USA Today Tells Christians to Shut Up, and More

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.

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And good morning, welcome to the Dividing Line. The day I got back from the

UK, an article appeared in USA Today, a number of people have discussed it. In fact,

I was listening to my good brother, Michael Brown, discussing this on a ride just yesterday.

And once he started talking about it, I wanted to talk about it too. I'd love to have him on, in fact, to chat about this, but he's busier than a one -armed paper hanger, just like I am.

And this is a Tom Krattenmacher article on gay rights, keep fighting or adapt.

You get the sense, observing the shifting cultural landscape. And there's the problem right there.

Shifting cultural landscape is not a sufficient basis for truth. That we've reached a point on gay rights that is similar to that moment in a football game or an election or a relationship when you know it's over, even though it's not over.

It appears increasingly obvious that social acceptance of gay men and lesbians and insistence on their equal rights are inexorable.

If the repeal of don't ask, don't tell weren't enough to signal that turning point, or the classification of several gay -resisting

Christian rights organizations as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, I have to chuckle because,

I mean, that's a real conservative group itself. There came news that Exodus International was ending its involvement in the anti -homosexuality

Day of Truth in U .S. high schools. We need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace,

Exodus President Alan Chambers explained, while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether we agree with them or not.

Add it up and you see a decision point at hand for socially conservative Christian groups such as the Family Research Council that have led resistance to gay rights.

Do they fight to the last ditch, continue shouting the anti -gay rhetoric that rings false and mean to the many

Americans who live and work with gay people, or who themselves are gay? Or do they soften their tone and turn their attention to other fronts?

Prayerful discernment, this is the author speaking, and simple Christian decency, please notice the conjunction of the terms

Christian and decency there, would strongly suggest the latter. The alternative looks worse by the day, a quixotic battle more likely to discredit its fighters and their fine religion than win any hearts and minds for Jesus.

Evidently, that's what Christianity is supposed to be. Christianity has far worthier causes than this, according to Tom.

For all its drama and rally the troops appeal, fighting to the end is a sure loser. More and more Americans, young people in particular,

Christians very much included, know gay men and lesbians and see how the anti -gay talking points and characters fail to square with the reality under our noses.

Then under a subtitle, but the Bible says, young Christians increasingly have family members who are gay.

Does that mean that the gay population has rapidly expanded over the past 30 years? Well, no, it actually hasn't, but anyway, have people in their lives who really matter to them who are gay and that changes how they approach these issues, says

Gabe Lyons, author of the new book, The Next Christians, and a leader and chronicler of the new generation of evangelicals, another reason that the term evangelical may be losing its relevance.

This doesn't mean their convictions in the matter of change, but in this new environment, people don't want to see their friends being discriminated against.

They don't want them labeled as someone who should be feared and blamed. Of course, rubbing some people the wrong way is a little concern if you're convinced you're presenting the straight from the

Bible, capital T truth, as conservative Christian organizations are quick to assert. The problem is that such a stance is increasingly difficult to maintain as society begins taking a more complex look at what the

Bible says, Bible's not even capitalized here, and doesn't say about sex, and as growing ranks of unchurched

Americans ask why it even matters what the Bible says. Boston University biblical scholar,

Jennifer Wright Nust, yes, biblical scholar, demonstrates in her new book,

Unprotected Texts, that folks, these bogus, absurd, insane books have been coming out for a long time.

And I mentioned this when we wrote the same sex controversy, I could not believe how many books came out, even during the time of the writing of that book.

All contradicting one another, all mouthing, parroting the same silliness, but just getting used to the fact that folks are going to argue this way, oh, there's all these scholars, whether what these scholars say makes a lick of common sense or not is irrelevant, as long as somebody with a doctorate said it, and folks, you can find somebody with a doctorate who will say anything.

That's the nature of education in our world today. Jennifer Wright Nust demonstrates her new book,

Unprotected Texts, the Bible's lessons on sex and marriage are highly nuanced, heavily contextualized, and often contradictory.

The writings of the Apostle Paul and modern interpretations of the Sodom and Gomorrah story guide much of conservative Christian thinking on sexuality, but other parts of the

Bible veer in dramatically different directions, Nust points out, appearing to legitimize polygamy or sex with slaves are 108 degrees in the opposite direction, elevating celibacy as the proper

Christian practice. Nust says it is highly misleading for marriage traditionists to portray their stance as the biblical stance, when read as a whole, she writes, the

Bible provides neither clear nor consistent advice about sex and bodies, end quote, yes, well, now we know what this biblical scholar is all about.

In explaining its withdrawal from the day of truth, Exodus International outlines a smart way forward for conservative

Christian groups, one that does not require that they sacrifice their core beliefs. Note that Alan Chambers did not announce a change in his organization's philosophy that people can be saved from homosexuality through faith in Christ.

What he did signal, though, was a change in tone and emphasis, and in doing so, he invoked a foundational Christian principle, treat others as you wish to be treated.

Contrast that with the words of certain other Christian right leaders, Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins continues his steady drumbeat of dark warnings that homosexuals are radical, unwell, and out to destroy

Christianity and the family. Chuck Colson, best known for his admiral prison ministry work, has described same -sex marriage as the greatest threat to religious freedom in America.

Is Colson claiming that the religious liberty of a subset of Christians is abrogated if those Christians do not get to dictate the law of the land on marriage?

If you can't see the twistedness of that thinking, folks, then you must be having a real hard time interacting with this growing anti -Christian society in which we live.

This is why we have to be emphasizing in our churches the need to cultivate a specifically

Christian worldview that is consistent with biblical parameters and that we apply to all of life.

It's doubtful that many people outside the conservative Christian camp will hear much truth in that assertion, and as Colson's recent experience demonstrates, maintaining this stance can only paint you into a corner in the new context.

Colson is a leader of a project called the Manhattan Declaration, which is mounting a vigorous defense of conservative values.

A key plank in that text is opposition to gay marriage, and that has become the bone of contention in a newsmaking brouhaha over Apple's decision to ban the

Manhattan Declaration iPhone app, which of course is just further evidence that most of the people in geekdom are cultural liberals and anti -Christians.

I mean, that's just the reality that we have to deal with, and that's the fact.

The cultural tide. After the app's initial launch, Apple started receiving protests. The declaration promoted hate and homophobia and decided to remove it from the virtual shelves.

Say what you will about the fairness of those charges, does opposing same -sex marriage automatically constitute hate? This is the jam in which gay rights fighters increasingly find themselves as they strive to withhold a cherished right from a certain group of Americans based on their identities.

That is, just to catch that last sentence, again, you should be able to hear that and immediately recognize this person is not speaking truthfully, not speaking even rationally, and this is an obvious and shallow form of argumentation that many people fall for.

Listen to that sentence again. This is the jam in which gay rights fighters, gay rights fighters, see, all through this, this author, clearly promoting an anti -Christian agenda, he probably calls himself a

Christian, but clearly promoting an anti -Christian agenda. There are many people who do that, by the way. It's something you've got to get used to.

Will use weasel words, will use the language to insert their conclusions into the assertions so that there's no way to argue them.

Gay rights fighters. How about people who actually believe in marriage the way marriage has been practiced for thousands of years?

How about people who actually believe that God created, actually believe what Jesus taught about marriage?

Now, he'll never put it that way, but that's the reality, because we know what Jesus taught about marriage. Read Matthew 19.

You find out what Jesus taught about marriage. There's no question about it. You can go off and find some wacky woman liberal quote -unquote

Bible scholar someplace and quote her all you want. That doesn't change what

Jesus said about marriage. And so gay rights fighters increasingly find themselves as they strive to withhold a cherished right.

See, they've grabbed hold of the civil rights movement and they've imported it wholesale into the promotion of perversion and the destruction of marriage and the very cultural fabric of the nation.

Withhold a cherished right from a certain group of Americans based on their identity.

Not their choices, not their sin, not their perversion, but their identity.

See, that is one of the most classic examples I've ever seen of assuming the end of the argument, inserting in the middle and going, hey, you can't argue against that, now can you?

And you've got to learn to recognize that kind of... You're not dealing with someone who even begins to honor truth when you hear that kind of thing.

Conservative Christian leaders ought to be very careful about their rhetoric going forward. Oh yeah, you terrible people who believe in the

Bible, you better be careful. Careful not to continue giving the impression that being Christian is in large measure about opposing gay rights.

Oh yeah, gay rights, that's all that the Bible's about. Actually, of course, the point is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the issue that God sent his son to die as a sacrifice for sins.

Why? Because there is such a thing as sin and homosexuality is a sin and those who practice it as those who lie or cheat or dishonor their parents or whatever else also abide under the wrath of God.

But it's still sin and if you say it's not, then you're saying Jesus was a liar. Simple, straightforward, that's what it's all about.

And careful not to let the public expression of their faith become primarily associated with something that looks, sounds, and feels like hate to growing segments of the population.

Well, that's already the case in collapsing Europe. Secularized Europe and secularized

Canada is already the case there and people like Tom Krottenmacher want that to be the case here as well.

Fighting to the end might sound gallant, but it's not a road to glory so much as a ticket to infamy and infamy akin to that born of the likes of Bull Connor, George Wallace, and other villains of civil rights history.

Is that any hill for Christians to die on? Well, there you go. There you have, well, it's anti -Christian rhetoric.

It's what it is. It needs to be identified for what it is. It's anti -Christian bigotry and should be identified for what it is.

But this is the kind of in your face, shut up, stop talking about what's true material that is out there in our society today and influencing many, many people.

Evidently, the number one song in the nation, which I wouldn't know anything about, is a Lady Gaga song about to born this way.

And there's no question, the next generation, the generation coming up behind us is very, very morally and ethically confused.

How could they not be given that they have been robbed of their birthright as human beings?

They believe that they are nothing but the accidental result of cosmic forces that have no purpose.

There's no transcendent purpose. The only thing that's really important is that I have my iPod and my music and my favorite foods and my favorite clothes and stuff like liberty and self -sacrifice and service, all the rest of that stuff.

That comes from a worldview no longer meaningful to that generation.

It's all me, and therefore, if it feels good to me, therefore, it must be right. They are ethically and morally challenged, and we are the only ones to blame for that because we have in many ways and in many churches collapsed when it comes to any meaningful proclamation of the creatorship of God, the fact that he is our maker and our creator, and therefore, there is a divine law.

And that divine law does set the parameters of what is right and wrong. And to fail to honor the very things that we proclaim loudly

God honors, including marriage and the things related thereto.

So I wanted to mention that, and that is not even subtle anti -Christian rhetoric.

That is open and bold anti -Christian rhetoric. That's hate speech because it's telling you, if you keep saying what you're saying, we all will hate you.

That is—that's hate speech in and of itself, since we want to talk about hate speech, let's shine the light both directions, shall we?

At least I have a basis for what I'm saying. All the secular humanist has is, well, that's how

I feel. Or that's the current moral consensus, just as, you know, remember the debate with the atheist last summer back in New York?

So when you stand at Auschwitz, what can you say? Well, I disagree with this. That's all he could say. He couldn't say it was morally wrong.

He can't. He doesn't have any grounds for saying that. No Darwinist ever would. There you go.

All right. Next completely shifting gears, I was sent an email that I want to respond to.

And it's a tough email, and it's a very good question.

The email says, my wife and I have been going through a process of solely understanding Reformed theology.

Last night, when contemplating these teachings on election, predestination, particular atonement, et cetera, my wife started crying for her two sisters that do not show any fruits of saving faith.

How do I react to my wife and church members when teaching these doctrines, when questions arise such as, why didn't

God elect my father for salvation? It just hit home last night when my wife was crying. I understand some of the answers to this, such as having a

God -centered perspective to this, that the non -elect are deserving of hell, and that God is not obligated to save anyone.

What is your best response to this emotional reality of friends and family who were never elected for salvation?

I do believe that it is a matter of spiritual maturity to come to understand the reality of one's necessity, the need that one has for self -discipline in the matter of one's spiritual life.

We as human beings are created in the image of God, and we have the ability to engage in self -discipline.

That's what separates us from the animals who are ruled by their brute passions. We are not.

Let me change that. We should not be. And is it not maturity itself when we transition from being a child who wants what we want right now—and is it not the mark of a child—to throw a temper tantrum when you don't get what you want?

And we recognize maturity in our own children when they can put that off to do what is right, to be disciplined, to work toward obtaining what they desire—isn't that a sign of maturity?

Isn't that what makes Charlie Sheen such a gross person to observe today, is an utter lack of adult maturity?

It is. And so, in the Christian life, we are to have the mind of Christ.

We are to be self -disciplined. We are to rein in our bodies and our minds and our spirits under the guidance of the

Spirit and the Word of God. And so our emotions must be brought into check.

I think of Sarah Edwards' response upon receiving the news of her husband's death was not to cry out to God, why me, he was such a wonderful man, he was still young, he could have done so much—that's not what she did.

Her first and greatest concern was that her reaction, her response, would reflect the glory of God.

That's discipline. That's a spiritual discipline that one gains over time. That's spiritual maturity that one gains over time.

And so much of evangelicalism, the theology of evangelicals is determined by their emotions, what feels good to them.

And so, I would say that we have to start by encouraging—you know, this was a question about how do

I react to my wife and church members when teaching these doctrines, when questions arise such as, why not my father?

And the first response that should be, that's not the proper question. The proper question is, why me?

This is the same issue as Romans chapter 9. When you hear those words, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated, here is a spiritual maturity test.

If what amazes you in that statement is, Esau I hated, you've missed it.

What should amaze you in that phrase is, Jacob I loved. Now that's very much not the world's perspective, because God's love is owed to everybody.

Because God is love, right? Yes, God is love. But what makes that love so deep and so rich is that it's love exercised by the thrice holy

God who hates sin and whose anger and wrath is real.

And so, where do you start? You start first and foremost with—let me put it this way—no person will be able to deal with this question appropriately who has not first and foremost, first and foremost, recognized with amazement their own utter dependence upon God for their own salvation.

And the fact that they were not owed this, it was not something that had to be given to them,

God isn't lucky to have them. You see, when we recognize that God could have been perfectly just and righteous to let us go our way, then we have a foundation upon which to stand to look at others, including those close to us.

Because fundamentally, someone who would struggle with God not extending electing grace to someone is someone who thinks that the electing grace they themselves have received was somehow something that was owed to them, and it was not.

And so, there's the foundation I think that we have to go to, a recognition that the judge of all the earth does right, and that grace can never, ever be demanded.

Um, that's not something that can necessarily be communicated with permanent clarity in one presentation, in one

Bible study. Now, God may use just one single, very clearly presented

Bible study to accomplish that. I've talked to lots of people, just got hit upside the head by like a two -by -four with Romans 9, and I've understood ever since.

Okay, but for others, it takes time, and there's a struggle, and there's resistance.

And so, lovingly, but without compromise, representing

God's truth and calling people to a maturity and a self -discipline, uh, that is the way to answer that particular question.

Now, shifting gears yet once again, big time, I didn't get to finish this.

I got close, um, I've got enough to give you a good sense, but yesterday, as I mentioned,

I was, when I was riding, I, uh, it's funny, I was, I listened to an

Al Mohler briefing, I listen to the briefing all the time, and since I threw this one on my iPod, and I was having on high speed, it was like, man, that was short.

That was the briefest briefing ever, because at high speed, it goes by really quick. And people sound so incredibly intelligent when you listen to them at high speed.

I mean, they can just, they think like anything, and then you listen to it in regular speed, and they're just plain old human beings.

But, um, I listened to an unbelievable radio broadcast, the one that followed up the one that I was on with Kyle Paisley.

The next week, they had a debate with John Hick.

Now, John Hick, well known, if you're a seminary student, you've had to read

John Hick, philosopher of religion, and I had to read John Hick years and years ago at Fuller Theological Seminary and so on and so forth.

And it was on pluralism. John Hick is a pluralist, and he is a

Quaker. He mentioned that. In this program, he mentioned he's a Quaker, which once you listen to this, you're going to go, really?

That's interesting. As I listened to this man speaking, I was taken aback by, here's a guy who believes all these various paths to God are equally valid.

Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, every form of Christianity, et cetera, et cetera, religious, pluralist, all roads lead to Mount Fuji or whatever it is.

And yet, as I listened to this, I could not help to recognize that when you gut

Christianity of its core essence, even when trying to say it is one path amongst many paths, you have to attack it.

And here is this religious pluralist with his British accent, mouthing the same attacks on the reliability of the

New Testament and the doctrine of the Trinity that we hear every time we review a debate or presentation with Muslims or Bart Ehrman or whatever.

It's the same stuff. The enemies of faith really don't come up with new things.

They just have to retread it and trot it out as something new. And so I want you to listen.

I'll break in once in a while, but I want you to listen. There we go.

Get it plugged in this time. I want you to listen to John Hick, and it's going to start off about two minutes of his what caused him to become a religious pluralist.

He was raised as a Christian. What caused him to abandon it? Notice, and when we get to the end, when, and I may jump to this or I might be able to get to it or maybe play it next time.

I don't know. It all depends. Justin Brierley did a good job of continuing to push on him and pushing him.

Why should we accept your view as the best view? And finally, he grounded everything in his own personal experience.

His own personal. That's all of God. God hasn't spoken. In fact, I think from his perspective of who

God is, God can't speak. But let's listen to what

John Hick has to say. It was when I first came to Birmingham to accept an invitation to a chair here at the university that I became aware at first hand of people of other faiths, because Birmingham is a very multi -faith city.

As chair of the city's community relations committee, part of my job there was to visit places of worship so that I was in mosques and synagogues and Sikh gurudwaras and Hindu temples, all these various places, as well, of course, as Christian churches.

And something struck me very forcibly, namely that although the externals are very different, that is to say the way in which the building was furnished, the pictures, the windows, not only that, but the language used and the way in which

God was thought of and referred to, all these things were very, very different.

Yet nevertheless, it struck me very forcibly that essentially the same thing was going on in all of them as in the

Christian churches, namely human beings coming together under the influence of some ancient tradition which enabled them to open their minds and spirits upwards, so to speak, and to find their lives changed as they responded to the divine reality, even though they thought about this in very different ways.

Now, I just stopped just for a moment. That's not what Christian worship is. And if that's all he thought

Christian worship was at the time, it's understandable why he now pretty much denies the essence of the

Christian faith. But notice how man -centered that was. I mean, that is a good description of the emergent concept, isn't it?

But that's why Christian worship is focused away from us and onto God, the proclamation of his attributes, the worship of him in the way that he has defined.

See, once you abandon all that stuff, all you've got is just the religious mumbo -jumbo of the world, which is why, you know, emergent church movements and things like that can't even begin to create an apologetic because there's nothing to defend.

And did this sort of lead you to the view that no one religion has the claim to the truth, that all religions are?

I mean, in addition to that Birmingham experience, I spent quite a lot of time in India with Hindus and Sikhs, and in Sri Lanka with Theravada Buddhists, and in Japan with Zen Buddhists.

So the result of all this experience was, yes, it did become fairly clear to me that there are, in fact, many paths to God.

Well, so there you go. There's his experience.

Is it because he met Buddhists? And you know what? I have seen this happen so many times.

Christians who live these little insulated lives. And if you have grown up, this is why so many of the emergent people are former fundamentalists.

Because there is a sense in many fundamentalist churches where you sort of create an enclave of us versus them.

And you never have any interactions with them. And therefore, when you meet them and find out that them is a lot like you, then the walls you've built up, not based upon what the

Christian faith actually is, but merely your experiences, collapse.

And they have to be replaced with something else. Makes perfect sense. Doesn't happen when people grow up in a situation where Christianity is in a small minority and you don't live in this little insulated group, and you already know that there are nice people who stand against God's truth.

Nice in the human sense. Not from God's perspective, but nice in a human sense.

And those folks have a much stronger foundation upon which to stand. He goes on. Whether the claim that Jesus is the only way, based of course on that statement in St.

John's Gospel that you quoted, I am the way, the truth, and the life, whether that is true.

And in my view, it isn't true. And Jesus never said it.

I don't mean that it's not in St. John's Gospel, it certainly is. But modern

New Testament scholarship, as you all both know, has concluded that St.

John's Gospel is the latest of the Gospels to have been written. It's to be dated somewhere in the 90s of the first century, up to the end of the century.

And it's very unlike the other three Gospels in many ways, which

I could spell out if you want me to. But the conclusion is that it does not represent, these are not words of the historical

Jesus. They're words put into his mouth by a later Christian some 70 years after the death of Jesus, expressing the theology of the

Church at the point at which it had come in this right as part of the

Church, and at this period of time. So it's not a statement of Jesus.

Jesus did not, in my opinion, regard himself as God incarnate, or as the second person of a

Trinity incarnate, but as a prophet in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets.

Now, where have you heard that before? Where do you think so many of my Muslim opponents are getting their stuff these days?

They're getting it from people like John Hick, one of the most respected philosophers of religion in the

English -speaking world. And yet, when you actually listen to them and have to enunciate their position, is there anything new here?

Has this not been responded to many, many, many, many times before? It most certainly has.

That's what struck me in listening to this was I was shocked at the surface level of Hick's presentations on the key and central issues, reliability of the text,

New Testament, etc., etc. Just shocking at how surface level this material really, really was.

But we continue on with what he had to say. Let me just say that I am not relying at all on the

Jesus Seminar in the America, or on any radical

New Testament scholars, but upon the middle -of -the -road Orthodox ones. I mean, the

Orthodox scholars do believe that Jesus was divine, but they've ceased to claim that Jesus himself taught that he was divine.

Jared Now, there's a fascinating middle -of -the -road are the people who, for some reason, continue to believe in the deity of Christ, but not because it's actually part of divine revelation.

Evidently, if you're to be an Orthodox scholar in John Hick's understanding, you believe in the deity of Christ because of some tradition, but not because it's actually a part of divine revelation.

This is literally where things are out there in the world, folks, just so you're aware.

But I do think it was a mistake, and you see, the term Son of God was a very familiar metaphor.

Jared Now, listen to this, because, again, I've played

Bassam Zawadi saying this. It's incredibly easily challenged, but again, this is one of the problems with so many in the academy today.

When you're in the liberal ring of things, which is the large majority, you don't think that anybody on the other side has anything worthwhile saying anyways, and the only people over there you listen to are the people who will compromise with you anyhow.

And so, they just repeat these things over and over again until they take on a life of their own, and no one even contemplates whether these statements have any meaningful reality any longer.

Bassam Zawadi indeed, any extremely good and pious, outstandingly excellent

Jew could be called metaphorically a Son of God. It was a term of high esteem.

Which, of course, is why in John chapter 19 the Jews said to Pilate, we have a law, and by the law he had to die because he made him out to be the

Son of God. The whole point of monogamies, the uniqueness, John chapter 5, it is

Son of God in contradistinction to anyone else in a unique filial fashion that means relationship, not metaphor.

It's right there on the surface of the text, but, you know, we can just sort of dismiss that stuff. No doubt in this metaphorical sense,

Jesus was a Son of God, but so were many other people. And what happened over the course of several centuries was that the metaphorical

Son of God turned into the metaphysical God the

Son, second person of a divine trinity, and that this was a very fundamental move, but, in my opinion, a mistaken move.

I wonder if you would say the same things about development in the Qur 'an and things like that.

It just makes me wonder if you would. I don't know if you would or not. It would be interesting to find out. God in God's fullness is beyond our understanding.

God cannot be limited by any human definition. God is the ultimate mystery, in fact.

He is beyond human definition, and this means that you cannot even say that God in God's ultimacy is a loving person.

So, in other words, you need to understand that the God he presents isn't even a personal

God. I mean, I'm not even sure that he would be a classical theist. Many of these folks are not classical theists.

They have a God as the ground of all being, but this is more of a principle than a person.

And certainly, what is the foundation of all this? Well, God has not spoken. Yea, verily hath

God said continues to be the attack upon God's truth and God's people as it has been, well, from the garden itself.

Has God said? No, God has not said, and therefore he is unknowable. And even though we have the capacity to make ourselves known and we delight in revealing ourselves to someone else, is that not what makes gay marriage so wrong?

Is that in gay marriage, which is an oxymoron, there is no such thing, but in that perversion of true marriage and in homosexuality as a whole, you have the loving of a mirror image rather than the expression of oneself fully to one who is complementary to oneself.

And that self -revelation is a part of why monogamy is God's will for mankind because it's a lifelong process.

It's a lifelong joy. We have that ability, but the God of John Hick does not have that capacity, because the

God of John Hick is not personal and is not the Christian God in any way, shape, or form. They're all right.

Can they all be right? They're saying very different things, aren't they, about God? They have their own authentic path to the ultimate, which they follow and which can lead to their ultimate good.

So in that way, they are all of them right. So there you have the religious pluralist.

They're all right. Why? Because they can all make you happy, which is the ultimate human good, as if that is the whole purpose.

And again, man -centered forms of evangelicalism would have a hard time responding to that.

Biblical forms of biblical Christianity that are God -centered, well, we have a very strong foundation upon which to say, nah, you don't think so.

Yes, that's correct. I mean, if you regard the doctrines, let's take

Christian doctrine, the doctrine of the Trinity as an absolute truth, then

I have to say that I don't think it's that at all. I think it's a humanly constructed idea, and we can trace exactly why it was constructed.

You see, if you started out as a Christian theologian believing—

Now listen, this absolutely amazed me, because once again, we're talking about one of the best -known philosophers of religion in the

English -speaking world, you know, teaches in all the high -end schools.

Listen to the absolutely—I'm sorry to have to put it this way, but incredibly surface sophomoric representation of why the doctrine of the

Trinity developed. This is just amazing. Being that Jesus was God on earth, then you have

God on earth and you have God at the same time in heaven, that's two, and when you add the inner sense of the presence of God, you have three, and so you have the

Trinity, so it's a defensive doctrine of the Incarnation. Now, did you catch that?

There's the source of the Trinity, is that once you've got Jesus as God on earth, but you've also got

God in heaven, and then we experience this. That is not the same thing as when

I talk about experiential Trinitarianism, because I've said the writers of the New Testament were experiential Trinitarians.

Peter had walked with Jesus on earth, he had heard the voice of the Father speaking on the mount,

Jesus had talked about the Father, had prayed to the Father, and now he's been brought by the Holy Spirit. But that wasn't just some inner feeling, and this was an actual revelation in history.

It actually took place. The doctrine of the Trinity, those early

Trinitarian controversies were fought out over what ground? Existential discussions of my personal experience?

No! Divine revelation. God had spoken. But see, someone like John Hick, God hasn't spoken.

So you have to come up with something else. Even if it makes history a mishmash, it has to be something else, because it can't be that God has spoken, because we all know, well,

God hasn't spoken, and therefore it just sort of follows from there. I don't see salvation as a yes or no thing, you know, are you saved?

Yes or no? I see it as progressive, as a growth in spirituality and in the spirit of service of humanity.

As this grows, we are more and more saved, to use the

Christian term. So there you have his lack of understanding of what the

Gospel is, being saved is something you grow in, it's just being more human. And that's why any religion, you know, as long as it does what, well, whatever people think religions are supposed to do in whatever day you live in,

I guess, that's what makes it great and wonderful and fine and fantastic and stuff like that. Now I think this next one, it's probably the last clip

I'm going to play, you have to listen really carefully, because the

Christian that they had on opposing him, a Christian pastor, had just talked about, well, he had,

I'm surprised he was not carted off by the Bobbies as soon as he left the studio there within walking distance of Vauxhall Station in London, where I walked not very long ago, because he mentioned the term wrath.

Now for us over here it's wrath, but over there it's wrath, the wrath of God. You really do need to know that, because sometimes, what are you talking about?

Oh, wrath! No, not wrath, wrath, it's the wrath of God. And he actually mentioned, you know, the sacrifice of Jesus and stuff like that, this primitive, horrible stuff.

Now he keeps, unfortunately, he kept talking over what I thought was one of the most important elements of this, of what

John Hick said, but you can still hear what he says. So try to listen specifically for Hick here, so you can hear how he is responding to what that Christian said.

That's a very Christian -defined view of salvation, and the emphasis...

That is an evangelical Christian. I don't believe a word of that. Well, no, exactly, exactly.

...of God, and that we're all doomed, unless we should be, by the miracle of Jesus' death on the cross.

Sure, but I want to... The idea that... Yeah, I want to bring it on the table. ...should be forgiven because Jesus died, is to me...

I guess I cut it at the wrong spot there. But the idea that you will not be forgiven unless Jesus died is, to him, absolutely reprehensible.

He simply cannot believe that. So here's a religious pluralist, but when it comes to the real reality of what the

Christian gospel is, I can't believe that at all! Evidently, that's just beyond it.

You see, pluralists are not pluralists. Pluralists are just anti -Christians that say, well, the one thing that won't work is the actual

Christian gospel, so I will attack the reality of the New Testament, I'll attack the message of the New Testament, but then

I will say everything else works just fine. Aberrant forms of Christianity, heresies of the that's -all -wonderful, and Buddhism's wonderful, and Hinduism is wonderful, and atheism's wonderful, and Islam is wonderful, and all these things are wonderful, but the one thing that isn't wonderful is the idea of a holy

God who has provided one way of salvation, and he has done so graciously and mercifully, and all to his honor and glory.

We can't, no, no, we can't go there. It was an amazing thing to listen to.

It really, really was. If you want to hear the whole thing, if you can survive hearing it, my honest suggestion would be to use the high -speed element of your listening software.

Pick up the pace, get through it quick, like I did, but it was the February 19th edition of the

Unbelievable Radio Program with Justin Brierley, and you can hear the Christian responses and things like that, but if you, especially if you are heading off to college, seminary, you're going to have to read

Hick. You're going to run into people. This will be very, very useful for an understanding, and to recognize this, that these folks who teach in the upper echelons, when they're actually brought in a situation of having to answer the question why, all they have are shallow, personal experiences.

They're humans like all the rest of us, and to elevate them to a position of absolute authority just because of where they went to school is one example of the unthinking nature of modern secularism.

Well, thanks for listening to the program today. Despite our technical difficulties, we managed to get through a couple of interesting topics there.

Hopefully it was useful to you. Lord willing, we'll be back on Thursday taking more of your phone calls.

I know I want to pick up with the Abdullah Kunda debate that I had with Samuel Green that I had started reviewing.

Interesting parallels to what Hick was just saying, John Hick was saying in comparison to what

Abdullah Kunda says. Very, very interesting. We'll get to that as well. See you on Thursday. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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