A Mega Size Dividing Line: Matthew Vines, NT Wright, Yusuf Ismail, and More

Well greetings and welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday. Back in the saddle for this week anyways. Only for this week will be gone.

Again.

Next week and then sanity Returns and we'll be here for most of August. I'm not sure if it's sane actually to be in Phoenix during August, but anyway, that's where we will we will be have a lot to get to today.

We'll definitely be going past our normal time. Probably looking at at least a jumbo edition if not more. We have a Lot to get to but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to remember to get to actually since I didn't write it all.

Down.

Planned Parenthood, the Google Video, and Why This Program Is Not About That Story

Wanted to begin the program today. As I have announced on Facebook before I get to that I'm well aware of the of.

The.

Trending news today concerning the undercover video of the Planned Parenthood Official. I just saw Planned Parenthood's response their written response. I just read that and I tweeted out to them having read it Dear Planned Parenthood Goebbels just called he wants his propaganda back What do you expect if you know anything about the history of Planned Parenthood if you know anything about its founder to find one of their officials Sipping wine and eating a Caesar salad over discussing sales of body parts is not overly Shocking to be honest with you.

I mean, it's absolutely disgusting, but Planned Parenthood has always been absolutely disgusting. So If it'll help in getting them defunded if it'll help you know, but I'm not sure how long the attention span of most American voters is today and so, I Don't know.

I don't know. Maybe if we get a You know a comedian to do something about it Then you know the younger generation would listen, but but I'm not gonna be talking about that today. Everyone has seen the video and it is truly Well, almost everyone Has seen the video.

I won't mention anybody who hasn't actually seen the video, but there are people Who actually have not seen the video yet, which is just amazing. But anyway have things to get to and Over the weekend, I believe it came out on the 10th Someone sent me a tweet with a link To a Well, I don't even know where this was it was it it was a Google but Google's everywhere now, I mean Google is Skynet, we just got the name wrong who would ever thought that Google would nuke all of humanity, but This was a Google video so at some kind of for some reason Google hasn't called me to talk about stuff For I don't understand why I mean they certainly know where I am quite pretty much at all times and But this was at a Google get-together and Matthew Vines, of course was invited to be special guests because Matthew Vines is special and Everyone like Matthew Vines is now special because the Supreme Court said so at least that's how people are thinking and.

I.

Don't even know when it was recorded. To be perfectly honest with you. It seems to be rather recent but it does strike me that there is a Very discernible shift in.

The.

Behavior speech.

Attitude.

Of the leaders of the Movement represented by how Divine spoke in this particular situation where he was asked a question by an audience member About whether he would debate me. Now we have placed the Transcript of his comments on Facebook so you can follow along there but if you haven't seen it, we will listen to it first in its entire context and Then we will Go back through it and respond point by point to what?

Mr. Vines is saying now, I would address Matthew directly, but it's pretty obvious to me that He's now beyond Well as he says going in the gutter with someone like me and It would be helpful it would have been helpful if before Watching this response.

You actually had the time to listen through.

The.

Response that he's referring to in His comments, which was my four-hour response to his one-hour presentation. Hence. It was five hours long and total. Which interestingly enough When I first posted it Matthew Vines response was well.

We will debate once my book comes out and I will respond in my book. There was nothing initially about all I. I'm just not gonna waste my time. I'm not gonna roll in the gutter with people like you. You're just so over-the-top.

You're so nasty. That's that's not what it was back then. But now that he has become the media darling Now that he gets all the same softball questions thrown at him that they do on CNN and things like that he seems to be believing his own press now and.

So.

Objections that he never voiced before his book came out. Never voiced before his book came out. Now all of a sudden I'm just terrible horrible and nasty and mean and unloving and all the rest of stuff.

And all I do is say that Homosexuals are like people who want to have sex with dogs. That's what he says now, by the way.

We I.

Want to thank the folks in our chat channel because I Just yesterday while traveling asked if Folks there would take time to listen once again to everything that I said in that very lengthy response. And a couple folks took the time to do so and I asked what did I say about dogs in?

That and The fact matter is I I didn't I think my dogs I there a couple times bestiality did come up because That's in Leviticus 18 sort of hard to avoid that I once did say something about. I might want to start a family with my German Shepherd, but that doesn't that's not gonna work because of the species issue.

But anyone who's actually listened to what I said Knows that how Matthew Vines is going to represent it here. Demonstrates that he does not believe that his audience will ever check out what he says. There's there's been a change In Vines is thinking and he's come to realize that he can say pretty much anything he wants and His fans will believe whatever he says.

And.

They're not gonna check him out. They're not going to go and and say. I wonder if what he's saying is accurate. So what he's just chosen to do in this response aside from being just you know. If you reversed the roles here, and I said about Matthew Vines.

What he said about me? I'm not gonna respond to Matthew Vines because I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna roll in the gutter with someone like him.

I'd never hear the end of it. I.

Mean it would just be if oh, you're just so horrible and unloving but he can say that. Because he's a homosexual and homosexuals can say anything homosexuals want to say. They're the persecuted minority.

So.

They can be mean and nasty and they can be deceptive and and and the whole nine yards and misrepresent everybody.

I mean I.

Guarantee you. He's never played my response for his audiences and gone through it. I played everything he said and Responded every word he said in his presentation. Yeah, that's that's because we approach this as an issue of truth as an issue of life.

Desirous that people would know the truth that they would escape the clutches of death. That's not Matthew Vines motivation. Because Matthew Vines is not a Christian he claims to be one but he's a false teacher and.

His motivations come out very clearly here when a Christian when a person who claims to be a Christian has to grossly misrepresent the people that they are disagreeing with. Well we're supposed to be followers of him who is the truth and.

And so Matthew Vines knows that he could never survive a debate against any knowledgeable opponent. He's a 25 year old college dropout.

Who is.

Borrowing all of his arguments from other people. Mainly from James Brownson, but but others he's he's you know, I mean when he first did his first video Brownson hadn't published yet. So there's differences now, you know, so he's updated stuff, but he's borrowing from everybody else.

He doesn't have the ability to do original work. He's getting this from all these other places. And so he knows he could never survive that debate and So he has to find a way to excuse Making the claims he does just like David Gushing Making the claims that he does without actually then having to back it up.

So he's asked about why he won't debate and. And like I said, if you if you listened and we have around the main main web page right at AOMN org Get it while you can Download the review listen to it and then listen to his representation and go.

Wow, there's a big disconnect there and it's called dishonesty but think about what is now allowing him to do what he couldn't do just a few years ago and I suggest to you. The difference is what has happened just over the past few months and especially in regards to Now the interactions that have been had with him in regards to the Supreme Court decision, so let's let's take a listen to what.

What was said here here we go.

And yeah, that's that's really great. Um in terms of furthering that dialogue James White has offered to debate with you several times. I was curious what the reasons are that that hasn't happened. Yeah, so when I posted my initial talk three years ago There was a Southern Baptist minister in Phoenix who recorded a four-hour Rebuttal podcast rebuttal to my talk and well So here's what I would say I when I'm thinking about Christians who disagree with me on this topic.

They lie along a spectrum. Or rather Christians who don't vocally agree with me on this topic. They lie along a spectrum. You have a minority of people who are silent sympathizers who may not fully agree with me who may may not.

But those are the people who really if you reach them with these arguments It's like you've liberated them and they finally like feel free to Express their beliefs and they can become really passionate advocates.

Then there are a lot of people in the middle I'd say the majority of people in the middle who passively hold Negative beliefs what I would call non affirming beliefs about same-sex relationships.

And.

Who truly believe those things but don't think about it a ton would never write a letter to the editor about it would never Call up a radio show about it. That's where my dad was. Then you have a substantial minority of people who I would say are deeply entrenched and passionate about their opposition.

And those people tend to be the most established people in any given church community, especially the more conservative churches they tend to make institutional change very difficult because they will threaten to Pull their financial giving from a church if it shifts at all on the topic.

And so what I'm trying to do and they also give the impression to a lot of people that everyone in the community Not only shares their belief but also shares that passion with which they hold their belief because no one else is actually saying anything.

So they kind of have the megaphone. When I'm engaging people in this topic I am most interested in engaging the people who are the silent sympathizers and the people in the middle. Because most people who are in that place of entrenched passion opposition Cannot be reached Right now.

I don't ever I try never to write people off entirely but I do postpone people and I will postpone engagement with some people because the way that they think and talk about these topics is so unhelpful and so devoid of any kind of relational Care or understanding that I don't that there it's not really worth my energy.

So James White, I mean he compared being gay to wanting to have sex with dogs and things that are so absurd and so offensive and He was so passionate about it and saw no reason, you know talked about Comparisons to pedophilia and said that only you know, 1 of gay people actually want monogamy.

I don't know where he got that statistic and like and and there I mean it was it was a highly vitriolic Four hours and honestly, that's not worth my time because there are so many people who are worth my time and who are thoughtful and kind and There are some people who are truly vitriolic and who are not kind are not compassionate and I am not like my time is worth so much more.

Than.

Like wasting it going down into a gutter with people who want to compare me to like people who want to have sex with dogs. So that's the reason why I haven't engaged James White. Because he's not worth engaging but There are many people who are worth engaging.

So Tim Keller is a pastor from New York pretty well-known pastor Evangelical pastor who I've learned a lot from. I think he's a great writer and preacher. He just reviewed my book a couple weeks ago.

And.

I didn't really. I mean, you know, it was a negative review, which wasn't surprising because I know what he thinks about this topic. But I really appreciated that he did because that he reviewed my book with a tone of civility.

He didn't say horrendous things about gay people.

And.

He was focusing on my actual arguments and in a way that was a bit more a lot more level-headed. So that allowed me, you know I wrote a response to it about things that I agreed with and a lot of things I didn't agree with and thought that he Actually misrepresented in my book.

But through that process that is what opens the door to general to genuine like conversation. It doesn't mean that he is going to agree with me anytime soon. But I want to focus on people who are engaging thoughtfully.

And.

So and there are enough of them like I can spend all my time doing that.

There you go. There's the entirety. Now again, remember. We played the whole question and answer About it to have its own context. Just as we played his entire one hour video presentation a few years ago when it came out.

Uh, you'll notice there were no direct quotations from me Made by Matthew Vines to my knowledge. He has never done that and remember. He acknowledged the response for years and instead of saying I You're a waste of my time.

And that was vitriolic. That was horrific. Instead what he said was I'll respond to it in my book.

And.

My book comes out. So now we have two completely different stories for coming from the same person and. What has changed? Well, the context of our society has changed and therefore Matthew Vines is. Recollection of things has changed.

Now, of course, that's dishonest and it's hypocritical but Um false teachers who are trying to overthrow the ones for all delivered the Saints faith tend upon examination to fall into those categories basically.

So let's let's go back and We'll do what what Matthew can't do and we will. Let him speak.

Stop.

Respond now. People would love to see this happening live and one side's willing to do that and one side has accurately represented the other side. The other side is the one that doesn't want to do that because they recognize their position is indefensible.

And now of course. Even more so because Matthew does know you can start tell a couple places like when he started talking about you know Comparing us to having sex with dogs when he did that you can just you can hear the voice of a person who knows he's lying who knows that he's being untruthful and.

That's exactly what is is going on here. So let's let's listen to what he has to say and.

Yeah, that's that's really great. Um in terms of furthering that dialogue James White has offered to debate with you several times. I was curious what the reasons are that that hasn't happened. Yeah, so when I posted my initial talk three years ago, there was a Southern Baptist.

Um.

Of course, I Suppose the fact that there was a time when I was a Southern Baptist minister that that might be enough. But that time was before Matthew was born. So I I am NOT a Southern Baptist. I am a Reformed Baptist but when you're an ultra-liberal Presbyterian Uh all Baptists are just sort of Lumped into one big thing, I guess it does say a little bit something about the accuracy of you know, his Research, but he hasn't done any research.

He's not interested in doing research about me because I don't matter. I'm in the gutter. I'm irrelevant. Just just keep that in mind whenever they're talking about. Whenever he's talking about. Well, he's not really relational, you know, he's just not really nice.

He's in the gutter, you know, there you go. We're in Phoenix who recorded a four-hour Rebuttal rebuttal to um.

Rebuttal.

Yeah, it was a rebuttal and if you've listened to it, which you said you did then you would know I played every single comment you made and then responded to every one of your arguments. And I remember later on he says well, you know Tim Keller.

He he responds to the arguments in my book. The fact the matter is you've never presented a single argument that I didn't respond to.

And.

Anyone again who's heard that knows the truth. So why misrepresent it? Why not? Tell them. Well, he you know. Did a four-hour response point by point every single thing that I said and played the entirety of my presentation for his audience.

That would have been the truthful statement, but that doesn't you know. That's that's like the mainstream media actually covering the Planned Parenthood thing or the mainstream media Actually covering the murder of the woman over was it San Francisco or something like that in San Francisco, you know.

They have a paradigm that they want to put out there. They have a story they want to put out there. It doesn't fit, you know. Cover it, you know. I think I retweeted somebody today. Journalism is covering difficult stories with a pillow long enough to holding them down till they stop moving something along those lines, that's that's journalism today and so that would have been the honest thing to say but that doesn't fit the the the story the storyline that Matthew wants to present a.

Talk and well. So here's what I would say I when I'm thinking about Christians who disagree with me on this topic. They lie along a spectrum. Or rather Christians who don't vocally agree with me on this topic.

They lie along a spectrum. You have a minority of people who are silent sympathizers who may not fully agree with me who may may not. But those are the people who really if you reach them with these arguments It's like you've liberated them and they finally like feel free to.

Express now, please notice. What is what is what did he just say. Reach them with these. What? These are arguments he says he's putting forth.

Arguments so.

Arguments should be examined. Remember, this is a man who? Has in the past claimed to train Christians to go into our churches into quote-unquote non-affirming churches, which means believing churches for the past 2 ,000 years.

And Change our overthinking with Good arguments now won't be the best way to demonstrate you have good arguments. Are they to present them only the people who already agree with those arguments or the people who don't agree with those arguments?

Seems pretty obvious to me. But in our upside-down topsy-turvy world This is now what is being presented.

Their beliefs and they can become really passionate advocates. Then there are a lot of people in the middle I'd say the majority of people in the middle who passively hold negative non-affirming beliefs about same-sex relationships.

And.

Who truly believe those things but don't think about it a ton would never write a letter to the editor about it would never Call up a radio show about it. That's where my dad was then. You have a substantial minority of people who I would say are Deeply entrenched and passionate about their opposition.

And those people tend to be the most established people in any given church community, especially the more conservative churches. They tend to make institutional change very difficult because they will threaten to Pull their financial giving from a church if it shifts at all on the topic.

And so what I'm trying to do. And they also give the impression to now. No, no, they're passionate and.

They won't give money.

How about they have really strong arguments that I well know in the depth of my soul. I cannot refute. How about how about that? Because I think that's really what's going on with Matthew. Matthew knows That the other side has arguments that he cannot refute they've been presented to him and So he's now he's a smart young man.

He's finding ways to excuse. Having to deal with the refutation of his own arguments while continuing to present them knowing that they can be refuted. So he doesn't even doesn't even mention, you know, well, they'll threaten to pull funny.

These are these are the they're the people in charge and la la la la la. Yeah, how about they are passionately convinced of The position that the Christian Church has held on this issue since its inception.

How about that and they they actually take the time to read my books book singular listen to my videos and have responded to those things rather fully in fact on a level that I simply can't deal with and.

So I need to come up with some way of dealing with this and this is this is how I do it.

Well that everyone in the community not only shares their belief. But also shares that passion with which they hold their belief because no one else is actually saying anything. So they kind of have the megaphone.

When I'm engaging people in this topic I am most interested in engaging the people who are the silent sympathizers and the people in the middle. Because most people who are in that place of entrenched passionate opposition.

Cannot be reached. Right now. I don't ever okay. All right.

Are you?

Passionate and entrenched in your position again. Why am I why am I bothering to address? You're not gonna watch this is he? Passionately entrenched in his position. Obviously he is. But he doesn't want to acknowledge The existence of somebody on the other side.

Because then he'd have to then the obvious thing would be that our side shouldn't bother to engage at all with him. And yet that's the whole thing. He wants to do. That's how he's gotten his his attention is by saying you you must deal with you must listen to us.

But you see I think part of this is also the homosexual mindset. Remember uber rights. You must celebrate who I am and what I do. We are special you are not. We are special you are not. You're normal.

You're regular. We're we're specially gifted. I mean that is that not what we are hearing every single day now. Is that not what is being? Shoved into our face every single day is we're special. You're not.

Our rights are more important your rights. You will celebrate us. That's what that's what we're hearing here.

Yes, can I interject here that no on his point about the spectrum went over real well. Yeah his point about the spectrum you have commented about Your debating audiences numerous occasions and you point out that on the one hand you've got the opposition the hardcore and on the other hand you've got your own following the hardcore and there's the group in the middle and You're not you're there knowing that your opponent is hardcore.

He's Entrenched in that position and your point is to talk to those in the middle. You understand the spectrum of the audience. He just dismissed an entire spectrum of the audience.

That he won't even have an interaction with. And of course if he was at all convinced of the weight of his arguments then He would want If he actually thought his arguments were good arguments, and they would survive against me.

He would want to debate me. To demonstrate that not only for the people on his side, but for the people on my side as well. You see one of the things that has bothered me in trying in even going back and forth on Twitter with Matthew is.

We have completely different reasons for doing what we do. He is not. The reason why I'm responding to him It's not about him. It's about something so much bigger than either one of us, but for him. It's all about him.

You have to be nice to me. It's my time. It's it's what's worth me doing. It's all me me me me me and. That's why if you even talk about Bestiality pedophilia incest in other words if you go to Leviticus 18 look at the Holiness Code and Talk about what all these sins are about and how they're all connected in attacking the Imago Dei.

It doesn't matter that you're dealing with the Bible, and he's not He will be offended because it's all about him. Now there's all sorts of stuff in what he said here that if I were interested. It was all about me I would just be massively offended.

But I'll be honest with you. I don't care because it's not about me. Yes. He's being mean yes. He's being Disrespectful yes, he's being a hypocrite. So what?

Big deal.

The issue and How people respond it? That's that's what's important, so we have completely different motivations what we do. Completely different motivations, and you see in the touchy-feely all emotions.

I'm just a little kid. Millennial generation. I Don't want to grow up. I don't want to become an adult. I just want to do me me me stuff. Amongst those folks. He looks like the nice guy because it's all about him rather than recognizing.

You know what? That's really immature and that really isn't going to promote human flourishing as soon as that term. Let's borrow a Molarism for the moment, but very very different motivations for what we're doing.

I try never to write people off entirely but I do postpone people and I will postpone engagement with some people because the way that they think and talk about these topics is so unhelpful and so devoid of any kind of relational Care or understanding.

Unhelpful and devoid of relational care and understanding. That's that's the terminology. Yeah, I've got it right here so devoid of any kind of relational care understanding. That I don't think they're really not worth my energy is what he's gonna say just now so in other words, he gets to define and then interpret you and your Reasons for doing things and.

So if you don't fit his paradigm, well, you're just not worth his energy. Again, it's all Matthew Vines it's all about me and There is a direct connection here to homosexualism because what Fundamentally is the error of homosexual attraction.

It's narcissistic. It's falling in love with a mirror image. It's more me my me me me. That's where the immaturity is. I mean when we were boys at Seven years of age. You just wanted to play with other boys.

You don't want to play with girls. They had cooties. Um besides some of them were growing faster than we were and sometimes they get outrun you and so that was a bad thing.

So.

But they couldn't throw like you could and No girl has ever been able to make Battle noises or any other kind of sound effects like guys can. We have me and it's it's an irrefutable point. There's absolutely no question that that's an irrefutable point.

I mean By the time you're seven years of age, you can make the sound of machine gun. You know prop propeller airplanes dive-bombing stuff and girls Can't do it so but you see then something happened and we grew up and we grew out of that and That's not something that's happened in the homosexual experience.

And so there is a Self-focus there is a me me me me me. That's what you have.

And.

That's what you're hearing here that I don't that there it's not really worth my energy. So James White and his talk, I mean he compared Being gay to wanting to have sex with dogs and think.

Um, that's just a lot. Okay, I mean it's out there.

I.

Had folks go through it and Specifically send me every reference Whatsoever to the subject of bestiality and I'm sorry, but it's The reality is it's a lie and I think I don't know just looking at his face the way that he's sort of Looking at things.

He knows it's a lie. He knows he's trying to have to promote something here. Let me let me give you Every statement in my entire presentation That could even be remotely connected to anything. He's saying here.

All right, and I again I want to thank the folks in channel that listened Part 1. 23 minutes 50 seconds in I want to be married to my German Shepherd and I want to start a family with My German Shepherd.

I was talking about the impossibility of Defining families any way I want to do so. Didn't say anything about sex with German Shepherds or dogs 35 45. How about a how about high quality bestiality versus low quality bestiality and again, the issue was comparing the idea of There being Some kind of a better form of a sin versus a lesser form of a sin and I'm drawing again from the biblical holiness code which specifically in Leviticus 18 Rather painstakingly goes through a number of sins which includes all sorts of forms of incest Homosexuality and bestiality.

It's right there. It's been there for 3 ,400 years approximately.

So.

Do forgive me for providing biblical Answers to your biblical claims, but again, he can get away with this because he knows no one's gonna check him out. Not not anybody. He cares about he doesn't care about you any.

Because he knows he knows we know. He knows we know he's got to go for the ignorant people. He can't go with people already know which tells me he knows his arguments are not gonna work. In part two at 16 minutes.

There's the exchanging of natural for what is against nature creatures. Not only. Okay. Okay, the exchanging of what's natural for is against nature. Yeah, that's not really that's not really. I mean.

It's Romans 1 but and then there were two others in Part one at 154 55 prohibitions against bestiality Just mentioned it Leviticus and at 28 to 28 30 The commandment against bestiality is repeated more often than the commandment against homosexuality in response to vines direct bestiality assertion.

I'm not sure who was saying that because obviously the commandment against bestiality is Not repeated more often than the commandment against homosexuality at least in the New Testament. I'm not sure what the context was there.

But the point is there is nothing about anyone desiring to have sex with dogs being compared to homosexuals. The closest thing is I can't have a family with a German Shepherd. I don't even have a trip.

Did I still have a German Shepherd back then?

But I.

Don't know. Maybe I well we had a German Shepherd, but and she died only a few years ago. So it's possible. It's possible. Maybe that's where I came with anyways. So the whole thing's bogus, I mean, this is this is clearly an attempt to Misrepresent the other side because he's not gonna he's not gonna sit there and say, you know.

He was really passionate, but he he responded to every single Element of my argumentation. He talked about to a bar. He went through the Holiness Code. He went through Romans 1. He talked about arson a coitus.

He went into the original language. That's not gonna fit the dismissive Disrespectful Marginalization paradigm that he wants to put out. So Why tell the truth when a lie is gonna work just as well and in fact given.

The.

Context of our society today. A lie is actually gonna work better. You know why bother. So there you go.

So absurd and so offensive and he was so passionate about it and saw no reason, you know talked about Comparisons to pedophilia and said that only you know one, okay.

Comparisons to pedophilia. What do you mean by that? I mean, are you saying that it is inappropriate to Point out the fact the reality that this very day There are a growing number of articles appearing in scholarly works identifying pedophilia as a Sexual orientation that there is an entire movement there the the German that I have it in here.

Let me see real quick if I if I save this.

The.

German. The nation of Germany is Advertising. Yeah, it's not here. I thought I had saved it to to Evernote is is doing an advertisement. They've they've started a private treatment program for people who experience sexual desire for young for young folks for pedophiles and You can get free help without being turned over to the police and The whole idea behind it is it's a sexual orientation.

So all it will take will be a few more articles one good Hollywood movie and.

Voila.

It's a and kick and and are we wrong are To go, huh. You take this and then you look at Oregon Which is now saying that if a 15 year old Will come to not their parents but to the government and Want a sex change operation?

The government will pay for it without notifying the parents. Hmm you can't get in a tanning bed at 15 in Oregon, but you can change your sex and If you can change your sex at 15 Without talking to your parents about it What is the logical or rational reason for saying you cannot engage in sex?

At 15 Seems to be coming together For some odd strange reason. Can't talk about that. You see what you need to understand folks. Is that for the Matthew Vines of the world? You can't talk about anything that demonstrates that they're.