the Catholic Answers Forum earlier, and I'll come back to this.

Let me see if I can bring it up real quick. There was a comment that had been left,

I guess, earlier today, something along those lines. Are we having transmission problems here?

Oh, there we go. Boy, it took quite some time. It's just sitting there and chunking along, chunking along. I probably just knocked us off the air by trying to get this thing to work.

But in the apologetics section, I guess what they're trying to do is they're trying to get Catholics not to watch this thing.

Maybe if you can just throw enough stuff out there to make it look like they mistreated the

Catholic apologists and it was just mean. Actually, I hope everyone remembers, Bill Rutland got more time to simply make his own presentation than any other

Catholic apologist has ever been given. Patrick Madrid did not have as much time.

Robertson -Jones did not have as much time. Jerry Manateeks did not have as much time. Mitchell Pacwa, in two debates, has not had as much time.

Gary Machuda has not had so much time. Peter Stravinskis did not have so much time. And if Bill Rutland can do so poorly with the most time that's ever been given to anybody, don't blame us for that.

OK, this is a guy named Catholic One, date June 13th.

So this was this was yesterday. And he says, I recently went to a debate between James White and Bill Rutland in Long Island, New York.

I must say, James White knows his history in the Greek understanding the Bible. As for the Catholic apologist, he didn't do well under cross -examination.

He was coming up with all kinds of excuses to answer James White's questions. Score one for the Protestants. By the way,

I'm just being fair to both men. And, you know, at least the responses were fairly calm to this.

The next one was interesting. It says, simply because someone speaks from a position of truth doesn't mean he will always be good at articulating it.

I've heard skillful Protestants demolish Catholics and I've heard skillful Catholics demolish Protestants. However, this is funny.

However, Protestants have one advantage in this regard. In order to be a successful Protestant minister, you must be a good orator.

This is not true of Catholics, and sometimes it shows. Well, you know what?

They're right. That person is exactly right. Priests do not have to be able to speak.

You know, that's just all there is to it. So there's some truth to that. So at least some people, I think what they're trying to do is damage control.

And I think that's exactly what Bill Rutland's trying to do here. I have demonstrated error after error after error.

I've documented from emails where Bill Rutland has misrepresented the truth. I've documented it.

It's right there. And what is what's his response? James White's hysterical. And I've got a debate to prepare for in November.

Well, whoopie doo. I have a debate to prepare for at the end of August against John Dominick Crossan and Marcus Borg.

And somehow I've got the time to set the record straight here. What's wrong, Bill? I just just absolutely, positively amazing.

And then, of course, Art Sippo has to has to jump in there. And sadly,

James has an effect on a lot of people. After a while, his ranting and raving become excessive. And you start to question his spiritual and psychological stability as a medical professional.

I've tried to counsel James to seek some help. This is Art Sippo, the nastiest guy on the planet, and he doesn't even notice it.

I know so many different people who could give you emails from Art Sippo containing insults and plays on their names.

And and and yet I've counseled that he should get someone to have some help. It wasn't at Sippo, Rich, that we had the tape recordings of going absolutely ballistic on our on our on our.

Was that Sippo? Who was that? We had somebody that just totally lost their mind. But I remember we

I remember going back and forth on this mental stability stuff. Very funny. But so then on another thread.

Under OK, James, John Six, JMJ, who I mentioned on the website, well, now that everyone has said how disappointed they are that I will not let

Mr. Mr. White request an inappropriate format. We still have not heard from the man itself. OK, James, you're still debating not.

This is from Art Sippo, who, again, you know, if we could have a moderator who would moderate, unlike Patrick Madrid and a subject that is worthwhile, like purgatory, indulgences, something that would allow us to go directly into the text of scripture and have real.

Cross examination where I can look at Art Sippo and I can take him right into the text of scripture and say, where does it say that?

What does this verb mean? How does this follow? Art Sippo will never let that happen. He will never let that happen.

He knows he could never survive it. He knows he doesn't know what he claims to know. All he he is a big new perspectivist fan would be he knows

E .P. Sanders. Congratulations. That's that's the extent of it. He would never, ever, ever let that happen.

He knows that in real cross examination. Where he actually has to answer the questions directly from the text of scripture, he would collapse and he knows he'll never let it happen, never let it happen.

Won't happen. But then notice what happens. Listen, listen to this. This is posted yesterday, yesterday evening.

Art Sippo again, no one should bother to call James on his radio show. Mr. White is in complete control of that media and would use it just to humiliate people.

If Mr. White wants to debate, he can communicate with us online and we can arrange a moderated forum. Meanwhile, I recommend that nobody have anything to do with white show.

No good can come from it. Oh, how brave these folks are behind their keyboards.

We have how many years of examples of callers being treated fairly on this program?

You know, I mean, just years and years and years. And so what what's what they're saying is we can sit here in our forum and we can lie.

We can post lies. And it doesn't matter because you know what? Our people are just going to stay in this little cocoon and they're not going to listen to anything else.

If someone calls in, other people might listen and they might learn things. Oh, that that cannot that cannot be that later on, he says.

James cannot control and dominate this medium. That is why he would never come here. He would never expose himself to a situation where he would not feel like he was in complete control.

The song says Paranoia strikes deep. Now, I'll tell you what, it is very tempting to go into the

Envoy magazine and take on one particular person. There's just one problem with that.

I don't remember the last time Art Sippo did a debate. I don't remember last time Art Sippo wrote a book.

I remember last time Art Sippo spoke at conferences outside the

United States. I don't remember the last time Art Sippo taught a graduate class in theology.

He doesn't do any of those things. He has all the time in the world to sit around and post in a in a web board.

I do not because I have less than 70 days till two major debates.

During that period of time, I have multiple chapters for publication to write. I have multiple articles for publication to write.

I have a class to teach on the graduate level. In a seminary in San Francisco, I've got a little bit going on and as absolutely tremendously, tremendously tempting as it is, because every time

I have done it, these people have just scattered to the winds and all run for the hills and called in their big guns, you know, called in the the apologist to start exchanging these huge, massive, multiple, multiple hour long written exchanges and yada, yada, yada and try to do it that way.

You know, bring four or five of those guys in and eventually you just overwhelm anybody. It just doesn't matter. But they all they all scare the wind.

They all run because they just don't have the courage, their convictions. They just don't. But when

Art Sippo is doing what I'm doing, then we can talk about who has sufficient time.

It doesn't take very long, however, to dial 877 -753 -3341. And if people were mistreated, that would be very clear to everybody, right?

And we post all of our dividing lines so people go and hear that, right? Yeah, except the vast majority of these folks will never do that.

They will not. They will not go. They will not listen to another side. They will not consider anything like that.

It is absolutely positively amazing to to look at this and just,

I don't know, how do people look at themselves in the mirror when they when they act this way?

I just I just do not understand that. Well, anyways, there's lots more on these and I haven't even gone over to the

Steve Ray board. Maybe somebody could could drop me a note if something's being said over there.

It'd be interesting to see. But we will. Am I correct, Mr. All -Powerful

Board Operator Person, who I'm not sure is really listening to me anyways? I'm right here.

I've said something that I wouldn't like. You walk off on me all the time and, you know, you well, there are things to do over here.

Yeah, right. Sure. We're going to have MP3s Thursday, Friday. I mean, because I announcement announcement going to have to move the dividing lines on Friday this week.

I just got to do it. Maybe we'll do it during the day because a lot of people will be gone in the evening. Maybe we'll do it 11 o 'clock on Friday instead of four on Thursday.

And that way we'll still have two dividing lines. I just need to move from Thursday. But will we have a MP3? Oh, absolutely.

Mr. Rutland's tapes will be going out via UPS this afternoon. And then at that point, we'll be able to publish the audios.

And I expect to have the DVDs ready by the end of the week. Wow. The reason that that can go faster is you did the recording and the sound was all right.

You're not having to play around them like the stuff from the conference last year. Yeah, this is a big mess there.

And just to tweak a lot of things. I learned trial and error. And this time around, we got it right.

And everything looks like it's going to go real smooth. The sound worked great except for one pop on his microphone and the fire alarm going off.

That was... I should have warned you guys about that. That's been going on all day long. And it's like, suddenly it looks like everybody's going to get up and leave in the middle of the debate.

And it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, not so fast. I see. Well, I was wondering.

I figured it was the sound, you know. But then all of a sudden I noticed the flashing lights. And I'm like, well, this is great.

Wonderful. Well, it's a Protestant conspiracy. It must have been. It must have been since the place is owned by Jewish folks.

And we had it. Didn't we have a... I think we had a Jewish wedding upstairs and a Muslim wedding downstairs. That's right.

And they put the Christians in between as a buffer. They had it going on that night.

Yes, they did. It was incredible. OK, so people are going to be able to download the MP3s later this week and they can listen to themselves.

That's going to be exactly what you need to do. And then that will give us the opportunity.

Maybe I'll have time. I don't know. By Thursday to grab some of the cross examination, because remember, if you're listening to this going, what in the world are you people talking about?

You've missed. You've missed my blog and you've missed a tremendous example.

Of how Roman Catholic apologists handle a situation where a debate just, you know, debates, you can have a bad debate.

And yet it still is very profitable or isn't profitable. What do I mean by that? If one of the two debaters simply does a really bad job, and yet they do it in such a way as to bring confusion and a lack of clarity to the subject.

And you can do that just by being obstinate, by being nasty. And Mr. Rutland was not nasty. No one has ever said that he was.

In fact, it's been said by more than one person. I don't the people who saw him in the bait and the people who are now reading what he's writing doesn't look like the same guy really doesn't.

And so he was not nasty in this. And so what the result of all that is, is the issue is very clear.

The issue is very perspicuous, to use that term. And especially in the cross -examination period.

OK, I didn't get him to commit himself to even answering the most basic questions about the subject.

He refused to answer it. But the point is, everybody saw that. Everybody saw that we're sitting there looking at the phrase, together with us, they adore the one true

God. And it's like every time Mr. Rutland would read that, he'd skip one or two words and redefine them.

Well, it's not adore the one true God, it's acknowledge. What does adore mean? Well, once we establish that, then, well, they worship one

God. But it says, together with us, they worship the one God. Well, no, it just means they're monotheists.

But what does together mean? I mean, when I have to be parsing every single word in a single phrase just to get him to admit, let alone defend, what he's supposed to be defending, that clarifies the issue.

Everybody sitting there is going, OK, Mr. Rutland, we know what it says. And why won't you admit what it says?

Why won't you defend what it says? That was absolutely, positively clear.

And then in the cross -examination from both sides, and remember, Mr. Rutland wanted to cut back the cross -examination, even though he had said to Chris Arnzen that the cross, that the interaction, one of the things he didn't like about the presidential debates was that there was no interaction between the two debaters.

OK, so we have interaction. And the fact of the matter is, we've learned over the years that that is what people want to hear.

Anybody can go to our websites and read what we have to say.

You could have called up Bill Rutland the week beforehand and listened to Bill Rutland for 25 minutes, and you could have listened to the dividing line for 25 minutes, or you could have gone to the

Massapequa Church of God the night before when I talked about the same subject for an hour, and you could have gotten one side.

What good is a debate if all you've got are the presentations of the two sides?

The heart of the debate in this format, in this forum, is you finally get the two sides to actually talk.

And the mechanism that we use, that is, this cross -examination where it is free -flowing, it's like a courtroom, allows the audience to see which side is able to demonstrate the coherence of its argumentation.

The fact of the matter is, people like Patrick Madrid and Jerry Matitix, they're not stupid people, they're very smart people.

And they can look back over 34 moderated public debates now that I've done against Roman Catholic apologists, 56 total, 34 of them against Roman Catholics.

And in the first few years, this wasn't as much the case because I was learning. I mean,

I didn't, you know, I do a whole lot better now than I did then, there's no question,

I'm better. If I'm doing worse now than I did back then, that's not a good thing. As we look back over this, and as they look back over this, they can see that they do just fine making their own presentations.

But if there's any one point where the wheels simply fall off of their cart, it's during cross -examination.

That's where it all comes apart. And so, I wasn't surprised at all along those lines when

Bill Rutland writes and says, I want to cut cross -examination in half and give myself more time to talk.

Because from their perspective, that's absolutely necessary. That is exactly what they would want to do.

And in the context of the debates, we gave him the exact same amount of time that anybody else has gotten.

And he says that we were jerking him around in that type of situation. Unbelievable.

Absolutely, positively unbelievable. But it makes sense why they want to lose the cross -examination. We will be able to have some cuts on the next dividing line.

But we can play the section where I'm trying to get him to just be honest with what the

Catechism says. Or the section on John 6 where we're just trying to get into the text.

Well, Mr. Rutland, which action comes first? Well, you know, that's putting God in a box. You know, not sure we really can know these things.

God's outside of time. And, wow. Romans 1, just trying to figure out whether men know

God. Well, I think what Paul's talking about there is this. And where in the text do you get that?

Well, it's just from reading the whole Bible, see? And people see this.

You know, okay, maybe there are some who don't. Maybe there are some that'll look at that and go, ah, that's exactly how

I'd respond. Well, you know, I can't be too worried about that. But the people who actually are concerned about truth see that.

And over the years, we have demonstrated in almost three dozen debates now that there is a consistency here.

And that is, Rome is certainly skilled at making its pretentious claims to authority.

But when it comes down to actually interacting with someone who can say, wait a minute, you just said this, but you know, your own history says this.

Or, wait a minute, you said this text says this. But actually, if we look at the language, all of a sudden, we don't want very much cross -examination.

In fact, let's get rid of cross -examination altogether. I think that's the next thing down the road is, oh, we don't want that stuff there.

Or let's just have audience questions, as if audience questions were overly relevant one way or the other. That's what's going on, in essence.

And so it just completely amazes me. The meltdown and now, no one should call in that program, they'll just humiliate you.

What would you expect us to do? Would you expect us to alter your voice?

You sound like Donald Duck or something? If there's going to be humiliation, it's because people are calling in who have lied.

They've lied about me. They've lied about a debate they never went to. They've engaged in nothing but ad hominem.

And those folks don't do well once you start asking them to substantiate their assertions. That's the only reason

I can think of why anybody wouldn't call in. 877 -753 -3341.

It's a free phone call. John6JMJ and Uncertain Drummer and all these folks from the

Envoy forums and the Catholic Answers forums. Like I said, I haven't even looked at the

Steve Ray stuff. Who are just so confident in saying that, what was it that someone said yesterday after listening to, after reading some more lies?

What was the, let's see here. Yeah. This just continues to show that James White is a sneaky, vicious anti -Catholic with no real desire to save souls, but to win arguments.

Wow. You know, it sure would be nice to have some of those folks that had the courage of their convictions that would actually, you know, pick up that phone and dial it.

But you know what? As I look over, oh, I see some, I see some lines ringing. Maybe we're going to take a break.

Maybe they're there. Let's, let's see if finally some folks are going to back up what they've said. We're going to take a break and come back with those phone callers.

877 -753 -3341. We'll be right back. Be blessed.

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Ow! Ow! I had asked for it to be up a little bit for me because I was back down in the bottom of the well again.

Anyways, let's see what we got going on here. Okay, let's...

Wait a minute, how did that happen? We had two calls and we only have one left and it has nothing to do with the topic.

Oh well. Let's talk with Chris in Indiana. Hi, Chris. Hi, Dr. White. How's up? It's always good to meet you and hear that you're defending the

Reformed faith with a fervent spirit. Thankful for people like you.

That's a nice way of putting it. The Roman Catholics considered it to be... As I mentioned on my blog, my passionate defense of Reformed theology means that I am obsessed with my hatred of Roman Catholicism.

I guess I don't... I don't get to be passionate about what I believe. You're only passionate about hating what somebody else believes.

It's an odd, hypocritical double standard. You know, that seems to be the trump card that so many people use when confronted by any opposition, no matter how gently, how graciously done.

That's like the trump card, you hate me. Yep, yep, that works for postmodernists because...

It's really too bad because the issues never really get laid out and never really get discussed. So I'm glad that you were able to debate this fellow and especially on, you know, the topics of this inclusivism that is taking

Christianity by storm really in our day. I just wanted to ask you, my wife and I have a little ministry here in Indiana down at the local

YMCA. They let us come in and teach character building classes using the

Bible to kids, basically in a youth community action program.

And so I'm very thankful for that. The only trouble is that the Y has become very ecumenical and embraces pretty much everything.

But at least we have a door in there. And when I was in there today, they've usually got a magazine rack with a variety of Christian themes.

I noticed on Charisma Magazine, the June issue, and you might be interested in picking this up and reading this article, but it's got a picture of Pope John Paul and it's just loaded with positive things to say about him.

And briefly, it's a fairly large article, but it briefly skimmed over it. I couldn't find anything in there about the whole idea of the difference between the form view of salvation.

And, you know, it just keeps getting better and better. Well, you wouldn't, you know, if Christianity Today is going to give a pass on that, you certainly expect

Charisma to be overly concerned about someone's theology. That would be grossly inconsistent, to be perfectly honest with you.

So that doesn't surprise me. And I was at Bree and Christian Bookstore a few weeks ago. I mentioned I was right before the program and standing there in line to look down.

And here in this table, they set out just sort of the last chance table. You're staying in line to check out.

So the last shot to get at you. And here's a whole section of John Paul II picture books.

And you can tell there had been a whole lot more of them than there were now. They were running out.

That's how well they were selling. And right here, you know, Bree and Christian Bookstore. And it's just like, well, there you go.

If that doesn't tell you something, I don't know what is. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me in the least.

And, of course. What's interesting, sir, is this article is basically about John Paul's love for the Holy Spirit.

And he refueled the charismatic movement with his great desire for, you know,

Pentecost, a new Pentecost, basically, it says. But, you know, it's funny. I don't know if Jesus is mentioned one time in this article.

Well, and if they're going to be even semi -fair with John Paul's theology, they are going to have to also point out that connected to the

Spirit in his theology very, very clearly is the role of Mary as the spouse of the

Spirit. And maybe, I don't know if they skipped that or if they would even begin to understand that, but the title of Mary as spouse of the

Spirit and her role in the Spirit's ministry in the world, you know, they're probably just going to duck that because it's...

Yeah, I don't believe it was mentioned. I mean, that's bizarre. Well, but that's... No, no, I don't know that I've ever even heard that. Oh, really?

Well, no. And I've got to look into this stuff as deeply as I'm able. Well, I mentioned it a number of times in Mary, Another Redeemer, which is now out of print, but I'd like to see that book in another form come back into print in regards to Mary and the

Roman Catholic doctrines concerning her. But yeah, if you read what John Paul II... If you read anything that leading

Roman Catholic theologians are saying today, there is going to be a very intimate connection between the ministry of the

Spirit today and the Mother of the Church. She's called the spouse of the Spirit, and though this is the leading, bleeding edge of Marian doctrinal development and is not representative of the majority of Catholic theologians today, there are some who are even recognized as being leaders and certainly are not said to be unorthodox, who have gone so far as to refer to Mary as the incarnation of the

Holy Spirit. So there you go. That's terrible. I agree a thousand percent, but you see, think about it.

Once you establish what they argue about for Mary, and that is that Mary becomes the model of the

Church, well, who does the Spirit indwell in the world today?

It's the Church. It's the body. And so if Mary becomes the Mother of the Church and the picture of the

Church par excellence, there you go. And that's why I've used the

Marian dogmas as a perfect example of what happens when you deny Sola Scriptura.

Once you abandon the function of Scripture to circumscribe and to limit speculation, and this also has application within, quote -unquote,

Protestant groups, because there are many people in, quote -unquote, Protestant groups who really don't believe in Sola Scriptura, and they don't understand how important it is to recognize that we need to make an end of speaking where God has made an end of speaking.

That in point of fact, when we demonstrate that we are unwilling to stop, when

God says this far and no farther, this is the end of my revelation, I have revealed everything up to this point, but beyond this,

I have not revealed anything, and this is the wall that you come up against. Many people want to go past that wall.

They want to climb that wall. They want to peer through that wall. And the result is always something that's damaging.

And so, this is really a warning that goes both directions, but this is the result of abandoning

Sola Scriptura. You'll never hear this on EWTN. You won't hear this on the Coming Home Network, when all these people are saying,

I couldn't defend Sola Scriptura, and I found out it wasn't true, da -da -da -da -da. Those very same people will also tell you the last things they ever accepted about Roman Catholicism were the

Marian dogmas. And the reason for that is that they knew. They knew that it was those dogmas that are so far removed from anything you would ever find in Scripture, so far removed from anything the early

Church practiced, so far removed from anything the Apostles ever believed, and yet they finally end up embracing that material based upon the authority of Rome in her denial of Sola Scriptura and the assertion of Roman fallibility.

So, if the Charisma magazine article did not make that connection, it only demonstrates that whoever wrote it just doesn't understand what

Rome teaches and what these people actually are believing and what they are teaching.

So, not overly shocking there. If you just sit down with John Paul's stuff and search for Holy Spirit, and then don't bother to read the context and see the connection with the

Marian dogmas, well, there you go. But we try to go to a little different level here on The Dividing Line.

So, anyway, Chris, thanks for pointing that out. Thanks for listening. Thank you. All righty. God bless. 877 -753 -3341.

There's the number, and I guess, as someone said, the folks in these web boards do whatever they're told to do, and if they're told not to call, then they're not going to call.

And if they're told to believe nasty things about those anti -Catholics, notice that I continue, for some odd reason, to refer to Catholic apologists, and their response is always to refer to anti -Catholics, but just another one of the many double standards that exist out there where you just have to do the best you possibly can.

877 -753 -3341. Nope. Nobody. No, nobody's picking up the challenge.

Toll -free number. I suppose we could play some music. I've got a little thing to play here.

Why don't you pop up my computer here for just a second? Do you?

Okay, and now we have another musical interlude, because it takes a little extra time to dial the 877 part.

That must be what it is. You know, you've been wanting to play that for a long time.

That's about the third time I've seen that come up the window. I could play Honesty. I have the clip set up.

I want to start putting that over soundbites. Well, we could use that on Friday if, you know, need be.

Yes. Yes, indeed. Now there's screaming in channel, because they're concerned that I'm going to start playing some

Barry Manilow tunes, and if you really want to see everybody in channel, just bail out all at once. We could play some

John Denver. Let me see. Why don't we play from John Denver that would get people to call? I don't know. See this.

Excuse me. Everybody's going, yeah, you sound real good coughing.

That's what happens when you ride bike hard and push your heart rate to the edge, and it's really dry out here.

So we do have one caller coming up. I'm sorry.

But obviously making a little point here that for some odd reason, there are folks who have all the time to press the keys on their keyboard, go to a particular website, enter stuff in, but picking up a phone and dialing a number and actually standing behind their own convictions, they won't do that.

That's a very, very, very odd thing. So Michael Jackson is calling in to debate

Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, that would be interesting. Uh, you know, that would, yeah, that we do that.

I, you know, we could pull that off. I see a light blinking, but I do not as yet have any information.

Oh, oh, well, nothing like changing the subject. Hey, you know, that's, uh, you know, that's, that's the direction to go.

So let's, let's, let's give everybody a neckache here, uh, by completely changing directions, going from Billy Joel singing honesty, uh, to a question about Ecclesiastes 9 -5 with Jeremiah.

Hi, Jeremiah. Hey, Doctor. How you doing? You might want to turn us down in the background there. It's gonna sound really odd.

Okay. Let me just mute it. Yeah, that's, uh, that is the number one talk radio rule is that you always turn down the radio or the speakers.

Otherwise you get this real weird thing going back and forth. So, okay. All righty.

What's, uh, what's up? Okay. I have a question about, uh, Ecclesiastes. Um, I was talking, or I sent an email to a

Roman apologist about a passage in Ecclesiastes. Um, and it talks about how, um, the dead have no concern with the affairs of the living or something like that, or the dead know nothing of the living or something like that.

And the response that I got was that, um, the whole point of Ecclesiastes, uh, was, uh, from a human perspective, trying to, uh, explain morality in the afterlife and what happens to us.

And so any, any statement like that would have no real, uh, bearing on, uh, doctrines like the intercession of the saints and, uh, you know, apocryphal statements that say something to the contrary of that.

Well, uh, I do think that the strongest arguments against the concept of the saints being actively involved in, for example, the transmission of grace, uh, calling upon saints for intercession in regards to finding your, your, your car keys or burying statues upside down in your backyard or whatever.

Um, I think the, the strongest arguments there have to do with, with the nature of what it means to be in Christ and to, to be involved in His worship and the fact that there will be, there are no tears, there's no suffering.

And if, and if saints were constantly being assaulted, not only with requests about sin in our experience, but also with sinful requests.

I mean, quite, quite honestly, quite obviously, there are individuals, uh, who, whose prayers are sinful.

I mean, in fact, all of our prayers on some level are partake of imperfection and, uh, and therefore the idea that, that once you die, you all of a sudden become almost supernatural in your capacity to hear multiple sinful, impure prayers, rather than being absorbed in the worship of God, as we see in the book of Revelation, uh, just has no foundation whatsoever.

And I think that's the best way to approach it. It is true that the main point of Ecclesiastes chapter nine is that once someone, once you're dead, basically people forget about you.

And their memory is forgotten. And, uh, but that doesn't explain the, but the dead do not know anything in the sense of what's going on here on earth.

That is the dead are not involved in what goes on here on the earth. Uh, you're not going to be aware, for example, of who, uh, runs your estate when you die, what's going to be done with your possessions that is now utterly irrelevant.

It's not going to be a matter of your knowledge. And so while it is true that the point is the, the futility of the rich gathering up riches and the futility of living a life that is not focused upon the, uh, and living a life that is not focused upon.

Yes, folks. It's the dividing line. It's 1148 on Tuesday. Hi Kelly. How you doing?

I love you, honey. I'll call you later. Bye. Um, I love it.

I love it. It's just, it's just, uh, and I, I know what she's going to say. Why can't I remember?

It's Tuesday and it's going to be very fun. But I, I love my wife. We've been married almost 23 years now and it's, it's wonderful.

Anyways, while that's true and you need to acknowledge that, that, yeah, that's the main point of Ecclesiastes, the way that it demonstrates that is through the reality of saying that, look, once you're dead, all of your connection with the affairs of this life is over, which is the exact opposite of what

Rome is saying is that once you're dead, in reality, you're going to become more intertwined and connected with what's going on in this life than you are now, uh, which, which really is, is backwards.

And so one of the things to, to learn from this or to take from this, no, my wife does not listen to the dividing line.

She's at work and she can't do it there. I'm sorry. That's just somebody in channel asking that question. Um, the, the, the, the lesson to take from this in reality is when someone, for example, a

Catholic apologist or whoever it might be, when they provide a response, the best responses have a large portion of truth in them.

The question is, is the truth that is stated contradictory to or completely dismissive of the point that was being made?

And a good debater, a good arguer will recognize and acknowledge the truth that is there, but then demonstrate that that truth either does not refute the point being made or in this case actually strengthens the argument.

Yeah. Yeah. Was this, uh, was this, uh, a Catholic apologist who, uh, has a well -known blog perhaps?

Yeah. Yeah. Send him an email. Yeah. That doesn't, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Yeah. So yeah, that's the, that's the way

I would, I would respond to that. All right. Okay. Okay, man. Thanks for calling. All right. Bye -bye. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341 or my, or my cell phone.

If you, I know everybody says, why is he turning that thing off?

She didn't even program. And it's because I'm sitting at my desk and, uh, that, that, that's my wife and I'll call her back when it's all over with.

And we don't have a network to worry about and it's all just a friendly thing that we have going on here.

And if someone were to call in, they would be able to express their opinion and we would get to talk about it.

And the fact of the matter is the reason those folks don't call in is because they know they can't, they know they're wrong.

They know they don't have the truth. And therefore what, what motivates that?

I can't even begin to imagine. Let me tell you something. Um, um, if Catholic answers contacted me today and said, we are going to be, we are going to be talking about what you've said.

Let's say I made some comment. I haven't, but I did a few weeks ago. I made a comment about the Catholic answers forums and the stuff that people were saying.

He talked about Catholic dude and some of those others. Remember if Catholic answers said, we're going to be talking about you and we're going to take calls.

I call. I mean, I generally don't call programs mainly because I'm too busy to do so.

And I am not arguing that I am not in the best position in that type of situation.

That's obviously the case. Anybody who is sitting behind a microphone, um, with a, and now that I have,

I, for years, this wasn't the case. It's how long have we had the, the Gettner system in here? When did you put that in?

That was when I was in England, I think back in April. So only since like April or so, if I had the ability to actually put somebody on mute or dump somebody, uh, that, that wasn't even in my control until now, but still that isn't in my control now.

And so someone might say, oh, that's a real, uh, real advantage to you in a sense.

Yes. Uh, but we have years and years and years and years and years of archived shows demonstrating that even when people call up who disagree, we dialogue.

I mean, the only way that you're going to find yourself at the other end of a dial tone instantly is if you use profanity and then you're gone.

That's it. That's it. Ask anybody in the, in the, in my chat channel, uh, you use profanity, you're gone.

I can't even get you to hit the off button when the call's done. That's true. Yeah. What? That's because it's look, dude, it's in the wrong spot.

I can't see it as I'm sitting here right now. I can see, see, that's just another reason. All you

Catholics call right now. He can't even see the stupid thing. There is a big black microphone in the way of the entire,

I have to literally go around to the front of the microphone and you can probably even hear I sound different here before I can see anything.

So that's, that's why I don't remember to do that. There, that it's just, I don't know where else we'd put it because I need the room on the other side.

So we're just sort of stuck with that. So anyways, maybe I'll just learn how to do it by touch or something, but it's, it's just really sort of hard to work.

Anyways, the fact of the matter is no one who's fair. And the point is these folks aren't no one who is fair would say what

Art Sippo has said that, you know, you call in here and you're not going to get a fair shot. It's just, yeah, go ahead.

That's fine. I was, I was going to say that what strikes me odd about this entire exchange is that I found

Bill Rutland at the debate to be what I call a Southern gentleman. Yeah, very mild manner.

I felt that his behavior throughout the entire event was of a calm demeanor.

I found him to be a gentleman. I thought he conducted himself well. I personally felt that he was taking on an impossible task and for someone taking on an impossible task, he dealt with it about as well as it could be done.

As far as the fact that I had, after the debate was over, approximately 500 pounds of gear to take down and to pack up.

I asked some of his folks who were standing in the back of the room chatting, not next to him as someone whose life was in danger, you would think that they would be, you know, kind of there to protect him.

But I asked them if they would be so kind as to help. And they were of great help.

They went and helped much further beyond what I anticipated they'd be willing to do.

Out of all the different great debates we've done, I personally found it to be one of the most pleasant.

All the way around, I felt that everyone conducted themselves very well. And so all this after debate stuff coming on these web boards has just really surprised me.

It really has. Well, SIPO doesn't surprise me. And since SIPO had something to do, you know, what what really and I have new mentions today, the fact the matter is

Patrick Madrid, Art SIPO and some others have kindly or less than kindly thrown

Bill Rutland under the bus. And I wonder if some of his saving face stuff and misrepresentation of debate isn't due to the fact that his own people have in essence thrown him under the bus.

Before he commented, both Madrid and SIPO said we tried to tell him not to do this debate. We tried to tell him that, you know, and others have just basically said we don't think he was up to it.

And so it's like, wow, if I heard stuff like that,

I might not be overly happy about it either, especially from stuff that I would expect to be, you know, supporting what

I attempted to do and what I tried to say. And so it has the

SIPO stuff didn't surprise me because it doesn't matter. Art SIPO is going to say that kind of thing, no matter what the reality of the situation was.

But I was very disappointed when Art SIPO lied about saying that we kept

Bill Rutland in the dark till a week before the debate, that we wanted 10 minute opening statements with 90 minutes of cross -examination, that this was part of my pre -debate antics.

Every single part of the statement was a lie. And what really disappointed me was Bill Rutland did not come back and say,

I'm sorry, everything Art SIPO said was wrong. And even if he wanted to take the responsibility, say, hey,

I, it was my fault. I didn't communicate with him properly. All the, you know, instead he says, well, the substance of what

Art said was true. Nothing he said was true. The word the was the only true statement in his, the only true word in the entirety of the statement.

There was nothing that was true. And so I've been very disappointed. It's almost like we're dealing with a completely different person.

Are we certain? In fact, we should check. Are we certain that the Bill Rutland who's posting is the Bill Rutland who showed up at the debate?

Because you're right. What was, what was the typo? The, yeah, the was, yeah, the only truth element that snuck in there was in fact a bit of a typo.

So what an, what an amazing, amazing experience to, to try to follow these, these folks as they have been just, just jumping all over the place in, in avoiding the truth.

But, and they didn't call in. What a shame. Well, we tried. The numbers were open and no one, no one wanted to try to,

I guess that means what I've said on my blog was true and cannot be refuted by documentation or logical argumentation.

Yeah, that's, well, did we really doubt that before we started? I don't think so. Oh, well, remember we need to move the dividing line to Friday this week,

Friday morning, and we will have MP3s available and all sorts, all sorts of stuff like that. So watch the, watch the blog for announcement of the

MP3 availability. We will see you then. God bless. We brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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