Debate With LGBT Theologian Brandan Robertson

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I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified

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Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. Well, I would say the same idea. I would say that. I would say, what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust?

00:14

In the cosmic picture, none. There's no problem. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No, Mr.

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President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year.

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I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

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He is a powerful Savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion.

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It is a command. Reverend Moeller, don't you sympathize with that?

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I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

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The threshold of an amazing adventure. We will explore the spiritual abyss.

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You have not experienced this before. You should not give any of your children to offer them to Moeller, and so profane the name of your

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God, I am the Lord. You should not lie with a male as with a woman.

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It is an abomination, and you should not lie with any animal, and so make yourself unclean with it.

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Neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it. It is perversion. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations

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I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

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But you shall keep my statutes and my rules, and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

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What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. You can get more at ApologiaStudios .com

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A -P -O -L -O -G -I -A studios .com Here in the studio today, very excited about this discussion.

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We're going to be able to have today great level of respect for Brandon Robertson for connecting with us and providing the opportunity to have a discussion.

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I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church, and that's Pastor James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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Dr. James White. Beard's looking good today, brother. It looks great. But also with Apologia.

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Yeah, well, didn't I say that? I said Pastor of Apologia? I don't know. Yeah, Pastor of Apologia, Pastor of Apologia. And so we are joined today in the show.

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We're going to get right into it today to have a discussion with Brandon Robertson. Many of you guys are familiar with Brandon Robertson, a very substantial

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TikTok account and social media platform engaging in the area,

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I would say of, maybe Brandon can help me with this, I mean, would it be proper to say gay theology, theology and homosexuality, promoting the idea that homosexuality is something good and holy before God.

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I do spend a good amount of time talking about that, but more broadly, I would say progressive Christianity. But yes, also

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LGBT theology. Okay, LGBT theology. And so I just want to say publicly, because I mean it,

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I'm going to speak straight and not crooked, great level of respect for Brandon Robertson. When I saw that he had communicated with us and said he'd be willing to have a discussion,

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I was very grateful for that. And so I am honored to have you on the show today. And so let's go ahead and just jump right into it,

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Brandon, so we can have that discussion. People who know you and know us have probably seen the things that you have said and know what we've said over the last month or so.

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I think we've done a couple things engaging with some of your TikTok videos. And so the video that you responded to was this one.

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By what standard is anybody immoral in your perspective? Because you're trying to create a category of this is good, lovely and beautiful.

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And you know what? These people who are doing this over here, they're not actually over here in the category of immorals. We've got good, righteous, immoral, evil.

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Brandon admits that. He's not saying he's a nihilist. He's saying there's actually something that's good.

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Yeah, there's meaning. There's purpose. He's saying these people that do these acts over here, they're not immoral. Okay, the challenge is, and it always is going to be,

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Brandon, by what standard are you measuring whether it's immoral? Is it because Brandon?

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Is it because in his little mind, he believes that it's not immoral? Or is it the culture that we're currently in that says it's not immoral?

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Or is there actually an objective standard of something that it is right or wrong or immoral or moral? Is there a standard out there somewhere?

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Where can I find this standard, Brandon? Is it somewhere I can investigate or is it a book that I can open? Is there a standard for what is right and wrong?

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Because you're clearly applying it. You're saying that what they're doing isn't wrong. By what standard? Who says,

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Brandon? So there you go. All right. And so you responded to that on Instagram. We can have a discussion about it.

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And so I think it'd be good to start there. What do you think? Yeah. Well, I know that was in a context of a broader conversation.

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I'm not exactly sure what particular video you're responding to. But I do think the question of what standard do we define morality by is an important one.

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And I do think we all probably start at different places. You two presumably believe that the

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Bible is the inerrant inspired word of God. And that is your objective moral standard. I would say that perhaps there is an objective moral standard, but I don't know.

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I don't believe that we can know it objectively. And I don't think that the

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Bible is the inerrant word of God. And therefore, I also don't think all of the morality that we find in the pages of the

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Bible is worthy of being followed. And so we have two different starting places for where we base our morality from.

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That's a good place to start. I'm glad you brought it up just like that. So that video in particular was responding to your video that was calling porn art and saying that it's actually a beautiful and good thing.

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And so that's what that was about. You were essentially saying it's not immoral. It's not wrong. And so since you believe, because you don't believe the

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Bible is the objective standard or ultimate standard, since you believe that that is not the ultimate standard, and that there's not really any, you can't know any objective ultimate standard, then how do you know anything at all?

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I mean, you're making claims about what is moral and true and good, and yet you admit that your system, because you reject

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God's Word and His Revelation as a starting point, is that you can't really know that there's this objective morality.

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So how do you complain about anything, Brandon? I would say that I would be in alignment with a majority of other people who have, we have a reason, we have science, we have

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Revelation. I do believe in Revelation. I just don't believe that all of the Bible is God's Revelation. There are multiple ways that we come to develop a sense of morality.

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I resonate with the language from the Hebrew Bible, which talks about the law of God written on our hearts. I believe that in some sense, all human beings have been programmed with some level of moral code.

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And yes, there is obviously diversity, and we disagree as humans on various, what things are moral and what might not be moral.

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But there are a lot of areas where broad swaths of humanity throughout all time do agree on common moral principles.

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And I'm also of the mindset that humanity, led by the Spirit of God, is constantly progressing in our morality, which

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I know you all would probably very much disagree with. But I believe every generation, we're getting towards more of what

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Jesus talked about as the Kingdom of God, where we have a society of justice, equity, peace. And so I see every generation...

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But you don't know, you're admitting though, Brandon, I'm sorry, I want to make sure that we're at least dealing with one point at a time here.

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But you've admitted that the Word of God that talks about the Kingdom of God and God's justice, you admitted that you don't believe that it's inerrant or infallible or that it's the standard, the ultimate standard at all.

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So my question is, why appeal to it at all? Why talk about things like the Kingdom of God and the Law of God written in our hearts when you've already acknowledged at the front that you don't respect it, believe it, stand on it, respect it as an ultimate authority?

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You think that it's either corrupted at points or just the words of mere men and not an ultimate standard.

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So I would just make a point here. When you say, you know, Scripture says the Law is written in our heart, well, the specific word there is the

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Torah. It's written within us. In Jeremiah 31, God's Law, the

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Law, would be written within us. When Jeremiah wrote that, they had a Law in mind and an instruction in mind, and that was the

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Law of God from the Old Testament. And so that's what's written within us. And so there's an objective standard of what that Law was.

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So yeah, it's now internalized. It's no longer on stone tablets outside of us exerting pressure from the outside. It's internalized with God's people in the

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New Covenant. That's specifically a New Covenant promise, by the way. But that Law is objective. We know what it is.

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God spoke it. So here's a couple things. I think this is where we fundamentally disagree is I think your version of Christianity tries to oversimplify things that aren't actually simple at all.

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And I don't think it's as simple as you either believe all of the Bible or you believe none of the Bible.

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I hear that a lot from more conservative Christians. That's virtually not how anybody has engaged with Scripture throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity.

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It's not how we engage as human beings, as reasonable, thoughtful people. It's not all in or all out.

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I believe that the Bible is a human product inspired by God. And yes, there are parts of the

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Bible where I believe God's revelation comes true or comes through clearly. And there are parts of the

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Bible that are clearly immoral and wrong According to who? You don't believe there's an objective standard, though.

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You said that you can't know it. So why are you chastising Scripture about morality? It's it being unethical at points.

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When you've already admitted it at the start of the show, you don't believe you can know an objective standard like what is ultimately objective in ethics.

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You're trying to be too black and white here, and it's not that way. No, I'm responding to what you said. No, because what I did say is that we can know morality.

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No, you said that you can't know what that objective standard is. Something that's outside of yourself, outside of your own preferences, or your current position in time or culture.

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That's something that's objective that exists outside of yourself. You said that you can't know it. I think you're forcing me into a category of your own creation.

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I'm showing you the inconsistency, Brandon. It's not inconsistent. I'm sorry. I don't know what the objective standard of morality is, but now

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I'm going to tell you that the Bible is unethical. But Brandon Robertson's first point is that he doesn't know.

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You're already trying to win an argument by putting me in a category that I'm rejecting as the category. Okay, well, what's the category you're rejecting?

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So let's get that on the table so I can make sure I represent you properly. What I clearly said is that there might be objective truth.

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I don't believe that we can know it objectively. You said you don't know it. That we might not be able to know it objectively.

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So do you know it? There are moments where it is clear that humans are united on things like, for instance, the most basic command, do not murder.

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Most human cultures throughout history have come to a conclusion that murder is wrong. How about Stalin? I said most human cultures throughout history, and most human cultures rejected communism.

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Most human cultures look at Hitler today and say, Stalin, Hitler, genocide, wrong.

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But by what standard do they believe that, though? That's not by the Bible. Well, hold on, Brandon. Well, actually, it was the

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Christian worldview and Christian truth and God's wisdom that... That's the vision? No, Christian worldview and Christian truth in the

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West brought about a foundation in culture of, say, love your neighbor as you love yourself rather than eat your neighbor.

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It's Christian truth that ultimately did away, say, with... Well, let's just talk about the evils in the last 200 years, whether it's slavery, the slave trade.

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It was the Christian worldview that did away with the slave trade. I don't think you can dispute that. I would hope you wouldn't try.

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There are other cultures that abolished slavery as well. Yeah, but Christianity abolished it on the basis of the revelation of God that everybody is a creature of the

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Creator. He's the objective standard. The revelation of God doesn't call for the abolition of slavery.

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It was people taking principles from the Scriptures, not the written words of Scripture. If they took the written words of Scripture... Well, you're wrong about that,

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Brandon. I'm sorry. What does the Bible say about kidnapping and enslaving people?

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There are various teachings of the Bible. Well, you quoted from Leviticus in one of your videos. The Bible's not univocal.

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The Bible's not univocal. The Bible has many contradictory... What does the Scripture say about kidnapping and enslaving somebody,

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Brandon? I can tell you that all the way up through the New Testament, there is an endorsement of slavery. Brandon, you don't know. Scripture teaches very explicitly.

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No, I know. Okay, well, Brandon, let me ask you. Again, I'll ask you for the third time. What does Scripture say about kidnapping and enslaving a person?

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Since you know. Which Scripture are you talking about? Well, Scripture teaches that if you kidnap and enslave somebody, it's worthy of capital punishment.

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It's one of the things the Christian abolitionists pointed to was the Word of God is the revelation that gives us a basis to fight against slavery.

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This man is made in the image of God. We're all in one blood. And God specifically says that if you kidnap and enslave somebody, it deserves a death penalty.

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It's one of the things the Christian abolitionists were saying to the culture at large. But all that to say, the main point here is that you reject the

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Word of God as foundational, as a reference point. No, the Bible is not the Word of God, so I don't reject the

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Word of God. You reject it as an ultimate reference point. You have different views on ethics than Scripture gives, and so you reject it.

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I accept many parts of the Bible. Just so we all understand here, what's the determining factor for Brandon Robertson?

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So you say you believe the Word of God. You use words like kingdom of God, law of God in your heart. But wherever you dislike a teaching in Scripture, you say,

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I don't agree with that. Is the reference point Brandon? Thank God that I do that. What's that? Thank God that I do that, and thank

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God many and most Christians do that. I think a lot of the positions, politically and socially, that you advocate for are reprehensible.

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But you don't know there's an objective standard of morality, Brandon, so that's a meaningless argument against me.

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You've already given it up. If I could say something here. When I first heard you many years ago,

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Brandon, you still profess some sort of level of fealty to Jesus Christ as Lord.

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Yes, still do. Okay. Can you find anywhere where Jesus Christ took your view of Scripture?

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Yeah. I think time and time again, Jesus, the way he dealt with Scripture, would have gotten kicked out of first semester of Bible college hermeneutics class.

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How so? Jesus says, takes the Hebrew Bible time and time again, and says, you have heard it said, but I say it to you.

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He changes the Scripture. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everybody in the audience knows that's not true.

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He did not change any Scripture. He said, you have heard it said, and what he's quoting is the traditions of the

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Jews. No, he quotes actual passages from the Hebrew Bible. And he does not change the text.

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Yes, he does. He takes it deeper. This is where... Do you still believe in the deity of Christ?

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Yes, of course. Why? Because I have an experience of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ saved my soul as a 12 -year -old boy, and I continue to follow

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Jesus and encounter Jesus. I believe that Jesus is God. So, the Scriptures as a whole are what testify to the idea that Jesus is

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God, but you believe Jesus is God because of an experience? I would say both Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

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I would say all of those things come together to lead me to the conclusion that Jesus is the incarnation of God. Okay, so when

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Jesus quotes the Scriptures, to the Sadducees, for example, and bases his argument upon the tense of a verb and specifically identifies those words as having been spoken by God, and yet you say, no,

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Scripture is not the Word of God, and yet Jesus says it's spoken by God. But I said... Well, okay.

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I said some Scripture is not given by inspiration of God. I also reject the idea.

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I think Jesus is the Word of God, not the Bible, and so I reject the way that you're using the phrase, Word of God, but that's a whole...

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Okay, so when you specifically say,

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I'm going to follow Jesus, and yet Jesus holds men accountable for what is found in the written

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Scriptures that were written 1 ,400 years before they came along. Some of them. Okay, so where do you get the standard then?

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Did Jesus give you a standard somewhere as to how to figure out what from the scriptures you're going to believe and not believe?

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The life and teachings of Jesus, first and foremost, are my foundation for my faith, spirituality, ethics.

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That's where I would point to, first and foremost, as somebody who identifies as a follower of Jesus. Now, Jesus, if you actually examine honestly and critically the way that Jesus uses

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Scripture throughout the four Gospels, again, he would have been critiqued by fundamentalists.

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I don't understand how you all wouldn't critique Jesus. For instance, when he quotes, he stands up in the synagogue, unravels the scroll of Isaiah, and pronounces, the

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Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, he anoints me to preach good news to the poor, quotes the whole Scripture, and then he stops right before it says, and the great and dreadful day of the

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Lord, talking about the judgment of God. Multiple times throughout the Scripture, Jesus would take what I would argue would be a more progressive approach.

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He quotes Scriptures that negate things that are talking about the judgment.

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Here's an obvious problem, Brandon, a really plain, obvious problem. First of all, he holds the

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Scriptures and views them as the very words of God because he says, today these things are fulfilled in your ears and then he stops and then he stops where he stops because that is yet a future fulfillment.

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There is a partial fulfillment in him. You're making it impossible for there to be such thing as prophecy.

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Do you believe Jesus was prophesied in the Scriptures? The way that I think you're interpreting that Scripture is, again, not how

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Jesus would have interpreted it or any Jewish reader of the Jewish Scriptures would have interpreted it. I think this is one of the biggest problems with fundamentalist

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Christianity is that it reads back into the Hebrew Bible prophecies that weren't meant to be prophecies.

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Isaiah 53 is not about Jesus. Except, except, except, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus, the resurrected

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Lord, chastises these disciples on the road to Emmaus. He calls them foolish, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken.

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And then what does it say takes place, Brandon? Is that the Lord of glory, the one you say you follow, took them through the

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Old Testament and all the places that it spoke about him. You're denying that that took place.

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Jesus did that. Okay, a couple things here. First and foremost, we don't know what scriptures Jesus quoted in that passage.

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So it's a bit of a strange argument to try to use an ambiguous passage that says Jesus looked at all of the lone prophets and talked about where they spoke of him.

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But second of all, when we're taking the Hebrew Bible and we try to read back in Christian understandings, one, it's an ahistorical, unscholarly approach to understanding what the

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Hebrew Bible is. It's offensive and borders on antisemitic. So would you call the writer of Hebrews antisemitic?

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I think the writer of Hebrews is terribly problematic in many ways, yes. Okay, so he did what you're saying you shouldn't do, and that's that he took the scriptures from the

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Old Testament and showed the fulfillment of Jesus Christ. The Gospel quoted in Matthew is chocked full in both direct quotation and allusion to Old Testament passages of the fulfillment that Jesus Christ brought in his life and death and resurrection.

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Now he said to them, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the

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Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Do you think that's just Luke throwing that in there and that Jesus didn't say that?

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Yes, most likely. On what basis? There you go. On what basis, Brandon? Because you think so? No, because you would know this.

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My mentor, my dear mentor, John Dominic Crossan in the Jesus Seminar has done extensive research into the historiography of the sayings of Jesus and the broad consensus outside of conservative

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Christian scholarship is that a majority of the teachings in, for instance,

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John, are not historical teachings of Jesus Christ. Do you have a manuscript that demonstrates that? Where's your manuscript evidence?

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We have the Gospel of Mark. If you look at the Jesus Seminar in the Westar Institute, anybody who's interested can do a simple

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Google search. We all know the Q hypothesis that there's an external source that's posited that was of the sayings of Jesus that were used by Gospel writers to compile the

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Gospel accounts. So... Did you ever listen to the debate that...

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I did. Wonderful guy. He really is. And yet, the foundation of his perspective is really one that starts with a rejection of the entire history of Christian interpretation of Scripture.

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So, for example, when we look at the key passages that sort of frame the discussion that I thought we were going to be having in regards to what the

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Scripture says on sexual morality and ethics, I would assume then, if you're that radical in your perspective, you're making that sound like it's a mainstream thing, but obviously a

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Jesus Seminar is extremely radical. That's not true. Oh, it is. It's very true. Okay, name me anybody before the 1700s that held their views.

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Most of the manuscripts that we do modern scholarship, biblical scholarship on today, didn't exist before the 1700s.

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Brandon, it had nothing to do with the manuscripts that have been found. Okay, what one manuscript is important here?

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What I'm saying here. I'm sorry. You can push me on this. John Dominicrossin and I would probably have very few disagreements as to the relevance of specific manuscripts.

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That has nothing to do with it. The point is, it's a worldview that has come in that rejects the idea that God can speak consistently.

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And it's not historically Jewish or Christian. You've got to admit that. I will give you this.

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I do think you're exactly right to a degree that up until the enlightenment, up until the scientific period where we had these new methods of understanding and coming to understandings of the truth, the way people did study of anything was in a way what we would consider today archaic and wrong and led to many wrong conclusions.

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And I do think that is the result of so much of what you all preach is an inability to historically and critically examine the scriptures and let the truth be the truth wherever it leads you to do it.

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You have a presupposed set of beliefs that you need to be true when you engage with your community. Oh, and Brandon, let's be honest, and so do you.

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That question here is, whose presuppositions and pre -commitments are actually in accordance with the truth?

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And so when you talk about things like science, and you talk about things like logic, and all the rest,

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Brandon, I would challenge you. You've given all that up. Because you have a worldview that ultimately

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I'll give this to you. You, I believe, look at the scriptures and whatever fits with your own personal likes and preferences, you accept.

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And whatever disagrees, I think, whatever disagrees with your lusts and all your pursuits, that's what you reject.

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And hold on, just, Brandon, I'll let you talk right after this. And I think because you've given up the scriptures as an ultimate foundation and reference point, you don't even have a basis to appeal to science because you don't have a worldview that provides a foundation for the scientific method.

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You don't have a worldview that comports with laws of logic as necessary or universal, and you certainly don't have a worldview that comports with the claim that something is right or wrong ethically.

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You've already given that up. No, I haven't. And I want to pull back, though, before I respond to that specifically. Because the one thing that I've heard from both of you consistently, you more recently,

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Jeff, and then Dr. White throughout the years, the videos you've made responding to me, both of you have acted as if I began my spiritual journey with a desire to not have fidelity to Christ or the gospel, and yes,

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Dr. White... I've never made that claim. No, I said, the first thing I said, and I've said this a number of times, when

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I first listened to you, one of the first comments I made was, I heard fundamental weaknesses, and I said, this man will not remain orthodox.

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And I was right. I mean, you've got to admit that between... It's not a prophetic ability, Dr. White, it's because...

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He's not claiming that. He's not claiming that. I'm not saying it was... It was sarcastic, guys.

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What I'm talking about is merely the fact that I was, as a Moody Bible Institute student,

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I was introduced to scholars who were willing to historically examine the Christian faith.

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Yes, I think it's pretty obvious when I was willing to ask questions and not just fall in line with fundamentalist rigidity and say, this is what's true because this is what my church says is true or my tradition says is true.

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Yes, obviously anybody who goes down that path is going to end up questioning the fundamental beliefs of fundamentalist

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Christianity, and thanks be to God that I did. Can I ask you a personal question, though, about that? Because I appreciate you sharing that, and I think that what's happened, actually,

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Brandon, is you've become an apostate. I don't think you started that way. I think you had an initial profession of faith, you had commitments, and I think now you're an apostate because you deny

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God's Word, and His Word is the foundation of all of what is true and lovely and wise.

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But you... And this is a personal question, you don't have to answer it, but it's... You're bringing it up, so I'll ask it. I've watched your videos.

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You have admitted to struggling with homosexual desires and lusts before you fell into apostasy.

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Correct? Yes. So there was something going on in your life, on a personal level, things that you were desiring and wanted that were coinciding with your deconversion, your falling into apostasy?

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I mean, I obviously reject that I have fallen into apostasy or deconverted. You deny

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Scripture as the ultimate foundation of life. You are an apostate. You are an apostate. You teach...

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Brandon, I'll say this with respect to you because you're in the image of God, I want to respect the image of God in you, and respect you, and be friendly to you, but you teach others to entertain their lusts, satisfy their lusts, things that God explicitly condemns in His Word, and so I love you in Jesus' name, but you are an apostate, you are a deceiver, and you reject the

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Word of God, and let's be honest, Brandon is the reference point. You are the reference point. Jeff, I appreciate you saying your perspective.

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I obviously disagree. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not interested in playing the orthodoxy game. We're talking about Scripture.

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But the way you interpret Scripture is not the way the majority of Christians... Let's make sure that we're all clear with each other here so we don't get muddy.

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Is it an ethical thing, is it good, to have sex with animals today? No. Who says?

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People do it, Brandon. People do it. People are being arrested today for doing it. Spain just made it legal, didn't it?

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Who says? Ridiculous. Who says, Brandon? Why can't I have sex with animals in a new covenant? To get down to a definition of sin, which

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I base off of Jesus' own teachings, I believe sin is anything that harms me, harms others, or harms God's creation.

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Which verse is that? I base that off of love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.

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Thank you for that, Brandon, because Jesus said that those two commandments are what all the law and the prophets are built upon, including not having sex with animals and other men,

28:45

Brandon. And I disagree. I don't believe having sex with other men, one, is clearly condemned in the Bible. We can get there. And two, using the basic standard of does it harm me, does it harm another, or does it harm

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God's creation, which is how I define sin. I would say no, you can't make a case that homosexuality is harmful to anybody.

29:02

Leviticus 18, that law that is about loving God and loving your neighbor, Jesus defined that. You say you believe in him, let's go to what he said.

29:08

All the law and the prophets would include Leviticus 18, which says, in one verse, I'll let you respond to it,

29:14

Brandon. In one verse, in one verse, it says you should not lie with a man as you do a woman, and the next verse says you should not have sex with an animal.

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So you like the you should not have sex with an animal, but because of your loss and your desires, you want to reject the other one.

29:28

No, because I've actually spent the last decade and $100 ,000 going into student debt to study this particular topic on sexuality in the

29:35

Bible. I've come to the conclusion that Leviticus 18 is not talking about loving consensual same -sex relationships in the way that we're talking about in the modern world.

29:42

Okay, so let me ask, when you say loving same -sex relationships, but you don't believe that the

29:50

Bible is clear enough to actually define what loving is, first of all. You didn't use monogamous, which is interesting, because most people use that as terminology.

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And yet, that Leviticus 18 text is not just about Israel. It's about other nations, and they were cast out of the land.

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Since I have one shot here, maybe you'll be the first person to do it. If you believe

30:18

Jesus was God, then when he preached and taught, there were homosexuals in front of him, right?

30:26

We're less than 5 % of the population, Jameson. Well, it depends on the generation, it seems, from what

30:33

I'm seeing recently. But the point is, there would have been not only homosexuals, but transgender folks, and all the different genders.

30:47

There would have been lots of these people. He's talking to thousands and thousands of people. If Jesus was

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God, he knew they were there. Yes, I absolutely do believe he knows he's there. And yet, he never said a word to overturn the unanimous understanding, because I don't think you could show me anyone before Jesus, or for hundreds of years after Jesus, in Judaism, that understood anything about monogamous, loving, same -sex relationships.

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They all went back to Leviticus 18. They all went back to Leviticus 20. They all looked at these things in the same way.

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So, why didn't Jesus set them free? Because he knew they were there, and he was saying— You know how poor of an argument that is,

31:34

James? There are so many things Jesus doesn't address. So many people Jesus doesn't address. That doesn't mean that Jesus is making a statement about the rightness or wrongness because he doesn't address a group of people or a certain practice or whatever.

31:46

That's not— In three years' worth of preaching—because we only have a small portion— but in three years' worth of preaching,

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Jesus never says a positive word whatsoever. In fact, he says the law is good and the law is right, and that the person who teaches you to not observe the least of these sayings, the least in the kingdom of heaven, all these sayings— three years, he doesn't say a single word to allegedly promote your perspective.

32:16

That seems highly likely. We're talking of less than 5 % of the population. Why there are so many things that Jesus doesn't speak about,

32:22

I just don't understand why you would think that's a strong argument. Brandon, do you want, as a follower of Jesus, as you claim, do you want to hold to Jesus' view of the law?

32:34

Yes, but I think we disagree on what Jesus' view of the law is. Well, I'll give the quotation, Matthew 5, 17, because you were there.

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The very text that—it actually militates against your interpretation, because at the beginning of that text that you tried to quote there about, you've heard that it said,

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Matthew 5, 17, he says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

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The word there is menamasete in the Greek, do not even begin to think. Do not even begin to think that I've come to abolish the law.

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And he says, like Pastor James said there, that whoever teaches you to disobey even the least of these will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them.

33:10

Which law was he referring to there? Jesus is speaking of the law of Moses, the law of the

33:16

Hebrew Bible. Right, the law of Moses says that you can't have sex with a man, Brandon. No, it doesn't, actually. Leviticus 18 is not a condemnation of broad -loving, consensual same -sex relations.

33:25

You're adding those words, but the text actually has rules there right before—it has rules about—

33:31

I'm going to give you something to shoot at. It has rules there, laws against having sex with relatives, it has laws against having sex with other men, it has laws against having sex with animals.

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The way that you are weaving around— I'm laying it down to everyone here, so go ahead and take a shot at it. It's very simple.

33:47

Leviticus 18, verses 1, 2, and 3, has God speaking and says, these are laws for the people of Israel.

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Do not do like they do in the land of Egypt. Do not do like they do in the land of Canaan. So what is happening, the list of commands that we have in Leviticus 18 are a list of practices that were apparently common in Canaan and Egypt.

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Do a brief study, please, historically about whether homosexuality and homosexual relationships in the way that I'm advocating for them were common in Egypt or in Canaan, and you'll find no, they were not.

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And then we look at the context of each of those verses, and I think Leviticus 18, 20 says, as you already quoted at the very beginning of this show, do not sacrifice your child to Molech, for this is an abomination.

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The next verse down is, do not lie with a man as with a woman, for this is an abomination. Then we go on to bestiality. The context is, these are practices that are taking place in Canaan and Egypt.

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We have no evidence that there was widespread consensual homosexual couples, relationships, families in those cultures, but we do have a preponderance of evidence of exploitative practices.

34:52

You already know these arguments, that there were both relationships between those who were enslaved in ancient patriarchal cultures, where men were allowed to have sex with male slaves, and it was a way of asserting their dominance.

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We also do know, few and far between in Egyptian and Canaanite culture, we don't know that much about the ancient

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Canaanite culture, but there is some evidence that shows that there were temple prostitutions, there were sexual sacrifices made to appease gods and goddesses.

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So it seems, based on the culture, the historical analysis of Leviticus 18, that whatever is being referred to in verse 22, is not a broad condemnation of gay male relationships, because there weren't those with any frequency in ancient

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Canaanite or Egyptian culture, but instead, where we do see men having sex with other men are in exploitative and idolatrous circumstances, and it seems to me that that would be something that God would condemn.

35:44

But you just admitted that we don't know very much, obviously you're talking about many, many thousands of years ago, so there's a very limited amount of information.

35:52

Isn't it more relevant that in the New Testament we have apostles of Jesus Christ, and you may not even believe that these are words of Scripture, it's quite possible from what you've said, but when

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Paul writes to Timothy and he lays out the goodness of the law and he starts working through the

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Ten Commandments, when he gets the commandment against adultery, he specifically utilizes two terms, pornoes arsenicoites, sexually immoral persons and arsenicoites.

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So here is an apostle and he is now much closer to us in time than any research you might do in some type of I mean,

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Egyptian sexuality was pretty wild, but so here's

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Paul and he includes and he expands on that commandment, sexually immoral persons and homosexuals.

36:53

So was Paul... I'm sorry? That's an inaccurate interpretation of arsenicoites.

36:59

Okay, since it comes from the two terms that are used in Leviticus 18 and 20.

37:07

And Paul may be the first one to use it. There's one other possible text that it's disputable, but maybe he borrowed it from a

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Jewish source or something like that, but it's what men do with men in bed.

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In fact, to quote the Leviticus passage, lies with a male as one lies with a female.

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So this is sexual intercourse. It has nothing to do with all the context around it.

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It is the actual act. So every place else where we would interpret

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Paul, it doesn't matter what other text it would be, we would look at the septuagint first for the meaning of where he's drawing his theology and his terminology.

37:50

So how do you get to something other than what men do with men in bed from Leviticus 18 and 20 as interpreted by the

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Apostle Paul? For me, this is the easiest question. You just heard how

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I understand Leviticus 18. I don't think Leviticus 18 is referring to all sexual relationships between men of all statuses in all cultures and all contexts.

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I believe it's referring to practices in Canaan and Egypt and that the prohibitions in Leviticus 18 are primarily ritual and cultural, not primarily ethical.

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So we have a list of things that, debatably, there are things in Leviticus 18 that some people would consider immoral, some might not consider ethically immoral.

38:32

Paul quotes back to Leviticus 18, despite the fact that there are over about 16, give or take, words in Koine Greek that refer to a variety of homosexual relationships, homosexual sex, because it was much more prevalent in the

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Greco -Roman world. Paul uses none of the words that his hearers would have readily understood as homosexual relationships.

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Instead, he harkens back to Leviticus 18 to say, I'm condemning a very specific, unique practice that's taking place that points back to Leviticus 18, not a common practice where there's a ton of other words that he could have used.

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I don't understand how folks with your view get around the fact that Paul is trying to speak to the broadest audience possible, and he never uses the words that the audience on this one, on this issue, doesn't use the words that his audience would have understood to be homosexual or gay sex or...

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It surprises you, Brandon, that he's using a biblical word? It surprises me that what he's condemning is not a broad cultural reality.

39:34

You admit he's quoting Leviticus. It surprises you that an inspired apostle sent from Yahweh would quote from God's words.

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I think what's important here, though, is you're the one that said it is your interpretation of Leviticus 18 and 20.

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Can you give me any contemporary Jewish interpretation of Leviticus 18 and 20 from 500 years before Jesus to 500 years after that agrees with yours?

39:57

I don't think you can show me any ancient Levitical interpretation from the first century or right before or right after that condemns anything akin to modern loving, consensual, same -sex relationships.

40:07

Okay, so you're creating a category. No. The category of homosexuality...

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No, you're reading it into history when the text simply says you shall...

40:20

Wait a minute. Romans chapter 1 describes homosexual sex as two men desiring one another.

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You cannot define a homosexual relationship outside those parameters.

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You're the one going, oh, it's about these exploitive things, and my little category over here is the one thing it's not talking about.

40:44

Because it didn't exist in the ancient world. The concept of sexuality did not exist. It's a 19th century concept.

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So how can you read back into an ancient first century text something that didn't exist? Because mankind is still mankind and still made in the image of God and still sins in the same way.

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Unlike you, we allow the Word of God to define those categories, and the Word of God specifically says you shall not have sex with a man as you do a woman.

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It doesn't give you any little outs unless, of course, you're really committed or you're really going to try to be monogamous even though that's extremely rare, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

41:19

It's not extremely rare, first of all. You don't know the gay community. And second of all, this goes back to what Jeff critiqued me for last week, which is on the topic of hermeneutics, you said that I was being deceptive because I said evangelicals don't do the historical, cultural work.

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You don't. This is proof of it. So I'm sitting here reading from the Greek Septuagint, and I'm looking at the

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Hebrew, and you're saying we're not looking at the historical stuff? You're bringing in your selected external sources to overthrow the consistent testimony.

41:50

I'm bringing in a decade of research into the ancient Graeco -Roman world. Son, I was studying this stuff when you were still in diapers.

41:56

Don't give me your 10 -year stuff. Listen, this is the arrogance that you're No, you were the one that brought it in there,

42:02

Brandon. You brought in 10 years of experience. Brandon, you said

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I have 10 years of experience. I spent $100 ,000. Pastor James was simply responding to that. You brought it up, and you said you're making an argument from authority.

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I've spent 10 years doing this and $100 ,000. That's an argument from authority. You've already rejected

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God's authority. We reject yours. And so that's where we're at. And the message you're preaching is harming thousands of people.

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A message that gives life and forgiveness and peace to those who are deceived and they are wrapped up in their own lusts, like yourself.

42:39

Such were some of you is what's said to liars, adulterers, homosexuals from the

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New Testament basis. Well, men who lie with men. Let's go to the

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Greek Septuagint from Leviticus 18. Men who lie with men.

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Such were some of you. You can keep trying to speak with a silver tongue,

43:05

Brandon. It's not going to change the fact that the text says what it says. This is how you twist scholarship.

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What you do is you create what you want to find, and then you select your sources, and then when you come to a plain text that says...

43:23

Yes, it is. What does Coimbathe mean? What does it mean?

43:31

What does... Well, Brandon, let's try to keep the conversation on one point. He's asking a question.

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Tell me. What does Coimbathe mean?

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Do you even know? James. Do you even know what

43:49

Coimbathe means? Okay, C. So one side wants to dig into the text and get into the background of the language, and the other side doesn't want to do it.

43:57

So Leviticus... Well, let me just do what... Let's stick to... Okay, I'm going to make sure you...

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I'll show you the respect of responding to what you asked or what you claimed. So in Leviticus 18, you made the claim that these are specific laws to Israel.

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You make the argument that it's... 1 -3 makes that very clear. Yeah, he's speaking to Israel there.

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And in Leviticus 18, he's speaking to Israel. And your claim is that these are really for Israel. And it's ceremonial laws and things like that.

44:24

It's interesting because... And you may have seen this when I... I don't know if you watched the show or not, but one of the things I pointed out is the very text that you add a lot of things to and engage in a lot of eisegesis from my perspective.

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The very text that you appeal to to say that it's just for Israel says that God punishes the surrounding nations for doing these very things.

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So not so much just for Israel. But also, if you continue going and you know this,

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Brandon, you know this. You're not ignorant of this. The chapter and verse subdivisions are a modern innovation. But if you continue reading

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Leviticus right after 18, as you get into 19, that's where it says you should not steal, you should not deal falsely, you should not oppress your neighbor or rob him.

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And Leviticus 19 is the very passage that Jesus quotes from where he says you should love your neighbor as yourself.

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So your attempt to say, well, these are laws just really pertaining to Israel is immediately refuted by the evidence from the text itself.

45:17

You should love your neighbor as you love yourself. Is that just for Israel? You know that there are subdivisions within the

45:22

Levitical law. This is how it was interpreted throughout... I'm reading the text from 18 to 19. And the text has one flow, and it has laws against having sex with family, laws against having sex with men, laws against having sex with animals, laws against theft, laws against oppressing your neighbor, and there is actually a command to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

45:44

Is love your neighbor as you love yourself a command for the surrounding nations? Yes, that is a moral law.

45:49

So that one. You like that one. Jeff, you're being, again, disingenuous.

45:54

I'm reading the text, Brandon. You can say disingenuance all you want, but I'm reading the text. This is literally the Apostle Paul's...

46:00

The Apostle Paul spills so much ink over this. Which laws are ritual, ceremonial, and which laws are ethical?

46:06

This is not something... I don't understand why you're trying to... Is you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself, is it moral or ceremonial?

46:13

Obviously a moral law. Okay, so that's the same conversation that you say is just to the Jews. No. So that's a contradiction,

46:24

Brandon. You do see it, correct? No, I don't actually see it. So it's for Israel, but not just Israel.

46:31

No. Leviticus 18 verses 1 through 3, God is clearly speaking to the nation of Israel. He says do not be like the land of Canaan which

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I'm bringing up... Because they practice these sins like having sex with men and having sex with animals. Don't be like them.

46:45

Don't be... Brandon, you're not helping yourself. That doesn't change anything. Yes, those surrounding nations practice bestiality and homosexuality.

46:53

They oppress their neighbors. They stole. They did all those things. They all did those, and God punished those people for those very things, but that's because those laws are a reflection of God's own nature and character.

47:03

Those are His demands upon all mankind, and Brandon, I mean honestly, respectfully towards you, I don't know your perspective on the

47:09

Apostle Paul, but he didn't hold to your position on the law of God, because in Romans chapter 3 after the indictment upon you and me and all of humanity that we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, you know the text, that there's none who does good, there's none righteous, he actually says about the law that the law was given to justify nobody and that it's so that the whole world the whole world would be held accountable to God and have their mouth shut.

47:37

So Paul's perspective on the law was that the entire world was going to have their mouth shut by it.

47:43

It wasn't just for Jews. A couple things. First of all, you twisted Scripture. Leviticus 18 clearly it begins, 18 and 19, there is a very clear break.

47:54

At the beginning of 19, God speaks again, it says, and then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, so there's a break.

47:59

We have two different sections of text, two different sections of law code, and we know this to be true, that there are some commands throughout the

48:08

Levitical 612 laws, which we as Christians have historically interpreted. This is your

48:13

Orthodox perspective. Some of those are ritual commands. Some of those are ethical and moral commands.

48:19

The ritual commands Christians do not hold to. The argument that I've made and that many other progressive scholars,

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LGBT scholars have made that you know is that when we look at many of the commands in the book of Leviticus, specifically these commands, which are tied to the practices of Canaan and Egypt, that these are related to idolatrous pagan nations, idolatrous pagan practices.

48:40

These are not general commands about morality for all time. That's already been refuted because stealing and loving your neighbor is clearly part of that moral command, but I will say something to you.

48:51

You are right. Hold on now. Real fast, Brandon. I'm going to give you credit where credit is due. You are right.

48:56

These specific sexually immoral practices are idolatrous, and it's interesting because the

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Apostle Paul in Colossians 3 actually refers to sexual immorality, generally, as idolatry.

49:11

So, adultery between a man and a woman is idolatrous.

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Fornication outside of marriage is idolatrous, and so is the practice of men lying with other men, idolatrous.

49:26

Anytime we try to find satisfaction as creatures and image bearers outside of God's ways, we are ultimately switching

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God for some other form of pleasure and delight and peace. It's all idolatry.

49:40

So you're not helping yourself by saying these are idolatrous practices. The question is, Leviticus 18 and 19, because the word and is there,

49:49

Brandon, it doesn't help you. It's the same discussion. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel.

49:56

So, using your argument, in 18 it starts with, this is to Israel.

50:03

Ready? In 19 it says, speak to the congregation of the people of Israel. And there it says, you shall not steal, you shall not swear falsely, you shall not oppress your neighbor, and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.

50:16

Your attempt to subvert the plain meaning of the text isn't helping you, Brandon. You aren't using the plain reading of the text.

50:23

I'm reading the text. No, you aren't. Because you're not noticing the difference. In Leviticus 18, what are the two reference points?

50:31

We're talking about two pagan nations, Egypt and Canaan. The context is the practices of pagan nations. 19 does not begin with the context of pagan nations.

50:39

Are those practices sinful? Or what practices are sinful? The practices that they're practicing.

50:45

The surrounding pagan nations, are those practices sinful? No, those are, some of them might be considered sinful, but the idea here is that some of them are ethical, or some of them are cultural and ritual, which

50:55

I don't think lives up to the standard of sin. Okay. You said earlier that you're the one dealing with the text, everyone's spinning it.

51:04

I would like to, if we can, in the few minutes we have left, I want to understand kaihason koimeithe meta arsenos koitein gunaikos

51:16

There's just a small number of words here. Let's see if we can actually agree. Okay.

51:22

Whoever koimeithe lies with an arsenos, and then koitein, of course, is koitis.

51:32

This is to get into bed so as to have koitis as with a gunaikos.

51:40

We agree on this. Okay. Are you saying, so, are you saying that there's anything in this text that limits this prohibition so it does not include, where do you get loving, monogamous, same -sex koitein?

52:03

Where does that come from? So this is, again, this is where I do accuse you all of not doing good hermeneutics.

52:10

You're taking one verse, breaking down the words, and saying, look, there's nothing here. It just simply says, man, man, don't lie together as you do with a woman.

52:17

If you take the verse out of that context and just read it as you did it, I would say yes. That sounds like a broad condemnation of all gay sex.

52:25

Before we go on, I just want to make sure. Is there anything in the Hebrew? Because I was just looking at the

52:30

Greek Septuagint because more people do that. Would you agree? So you'd agree that the technical terms are used for male and female.

52:39

All that stuff is right there in the text. Are we actually agreeing on something?

52:47

I don't know why this is surprising. Yay! I just figured in this hour that would be somewhat of a historical event.

52:56

So we agree on that, and your argument is that there's something else in the context.

53:03

The literary and cultural context of Leviticus 18 places the behavior that's being described in verse 22 outside of the behavior that I'm talking about when

53:12

I look at my congregation that has LGBT people in them and perform their weddings and encourage them to be in loving, committed relationships because the context of ancient

53:21

Egypt and Canaan did not have loving, consensual same -sex relations. So the law that was given by Moses can only be relevant in the ancient world where you know

53:33

Canaanite and Egyptian religion and can have no application to today, which would mean that Paul completely blew it when he interpreted these words in the

53:43

New Testament. It can have application. I think it should have application. I think it's against exploitative sexual relationships.

53:50

But there's nothing in you agreed, we agreed on what the text was. It is specifically talking about a man getting in bed to have coitus with a man rather than in the fashion of a woman.

54:09

And you agreed. The question that must be asked by any good biblical scholar is where in the ancient world in Canaan and Egypt was that taking place?

54:17

The evidence we have of men lying with men as with women in ancient Canaan and Egypt generally is either exploitative sexual practices or pagan idolatrous sexual practices.

54:28

You're actually saying that there were no loving homosexual relationships in the ancient world in Canaan or Egypt.

54:35

Not the ancient world. I said in Canaan and Egypt. There were none. I didn't say there were none.

54:42

But it's still prohibited whether there's only because you earlier said, well, it's only 5%.

54:48

So why would Jesus have addressed this? So you're using the minimalization thing. What was much more common? No. See, you're twisting my own argument to try to win your point.

54:57

The point is what was very common. We're asking you your position. No, you're telling me my position and then having me respond to what you've articulated my position to be.

55:06

Here's the thing. We know that in ancient Canaan and ancient Egypt, it was very prevalent for men to have sex with men.

55:12

Men of higher status to have sex with men of lower status. Men who had enslaved other cultures and people from other surrounding nations were able to have sex with their male slaves.

55:22

That was a very common practice. So it makes logical sense. And it was perversion, right? Yes, that is perversion.

55:29

Was it only the exploitative element that made it perversion? I didn't hear what you said.

55:36

Was it only the exploitative element that made it perversion? Or is it not clear that in verse 13 of Liticus 20 the issue is the twisting of creation between the

55:51

Zakkar and the Eshah? It's the technical, it's the changing of the created order.

56:00

Isn't that exactly Paul's application in Romans chapter 1 when he doesn't talk about exploitative relationships?

56:07

He says men lusting after men. That's reciprocal.

56:13

You can't say that's one man lusting after someone who doesn't want to be lusted after. This was a reciprocal relationship in Romans chapter 1.

56:21

I disagree. Okay, why? Because Romans chapter 1, again, the context of all of Romans 1,

56:28

Paul is describing the descent of humanity into godlessness. And Paul begins with, they exchange the truth of God for a lie, worship created things instead of the creator

56:37

God. He goes down and explains how idolatry leads to this perverted sexual practice.

56:44

In my understanding... Like men having sex with men and women having sex with women. Yes, the sex that's taking place there is in relation to the idolatry.

56:51

Which Paul calls sexual immorality idolatry. Whether it's heterosexual or homosexual.

56:58

If it's sexually immoral, it's idolatrous. So, why do you not see then that the example that's being given by the apostle here...

57:09

I know what you're trying to say. I think what you're trying to say is this is only relevant to idolaters. But the problem is the example of Romans 1 is this is a twisting of the creation -creator relationship even down to the point where when it says even their women exchanged the natural for that which is against nature.

57:31

Are you one of the... Do you follow the... Well, this is Stoic stuff or things like that?

57:37

As you know, there's probably what? How many... Let's see if you and I can agree on something else today.

57:45

I would say I've seen at least 20 different ways of trying to explain that phrase from the apostle

57:55

Paul to get around it having anything to do with the idea that homosexual sex is paraphusis.

58:03

Would you agree about at least 20? I'm sure there are many, many ways. I have a new book coming out in 2024 where I do a deep in -depth study of all of these verses.

58:13

I would love to see your analysis of my approach to these scriptures. But what

58:18

I will say is I don't... I do agree that it seems the most likely reading of Romans 1 is that the context of that sexual behavior is related to Greco -Roman idolatry.

58:29

Now, the other side that I'm also willing to concede is that I do believe Paul has a patriarchal worldview.

58:35

Paul believes the created order is fundamentally patriarchal. I reject that. I believe that the reason

58:41

Paul would believe that homosexual sex is sinful is because it's a man emasculating another man.

58:48

It's threatening the patriarchal ordering of society. I think that's a worldview Paul inherits from his culture.

58:54

I don't believe that's the divine ordering of the world. I don't believe that that's the right ordering of the world. But you don't really know though because from the start of this conversation you said you don't really think you can know what that objective standard is.

59:05

So you're making ethical claims against patriarchy and all the rest and I don't really know what you mean by that.

59:10

I probably would want to get to know you more and ask you what you mean, so I wouldn't want to misrepresent you. But we started this conversation with you admitting that because you've rejected

59:18

Scripture at the reference point, you don't really know that there's any objective standard. So you're really just guessing. No, see

59:24

Jeff, you continue to misrepresent me from the very beginning. No, I'm dealing with your epistemology. I'm not misrepresenting you. One last thing,

59:32

Brandon, anybody's going to be able to take their finger and scroll back to the beginning of the conversation where you abandoned...

59:40

You cannot know truth. I didn't say no. Hold on now. I'm saying that you, on ethics, are saying that you're not sure, you don't really know if there's a subjective standard maybe that's possible to get to it and yet, here we go, and yet you still continue to make ethical claims,

59:56

Brandon. Because we can't... And you're the center. I cannot know ethical truth.

01:00:01

You're the center. Oh no, I know that you make ethical claims. You're misunderstanding the argument. This is an epistemological question.

01:00:07

It's an epistemological question. I know you make ethical claims, but I'm saying that you have no justification for your ethical claims because you've abandoned

01:00:16

God. That's not true. I worship God. I lead people to God. I study the Word of God.

01:00:21

I speak to people about God. Not the true God. You're a false teacher, Brandon. You need to grapple with that. You just said you studied the

01:00:26

Word of God, which I guess you mean you studied Jesus or something, but I'm not sure how that works. The problem we jumped over it for a second, but you started talking about patriarchy and stuff like that.

01:00:38

The problem was the verse that I'm quoting from is about women. And the objection...

01:00:44

That also fits into a patriarchal argument. But the objection is clearly from creation, not just some type of...

01:00:51

But creation... Paul assumes patriarchy is the ordering of creation. It's the result of the fact that God created this world to function in a particular fashion, and if it doesn't function in that particular fashion, it brings death.

01:01:07

And that's what we see here. It's obviously not true. Love and consensual same -sex relationships do not bring death.

01:01:13

They don't bring life. And in fact, the average lifespan of the active homosexual is considerably shorter than the married heterosexual.

01:01:23

That's a fact. You know that to be a fact. That's not the fact. Your facts when it comes to homosexuals in our lives and relationships are shoddy at best and offensive.

01:01:33

Brandon, let's deal with what Pastor James said to you. He said that homosexual relationships don't bring life.

01:01:38

You disagreed with that? I don't believe that the... Homosexual relationships bring life? I don't believe that the goal of relationship is primarily procreation.

01:01:46

No, I didn't ask you that. He said homosexual relationships do not bring life. You agree with that, right?

01:01:52

Relationships do not need to procreate. Does the homosexual lifestyle create life?

01:01:59

I don't know what lifestyle means, Jeff. Does homosexual sexuality... We cannot procreate.

01:02:04

Of course. You cannot. You cannot. It does not bring life. It does not bring life.

01:02:10

Your worldview... And not just procreation, though. Does it bring life when you have a relationship with someone else that is not eter connecto?

01:02:21

This is, again, the evangelical problem. When you read into the images and the metaphors and the allegories of Scripture, and you try to make them these categories of objective truth.

01:02:32

Like Jesus did when he used the same text from Genesis to define marriage. Yes, and he defined marriage after being asked about heterosexual divorce, he reaffirms heterosexual marriage.

01:02:44

Jesus was not making a comment about homosexuals or homosexual marriages. But he was making a comment about God's created order, and that was the point.

01:02:51

And I just made a comment about God's created order, and used a term, you know what it means, eter connecto, the woman corresponds to, but is different from the man.

01:03:01

That's the relationship that brings life. A male -male relationship does not, is not capable of doing that.

01:03:08

And procreation is not the goal of relationship. And I'm not even just talking about procreation. And what does life, what do you mean by life?

01:03:14

Well, there you go. If as a minister, and you claim to be a minister of a gospel,

01:03:20

I'm not sure where you get the gospel, but a gospel of Jesus Christ, which you can't define on any objective ground, but if you can't tell anybody what life is outside of just procreation, there's a real problem there.

01:03:32

No, see, now you're missing, James, that's ridiculous. I don't believe that a marriage relationship between a man and a woman is necessary for salvation.

01:03:40

I don't believe that that brings eternal or abundant life. I don't know what you're trying to get at here. I'm saying that falling in love with a mirror image of yourself is not

01:03:49

God's created order. And it does not bring life, that's not the life that Jesus came, He promises to His disciples.

01:03:55

That's the difference. I believe that I know many, many gay Christian couples that have profound relationships with one another and profound relationships with Jesus Christ.

01:04:05

I'm sorry that your own theology excludes and marginalizes us so that you'll never get a chance to know us, and I'm sorry that your theology will continue to perpetuate death instead of life.

01:04:14

Your theology produces death. It doesn't bring life. But that's okay, because you don't really have an objective ethical standard anyway, so your claim there is meaningless.

01:04:23

But you lost your punch. No, Brandon, because your worldview is so bankrupt, it's so bankrupt, you make these claims, but you don't realize that you've already lost the punch and strength.

01:04:34

There's no oomph to it. There's nothing, because you've already given up morality and ultimate basis for morality, objective morality.

01:04:40

I do have a question. We're out of time. I'm sorry. Let me just ask one quick question.

01:04:47

You stand before people in a pulpit, right? Yes. And you have an open Bible in front of you. Yes. How can you stand there and even get close to saying, thus saith the

01:04:57

Lord, or say anything that would have any binding authority upon them at all because they can do what you do and simply go, you know,

01:05:05

I just don't see it that way. Do you think that's a good thing? I hope they do say they don't see it that way. We're all on this journey of trying to understand truth and live in alignment with Jesus as best as we can.

01:05:14

But you've given up truth. I don't believe the job. What is the truth according to Jesus? We'll end with this, because I know you're over time.

01:05:21

I want to show you respect. According to Jesus, what is the truth? That's such an ambiguous question.

01:05:27

Well, he does an actual verse that says it. You're a reverend. So, John 17 17, thy word is truth.

01:05:34

God's revelation is the truth. Not your mind, Brandon, not your lusts. We'll let you go.

01:05:40

I'm going to call you to repentance because you do need to repent, my friend. He's repentant of your false gospel. Okay. All right.

01:05:45

Thanks, Brandon. Thank you. Peace. All right. Well, do you want to take a quick bathroom break?

01:05:53

We'll come back and just do a... No, no. No? Hey, if the 60 -year -old guy... I know. I'm the one that got up halfway during the conversation to use the bathroom.

01:06:01

I know. Look, because I got my two drinks here. That's why. Okay. So... I'm just... I'm just...

01:06:06

Well, first of all, anybody who watched that is going, wow. You know,

01:06:12

Brandon was right at the beginning. We start in completely different places. Okay. There's absolutely no two ways about that.

01:06:20

Secondly, I think hopefully everyone has seen that what he calls progressive Christianity is just simply the old liberalism.

01:06:30

You know, he talked about his mentor, John Dominic Cross. And, you know... Dom's a great guy, but Dom's not a

01:06:38

Christian. He doesn't even know if God exists. He's sort of an agnostic. That type of theology is not only bankrupt, but it is incapable of...

01:06:51

It has no message because it's all completely subjective. You know, when

01:06:56

I debated Dom, one of the stories I told... I forget where I got it from. I could look it up. But in the search for the historical

01:07:03

Jesus, when you look down the well looking for the historical Jesus, it's amazing the

01:07:09

Jesus you find staring back at you looks just like you. In other words, you make Jesus in your own image.

01:07:14

And that's all he has, is a Jesus that looks like him and believes like him.

01:07:21

Though I did find it strange that that question that I asked, why should he address homosexuals?

01:07:27

We're a small percentage. And I'm like, you're a small percentage that was getting stoned at that time.

01:07:33

And I don't mean stoned as in... I mean stoned as in executed. You mean you don't have any problem with the idea that Jesus didn't try to bring freedom to your community?

01:07:45

That just absolutely amazes me. we brought the

01:07:50

Word of God to bear. We demonstrated that when we got into the text, then it's like, that's what you fundamentalists always do.

01:07:57

You just try to get into the words and stuff like that. As if his overarching claim that, well, the stuff in Leviticus 18 is only about Egypt and Cain.

01:08:06

It cannot have any meaning outside of that. That destroys New Testament's use of the law.

01:08:12

It's done. It's over with. But he doesn't care because he's not all that big into the New Testament and Paul anyway. He's not interested in it.

01:08:18

So you just come up with your conclusions and then you craft things the way you want to craft things. And that's the easy way out.

01:08:26

The hard way out is sola scriptura and tota scriptura. And then he still can't help.

01:08:34

He'll still talk about the Word of God as the Word of God. He still can't help it. He has too much moody. He hasn't shaken that loose yet.

01:08:40

It takes time. I'll say two points here. One, do we deal with someone like Brandon Robertson with a heavier hand than we would the average guy on the street?

01:08:51

And my answer to that is yes. And the reason for that is because you see that modeled by the

01:08:56

Lord Jesus and by the apostles when they're dealing with false teachers and people who would deceive others using God's name and God's Word, they deal with them in a pretty direct and sharp way.

01:09:06

I think if you're sitting in an airport, which I don't sit at anymore, but if you're sitting at an airport and got into a conversation with somebody, you wouldn't go after them.

01:09:16

No, no. But someone like Brandon Robertson is in a different category altogether because they're not in that position and therefore you want to seek to graciously, hopefully open a door for them to hear.

01:09:30

But Brandon has put himself in this position. Now, I don't know that that was his goal 10 years ago.

01:09:37

I don't think it was a full 10 years ago when I first heard him speaking. But there was something and I think

01:09:43

I'm going to have to go back and listen to The Dividing Line and find out where it was. There was something in one of his answers. I think you've heard me say

01:09:50

I was out on a bike ride. I remember where I was. I was out near Carefree Highway. I was heading up toward Carefree Highway.

01:09:57

There was something in one of his answers that made me go he doesn't really believe that and he's not going to continue to try to be the orthodox person he is today.

01:10:08

You just watch. And he admitted I was right. He's had a fundamental conversion in that sense.

01:10:15

I don't know that he started off looking to do that. I really don't. But that's where he is now.

01:10:20

And so he has to be responsible. And people need to hear when people hear about the

01:10:25

Jesus Seminar, they're normally like those are really rad. Those are the guys that voted with the different colored marbles as to what

01:10:31

Jesus said. Yeah, for him that's normative. For him that's mainstream. That gives you an idea of what you have to do to this book to make it consistent with what modern people want to do.

01:10:45

And the important thing to point out to people as they think about dealing with someone like Brandon Robertson is it's the same common problem that you'll see with Mormonism, with the

01:10:56

Watchtower, and with these religions that will ape Christianity, use our language, and then deny it the definitions and all the rest.

01:11:03

It'll give you something totally different using the same word. Brandon's there. Brandon says things like gospel.

01:11:09

You need to repent because the gospel and Jesus Christ and all the rest. So he's using all these biblical words, but if you saw the episode, just go rewind it and watch it again how many times he essentially denied that it has any real meaning or that it should be respected.

01:11:22

I think the writer of Hebrews was this, and you know all the rest. And Paul, this or that, patriarchal and all the rest.

01:11:28

So it's like he can't decide which world he wants to live in. He's got one foot in his old Christian tradition, the stuff that really appeals to him, but anywhere that militates against his own personal private perspectives or his lusts, that's where he'll deny it.

01:11:42

Well, scriptures don't need to be trusted there. I'll find a way out of that one. And so you're really dealing with the same problem you do with the cults, and that is that ultimately, with the cults, they have a commitment, they say, they claim to the scriptures, and so they borrow the terminology.

01:11:58

But what you find as you walk a little further down the road is actually there's this other authority operating over here that is really the ultimate.

01:12:06

So with Mormonism, though they use our language, as you get down the line, no, it's actually the first presidency.

01:12:12

It's actually the prophets, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. It's a priesthood. It's over here. It's these guys tell us what that word means.

01:12:19

Roman Catholicism, you've got tradition, you've got scripture right here, and so as you press that, like you've said, what ends up happening is that tradition eats up the

01:12:29

Bible, right? It's the tradition that's ultimate. That's the standard. Even though the language of Christian language is being used, there's some other standard operating, and with Brandon, it's the same.

01:12:40

Christian language, Christian veneer, but as you press, you'll find out, get a few steps out, and the authority is actually

01:12:47

Brandon. It's his preferences, it's his likes and dislikes, and that's where we're at. Yeah, I just wonder how long, because it takes a lot of energy to do what he does.

01:12:56

I just wonder how long before he just goes, you know what, let's not even bother with this. Let's go for some other, you know, religion, or just no religion at all, whatever, because I don't understand the attraction of all of this.

01:13:14

Maybe for now it helps the transition, he's still young, etc., etc., but he doesn't really believe that this is a revelation from God.

01:13:21

It's just, well, you know, I'll read some things and it'll resonate with me, and well, you can do that with the

01:13:27

Bhagavad Gita, you can do that with the Quran, or something like that. Probably wouldn't do the Quran very well. I just don't know how long these folks can stay within even a pretense.

01:13:40

Because he calls himself reverend, and it's like, but you can't stand before the people of God and say, thus saith the

01:13:46

Lord. You go to Luke recording Jesus, Moses, through the prophets, the

01:13:54

Psalms, testify of me. Yeah, I probably didn't say that. Probably didn't say that. Why? Because of Jesus' seminar.

01:14:02

So most people will never run into a Brandon. But they will run into, sadly, what most of our audience will run into are

01:14:12

Christians that have been influenced by the Brandons of the world. And our people need to be able to recognize when you hear that kind of language being used, you need to understand where it's coming from.

01:14:25

Because most conservative Christians, if we have someone who's converted in our church, and all they know is us preaching, they've not heard this kind of stuff before.

01:14:35

And they automatically try to interpret it within the context of what you and I try to model in preaching.

01:14:44

Right. And it doesn't work. And it creates great confusion on their part.

01:14:50

It amazes me in social media when people respond to these folks, they're missing what they're saying because they're trying to hear them within the context that makes no sense whatsoever.

01:15:03

And so I'm not saying that we need to learn really well what this perspective is so we can recognize it, but there are certain fundamental foundational issues that came up over and over again.

01:15:14

His constant reaction against, well, fundamentalism, inerrancy, and of course the constant, and no one really believes that except a small little group.

01:15:26

Hey, on one level, if you want to look at the broad academy, he's right. Now, in the broad academy,

01:15:34

Jesus' seminar is still way radical left, so he's not right about that. But if you actually approach this as a consistent divine revelation the way

01:15:46

Jesus did, you either have to decide we don't know how Jesus views

01:15:52

Scripture. That's what he just did. That's what he did with Luke. Eh, I don't think he said that. So we don't know what Jesus... The funny thing is,

01:15:58

I'm teaching people to know Jesus, but I have no idea what Jesus was all about. That's the tragedy of that whole thing.

01:16:05

But either you believe this is God speaking, or it becomes simply a mirror that you hold up to yourself.

01:16:14

There really isn't... People try to live in a middle world, but there is no middle world. And you have to be able to hear that, and don't let it throw you off.

01:16:23

Don't feel like you have to have an instant answer. If you hear something coming from liberalism, quote -unquote progressivism, which is actually regressivism, if you hear that type of thing, just be patient.

01:16:35

Mark it down, go that's weird, and then take the time to find out where that was coming from.

01:16:43

And what you eventually find out is it's coming from a foundation of unbelief. Of unbelief.

01:16:49

And so I think the most important thing, just historically, one more thing, Leviticus 18 and 20, he's saying, if you do true scholarship, then you'll dig into Egyptian and Canaanite religion.

01:17:02

If you go to the probably sermons 3, 4, 5, and 6 or so, of the series

01:17:10

I did on the Holiness Code at PRBC many years ago, that's what I did. I went into Canaanite religion,

01:17:16

I went into what would be in their context and some of the perversions, horrific things that were going on.

01:17:22

But the problem with that whole argument, and I did raise this point at the end, is that what he is fundamentally saying is, whatever was written back then cannot be so much the word of God that has abiding validity to our day as well.

01:17:37

Right. He missed that. He's rejected that. He couldn't understand your argument there, I don't think. But he also probably never got that from the evangelicalism in which he was raised.

01:17:47

Let's just be honest, that probably was never a part of it that was ever communicated to him. And most of the evangelicals

01:17:52

I know, they're scared of viewing it that way because then you become a theonomist.

01:17:58

Right. Important questions. And what would you recommend,

01:18:05

I'm sure a lot of people will see this, in terms of resources. What would you recommend in terms of thinking through some of the things that he was saying, good resources to have everyone get their feet firmly planted in these discussions?

01:18:18

If you want to especially dig into a lot of the historical stuff that was just mentioned.

01:18:25

I had the opportunity, I don't think I told you this, I had the opportunity on this last trip I was on before I did the debate on marriage with Keith Giles I think was the name, to have dinner with one of the best known writers on the subject of homosexuality, his book

01:18:47

Homosexuality, and now having said all of that, it jumped out of my head, help me out here,

01:18:54

Dr. Gagnon is down in Houston, and I was about to say all that and then I started trying to remember

01:19:00

Keith Giles' name and everything else. I'm with you. Robert Gagnon. Robert Gagnon. We had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant down there.

01:19:09

Of course you did. Chicken quesadilla? Quesadilla? Chicken quesadilla? Look, you need to know that I actually

01:19:17

Chips and salsa? Of course. But you need to understand I have two things that I will eat at a

01:19:23

Mexican restaurant. Chicken quesadilla or chimichanga. Okay. I have a broad...

01:19:29

Yeah, very broad. Broad taste. But yes, we did. So, Bob Gagnon's work he delves into a lot of this stuff on a very technical level.

01:19:41

A lot of the historical stuff, the backgrounds and things like that, the gender binary, things like that. Excellent material there.

01:19:48

It doesn't mean I agree with everything that he says, but especially his bibliographies and things like that will give you a lot of information.

01:19:54

Then, someone we've had on the program here before, Michael Brown. He's written a number of books on this particular subject.

01:20:03

The most recent one, I think, was Can You Be Gay and Christian? But there was a queer thing happened to America.

01:20:09

It was, I think, 2011 now. It's been a long time. But that book is excellent. Very, very good. And then, of course, the debate that Mike and I did with the two homosexual pastors.

01:20:20

Even though a lot of people would say, well, they weren't up on all these arguments and stuff like that. Yeah, but they are the product of the promulgation of these types of arguments.

01:20:30

And the same -sex controversy is 20 years old now and needs a major update.

01:20:36

But the reality is it focused upon the scriptural texts, and those things don't change.

01:20:41

That's right. There have been almost no new arguments developed since then. There have been a few that probably should be addressed.

01:20:50

Jeff Neal and I wrote that work many, many years ago, so that's very helpful as well.

01:20:56

And, of course, I've debated this subject many, many times. I was sort of ahead of the curve on it, sadly.

01:21:02

But I think the two best debates I've had—they weren't with John Shelby Spong or something like that.

01:21:08

That was excellent, but really long and just tedious. Well, he's tedious. That's what

01:21:13

I'm saying. He was rough to get him to actually answer anything. I think the fastest -moving and best debates

01:21:20

I've done were the ones in South Africa. That's what I was going to suggest. Graham Codrington is his name.

01:21:26

And because he's globally known and he's a full -time speaker.

01:21:32

That's what he does. He travels the globe speaking, so he's a good speaker. So I'd recommend folks listen to those.

01:21:38

That was a fruitful one. To actually say, okay, I'm following what's going on. It stays constantly engaged, and you're definitely dealing with each other, whereas Spong— that was a tough one.

01:21:49

We could sit here for quite some time, but I have to take my wife to the airport. Right on. Someday we'll do a dividing line

01:21:59

Apologia Radio mashup where we do nothing but all the funny stories

01:22:05

I've learned in over 180 debates. Okay. That would sort of be fun. Let's do it. Let's do it.

01:22:10

Because some of them I was doing when you were quite young. Oh, yeah. I know. I know. That's Dr.

01:22:16

James White, guys. Pastor of Apologia Church. See, I did say it. There you go. Aomen .org

01:22:23

is where you guys go to get connected to Dr. White. Also go to Alpha and Omega Ministries on YouTube and across all the platforms, and you guys can go to ApologiaStudios .com

01:22:32

to go sign up for all access to help provide the support to do things just like this on a regular basis.