Lynn Interviews Spong Then a Call about Jehovah's Witnesses

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 9 7 3 4 6 0 2 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white.

Examining the Barry Lynn and John Shelby Spong Interview

And good afternoon. We continue with our examination of a interview that took place a little while ago. And if we don't hurry up with the examination it will be an ancient interview that took took place so long ago that no one will care any longer.

And Really given the topic we probably need to hurry up with this before it is illegal here in the United States for us to discuss this issue on the air and That is in reference the subjects of homosexuality and things related to it.

This being the interview between Those two stalwarts of conservative theology Barry Lynn and the John Shelby spong. Sorry about that happens every time I lie, but anyway, we have been listening to them for an understanding of the liberal mindset the the the mindset of the humanistic religious person.

Which really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but you know we're doing our best and So we've been listening to their discussion and had them all queued up last week. And they didn't get a chance to say anything at all.

So we're gonna press on what they had to say.

That's right. Forsaken him and fled. Jesus died alone. They had to go back and recreate the story and they did it out of Psalm 22.

That's right to read to retell it as a fulfillment of what was considered an earlier prophecy. More with Bishop John.

Now what you remember that's pretty much right where we had stopped. I need to somehow skip past the commercial here. We don't want to be promoting the commercials. That being the backwards view of Prophecy required of those who are secular humanists.

We saw that in John Dominic Cross and we mentioned it last time and that is the individuals who? Beginning with the presupposition that there cannot be such a thing as prophecy. There cannot be such a thing as God revealing future events for his own purposes.

Not to willy-nilly. I Was looking at a website just a few moments ago and It is a one of these word faithers he's got some books out like you can know the future and deliverance from demons and stuff like this and the reason I was looking at is he had a an article on Calvinism it was just it was horrific just just horrible and Couldn't help but thinking about the fact that you know, if this guy's so close to the Spirit of God, it's amazing.

He can't make heads or tails out of the Bible. But anyway Looking at his stuff about you. You can know the future and you can engage in prophecy and all the rest of stuff I can see why you know if people think that that's what Prophecy is all about that.

It's this personal thing where you can somehow look into the future and stuff like that even though ironically I had to wonder a little bit why. Anyone in that camp would think that God can know the future again, you know some major gross inconsistencies there but hey We shouldn't be surprised at the gross inconsistencies in that stuff.

But anyhow, it's the backwards way of interpreting Prophecy is what we've got going on here. And that is since there cannot be any prophecy then all the New Testament writers were doing is they were looking back at the Old Testament text creating The the prophetic matrix and then writing the New Testament story to fulfill it.

Purely dishonest, but they would generally try to soften that blow by referring to it as a Technique of writing as a literary mechanism is basically what they would try to argue that.

Let's see where the commercial questions about what the Bible means and what it ought to mean. To people's pretty good as we kind of recapture what he's characterized as Christian Humanism Bishop in one of the texts that we've hinted at before in the last few minutes on the program.

John 14 6 No one comes to the father, but by me I've been saying all along.

Eventually Lynn's gonna get to a verse that you can just tell he doesn't like. It's taken us. I don't know how many weeks now to get here. But here's. Here's John 14 6 in your judgment as a theologian.

What is coming to the father mean that is to say do you believe that there is a Heaven as described again in one gospel. In the formula of my father's mansion has many rooms. Are you a believer in bodily?

Resurrection as is clearly another strain of the message of what it is to come to the father and be with him. What.

How do you sort out those images from. You've asked a whole bunch of questions all together. Oh, and I know but we you know, we're running out of time. First of all just to begin to unpack that. No one comes to the father.

But by me is the last half and as such it's one of what we call the I am Sayings that appear only in the fourth gospel. You need to understand that the fourth gospel after the Christian Church has been Excommunicated from the synagogue and the Jewish Orthodox.

No, let me just make an observation.

I don't know that we would identify The Specific statement the I am and yet it uses a go I me it uses that emphatic form. But generally the I am sayings are Where a go I me is used without an expressed Fulfillment or or object.

It's not where I am the and then he goes on to say the door the life the bread or whatever. Certainly they those those Particular verses do use I am but the I am sayings are more John 13 19 John 2 John 8 58 8 24 18 5 through 6.

Where you have I am used in a more of an absolute sense. Unless you believe that I am you will die in your sins. When he said I am the soldiers fell back on the ground before Abraham was I am. Same terminology.

I am the way the truth in life, but you have the fulfillment. You have the Description of what the I am is and those other passages so it's a little bit confusing to just lump them all together there but secondly.

All the Gospels were written after the church had been quote-unquote excommunicated. In fact, John makes reference to this the time of Jesus that probably would have only been in the in Judea itself in maybe even in the environs of Jerusalem only at that point.

I mean, I'm sure it didn't happen just overnight. But all the Gospels were written at that point. So I'm not, you know after this excommunication had taken place.

So I'm not sure what the relevance of that specifically was there a longer part of the God of your fathers and mothers. We have the true faith. You are now separate from that and the Christians are shouting back.

The very God that Moses met in the burning bush revealed himself as the great we've met in Jesus. So we make Jesus say the I am word over and over and over again. It's now notice again.

Since you you have to go at this backwards since you can't you can't allow the authors to have their beliefs and you can't believe What the authors believed then you have to go at it backwards and you have to rip out the supernatural element of it you have to make it solely a human product and so now you have off these authors who are actually putting words into Jesus mouth and of course, this is another reason why you have to shove this so far down the road is They can get away with this because the people who were actually there are no longer around to catch them.

See, that's another reason why you have to you know, throw all this stuff down way way way down the road. So you don't have any eyewitnesses left. You don't have anybody who can say no. No, no that that's not that's not what happened.

Okay, so you go at it backwards and you say alright There's no inspiration. And so we want to put words into Jesus mouth and the words that he puts into Jesus mouth of the I am Sayings back from the burning bush and and this is the the Christians screaming back of the Jews and so you can always find whatever and I think a lot of people saw this in the John dominant crossing debate, whatever your Ideal view of what Jesus was supposed to be like you can find a way To read that back into some passages and then get rid of everything else so that Jesus ends up being Well exactly what Jesus should be from your perspective anyway, and that's the the glory of liberal ice Jesus ex Jesus is.

You can just simply Form Jesus into your own pattern of thought you can't you don't have to be challenged by this guy. Because if you run across stuff that you simply will not accept Then you you just dismiss it as having never actually.

Been said by Jesus anyway part of a polemic but not to move on from that. I believe in life after death. But I don't believe in any of the images that have. I believe in life after death because I believe that God is not just Real but that God is eternal.

And I believe that I am in a living relationship with that eternal God. So that I share somehow in God's eternity. And I don't want to go beyond that and paint pictures. Most of the pictures that we've painted in Christian history have been fulfillment pictures.

A Land flowing with milk and honey comes out of the wilderness years of the Jewish wandering Where they didn't know where the next meal was coming from and so they pictured heaven as the fulfillment of their needs.

For regular food a place where there's no more death or separation comes out of the early persecution. Peter Christ meant they might be put to death and Families were cut apart. And the idea of heaven as an eternal Sabbath of rest comes out of the peasants of the feudal ages.

Who only got to rest from back breaking labor on what they call God's day, which they mistakenly Continue to call the Sabbath and made heaven the eternal Sabbath.

Fulfillment to me is is now. I'm not sure how that ends up in Hebrews the medieval feudal system. Something in Hebrews, but whatever all that I am to become fully alive.

And I think I can only do that in a response to an infinite love of God. And that's what the God-human relationship is all about and I think that's an eternal relationship. And I don't know how to make any other statements about it.

But does that mean that no I don't know how to make any statements about because God has not made any statements about to which I can refer see I can I can talk about this of course I'm not sure how he can even talk about God being eternal.

What if someone comes along and says well God isn't eternal and all those texts that you've relied upon and everything else just simply is Pictures so that need to be reinterpreted as well. I mean you just it's all pick and choose.

It's all okay. This is what I'm comfortable with this is this is the kind of God that I'm comfortable with and this God's eternal. Yeah, but this God really can't talk the way we can and and he can't reveal anything and in fact he's he's really sort of a Mishmash of things because he he'll accept all kinds of worship from from from and in fact He'll allow you to accept all kinds of worship.

He'll accept all kinds of contradictory worship and so he's very different than we are and I'm not really sure where we came from and for some reason God developed all this stuff to this random process of Natural selection things like that, but that's again That's just where you're coming from and so you interpret the scriptures in light of that one comes to God except through my religious tradition.

Oh, I think that's to misunderstand Jesus and God totally that if you're not against me you're for me. It's interesting that Matthew turned that around when he wrote it in his book, and he said if you're not me you're against me.

That's very different.

All right, so we've operate now notice again What happens when you just simply start with the the assumption and just make it a mechanical thing? Well, you know Matthew has got mark here, and he disagrees he disagrees and remember this is folks this is the what I would call the majority viewpoint of most of the seminaries in the world today.

Maybe slightly less of a majority viewpoint in the United States where you still have a few conservative seminaries left. But in the vast majority even in the United States they would say oh yes. Now they they might allow for some discussion of why or if maybe there is some way of Harmonizing even though that is considered to be since that's what people did in the past.

We don't want to do that anymore, so we don't really allow for harmonization any longer but they might at least allow for a small amount of Discussion of can we get something out of both statements? You know they don't want to look back at Proverbs and see the the Conjunction there of the two statements to not to respond to a fool.

And to respond to a fool which of course would demonstrate that there are times when we have to apply Godly wisdom to know how to respond in particular situations and that sometimes it is better Not to respond to a fool stb wise in his own eyes and sometimes it is best to respond to a fool and the means by which we do so and and all these these things require a Recognition that not you know you don't have a cookie-cutter way of saying you just never do this you always do that.

That type of thing the same thing is in reference to what Matthew and Mark are referring to in Regards to what Jesus said about those who were engaging in miracles. What does it mean in each context to be for Jesus or against Jesus?

And how do the disciples respond to these things that kind of discussion is only allowed within conservative seminaries and Conservative seminaries you actually get to talk about What the liberals are saying or what the moderates are saying and you you actually get to be challenged by and discuss it.

It's only in the liberal seminaries. They won't talk about that kind of thing. They won't won't even allow it. There's just such a disdain For any type of conservative thought that it's it's just dismissed.

And that that is really the hallmark, I think of extremists on Both ends at that point is an unthinking dismissal without even the possibility of pondering Things to a deeper level that that that's something definitely needs to be.

Avoided if the great religions of the world are somehow against us because they're not for us where Jesus says if you're not.

Actively working against me you're on my side now. Let's let's just think for a moment how this application Simply doesn't work when you talk about real patients as if as if even in Mark's statement Jesus is saying all the world religions or you know, hey, as long as you don't say anything bad about me.

You know, it's sort of like I heard I I didn't actually hear the phone call, but when I was writing Wednesday morning, I think it was Bill Bennett had a fellow on and He was a former Palestinian. Well, I guess you're always Palestinian, but a former Palestinian jihadist a terrorist who was converted.

I don't know much about him, but he definitely sounded like he knew he was talking about in listening to the interview and One of the questions that Bill Bennett asked him was we had a caller yesterday he said that said there is nothing in the Quran that is contrary to Christianity and I Started chuckling at and so did the Palestinian fellow he could tell immediately that whoever was saying this didn't have a clue what they were talking about and I Felt like you know, I probably said out loud to the radio since I was low in the car didn't have to worry about.

That's you know, what what Quran is that guy reading? Because you have and this was the substance of the presentation I made on the on the morning of the 19th over in Los Angeles. Islam cannot define itself without denying The Christian faith it is a part of it's a very the very substance of its self-definition.

I went to Surah 112 and the third verse of the 112 Surah which in describing God In giving the very foundation of Tawheed the the purity of of gods of monotheism in Islamic theology. That he is neither begotten nor does he beget.

Now what's the background of that? What is that a reaction against? It's a reaction against. Quite possibly a misunderstanding, but still it's a reaction against Christianity. It's against the concept of The relationship of the Father and the Son now.

The vast majority of Muslims have a completely false view of what that relationship supposed to be. There's no question about that, but it's there it is is self-definitional. So you can't apply this type of a such of a statement.

Because the Quran is opposed to Jesus Christ. There's no question about it. And then as you start getting into the other religions you start talking about what they teach about God and what they talked about teach about salvation, there's just no way to create this this little Wonderfully ecumenical pluralistic world that that Bishop Spong seems to think is actually out there.

Especially by being nice and let's all sit down and talk about it together. That's not going to work talking to the Palestinian jihadists. I cannot possibly.

Say to my Muslim whom I know to be holy People that the God that they have met in their traditions is somehow not a holy God. Yeah, I just think that's arrogance. It's not up to me to tell God what path people can walk.

But it's also not up to God to tell people the paths that they should walk within this perspective. That's what needs to be understood. Is that is it very frequently? It's framed backwards. It's framed as if we somehow are arrogantly saying That we get to determine the only way that's proper to come to God.

What's the presupposition to this argument that we've heard a number of times already in this interview? And that is God has not spoken. Isn't it exactly? What you what you get back in Genesis? Yeah half God said isn't this apologetically.

What we always come back to is. If God has spoken in his word, then there are certain clear results from that. If he has not Then there's really no way to answer any of these questions and the entire discussion is inane and worthless.

But it all comes back to that that particular issue to come into the presence of God now finally. Let me say that because I walk the Christ path because.

How does he know anything about Christ if God has not spoken? Then cried the Christ path becomes whatever the mind of John Shelby Spong wants it to be. And If there is a challenge in it If there is something in it that is that is repulsive to him such as its Exclusivity then you just simply reinterpret it and and reject it and get rid of it because that's my religious tradition.

I have no difficulty saying that in my life. The only way I know to go to the father's through this Christ figure who shows me something of what the face of God is All about but that's an expression of my religious pilgrimage.

It's not a rule that God's got to apply to all the other people of the world.

And and right there you have and and and and I'm sure that Barry Lindsay expand upon here right right there you have the the Man-centeredness of humanistic Christianity. Quote-unquote. There you there you have the focus upon I determine.

This is my pilgrim is my experience. That's all anyone can have and We we need to realize this this kind of Our Muslim friends over there are not ignorant to these things. They they know these people exist and they laugh that these people are given the kind of exposure that they're given and that they they're.

Given the kinds of positions that they are given because they recognize this has no meaning. They recognize it has no no validity to it. That it that it's that it cannot survive. Anything any challenge it's all just simply man-centered.

They they see that.

It's a shame that Christians can't see. I think that's an extraordinarily important point that it is out of the culture the very Cultural traditions out of which the Bible was itself written and the assumptions that people like the first theologian of the church Paul had.

He was a man who expected I think in all of his writings that Not only was this in breaking of God's kingdom Already occurring, but that it was going to be completed in his lifetime. Thus why should one change the relationship between men and women or masters and slaves, but that was a time-centered Statement just as the statements of a Jerry Falwell or for that matter up a more progressive Religious leader today is a part and parcel of our culture in the United States and now It's.

Amazing to hear a warped eschatology becoming the basis upon which you then somehow understand. Hey, we don't need to worry about changing the relationships of masters and slaves evidently. I suppose Jesus should have fermented revolution rather than What what he said or Paul should have fermented revolution in the in the Roman Empire?

I guess that's what he was saying and if Paul hadn't had the the expectation of the soon coming of Christ the imminent return of Christ that that meant that He would have done things differently. I think that's what was just said.

But again, remember this is the same man who a few years before this particular encounter with Bishop Spong in our encounter together had the dismissed Galatians as being over-the-top and had claimed to have Revelational capacity equal to that of the Apostle Paul that is that he could obtain revelation from God, too.

So keeping that in mind might give you some sense of Recognizing what's really going on here? Absolutely true.

That's why I keep wanting people to make a distinction between the experience of God. Which is real that might be just experience of transcendent people would experience it. But when you explain it, it always the way I illustrate the first century to the 21st century.

It's the same identical experience. But the way we explained epilepsy in the first century is very different the way you explained it in the 21st century. In other words every.

Spiritual thing mentioned in the New Testament has to be naturalized and turned into a natural experience that had no Spiritual connotations to it whatsoever. And of course that again comes, you know.

If you approach the Word of God as a as a humanistic naturalist, then you're going to read it backwards you're going to immediately reject the honesty of those reporting it or at least their intelligence or their their Context and Jesus as well.

And you're left with absolutely honestly no way of knowing anything About what Jesus actually taught or said or did? So why you know, I just have to ask the question why the backwards collar why the Reverend Lynn?

Why why even bother since none of this is actually true, it's it you could function even better it would seem to me Without these things, but they they continue on with their religiosity. So is every other phenomenon?

Experiences. Eternal explanation is always time bound and time warped and when you literalize Explanations in the service of religion you create idolatry.

Indeed and why they're so when you literalize The hope you heard that what he's he honestly does believe and I think this is back of behind of. You can hear a major difference in the way that he speaks.

And in the way that he interacts when he's talking with a burial in or someone he considers to be a non Fundamentalist a non conservative and when he's talking to conservatives if you've ever listened to the program he did with white horse in Totally different person.

Because he really has a Deep-seated animosity and there he described it as as idolatry to literalize These religious statements. Well, let's skip past the guitar music.

The Interview Concludes and the Host Reflects on Debate Preparation

Well, okay, we are back to wrap up today's conversation. I'm using culture shocks with the author of the sins of Scripture Bishop. John shall be spawned a Bishop. Do we just have a few minutes here? But let me go back to this question of women in the church.

You for example. Talk about Mary, of course the sister of Martha anointing Jesus's feet something that would rarely have been done within the cultural context except possibly in a spousal relationship.

There are you know in most two verses in in the Bible that discuss this incident. Is it possible that some draw too many conclusions from that that therefore obviously Jesus was married?

For example, I don't think we really know there was certainly by the time the gospel was presented as the role model for an.

Unmarried kind of ministry. Now, let's back up the track of that one. Isn't it amazing we The the levels of certainty that these individuals can obtain even though we haven't a clue what Jesus actually said When it comes to all of a sudden we have this knowledge of the early church.

We can come to a clear conclusion about things like that. But we we can't know almost anything else. So here because Paul, he's going to say makes reference to a Not a superiority of but a propriety of those who would serve God in a in a particular fashion that that means there is a pressure and that therefore this again reflects the the dishonesty of the gospel writers.

In essence, let's let's face it that's what he's saying is the is the dishonesty of.

Those right all had started that tradition, right?

But that has nothing to do with the writing in the New Testament in any way shape or form. You would have to push the New Testament writings back for centuries Before that would even become an issue. I'm sorry to try to connect to.

There is so grossly historically anachronistic tonight and funny looking at the time here. There is less there is less than three minutes left in the interview. And so we're definitely going to get that wrapped up today.

But first we're gonna take our break and your phone calls at eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one. We'll be right back.

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Jehovah's Witnesses, the Trinity, and Resurrection

And welcome back to the dividing line. We're gonna finish this up.

I'm not sure how many weeks it's taken us to get through a 38 minutes interview, but we're gonna wrap it up here. Because I think we've we've gotten enough. Testimony from a bishops bong as to his perspective on scripture, but let's get the last few minutes in here.

That's the first thing that Matthew Mark and Luke all say that they had female disciples who followed them all the way from Galilee. You need to know that in that culture for a group of women to follow a wandering group of men.

They had to be either their wives. Possibility. Oh, this was such certainty. We know these things don't we? Oh Goodness we just we can't know much about what Jesus actually said or did but we can have such tremendous certainty.

About what could or could not have taken place. I'm reminded of John Dominic Crossan's being absolutely certain that Jesus could not possibly have read. So he could not possibly have written in the sand or he could not possibly have taken up the scroll in the synagogue and and read.

From the scroll and and things like that in that society and when people understand that they began to hope that they were wives. The female disciples whenever they're identified. Mary Magdalene is always the honored one.

Yeah. And the way a woman got status in the first century was that she was the man to whom she was primarily related.

So it sounds like someone's trying to sort of cash in a little bit here on the Da Vinci Code stuff.

When you get to John's gospel Magdalene Mary is portrayed as the only mourner at the tomb. She's portrayed as demanding access to the deceased body of Jesus, which is totally extraordinary. The nearest of kin and.

You know, there are a number of places that it looks like there's a possibility now. Don Brown. And the Da Vinci Code is.

Dan Dan Dan Brown Dan. He's got a lot. He's got more money than you have Dan Brown.

This is very popular I did of course discussed and and his book is fun, but fun. Yeah, I don't know that's gonna be one of those questions I'll ask when I get to the kingdom of heaven, but I suspect that Mary Magdalene in Jesus were.

Partnered people in a husband-wife relationship. There you go. There's John Shelby's long. Jesus was married. Gotta admit. Mm-hmm, you know when the early Mormons did that people had a had a cow about it.

But when John Shelby's bong does it it's just become, you know more. Ho-hum same thing. And and to me.

I hope it's true because I just think that the most sacred relationship one has is the intimacy of a faithful commitment to the primary person of your life and I would like to think that his humanity was so full that that he lived inside the glory and wonder of that kind of.

Is it full enough by the way to even express doubts about his belief about himself and about God? I was kind of like the fact that on the cross. Reportedly again, he said he repeats an old prayer Why has thou forsaken me if you don't have doubts that it seems to me.

It can't be human to that because mark the earliest gospel. Let's just stop that just for like I like that.

Did you hear did you hear that. I mean we are we are listening to unbelievers gross heretical unbelievers. Handling the sacred text and the result cannot help but make you just go what? What I? Like that I've always I like this doubting Jesus thing.

You know why because he doesn't want the Jesus of the Gospels. He detests the Jesus of the Gospels. He did test the Christian Jesus. He tested Jesus who dies so as to redeem man who is under the curse of the light.

It tests all of that stuff and so we we want to emphasize something and oh, you know the doubting Jesus, you know, and and I've I've said many times. I know that I'm in in a minority here, but it's a minority that I think is at least a a Informed minority.

I have stayed many times that when Jesus says what he says in regards to the 22nd Psalm Eloy Eloy Lama sabachthani. That this is the beginning of a song it is the beginning of one of us of one of the hymns the people of God that The people would have understood and if any one of us today starts going amazing grace.