Potpourri Max!

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to the Dividing Line. Getting started an hour early because I will be meeting with some of you this evening at the
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Sound and Pound Conference in downtown Phoenix. Sound as in teaching, pound as in pound the streets, take what you,
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I just thought I'd explain that to you so that you were not confused. Anyways, starting off an hour early,
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I think I have actually 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 tabs open in the
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DL Materials folder here. I don't think I can get to all of them. But one, and I also have queued up, even though I'm obviously not even going to try to today, the,
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I don't know, they said this was not a debate. It was a dialogue. I always worry about people who are afraid of the word debate and we don't want to offend anybody.
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You can always tell it's going to be a little bit on the wimpy side. But anyway, there was a debate that took place very recently.
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Mike Licona was involved with a Yale theologian and it was on whether Jesus believed he was divine.
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And we're going to listen to it next week, not this week, and I think it's an excellent example of how to identify, well, the
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Yale theologian's primary arguments are, well, us theologians, if you're going to be a credible theologian,
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I'm sorry, us historians, if you're going to be a credible historian, you can't believe this either. The absolute necessity of approaching the presuppositions upon which these folks base their assertions.
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And if you don't, the fact that you're left with really nothing much to say to them. And we'll be taking a look at that.
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I did mention last week on The Dividing Line, we did, and I did not mention this on Tuesday, I apologize, but I mentioned very briefly on The Dividing Line from Detroit last week that we have an opportunity.
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Now, it's already slid off the blog because Rich is flooding the blog at the moment with stuff that I wrote when
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I had hair and when my kids were small and stuff like that.
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But may need to pop it back up just for visibility's sake, just so that we can see it.
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But have the opportunity, have been invited by Dr. Goriel at ABN to do a televised version of The Dividing Line every other week on ABN, which would require six trips over the course of the year to Detroit, fly in, do the live show, stay the night, next morning record the next three weeks worth of shows and fly home, basically.
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And ABN is not flooded with money or anything like that. And so we would need to raise the funds to be able to pay for the flights and basically getting me around and stuff like that while I'm there.
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And so we've put a link on the blog and a PayPal account.
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And if you all think that's something that's worth doing, then that's what we'll do.
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And we will take a look at what kind of funds are provided over the next few weeks and make the decision from there as to what is enough to get started, et cetera, et cetera.
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And we'll see how that goes. Obviously, there are limitations to what you can do.
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There are more things you can do in a televised broadcast than you can do like this.
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I mean, let's face it, sometimes I have to provide graphics and put graphics up on the blog just to be able to address certain things.
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Obviously, there are some advantages and could bring a wider audience to The Dividing Line. We'll see.
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We'll see. I put it out there and leave that to the people of God.
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But I only mentioned that on A Dividing Line that was at an odd time and an odd day. And hence, maybe there might be people who weren't even aware of it.
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So I thought I would mention that. The Christian Institute is a website that I like to look at.
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I'm not sure why I like to look at it because it's frequently very depressing. I love this one. And this one was from, what's the date on this?
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Because I've had this one up here for a little while, 25th of October, so six days ago.
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A Brighton Council. This is the Brighton and Hove City Council in the United Kingdom. A Brighton Council is thinking of banning the use of Mr.
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and Mrs. in official documents all in the name of equality. And the
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Barmy proposal, that's not language we'd use here. The Barmy proposal has been suggested following a council survey into the lives of transsexual residents.
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But Tory Councillor Don Barrett said, it's completely ludicrous and shows a complete lack of respect.
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Are they going to address letters properly? This is just political correctness gone too far. The idea is backed by deputy leader of the council,
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Felham McCafferty. Felham? P -H -E -L -I -M.
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Wow, I've never heard that one before. Felham McCafferty, who thinks it is useless to call people
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Mr. or Mrs. I don't know. I think it helps a lot. Walk up to a big nasty looking football player and call them
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Mrs. You find out how fast it'll work. Councillor McCafferty said, trans people aren't necessarily male or female, and sometimes they don't want to be defined by their gender.
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Putting Mr. and Mrs. on a form is completely useless. The proposal to ban the terms we presented to the council in December.
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It was recently announced the socialist government in France is planning to scrap the words mother and father when it introduces gay marriage.
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And of course, we just had this week the fact that the socialist government in France will now pay for all abortions for everyone.
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Abortion on demand, totally paid for by the French government. So there you go, socialism, it's a great thing.
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It's wonderful, great thing. In a similar vein, from, let's see what's the date on this one,
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October, published October 30th, politically correct, a mugging at Queens University.
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This is very interesting. Listen to this. This is what's coming, folks. This is what is coming.
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Michael Mason's 50 year teaching career ended on a sour note. Last fall, his history classes at Queens University were abruptly canceled after he was accused of making racist and sexist comments in the classroom.
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He had used the terms raghead, towelhead, chaps, and little yellow sons of bleep.
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A student complained that his borderline racist comments made her very uncomfortable. On top of that, one of his female teaching assistants complained because he told them they should become mistresses.
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Dirty old creep, not so fast. The subject of the course was imperialism and neocolonialism at the time of the
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Second World War. Professor Mason was using offensive phrases to illustrate the attitudes of that era.
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They were direct quotes from contemporaneous documents, a context that was abundantly clear to nearly all of the 140 students who had flocked to his popular course.
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As for mistresses, Professor Mason had merely expressed the hope that his mainly female students would become masters and mistresses of the material by the end of the semester.
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These nuances didn't interest the administration, which quickly called him on the carpet. The department chair sent him a letter of reprimand, saying that he had contravened the university's equity policy.
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He was summoned to a meeting where he was told he had failed to create a safe space for students.
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One of the administrators spoke of the need for inclusivity in the classroom.
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They told him they had decided to open an investigation and that he should stop teaching until it was completed.
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Some of it was almost humorously outrageous, says the 74 -year -old professor, who had been recalled from retirement to teach the course.
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He had, in fact, invented the course and had taught it for years with great success, so I thought, who better?
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The complaint about the mistresses' remark, he says, came from a female graduate student in gender studies who had been appointed his
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TA. Professor Mason then took a medical leave. A dozen students wrote him letters of support, saying his course was one of the best they'd ever taken.
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The Canadian Association of University Teachers, meanwhile, opened an investigation of its own last month that delivered a scathing report that demanded the university apologize to Professor Mason.
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It's not surprising that its academic mugging happened at Queen's. This institution has long been obsessed with the politics of gender, race, and speech.
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Its liberal arts courses offer the usual faddish attention to race, class, gender, oppressed groups, colonialism, and the sins of dead white males.
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It has a sizable bureaucracy devoted to improving human rights, employment equity, diversity, anti -racism awareness, and so on.
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As the CAUT report said, faculty members expressed the feeling that the administration tends to be panicky when it comes to issues of racism, as there have been a number of cases in the past few years that have proven embarrassing to the university.
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Anyway, as he says at the end of the article, I had always hoped I would have a heart attack clutching a piece of chalk, he told me.
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I was hoping I'd go on to 100. Oh, you know,
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I it's just it is a clear example of how absolute simple common sense has abandoned the academy.
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These people got so many degrees, they can't tie their shoes anymore. They can't brush their teeth. They can't add two and two.
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They are simply stupid. I mean, this is stupidity. This is this is stupidity on the level of driving down the road and literally interpreting road signs so that you end up doing dumb things that people aren't supposed to be.
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It's just it's just ridiculous. And yet this is the very essence of political political correctness in the academy.
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What was that line from the few a few good men, the Rocco Sluggo Sluggo School for the Galactically Stupid?
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I have absolutely no idea. And the only one I know from that one is you can't handle the truth. Yes. Well, I think this one that line plugs right in.
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That's I'm going to tell you, it is absolutely. Amazing. And speaking of more looniness from from Canada.
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This is from the National Post up in Canada. Those who encourage or incite terrorism could be barred from Canada under guidelines tabled by Jason Kenny.
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Those who publicly glorify terrorism or incite hatred could be barred from visiting Canada under guidelines to be tabled
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Wednesday by Jason Kenny, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. The minister was to brief the Standing Committee on Citizen Citizenship and Immigration in the afternoon on details of a controversial proposal that would give him the authority to keep certain foreigners out of Canada, Canada, Canada for public public policy reasons.
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While critics are concerned about the vague wording of the legislation, the new guidelines list the behaviors and activities an immigration minister could consider when deciding whether to use the extraordinary power.
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A copy of the guidelines obtained by the National Post says the law would apply to those who publicly promote or glorify terrorist violence or terrorist organizations outlawed or sanctioned by Canada.
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It could also be used against those who encourage or incite terrorism, incite hatred that is likely to violence against a specific group, or promote, counsel, encourage, or incite serious criminal activity.
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These guidelines would apply to a foreign national who makes public statements or uses any means to broadcast, write, produce, publish, or distribute material, including a website and public speaking, to express such views.
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Now you need to understand, that sounds like they're talking about keeping wild -eyed jihadis out of Canada, right?
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It goes on to say, the guidelines appear to be a response to recent planned speaking tours by anti -Muslim
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U .S. pastor Terry Jones and a radical Muslim imam who advocates stoning homosexuals to death.
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U .S. neo -Nazis have also visited Canada on speaking tours in past years. A second section of the guidelines would allow the minister to keep out current or former senior members of regimes against which
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Canada has imposed sanctions, as well as any associate or a relative of such people. The point is that once governments start claiming these kinds of powers, then you very well know how they're going to be using them.
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And even if they were originally intended just to keep a wild -eyed jihadi out, then the politically correct crowd comes along and says, well, if you're going to do that to the
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Muslims, then you need to do that to the Christians too. And so, let's just say that I wouldn't have to be worrying too much about visiting
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Canada very often in the future. If something like that were to happen, that's just sort of how that works.
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This morning, I've got a little bit of a cough going, so I apologize every once in a while I'll disappear and hit my cough button and clear things up, but it's also causing me to fumble and stumble over a few words as well.
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But anyway, this morning, I watched
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The View. Yes, it's a confession
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I have to make. It is probably the very first time I have ever purposefully turned this on. In fact, everything
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I've ever seen of this program has been clips that people have played on the internet to demonstrate what inane, idiotic thing had just been said on The View.
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The last one was Whoopi Goldberg demonstrating that she thinks the
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Mormons are actually Mennonites. That was pretty cool. You actually watched it all the way through?
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What? You actually watched it all the way through, the whole thing? No, sir. Oh, okay. I did record it, but thankfully,
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I happened to come into the room right as they started the section with Rachel Held Evans and the
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Year of Biblical Womanhood. So I knew she was going to be on, and I predicted exactly what was going to happen.
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First of all, you're not going to be on for very long, so you're going to have no more time than you probably had on Good Morning America or whatever program she was on last week was.
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And knowing the wild -eyed feminists who populate the stage, it was going to be nothing more than, let's laugh at some other things the
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Bible says. Oh, it says this, didn't it? That's silly. And what is the primary thing that I have just wanted to...
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I've just been very clear. I said on Twitter. I think I said on the program as well.
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In the video clip that they did... In fact, they did more. I think they did more on the morning program than they did on The View.
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But they did a video clip, and they showed Rachel Held Evans in light of...
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I think it was from Leviticus 25. During her monthly time, living in a tent in the front yard of her house.
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So she'd move out once a month, and that's where she'd live, is outside.
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And I pointed out to her on Twitter, that is just...
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Excuse me. One of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. Jewish women didn't do that.
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Jewish women didn't have a second house they moved into. So on any level, ignore the purity laws for the people of Israel and application in modern context.
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You can lay that aside. The simple fact of the matter is, even the folks to whom these laws were originally given, didn't interpret them in this way.
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So the only reason that you have to do this, is to mock a kind of literalistic fundamentalism that doesn't even exist.
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That's the only reason to do this. It's just absurd. Well, guess what happened on The View today?
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Exactly what I said was going to happen on The View today. They brought that up. She talked about it.
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She didn't contextualize it. She didn't say, now I realize that this is...
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Look, you need to understand. I only did these things to point out that we need to engage in meaningful exegesis.
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She's not doing any of that. And they used her for exactly what
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I said they would use her for. Now, thankfully, there are a number of folks who are responding to Rachel Held Evans.
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Whether Thomas Nelson will publish their books or not, I don't know. I would say
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Thomas Nelson should just be absolutely embarrassed by this. But anyway, Kathy Keller, wife of Tim Keller and a contributor to his book,
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The Meaning of Marriage, offers a serious review. This is on Justin Taylor's blog, on the
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Gospel Coalition blog. And he provides some quotes from the review that said many of the same things that I was trying to say briefly.
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And it was titled, A Year of Ridiculous Biblical Interpretation. Which is exactly right.
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That's the whole point that I was making. And here are some of the quotes. This is
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Mrs. Keller speaking to Rachel Held Evans, who is all 31 years old.
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She doesn't have any kids. In making the decision to ignore the tectonic shift that occurred when
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Jesus came, you have led your readers not into a better understanding of biblical interpretation, but into a worse one.
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Throughout your book, you have ignored or even hidden from readers the fundamental principles of scriptural interpretation, including the difference between narrative and didactic, as well as the importance of placing commands in their context within redemptive history.
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So, love is the reason you will reject some parts of the Bible and embrace others. But where do you get your definition of love if not from the
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Bible itself? And if you say parts of the Bible express love, and other parts express power interests, you've clearly gotten your standard definition of love from outside the
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Bible, specifically from contemporary sensibilities, and these are your ultimate authority and norm.
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That is for sure. Finally, you have become what you claim to despise.
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You have imposed your own agenda on scripture in order to advance your own goals. In doing so, you have further muddied the waters of biblical interpretation instead of bringing any clarity to the task.
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Well, certainly, if anyone is looking to Rachel Held Evans for insight into biblical interpretation, well, you get what you pay for.
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You get what you pay for. But that is very much the case.
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If that's the only book you've looked at, or if that's your only exposure to these things, you're going to be in a rough space.
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No toys about it. And I suppose I should say, if you'd like to defend Rachel Held Evans, you can give us a call,
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I suppose, 877 -753 -3341. I'm sort of working through these things, but if the
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Grand Poobah determines that your call is worthwhile, you'll have to convince him of that.
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Don't just call and say, I just want to talk to James. That's not going to do anything. Then I have one here that's sort of funny.
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I might get through these. I have one here that's sort of funny on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, which
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I do follow. There's this funny, well, it's
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SBL ETC dinner. You have to really be into acronyms, okay? Society for Biblical Literature Evangelical Textual Criticism dinner.
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SBL ETC. Textual critics, especially who go to SBL, tend to be pretty geeky.
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That's the only way to describe these folks. I don't know. I've seen pictures, and most of them look like they need help from the 60 -year -old woman in the row in front of them to help get their luggage up into the overhead rack.
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But anyways, yesterday they posted something about, I'm finalizing.
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This was, hmm, that's interesting. No name. Oh, there it is. Christian Askeland. I am finalizing plans for a dinner at the
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Hard Rock Cafe in Chicago from Monday at 8 p .m. I recommend that we congregate at the end of the papyrology and early
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Christian background session and take the elevated train and the city center together at about 7 p .m.
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So look out, folks. You've already missed it.
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That would have sort of fit Halloween anyways, right there, just a whole group of textual critics on one train. That just would have been frightening.
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I should note that this session includes two papers on the second century green papyri. Alternatively, you can meet the group at the restaurant at 8 p .m.
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In either case, please post in the comments below to indicate your attendance so we can reserve enough places. Attendance is open to all who love textual criticism and fatty foods.
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Why did I mention that? Because you get little itty -bitty bits of information from strange places.
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You'll notice he notes here, I should note that this session includes two papers on the second century green papyri.
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Something tells me, I don't know this for certain, I'm guessing, but something tells me that's a discussion of the papyri that have not yet been released in the
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Brill Book. Why is it being called the green papyri? Because it talks about second century green papyri.
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We're not talking about environmentally friendly papyri here. That's not, no, something else.
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So, interesting you can sometimes grab things from that. Now, something that will take a little bit longer.
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Have you seen how often, in fact,
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I saw, I should have kept this and I didn't, I apologize. I should have, let me actually open another window here and see if I can still pull it up because it was,
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I thought, rather well written. And it was under this one here, there it goes.
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Yes, this is interesting. It is
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February 27th, 2013. Barack Obama, having been safely re -elected, awakens one morning to news that the Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Egypt, and elsewhere are rioting and storming
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U .S. embassies, tearing down the American flag and raising the black flag of jihad. February 27th, by the way, was the day of the
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Reichstag fire in 1933, if you are familiar with that particular story. They're in a rage over a book that depicts
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Muhammad as waging war against his enemies, consummating a marriage with a nine -year -old girl when in his fifties, and raining down curses upon Jews, Christians, and others.
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Islamic texts accepted by mainstream Muslims show Muhammad doing all these things, and, of course, that's true. A grim -faced
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Obama immediately takes to the airwaves. This book is reprehensible and disgusting, Obama tells the world, his eyes flashing with indignation.
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It does not represent the position of the government of the United States, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms. This unseemly provocation of the noble believers in the
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Holy Quran has to end. This is America. We are better than this. We are not a people who condone hate. We are a people who offer a welcoming, helping hand to those in need.
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And it is high time that we afford religious minorities the same protections we strive so hard to offer to racial minorities.
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The Obama administration quickly drafts a law that would criminalize the use of any means to broadcast, write, produce, publish, or distribute material that encourages or incites terrorism, including a website and public speaking, and have material that incites hatred that is likely to lead to violence against or stigmatization of a specific group.
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The international community is thrilled. European heads of state rush to congratulate and thank Obama. British Prime Minister David Cameron calls him far -seeing.
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Germany's Angela Merkel says he is a true statesman. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Root opines that Obama is richly deserving of his
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Nobel Peace Prize and predicts that a new era of peace will soon dawn between the West and the
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Islamic world. Ekmaleddin Esanaglu, whatever,
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Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, announces that he is gratified the United States has finally recognized the red lines that cannot be crossed regarding discussion of the holy figures of the world's greatest religions.
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By the way, many of these statements have links in them to where these folks have actually said these things, just in a different context.
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The mainstream media is just as happy. Eric Posner writes in Slate that finally Americans have come around to the rest of the world's point of view and that there is no sense in the
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First Amendment and that we need to not be paralyzed by constitutional symbolism. Sarah Shays, in the
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Los Angeles Times, hails the new clarity about the distinction between speech that is simply offensive and speech that is deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk.
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In the Washington Post, Nathan Leon effuses that the U .S. has recognized the power of our multiculturalism will finally reach our true potential as a nation, not the voices of intolerance that wish to divide us along religious lines have been drowned out by overwhelming calls for pluralism and coexistence.
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Muslim spokesmen in the U .S. are enthusiastic as well. Harris Tarrin of Muslim Public Affairs Council heralds the imminent demise of the hate -mongering industry in the
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United States that sees Islam as the problem. Imam Hussam Al -Husseini of the Karbala Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn expresses his satisfaction that the
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U .S. has finally put a law not to insult a spiritual leader. Mohammad Kattanani of the
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Islamic Center of Passaic County, New Jersey is likewise pleased that we as Americans have put limits on borders on freedom of speech recognizing that non -Muslims have no right to talk about Muslim holy issues as doing so will incite hatred or war among people.
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A few roadblocks still remain on the road to peace. Some radio hosts object, but local stations drop their programs for fear of losing their advertisers and FCC licenses.
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A teary -eyed House Minority Leader, John Boehner, says at a press conference, Look, I agree with the President that the
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Mohammad book is reprehensible and disgusting. And I don't condone hate speech in any way, shape, or form. But I am concerned about the
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First Amendment implications of this new bill. After a firestorm, the press, however, charging that Boehner and the
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Republicans favor hate speech and are sowing division among people, Boehner backs down and agrees to support the bill.
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A Supreme Court challenge is quickly defeated when Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Sunstein lead a 6 -3 majority vote in favor of the proposition that hate speech is not entitled to First Amendment protections and can lawfully be subject to restrictions.
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The change is immediate. Books critical of Islam and Mohammad disappear from the shelves. Websites tracking jihad terror activity are shut down.
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And after vowing to continue to call attention to Islamization and the spread of Sharia in the West, a few bloggers are quietly imprisoned.
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The mainstream media is unperturbed. These people were, after all, purveyors of hate speech. But when
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Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchi is taken into custody after a story reporting on new statements calling for jihad by the
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Taliban's Mullah Omar, Post publisher Catherine Weymouth is outraged. The story she writes in a front -page
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Post editorial was merely reporting on Mullah Omar's words. If there was any incitement to hatred, it was on the part of Omar, not the
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Post. White House press secretary Jay Carney, however, explains, the President feels this kind of reporting can tend to stigmatize and increase suspicion of the
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Muslim community in the United States. The Post and the rest of the media has to learn to be more inclusive. Well, you get the idea.
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And the scary thing is there's so many links in this to things that have already been said that we really have to think a lot about these calls.
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I'm reading an October 28, 2012 piece. This is actually real.
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It's not a fictional piece based upon what people have actually said. This is a real thing. Saudi King demands
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UN resolution that condemns insult to Islam. The fourth estate cooperative contributor,
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Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has called on the United Nations to issue a resolution condemning any country or group that insults religions and prophets.
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King Abdullah made the call Saturday at Mina Palace in Mecca while addressing religious leaders and the heads of the
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Hajj, which was going on just recently. The Hajj pilgrimage was taking place. This is just one of many.
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We are seeing them all over the place. And they're always put in the context of we want to call for laws against the insulting of all religions.
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Well, do they really want that? I mean, there's one in particular. Yeah, we all know that.
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We all are well aware of this. And it is obvious when you look at what happens, what has been happening in the quote -unquote
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Arab Spring. The persecution of Christian minorities, the persecution of cops in Egypt, the driving out of the vast majority of Christians from Iraq, which was once a very nice place to be but isn't any longer.
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All this kind of stuff is all around us. And continuing what he said here, he also said that it is the duty of every
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Muslim to protect Islam and defend the prophets. If the UN heeds the call, the corresponding resolution would condemn the
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U .S. filmed movie. U .S. filmed movie? You mean it was made in the U .S., I guess? Innocence of Muslims allegedly made by Coptic Christians and cast
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American actors. The movie mocks Prophet Muhammad, Islam's founder, by portraying him as a child abuser and womanizer in the movie.
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Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Does anyone really, really, really, really, really believe that what is being requested here is a broad -minded, fair law limiting attacks upon all religions?
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Is that really what we want here? Because I just want to ask my Muslim friends. In fact, I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.
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But I just saw that there was a dialogue on this, including Abdullah Al -Andalusi in the
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U .K., and an atheist and some Christians. And Abdullah wrote the article on it, and so I'd like to listen to it myself, of course.
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But there are very, very, very strong words in the
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Quran regarding Christian beliefs. Surah 5, 17 says,
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They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is Christ, the son of Mary. So the
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Quran says we're disbelievers. Now, if someone were to say that Muhammad is a disbeliever, they would find that very, very offensive, right?
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And so would these laws prohibit my saying that Muhammad was a disbeliever? Sorry, folks, the voice is really going fast here.
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Surah 4, 171. O people of the Scripture, do not commit excess in your religion to say about Allah except the truth.
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The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah, and his word which he directed Mary, and a soul created a command from him.
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So believe in Allah and his messengers, and do not say, Three, desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one
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God, exalted is he above having a son. To him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on earth, and sufficient is the law as opposed to affairs.
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Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels near to him, and whoever disdains his worship and is arrogant, he will gather them to himself altogether.
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And so you have the statement that we are committing excess, that we must desist from what we are doing.
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So our religion is excess, and we must desist from the statements of the very heart of our religious faith.
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Surah 5, 72. They have certainly disbelieved to say Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary, while the
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Messiah said, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Indeed, he who associates others with Allah, Allah has forbidden him paradise, and his refuge is the fire, and there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers.
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They have certainly disbelieved to say Allah is the third of three, and there is no God except one God, and if they do not desist from what they are saying, they will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.
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If these folks are serious about not offending other religions, are you going to stop preaching the
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Quran? Because, I mean, you're really, obviously, any
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Muslim who is suggesting laws like this, obviously you are going to stop publicly teaching the hadith, right?
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Because the hadith are much worse than the Quran. I mean, clearly there's condemnations there, and there's,
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I mean, there's some really, there's some nasty stuff in the hadith.
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That's just the only way to put it. But this is the Quran. And the Quran says of me,
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I'm a disbeliever, Allah has forbidden me paradise, there is, no one will help,
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I'll never find a helper, that a painful punishment awaits me, and later on we're said to be deceived,
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IS 75 says the Messiah, the son of Mary was not but a messenger, other messengers have passed on before him, and his mother was a supporter of truth, they both used to eat food, look how we make clear to them the signs, then look how they are deluded, the
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Quran says I'm deluded. I'm going to hell, I'm deluded, I'm a disbeliever.
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Would the law be applied to the Quran, so the Quran could no longer be preached?
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Now we all know it wouldn't, which is why these people calling for these things are either ignorant of biblical and Quranic texts in total, and we know they're not, or we know they're only talking about one religion, and hence it's okay to preach the
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Quran, and it's okay for the Muslims to say that the
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Christians are in excess, and all the rest of the stuff, but they're deceived, and that's okay.
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We just can't return the favor, we just can't say, yeah, well, you know, the person who wrote that,
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I'm really not thinking is a representative of God. Oh no, you're not allowed to say that, that violates the law, that violates the
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UN, and believe me folks, if there's any reason for us to have nothing to do with that body of yahoos, there's a good reason for it right there, because I can just see them passing something like that.
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I simply do not know of any Muslim that with a straight face can read these texts and say, yeah, we can say that, we're not inciting the violence, excuse me, did you all see that horrific video of the young martyr man just a few months ago, and they cut his head off, and it was graphic, and it was horrific, and it was horrible, but you see, the reason that they can get away with stuff like this, the reason that King Abdullah who gets millions and millions and literally billions of dollars of our tax money, the reason he can get away with this kind of thing is because the vast majority of folks, even if they saw it, didn't understand a word that was being said.
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I did. These were the very texts that were being chanted in Arabic as they sliced the man's head off.
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So, it does incite the violence, and we have evidence of it, and the amazing thing here is, who's doing all the violence?
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The Quran incites the violence in the killing of Christians, and then they say that the movie incited who to violence?
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Christians? No, Muslims again, who are burning down stores and killing people, people running around going,
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Allahu Akbar, and La ilaha illallah. So, evidently, that one group can be incited to violence from any direction, from their own texts or from somebody else's.
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So, evidently, the idea is, if you all don't stop insulting us, we will continue to kill ourselves.
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So, do something about it. And I just go, really? There are people, serious, serious people in positions of high authority who are actually seriously considering this?
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I don't even know what to say to something like that, because it's just absolutely amazing that there would be anything like that at all.
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Maybe you'd like to comment, 877 -753 -3341.
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My voice had been fine until I started talking a bunch, and then it decided to start going crazy again. It strikes me that when you and I were younger men,
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I don't remember that, the concept of getting in someone else's face and offending them was not what sent you to jail.
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It was the other guy doubling up his fist and hitting you in the nose for it that was considered a breaking of the law.
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And it's when these things are taken to the level of violence that that is supposed to be where you go from being a civilized person to an uncivilized person, and that's where society steps in.
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This is all upside down now. It is all upside down, because what you're assuming there is that a mature person does not have to react to provocation, because we're human beings, we can control ourselves.
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And when you do react, then that's when you cross the line. That's the old way of looking at things. That's naive.
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We need to realize that these folks can't help themselves. Even if they've never seen it, all it takes is for them to know that somebody around the planet posted on YouTube a video that would offend them if they saw it, and that's enough to murder people.
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That's good enough. Well, the reaction from those here who are politically correct is run amok.
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We go back to even when we were children, the sticks and stones will break our bones. I was about to say, that's no longer...
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you can't chant that anymore. That should be illegal on the playground. The politically correct roots that started back in the early 90s, late 80s, all of that, you know, you don't have a right to offend me.
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You don't have a right to have my feelings. I have a right to be unoffended. Yeah, and that morphs into an automatic looking for offense, seeking to be offended.
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Oh, good grief, yeah. Once you start teaching people that they are victims, and that they can act upon their victimhood, then they will always be looking for reasons to complain.
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And that statement, that's exactly what I was talking about, was sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
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I don't think we hear that anymore. I mean, I haven't been on a playground in a long time, but that's certainly not what's being taught in our schools.
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No, that's not the approach at all anymore. What's being taught is, sticks and stones and your words will break my bones, and therefore,
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I will sue you. That's the new limerick on the playground, and we're now seeing the result of that.
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And what was the whole, why were we taught those lines? We were taught those lines because it was communicating to us that a mature person is someone who is not controlled by words, that we can evaluate words, that we can recognize when someone's simply teasing us or even seeking to offend us, and we don't have to respond to those things, that a mature child, a mature person, an adult, is in control of their own mind and in control of their own actions, and that's what makes them mature.
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But that's not the case anymore. It's not the case in the educational system. It's not the case with, I mean, we all know that now, the very fact that I know you might hold a view, you might hold a belief that I find offensive is enough for me to act, for me to be offended, and for me to seek to limit your ability to express those perspectives that I would find offensive.
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Well, I think also this all goes into a larger picture where the youth of America is expected not to be able to control themselves.
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Now you get into sex education in the schools and what it's become. You get into this. But it's just an animal anyways.
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Yeah, we're all animals. They're not going to control themselves. They're going to be this way and that way.
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So the expectation is, if you insult Johnny, Johnny's going to want to hit
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Jimmy in the nose and you're going to have a fight break out on the playground. Or if Johnny likes
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Janie, they're going to go have sex anyway. So let's just go ahead and give them all the stuff to be able to do that.
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And we don't teach our kids to be responsible. We don't teach our kids to control their tempers.
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We don't teach our kids not to insult one another. And we don't teach our kids to control their sexuality.
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Yep. There you go. And what do you have? You have a society of chaos. You have
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Europe, which is on the brink of whatever it's on the brink of.
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And then you bring the Islamicists into the picture who are doing all of what you just described over on the other side.
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And this kind of thinking person looks at that and goes, oh, what did we do? I'm sorry. What did we do?
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You're breathing. Yeah, you're breathing. That is your problem. They want to kill you. It doesn't matter what laws they pass, what religious speech, what religious activity is restricted by the government, they will still want to kill you unless you convert.
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And even that, look at how they treat each other over there, whether you have the more militant ones and the moderate ones.
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They're killing each other over there. We're talking about the massive examples of violence amongst the quote -unquote
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Arab Spring, which has turned into the Arab Winter. Just look at how these societies have treated the
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Christians. Something has happened the past couple of days. I don't know if you all saw it.
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But for some reason, the current American administration has all of a sudden realized that they, and I've known this all along.
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I mean, before Syria went into civil war, 18 months before Syria went into civil war, someone
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I know told me it was going to happen. And if someone I know knew it was going to happen, then clearly people in the know knew it was going to happen as well.
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So it wasn't some surprising thing. And the people, including a certain senator from our own state, who have been very open in saying we need to be arming these people and we need to be sending them arms and stuff like that.
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And I'm just sitting here shaking my head going, such ignorance of what's going on over there and such ignorance of who's who.
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Because what you're saying is, let's send more and more arms to the very people who did Benghazi.
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Let's send more and more arms to the very people who have driven Christians out of Iraq.
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Let's just keep giving American arms to everyone who will kill Christians and persecute Christians. And that's exactly what's going on.
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That doesn't mean I like Assad, but Assad wasn't killing Christians. It's just, it has been an absolute disaster over there, and not just the past four years.
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Let's be honest. American policy has been a disaster, mainly because we don't, secularists are going to be a disaster at dealing with Islam.
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And the people with the AK -47s in their hands who just want to engage in mayhem and they're using religion as an excuse are going to continue doing that.
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And you cannot reason with them. And it's very, very difficult to try and call for a recognition of the fact that there are
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Muslims who don't want to kill you. There are Muslims who are embarrassed when they see these people on television screaming and acting like the militant loons that they are, because they are there, and we recognize those folks are there.
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But it's very hard to differentiate between them and these folks, partly because they're not given the press that they need to be given.
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I recognize that. But the other scary thing, and I keep mentioning this, and I hope it's getting through to you, is that when you think about the moderate
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Muslim over against the radicalized Muslim, where is the dividing line between them? Where's the battleground?
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What makes the difference between them? It's what scholars they trust to interpret the
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Hadith and the Quran. And there are so many interpretations, so the material where the battle must take place is so self -contradictory, and so quite literally incoherent, that I just don't think there's any way that any one side can win the battle.
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And here's where theology matters. The vast majority of Islam is nominal.
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In other words, the people in these countries are Muslims because they were born that way. They were just born into it.
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That's all they know. It's like being born in Dallas. You're a Cowboys fan. It's just natural.
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If you're born in Ohio, you're a Buckeyes fan. It almost has the exact same level. Because of the nature of Islam, and the fact that you don't have the same kind of conversion experience that you have as a
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Christian. I mean, we saw what happened when Christianity was the default in a nation, too.
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If you're born as a Christian, what does it do to Christianity? It drags it down to the level of all the unregenerate people that are inside its walls.
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Well, you look at Islam, you're looking at masses of unregenerate people. There are going to be people in those groups that are going to use religion as a means of expression of their evil.
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And so I see constant reports in Europe of enclaves where Muslims, Muslim youth are involved in gang rapes.
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And it's becoming more and more common because the law is breaking down in these certain areas. What is 700 zones in France that you just don't go into without armed escort?
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And what is that? It's an example where religion is being used by unregenerate men as the mechanism that allows them to fulfill their lust.
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If they're violent, if they're racist, if they hate certain groups of people, then you can find a religious leader that will give you a reason to act out those things.
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You can do it. That's all it is. And so we see this happening around us.
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And the West has little response because we don't have a moral backbone or a moral foundation upon which to stand anymore anyways.
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And so there you go. There's what's happening. And just so that those who may be listening who think that this has somehow turned into a political discussion, the point of all of this is how we practice our faith within the society, how what goes on half a world away, when we look at that map behind us...
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Which is a map of persecution, by the way. The persecution map of believers, brothers and sisters in Christ, who just to be able to have the
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Scriptures in their hands could cost them their lives. That's the kinds of things we're talking about. It's a big picture.
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And all of these things affect how we practice our faith and be able to share our faith if a day may come when we're not even allowed to share our faith.
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Not even allowed to say it because the politically correct movement has succeeded.
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Well, folks, next Tuesday is
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Election Day. And those of you who live in a land where you have the freedom to participate,
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I do hope that you will participate. I guess we're planning on being here.
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So we'll have a program. I doubt that it'll be on anything overly political. You might need a break by that point.
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Some of you who live in places like Ohio, I imagine you've just about thrown your TV out the window by now.
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It's just like, talk about overdoing it. I saw some numbers about the hundreds of millions of dollars.
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You know who's really happy right now? Everybody who owns a radio or a television station in Ohio or Wisconsin.
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They are part of the one half of 1%. Let me tell you right now, they have been making it hand over fist, but there ain't nobody watching no more.
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Because, I don't know about you, I don't even want to go to the mailbox anymore. I mean,
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I'll admit, maybe you do. You probably do. You're weird. But I do not even look.
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I just, I'm not even, I search through the mail right now for the bills. This stuff looks official.
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And everything else just, it's gone. Because every day, it's just stuffed full.
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And I watch very little television. But I can't help but be running into political ads all over the place.
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What was I watching? Oh, there was one show I was watching last night. There is a show that my wife and I watched together and we argue about what's going to happen and fun stuff like that.
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So it's sort of a couples thing. And, but, we have a
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Senate race going on here. I guess a pretty close Senate race here in Arizona. And the
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Democrat has pulled a video of John Kyle and John McCain saying nice things about him 10 years ago when he was running for Surgeon General or being nominated for Surgeon General.
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I guess you don't run for that, do you? And so that'll play. And I'm like, ooh, that's a, wow, that's something.
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And then the very next commercial is Kyle and McCain today saying liar, liar.
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And it's like, that was 10 years ago, but we're not supporting you and we've learned better. And it's just like, wow, man.
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And this is prime time. I cannot imagine. And this is on one of the major networks.
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This is one of the three major networks. And it's just like, wow. So it's,
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I imagine they're just getting sick and tired of the whole thing. But we'll be here on Tuesday the 6th. And who knows, maybe something will happen between now and then.
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Maybe the mainstream media will actually talk about Benghazi. Who knows?
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Maybe something will happen between now and then. I don't know. But we'll be here and hopefully we'll be able to maybe take your mind off those things and talk about some things that have actually really eternal value to them.
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Because, well, I think, I think Tuesday is important. I really do. And I think
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Tuesday is important as to how far into the future we'll be able to do this program and talk about the things we talk about here.
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I really do think that's the case. Anyways, thanks for listening. If you're here in the Phoenix area, me and my not -so -good voice will see you at the
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Sound and Pound conference here in a couple hours. Otherwise, we'll see you next time here on The Dividing Line.
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God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads
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Let this moment of sorrow wait We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for We need a new reformation today
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It's the sign of the times The truth is being trampled in A new age paradigm
58:43
Won't you lift up your voice Are you tired of faith and religion It's time to make some noise
58:50
Poundin' on Wittenberg's door Poundin' on Wittenberg's door Poundin' on Wittenberg's door
58:56
Stand up for the truth Won't you live for the Lord Cause we're poundin' on Poundin' on Wittenberg's door
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59:13
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59:20
That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.
59:27
Join us again next Tuesday morning at 11am for The Dividing Line. How courageous and bold Hope that the faithful were