Jeff Durbin Joins James to Discuss Andy Stanley and Kwaku El

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Thursday, and we have a tremendous amount of stuff to get to.

I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook yesterday that I would be joined in studio by a special guest.

And I'm not sure that someone who's filled in for him before is really, you know, all that guest -y.

But I am joined, of course, as most of you probably guessed, especially since I mentioned we were going to be reviewing this particular video by none other than the ninja himself,

Jeff Durbin. And there's Jeff hiding over in the corner. He's not really hiding. Hey, guys. But I was going to say, you know, in the past,

I have introduced you as a pastor of Apologia Church. It's a little bit weirder this time around.

It's the first time you've been on since things have changed. That's right. Fellow elder now. Yep. Yep. Fellow pastor.

Who is this more surreal for, you or me? Me. I think probably me.

Me. Yeah. Yeah. Is it weird for you? No, it's weird for me. For me.

For me. None of us saw it coming. None of us saw it coming, for sure. No, but I mean, you know, you and Luke started, what, about 10 years ago?

Technically 12 years ago, Apologia Christian Ministries has morphed into Apologia Church. Yeah. Right.

And so, but looking down the road, this wasn't really... No. Never. No.

It was just survival at the beginning. Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. I understand that. Yeah. But, you know, nine months ago.

Yeah. Never would have thought. No. I've thought about it. If you would have gone back and told 18 -year -old me that it would look like this,

I would never have believed you. I'd say, no, it's not. That's impossible. That's a joke. You think about everything and what the

Lord does, and you just go, nah, couldn't have ever worked out that way. And that's why it's really good that only

God knows the future and we don't. That's right. Because that would be, could you imagine the angst and everything we'd have if we,

I'm going to do what? You're going to ask me to go where? What? Or we would try to manipulate it along the way if we knew the future.

But especially, I don't remember exactly when it started, but we've both commented to each other

I don't know how many times that we will travel around the United States, but overseas as well.

And so far, I've still done more of the overseas stuff, doing a lot more of the overseas stuff. But anywhere

I go, Australia and South Africa and Russia and Ukraine and the

Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, etc., etc., you speak, line forms afterwards, you're signing books, you're taking selfies, you're talking to people.

And when names are mentioned, it goes one of two directions. I watch

Apologia and Jeff Durbin, and that's how I found out about you, or I found out about Jeff Durbin from watching you.

And of course, YouTube does part of that because it seemingly connects us together on the side, because we've done so much stuff together anyways.

But it's everywhere. Everyone just sees that.

And when we started talking about this and talking about even just going to Apologia, it was like, you have to testify.

I met with all the elders and I said, having me as a member of church is not the easiest thing. And not so much because I cause problems as I just bring my own set with me, including lots of people who really, really, really don't like me.

The only person I know of that is disliked more, and I'm including

President Trump, is Doug Wilson. Yeah, for sure. His derangement quotient is way, way beyond either one of us.

And he's also a good friend of ours. And there you go. But I said, it does seem the same people who hate me are the same people who hate you, so it's not like we're really adding...

That's why it's a match made in heaven, because it's not like we're not used to it or it's like no big deal. It's just, you know... Oh, hey, did you see what

Steven Anderson said? Hey, he said something about me today, too. It sort of works that way. But yeah, and then, you know, it was sort of natural as soon as we started attending.

I don't sit in the back real well, you know, and just show up and do nothing. And so we were,

I just sort of started, you know, you're going to ask, we're going to talk to each other and there's going to be interaction.

And it just, you know, one thing led to another. Or if you're gifted as a pastor, it's going to naturally, it's going to happen organically.

It's going to happen organically. So in light of that, one of the first positive things that has come from that,

I think, was I'm in studio in London at Premier Christian Radio on Chapter Street, just a matter of blocks from where I was staying.

And I get done doing two programs with Justin Brierley. And he says, so who would you suggest

I have on with Andy Stanley? Now, I think I mentioned to you part of what was in the back of my interpretation of what

Justin said was, and it can't be you. Yeah, right. Because I don't want to scare him off completely, you know, type of an idea.

And so he, I think it was when we had just finished the two, I don't think it was beforehand, but yeah, it was toward the end.

And so first thought across my mind, I'm like, hmm, good opportunity here.

And I think Jeff would handle this really, really well. So, well, my fellow elder, and I think

I'd helped, not some guy I know in Phoenix, but, you know, fellow pastor at Apologia Church.

And I think it was the next day that I got the email from him. Could you give me Jeff's contact information?

I think he wrote to both of us at the same time, and he CC'd me on it. So I don't think it would have happened if we didn't have that connection.

Right, right. So that took place. Was it last Thursday? We could go today.

Yeah, that's right. We could go really early this morning. Really early, yeah. 4 .30, fairly early for me.

Yeah, exactly. But it comes out the 29th? 29th or 30th.

Somewhere around there, yeah. Somewhere around there. So we've got about another week at the most, and it'll drop.

But you've done, you did an Apologia Radio thing where you basically went over your notes. Yeah, yeah.

Stuff you maybe didn't get to get to, or things like that. But just briefly before we get to the main course here, what did you think?

So I thought it went really well, as well as it can be when you're talking on a computer in front of a webcam, and there's crossover at times, and it was 4 .30

in the morning. And thankfully, God bless it, I was tired, but I was coherent.

We have late schedules at Apologia because we're always counseling. Like this week, we've had over a dozen counseling sessions just between Zach and I.

That's where I'm different. I'm the early morning guy saying goodnight to all you guys as you're just getting going.

As we're just getting going, that's right. So when I, I know some people probably, even my brothers and sisters at Apologia, they're like, what's the big deal?

Like my husband gets up at 4 .30 to do whatever. It's just that our schedules are so reversed because we're doing stuff all day long, and then we have people coming in because it's the only time they can come in for counseling, late, 6, 7, 8 o 'clock at night.

Sometimes we'll be driving home from counseling at 11 .30 at night. So we have late schedules at times, and so getting up at 3 .30

a .m. to do a discussion like this was like, I don't know how this is going to work. But it was good.

I was tired, but I could communicate with them, and we had a good time in terms of good interaction with each other.

It was gracious. It was respectful towards one another. Justin helps to foster that.

He does. The consummate interviewer. Truly excellent at what he does.

There's no question about that. I think he's one of the best I've ever seen do something like this. Especially because you know he has his own view.

That's the thing you've got to give to Justin. There's many times I've been in a conversation on Unbelievable where I knew he didn't say it, but I know enough after all these years.

I knew he wouldn't be on my side. But he was always permanently fair. Very fair. He's the best at it.

As far as I understood, even when we started, there was about an hour planned. There was a lot of subjects we tossed out in the beginning, like we're going to get to all these things.

And I was thinking to myself, how is this going to happen? So we ended up, I think, if I remember correctly, spending about the first hour on apologetics.

And then I was like, are we not going to get to the Law of God discussion now? That's kind of the meat of all this.

Because his book, Irresistible, really does cross over between those two main points.

One is the apologetic methodology. Well, they're tied in a very unusual way. Yeah, and then the Law of God question.

They just kind of keep going back and forth. And in all his discussions, it's really been those two main platforms he's arguing from.

But Justin really wanted to focus in upon the apologetic issue to begin with. And then we ended up doing an extended edition,

I guess. I was done about 6 .30. That's really unusual.

About two hours. And what he said is the whole thing will be up online. They're going to do a condensed version for broadcast over the

UK. But the first hour, again, apologetics. Second hour was Law of God questions. From my recollection, and it was early, what

I remember of it all... You're going to have to watch this. I'm going to have to listen to it. From my recollection, there wasn't really interaction from Stanley with my position or my refutation of his claims.

When he'd make a claim, I would give scripture. I would try to articulate a position. And from what I remember of it, there wasn't interaction with what

I was trying to communicate to him. So he would make a claim, and I would respond with a series of texts and an explanation.

And I remember the most, it was more or less, well, there are a lot of people who take kind of different stabs at this, and this is the approach that I'm taking, kind of a thing.

And so it wasn't really interaction, getting to the text, trying to dissect the position, and unpack it.

There wasn't a lot of responsiveness to what I would bring to the table. And so I think it's helpful, because at least it'll bring this discussion to the forefront for people to start thinking about it.

Especially in light of the fact that Andy Stanley, I mean, his sermons come on after Saturday Night Live.

Yeah, I mean, he's broadcast around the world. He's got, you know, a significant online following, enough to where stuff is spread, you know, pretty rapidly.

And I think the claims that he is making about not only apologetic methodology and the grounding of our faith, he would deny,

I think, at least, I think if you asked him, do you accept the self -attesting nature of the

Word of God? I think you have to say yes to that, biblically. But in actual practice...

But then you redefine what self -attesting is. Yeah, then you redefine it, and in actual practice it really comes to something different in terms of methodology.

And it does matter. It does matter. Somebody might say, like, well, you know, is this sort of just, you know, splitting hairs kind of a thing?

And it's not splitting hairs. Because there was even a point in the discussion where we get to the self -attesting nature of the

Word of God, and I'm really grounding it in Scripture. This is what the Word of God says about itself. This is how Jesus and the apostles argued from the self -attesting nature of the

Word of God. They assume it from the beginning. He actually made a claim in terms of the text of Scripture, and he said, he was afraid to say, because the

Bible says. He doesn't really want Christians to say, because the Bible says. Which is really what I would say.

And that God's Word of self -attesting, God says. You know, you could say synonymously. God says, the

Bible says. He wants Jesus says, Paul says, what James says. So what he says is, and this is critical, and I hope people, because of the broadcast, get into this discussion.

Because it's not a new discussion. It's not that we're just facing this. This goes back to the time of the Reformation itself, in terms of Scripture as self -attesting, or does the church give authoritatively the

Word of God, the authority as the Word of God? It really is a Reformational conflict. And it is therefore also an

Orthodox, get back to the ancient record of the church conflict. Because that's what we're trying to get at. So what

I was saying, because God says in his Word. He was saying, no, it's because John was a witness.

John wrote. He gave us his testimony. Paul gave his testimony. That's what this was.

This wasn't like script. They're writing their testimonies out. And the church comes along later and collects those and says, this is our

Bible. There's a subtle thing happening there that many people may not recognize.

And that is what I went to with him. Well, if you go to the text itself, Peter actually addresses what you're talking about.

When he says about Paul's writing, he says some things that are hard to understand, which unstable men twist to their own destruction.

He says this, in the first century, as Paul's writing them, as they do the rest of the

Scriptures. So as Paul's giving Scripture, sorry, this is buzzing here, as Paul's giving Scripture, stop calling me

Marcus, as Paul is giving Scripture in the first century, this is, I think this is actually, honestly, if you think about it in the context of a

Jewish culture and mindset, it could really be a nuclear bomb for him to say as Paul's writing something, they're twisting

Paul's writings, some things are hard to understand, to their own destruction, like they do the rest of the

Scriptures. The Torah and the Tanakh? Like he is equating in the first century as Paul's giving inspired revelation.

That is equal to Genesis, equal to Deuteronomy. Every covenant has its documents, and there's a new covenant, there's a new covenant document.

That's right. And so what Peter is demonstrating there in the first century is they didn't take Andy's perspective.

No, they did not. That these are just documents people are writing, and the church is going to come later and sort of give the authority as the

Bible, the canon. That was the same Peter who said, I stood on the Mount of Transfiguration, I heard

God speak, I was with God the Son, I heard

God speak. That's exactly right. And I brought that up too. Yeah, it's really straightforward. Well, I would imagine as a veteran unbelievable participant that Justin can control the direction to some point by the questions he asks and how he asks them and who he asks first.

So my gut feeling is his interest was primarily in the apologetic issue because he and I have even had a mini debate in the studio without the recording going on about the minimal facts approach and stuff like that which obviously is very much commensurate with where Andy Stanley is coming from.

So I think that's where his primary interest was. But I'm really glad that he had the opportunity to do the other stuff because many times when

I'm there, I mean this last time we were there, me and Abdullah Al -Andalusi, we had to record the beginning and the first 20 minutes then leave the studio for someone else to come in and do something and then come back and finish the program up.

So the very fact that he would have had the time to do the more recording, that may be because he was in a little studio by himself because he had both of you coming in another direction maybe.

But I'm just thankful that he took the time to do it because it would have been real easy for him to say, hey, sorry guys, and then you don't get to the whole thing.

So I'm glad it worked out that way. Yeah. I hope it blesses the church.

Most important thing is it's not so much just a conflict between my personal convictions and Andy Stanley and let's just sort of go at it and no big deal.

I think these are foundational things. If we have his perspective on apologetics, how we approach the world in every area and I think we're diminishing the power of Christian witness with his approach, not standing on scripture or self -attesting.

I don't think he thinks that. Yeah. I just, well, now you've explained it.

He did say he had been listening to some of your stuff. He did, which I really appreciated. So I would love to see him continue to do that.

You never know. I mean, I get the feeling in light of the fact he keeps repeating,

I've just met all these people who walked away from the faith, walked away from the faith. And he says a lot of stuff about his own upbringing in a negative fashion as it being, you know.

And so my hope would be that he would hear and use that platform and maybe go, you know what,

I hadn't really thought all this. But I think there's a response to that.

I'm hoping that it's just something he has not considered. We all have our traditions. We all have our training and there's stuff we need to, as we grow older and we get into the word of God, we need to start to say,

I need to reexamine this, toss this out. This is not consistent with the text. I'm hoping that happens with Andy. I think there's a little bit of the emergent church attitude there in the sense that this was my background but it didn't give me what

I needed so I'm getting rid of it. And I think what it's done is it's really narrowed the streams of input into his theology.

I don't hear a whole lot of stuff from what we would hope would be balancing perspectives.

It seems like he's looking at just a narrow, until he had to run into you at 730 in the morning his time.

And hopefully that will do something. If we ever do it again I'm going to demand that we do it at a godly hour.

Well, I think the best way to do it is to, well remember, godly hour in Arizona is different than in the

UK. I know, I know. But there is a completely different dynamic. Because I've sat right here and done

I don't know how many programs and it's a completely different dynamic than being in a studio. It is. It really is.

So I hope, I really, really hope that I'll be having to give you directions to Premier Christian Radio how to walk there, which tube stations to take and so on and so forth in the future so you have the opportunity of doing that.

But that's just one of the, to me, that's just one of the positives that I see coming out of where we are now and what we're doing.

And so I preached Sunday, started a series on the

Lord's Supper. And on June 2nd be preaching again out of 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

But I'm going to try to be there this Sunday. I hope you appreciate the effort that I'm going to make.

Coming back from Tucson. Coming back from Tucson. But I just, I don't want people to get the idea that yeah, he's one of our elders but he's only here when he preaches.

Yeah. It's not. I'm the traveling elder and the elderly elder.

Yeah. Though you are working on a little... I'm getting some gray. Getting some gray on there. Yeah, I know. It's happening. I've noticed my hair starting to thin a little more.

I'm like, oh boy. Yeah, well, that's the way it works. Well, anyways, that's... I want folks to hear from you a little bit about how you felt about how the conversation with Andy Stanley went.

And obviously, we're all really looking forward to it. And maybe once it comes out and there's a... something tells me there will be multiple blog articles written on both sides.

And so maybe when there's some good interaction and maybe we can talk about it again once there's some stuff to really bite into.

I think what would be more useful is if Andy Stanley would be willing to do a moderated public debate. Yeah. That would be much more useful and I think beneficial to both perspectives.

For people to hear both sides in a moderated public debate setting. I'd be happy to do something like that.

And I think it would be a lot more useful long term than the streaming video stuff because you just sometimes have...

One moment I do remember is I tried to give Andy the ability to speak and then when

I would start to talk he would sort of say no, no, no and he would jump in and it was like I was having a hard time figuring out where are we at right now and thankfully

Justin was like Andy let him talk. So we were able to get through it. So I think a moderated debate would actually help a lot.

Yeah. It has to be a good moderator too. I have a little experience on that. So anyways

I wanted to give everybody sort of a preview of that so we're looking at next week sometime probably over next weekend.

That will drop and so it would be good to make sure that you get the online video version.

Yes. Because the podcast version may be shorter or the one that at least airs on Premiere.

I'm not sure what's going to be posted. I'm not sure. We'll find out. You'll be able to tell by looking at it. If it's less than an hour it's not long enough.

Yeah. Because it was definitely longer. Yeah, definitely. Okay, so with that totally shifting gears here.

I haven't been watching the Twitter stream because it's on the other side here. Oh, okay.

I'm catching what Rich is doing in the other room. I guess he figures he can talk about stuff because I don't get a chance to look this direction.

But anyway. A video came out. I think, did you send it to me first originally?

You sent it to me. Did I? Oh, okay. Then somebody must have sent it to me. And when did we do...

When last year did we have our little get -together? I have no idea.

I have no idea. Look, look. I'm 16 years older than you. I know, I know. I can find the date for you.

I can find the date for you. After my seizure my short -term memory is just blown. It really is.

Anyway. Sometime last year and it wasn't all that early in the year because it was after I had gotten my

Greek text from Jeffrey. Because we had Jeffrey do that real nice ESV. August 31st. So it was at the end of August of last year.

Now, is he still using the Three Mormons thing? I have not seen him on that.

He may be, but I've been seeing the stuff he's been doing on his own channel. On his own channel. So Kwaku L.

Which only after our lengthy discussion on was that an

Apology Radio episode? It was, yeah. I think technically Apology Radio. Obviously over at the studios.

That's when I discovered that he's actually head of the Young Democrats at BYU. And I started getting that feeling when we were talking beforehand

So I described him as a Neo -Mormon yesterday in telling folks we were going to look at a video he had just put out.

And it's not because he is wildly unorthodox as a Mormon.

It's that he represents a Neo, a new form of Mormonism that I can say that even more strongly than you because I was dealing with Mormons back when

Mormons were still quoting Bruce R. McConkie as a living authority and going rah, rah, rah

Bruce R. McConkie. And I haven't ran into anybody doing that in a long, long time. I have not either. We're talking about back when

Mormons really believed Mormonism. He would not have survived at BYU with Bruce R.

McConkie there. No way. No way. The perspectives Well, we all know what happened at the graduation a few weeks ago when one of the valedictorians comes out and announces he's homosexual there in his speech at Brigham Young University.

And there's no repercussions. He's congratulated.

Kwaku represents a seed change. And once there are enough

Kwakus in the general authorities what's Mormonism going to look like?

Yep. That's really that's what I'm thinking about. And yet he represents a strange admixture because so many of these

Mormons today are like well, you know all that all that eternal law of progression stuff and things like that.

No, we don't know. And he does have a little bit of that but he talks theology.

That's what this whole video was about. And so many of the others just, you know, but I have a testimony.

This makes me feel good. So I don't know where he's going to end up ten years from now.

But it just seems to me that a lot of Mormons are faced with a choice right now.

You can either try to remake Mormonism into something that you can live with in light of its actual history in light of Joseph Smith's polygamy and now we're publishing pictures of the seer stone and dealing with all that kind of stuff.

Or there's a backdoor. And given the numbers that they announced at the general conference while you guys were up there in April that backdoor seems to be fairly substantial right now.

Yes. I mean the numbers right now growth wise in comparison to what they were in the 1980s are minuscule.

I mean it's still a big big big group relatively speaking. But both Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism are really struggling in this secular the secular world.

And Mormonism I think more so simply because it it has inherent in it a subjectivism that just the secular world is like poisoned to it.

And they they just don't know how to deal with it. I think the free access to information today is annihilating the the efforts missionary efforts of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses those two main groups have so tried to protect their people for so long from being able to get access to information and don't look at it.

I was just were baptizing an ex -Jehovah's Witness on Sunday. He was Jehovah's Witness for decades.

Faithful Jehovah's Witness. And one of the things we were talking about yesterday was that it was so hard for him and this is

I think a critical part of this where this is all happening now. It was so hard for him. He said when he started actually when he knew it was wrong and even when he had acknowledged this is all wrong

I know it is even going to go online to find information and to research he was terrified.

He was so fearful because he was it was demonized you're not allowed to look at this.

Even when he knew it was wrong this is something is wrong with this he couldn't do it. He had to shake that loose and he's had struggles with it because he was it was burned into him.

This is from the devil this is antichrist don't read this stuff you're not allowed to. Well there's much of that in Mormonism historically even when

I first started going to the Mormon temple if I tried to hand somebody some information to say well look at this they would immediately go wait what is that?

That's why I love this book where does it say that? Because this was their information. So these obviously these are photocopies of your documents.

These are this is lectures of faith this is journal of discourse this is history of the church don't worry this isn't anti information.

Back when we started they knew what journal of discourses was. Yes. Now you have to explain that. Yeah exactly. And so I think with the free access to information now people can just pop online and a video comes up and you can start hearing about the history of Joseph Smith false prophecies doctrinal things people will see your videos my videos come up interaction with latter day saints and they'll just sit and listen.

Oh they're like oh Mormon versus pastor they'll click on that and now they've got an hour and a half of conversation between Mormon missionaries and a

Christian that they get to listen to. Just sort of Like they were standing there. Bird's eye view. And so that sort of thing happens now and it's easy access to all this stuff and so I think it's creating it's doing a lot of damage.

So I obviously I don't I can't say this with certainty but I think with the free access to information and all that's out there and available now the church has seemed to change since the internet has done what it's done it's changed in its methodology and approach to the world where now they have to just sort of come out with stuff and say yeah this is true we have this stuff and here it is and you know all this yeah that's true and it's and sort of it's had to get them to a place where they're sort of like yielding to yeah oh that's true yeah and you know but we love our neighbor and we're

Christians and you know and so that's where I think you have to get to a point where people have to sort of say we've got to accept this really bad history this really convoluted theology this really contradictory statements and that will get people to a place where you go well you know yeah he's a prophet but you know he's just a man and I don't have to accept everything he says why?

well because when you take Brigham Young's statements which he calls scripture with Joseph Smith's and you see the conflict or you see these really strange teachings from a prophet like Brigham Young and you just got to say

Or Orson Pratt Or Orson Pratt you just have to get to the point where you go yeah I know he's a prophet but you know he's just a man

I don't have to accept everything he has to say and so really is that how I approach this text? you know it's just a document

I don't have to accept everything it says that was one of the things I found interesting in this video and I'm not going to be showing the video

I've got the audio and if we don't get into it we're never getting anything done yeah yeah but that's one of the things

I found interesting is he starts off with a really standard attempt to make the

Athanasian Creed sound crazy because it doesn't give you any of the background he's not interpreting it within the context in which it was written he doesn't even try and that's

I've seen Muslims do it I've seen Jehovah's Witnesses do it I've seen atheists do it I've seen one of the Pentecostals do it here's a

Mormon doing it it certainly would therefore indicate for example to our homeschool our homeschool parents who watch this all the time

I mean people send pictures all the time on Twitter of the homeschool kids gathered around the thing during the dividing line so one of the things

I would strongly recommend for our homeschool folks is to make sure your kids understand what the context and background of the

Athanasian Creed was so they can detect this kind of stuff because I have now I've found all these groups doing this exact thing this exact thing let me illustrate what this exact thing is let's get to something here um for those playing dividing line bingo this will help you with whatever column you're on because I am going to mention that I am playing this slightly faster at 1 .2

the bingo card have you seen the bingo card? I just got one

I just like to tell people I'm doing that so they don't accuse me of editing things but let me let me run through part of this oh

I can't hear anything okay we caught we caught Rich asleep in the other room okay so he's complaining because he has to go back and forth in the television shots between you and me so okay let's try it again now evangelical

Christians Protestants Catholics Eastern Orthodoxy Seventh -day Adventists Jehovah's Witnesses the majority of Christianity does not accept what we believe they totally think we're wrong in this regard and it's totally cool for them to think that now by the way it's totally cool for them to think that how many pages of that right there would be statements from leaders saying it's not totally cool that they believe that it's apostasy it's a rejection of the latter -day revelation blah blah blah but that's the neo part yes that's the hey it's totally cool if you believe yeah it's fine you know that's not what

LDS leaders have believed for a very very very long time yeah yeah Joseph Smith calling trying to express the

Trinity and calling it a wonderfully big god a giant or a monster or a monster yeah but it's good well he is going to say it doesn't make any sense here in a second so here is

Kwaku L trying to make the Athanasian Creed sound as silly as possible in fact what

I'm going to do I'm going to kick it up one more so those of you who listen really fast this is going to sound really really fast but this is a long section but I want you to it's still clear don't worry about it if it's bad

I'll slow it down but here's trying to make the Athanasian Creed sound silly and to start off I'm going to quote the

Athanasian Creed if you grew up Protestant or Catholic or even converted you should probably know what the Athanasian Creed is and if you don't know what the Athanasian Creed is it's essentially a declaration of faith by some

Christian church fathers a long time ago and it totally has influenced Christianity today and you'll definitely it's a little bit more than just simply some early church fathers some

Jews back then yeah some Jews back then it's not a lot of what it's saying now this is the Catholic faith and by the way when it says Catholic that means universal this isn't believed by only those who are part of the

Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church it's those who are Catholic in the sense that the word Catholic means universal so the universal body of Christ espoused by Christians that we worship one

God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence persons essence two different words person is not essence as long as you understand we're talking about person and being here being one being of God three divine persons we're not equating them the

Christ the Creed does not equate them anybody who tries to make this sound confusing will equate them at some point they may do so surreptitiously they may do so even by the look of their face or the tone of their voice but that's what they're going to have to do worship one

God they believe in Trinity so Trinity is triune so in three and they don't blend the persons and they don't divide so it's important to know they do not divide the what?

substance exactly the substance essence being of God and so by simply refusing the distinction that the

Creed itself makes that's how he creates it and that's the main problem I had to begin with here is that he quotes the

Creed he quotes those those distinctions that are made there between person and substance or essence and then he just drops it and tries to and tries to call out a confusion in it it's like well you read it

Kwaku and that's the part that's the problem I have with how Kwaku is approaching these things is that it's there's not a lot of integrity behind it it's not the first time he's been corrected that's the problem is that he's been corrected he should know the truth by now and if he had enough integrity and respect for the other side he would try to accurately represent the other side to say this is what they actually believe and then interact with that not try to find confusion within a caricature that he creates right and and see we don't have to do that to Mormonism right we can quote their own materials we can use their own language we can lay it out just as their leaders have laid it out and they can disagree with our conclusions but we can accurately represent uh what

Mormonism teaches in fact I'll never forget Rich was with me when we did um uh the uh radio station up in Salt Lake City yeah

KTKK was the call letters up there and after I think it was uh I think it was

Van Hale and one of the things he said to us this was a couple years after my first encounter with Van uh on KFLR radio

I know that one yeah um he said the one thing about you guys is you you you seek to be accurate and you've remained consistent in the message that you've had over the years and I'm like that's one of the best you know and so when the other side says yeah you're seeking to accurately represent us that's vitally important for for for a

Christian to hear yeah disagree with our conclusions but you've got to you've got to represent the other side accurately

I remember that conversation and I was so blown away that he had noticed that you were saying the same thing today we just finished this program

Bill Hamlin was calling in I believe Peterson was there remember all well Peterson and Hamlin were in studio

I'm not sure if that was the same one okay but but the the point that was made was you're still saying the same thing yeah today

I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment but I took it as one and and yet we we knew of so many other ministries it's like they're a moving target right just a moving target how are you supposed to know what um what they're going to say tomorrow as they adjust their apologetic to fit the and and and there had been uh some movement uh amongst the ministries uh in jumping onto bandwagons you know something would come up that looked like it would be really negative to Mormonism and we were just focused on one thing we want people to know who

God is who Jesus is what salvation is you just remain focused on that type of thing but this is not a stupid person we're talking about there's no reason for him at this point in time to no longer understand what it is we're saying right

I've met plenty of Mormons who do understand what we're saying so it's it's not something it's like well no one's ever understood this it's just a mystery and you all have never figured out either blah blah blah um that's the normal excuse that is used but we had done in studio uh at Apologia we had done a response to the three

Mormons on all this stuff before we had him in then we had the encounter and now this is after all of that yeah why he's been corrected before yep he's been corrected in person yep and his response to being corrected in person was essentially well let's just get to the let's just get to the argument now that was it was sort of just a passive you know let's get on to it now let's move to the new place whereas he was corrected before we've talked to him in studio and now he continues to give this portrayal of wanting to be accurate and to be accurately representing what

Christians believe but he's making errors the whole way through the whole way through I mean he reads the creed where it talks about the confusion of persons and dividing the substance the being of God and then he just drops it off here in a moment and just goes on this rant about how inconsistent it is and let's listen to that ok so it's important to know they do not divide you cannot divide them there's only one for the person of the

Father is a distinct person the person of the Son is another and that of the Holy Spirit is still another so it's interesting about that as I just said you cannot divide but then they did that right by differentiating the three by saying this is this this is this and this is this you divide it so it declares that it cannot be divided but then it goes on immediately to divide so there's the distinction the distinction between being and person you don't divide the being but you recognize the existence of the three divine persons so by taking the position he's taking by definition we cannot believe what we believe simply because you won't accept the terminology that we're using you can't have one being of God shared perfectly by three co -equal persons because you're some sort of a

Unitarian that doesn't really have an eternal unlimited being of God in the first place so so you anachronistically you take the viewpoint of a guy who lived in at the beginning of the 19th century and you read it backwards and try to turn into mishmash stuff that came long before him that he himself was rather completely ignorant of yeah and the creed doesn't say that there's not a distinction in persons in terms of if you want to go one, two, three the creed says that there are three persons don't confuse the persons but the division there not dividing the what it's specific the essence the substance the being of God now he ought to know that because he read it right well but later on he's simply going to say well they're pretty much the same thing yeah and when you combine that with one of the other major arguments he's going to make a new a completely new definition of God he's heard from the

Christian perspective that none of us have ever heard of before and that is that the Father and the Spirit are ideas right and then he runs with that the rest of the video by the end you're just like who put you in the position at your age and experience to redefine

Christian terminology for us right right and also really bad philosophy in the area of philosophy the distinction between abstractions and something that's transcendent right he doesn't seem to understand what those categories are

I think that even somebody who was a philosophy professor that didn't hold to Mormonism or Christianity would say those are two different categories you're confusing he's using the wrong terminology and by his confusing it he ends up confusing others and the question is is that purposeful yeah that really is but the divinity of the father son and holy spirit is one their glory equal their majesty co -eternal what quality the father has the son has and the holy spirit has this is all in reference to the father son the spirit's participation in the one divine being the father is uncreated the son is uncreated the holy spirit is uncreated the father is immeasurable the son is immeasurable the holy spirit is immeasurable again in regards to their participation in the divine being the son lived at a point in time uh in a certain place so on so forth but Kwaku will clearly refuse to recognize the different aspects of Christ's existence so in other words

Christ's eternal pre -existence as a divine person and then his incarnate existence are all conflated there is no well cause there is no distinction he had a spirit body but a spirit body made out of matter anyways so again the categories that Mormonism forces upon the early church when they had no concept of these things whatsoever results in a complete redefinition of all the terminology the father is eternal the son is eternal the holy spirit is eternal and yet there are not three eternal beings there is but one eternal being being being being being being there's not three beings it's right there how fast will that last in his in his mind

I love those Christian guys from way back then however some guys back then I love those guys there's only one but there is three there are three in one there are three in one that cannot be divided but you've already divided them by virtue of counting them and differentiating between one another so again in person in person not in being so there's three but not three

I know you're thinking well it doesn't really make sense and you're right and you're right and you're and you're right

I mean the laughter is just simply so you don't you don't get angry but it's how many times have well today

I was in a conversation with someone on Twitter a young lady a young millennial and I was it was so sad

I mean she was defending abortion and it was so sad that she was basically saying yeah we are just a bunch of bags of fizzing chemicals and this is all just random and hey we're more important than babies in the womb because we survived and then she starts talking about doing good and experiencing joy and I'm pointing out you are stealing from my worldview to cobble something together you're calling a worldview and you can't

I wish I could reach in and change the heart I can't it can be an instrument pray for somebody hope that somebody else maybe watching the conversation will be blessed or changed or whatever but oh it is so frustrating and to hear this and here's a guy got a lot of neurons firing up there but he's just not listening to what he's saying he has such a thick lens through which he's looking at it that he can read it and still not hear what it's saying and it ends up deceptive there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being similarly the father is almighty the son is almighty the holy spirit is almighty yet there are not three almighty beings there is but one almighty being you know the affirmation creed is really really consistent it's awesome when you let it speak for itself it's great i love it so much so biblical and so thoughtful and important and i love it even though people love to try to use it to create this type of confusion the holy spirit is god yet there are not three gods there is but one god thus the father is lord the son is lord the holy spirit is lord yet there are not three lords there is but one lord now the creed is pretty long so i'm going to jump down real quick and focus on one other part and then we'll talk about it and i'll ignore everything that i've read beforehand that's right there is one father not three fathers there's one son not three sons there's one holy spirit not three holy spirits nothing in this trinity is before or after nothing is greater or smaller in their entirety the three persons are co -eternal and co -equal with each other so there's a lot to unpack there so this is a great foundation to understand what mainline christians believe in what evangelicals believe in what catholics believe in what protestants believe in and respectfully it doesn't make any sense at all it doesn't make any sense at all now you see what i could respect would be for him to say something along the lines of and i don't believe that there is any basis in scripture or in revelation for believing any of that but to simply sit there and say these folks were just babbling now i can make an argument that there were a number of times that joseph smith was just babbling there are lots of places but joseph smith was one guy who has next to no meaningful connection to anything that's come before him and he said that i mean how many times in marvels work and wonder about does legrand richards say and joseph smith did not learn this from the bible it came through revelation so so so mormonism for years was like we are absolutely unique we we don't don't get this idea that we're getting this from anything beforehand that's right he was absolutely unique and what he came up with was really weird and can't answer questions about the about eternal regression and all those those types of things like that but this isn't just one guy the athanasian creed is not formed by just one guy and there were generations of people writing entire books and having debates and everything else if you don't understand what they're saying it may be because you're the one missing it not because they were the ones missing it right you know when i criticize the second nicene council not the first the second nicene council half a millennium later well 400 years later i will look at their argumentation and i will look at the sources that they utilize and stuff like that i'm not just simply going to sit there and say ah it doesn't make a lick of sense and think that's an argument that's not an argument he's not the only one that makes this kind of statement unfortunately a lot of christians make that kind of statement as they dismiss church history but what when he quoted the creed it made perfect sense as long as you distinguish between being in essence used the same term and person as the creed does as he's reading it yeah so anybody i would just say this if people are new to this discussion are saying don't really understand what's going on here the holy spirit speaking to the father the holy spirit speaking to paul calling paul to go somewhere and yet no confusion of persons and yet one god an eternal god and you're getting those things from scripture if you hear kweku talking about person and being don't confuse the persons and don't divide the substance or the being if you understand what we're saying in terms of the being of god the essence or substance of god god's nature the nature of god and then the persons then the creed makes perfect sense if you allow the context he hasn't given the context he may not know the context or his knowledge of it may be very warped and twisted because he's fighting against it but when

I teach in the subject of the trinity when you start with the biblical evidence when you start with biblical monotheism and the distinction of the persons and yet their equality together with one another and then you realize what controversies have come before to which the athanasian creed chalcedon and others are seeking to provide a response then you understand why they're emphasizing the thing you forget all that you pull it out and it's like why in the world repeats so many of these things like this that's where you can make it look like it's doing something that it really wasn't doing you have the father who is omnipresent all powerful and immaterial so immaterial means a lack of matter he's not made of matter he's not made of atoms or anything like that no matter at all he is omnipresent he is everywhere he is an idea there ok here's the introduction and this is going to come back over and over and over again he is an idea and i use the word idea not to be disrespectful but because that's the only way he can be categorized now that is not the only way he can be categorized that involves a complete redefinition of everything christians have always believed you won't find anybody who had anything to do with chalcedon the athedation creed ephesus nicaea anything like that ever identifying god as an idea and so if if i introduced such a radical redefinition of the mormon doctrine of god a mormon would be in a very good position to simply dismiss me and say if you can't do what we really believe in why are you even bothering but rightly so and yet all the way through this half hour video he is going to come up with this idea that the trinity is two ideas and one embodied person as if that in some way shape or form represents what we believe and it's not even close and so my question is why he didn't do that when he was with us this must be some does he really think that he has come up with a new methodology that no one has ever thought of before maybe no one thought of before because they realized how bad an idea is right exactly he seems confused and I think

I'm not sure how much of this we're going to play but if you guys get a chance to hear it he's confused about the distinction between an abstraction and something that's transcendental

I think it is when you think of everything that governs humanity we have what I like to call governing forces let's look at the way human beings are what

I like to call that gets scary if he was a 59 year old professor of philosophy with multiple books published then maybe but I'm sorry why in the world would

I care about what he has come up with when he's already demonstrated he has no earthly idea in the last three minutes he's already confused so many categories and had such a hard time thinking in different categories consistently in representing what others believe it's hard to accept what you like to call something humanity we have what

I like to call governing forces let's look at the way human beings are governed we're governed by logic and emotion and hope and fear wait a minute logic emotion hope and fear so these are things so so logic and fear are put in the same put in the same category yeah and they're not yeah that's right no no no exactly is that is that sorry that was mine okay all right yeah so and logic would be abstract thoughts logical thinking laws of logic mathematics abstractions those are those are abstractions but it doesn't mean that they're meaningless we would say that laws of logic reflect the thinking of God they're not something above God that God has to sort of appeal to and stop and go am

I being consistent they're not above God just like good like the standard of good isn't like in quake who's thinking the standard of good and evil is outside of God it's very clear and makes sense to me that a man would think that now from a

Christian perspective good is actually defined by God's own character he's the standard of good what he does is always good like when we say

God is love God is the standard of love love isn't some something outside of God some law he has to follow like laws of logic the standard of righteousness is outside of God and he's got to sort of say now am

I holding all this together I better really try that's one of the distinctions also between the

Christian God and the Mormon God is the Mormon God is bound and he's underneath these different categories and laws laws of logic laws of thought you could say in many ways good standards of good and righteousness all those things and quake who admits it these existed before our heavenly father he organizes them and sort of shapes them so they're outside of God he has to appeal to them those are the standards of good that I have to follow they're outside of me that's not the

Christian God God is good by nature his very character is a standard of all goodness but all that to say abstractions versus something that's transcendent an abstraction is like a law of logic now just because you say it's an abstraction doesn't mean that it's not real that it's just an idea it's actually universal it is a material of course it is unchanging and that's because it reflects the very thinking of God but when you think in an abstract category like a law of logic or laws of math you can't just say it's just an idea it's like wait a second the law of non -contradiction isn't just an idea it's the law it's like gravity right?

exactly and that's not fear he put that together with fear he put an emotional thing like fear in an abstract thought category like laws of logic so when you think about it

I can't violate the law of non -contradiction but that's the same thing as my being afraid of heights he's muddled thinking very much so and so I think anybody who studies this area and thinks about what conversations have already taken place before Kwaku was born

Christian philosophers atheistic philosophers have already had these long discussions and clarified categories in terms of when we talk about God as immaterial we're talking about some thing that is transcendent that is outside of a creaturely common experience of the material he is transcendent he's outside of common experience but it doesn't mean that he's just an idea he has real being real existence we're not talking about an abstraction like a law of logic we're talking about a personal being and we would use the terminology of transcendent not abstraction and I don't know of any philosopher that I can think of that would ever even use that category when they talk about God as an abstraction

God's merely an abstraction the terminology is transcendent there's a distinction in category but there's no foundation for that within his world view no so I mean that's why

I've said we can have a meaningful discussion with a Muslim on these topics but we encounter a huge chasm because the

Muslim and the Christian are closer because they recognize these categories and work within these categories

Mormonism when Joseph Smith said we've imagined the pose of God as a God from all eternity I'll refute the idea and take away the veils that you may see he separated his followers from Christianity forever by a chasm that is massive and so they don't have a foundation within a world view to even define transcendence to even have such a in fact

Mormonism when you think about it even though it talks about a spiritual pre -existence as he himself will say at some point he says but we believe that all spirits are just simply refined matter these people are materialist to the max they are materialist to the max and their

God is as well let me continue his while you're looking for all this kind of stuff right these are emotions and we also have our thoughts that govern us right they command and guide our choices and our reactions to things our thoughts and emotions don't exist outside of our being right they don't exist outside of us these things are immaterial governing forces emotions and thoughts are immaterial too they're not matter in fact you can't even prove that logic exists you can only use logic to try to prove that other things exist these things are abstractions they're methods right they're not actual things they're ideas every single immaterial governing force that exists is an idea every single one and if you don't believe me

I want you to pause this video right now try to think of one immaterial governing force that is not an idea you can't do it can you it's not possible because every single immaterial governing force that exists is an idea so there you go everything is just to be thrown into it's just talk about some type of minimalization

I mean I don't know where he's I really don't know where he's getting this I think the appropriate thing to do would be for Kweku to simply say do you guys believe what

I just said and for us to simply say no we don't believe that at all and that's because you're confusing categories of thought of something that's an abstraction again versus when we talk about God as transcendent and again you made a good point now

I hope people catch this when you talk about he's confusing it because of his perspective his worldview they're materialist to the core he has a completely different perspective he's not neutral here that he's loading into this conversation when we talk about God is spirit

God is spirit we're thinking about that in a completely different category because of the biblical worldview that gives to us those definitions what are we talking about when we say

God is spirit what do we talk about when we talk about ordinary human experience this is where we're coming from his perspective is starting from a completely different platform where he believes again this idea of spirit as outside of this experience as transcending this experience no spirit is refined matter it's like this perfect so he doesn't have the category of thought that we have there is a substance there is a nature there is something that transcends this material experience that God has defined for us that he gives us these categories to think in because he defines himself he's revealed himself to us so that as his creatures was to look at his revelation and say okay

I understand the categories God's talking in now he's talking about himself that is above our ways higher than us different than us we're the creatures this is our experience he created this world out of nothing and so we think in those categories because we're using the revelation of God as the category definer he's thinking in Joseph Smith's categories

Mormonism's categories so when he looks at someone saying God is spirit he goes pish posh spirit what is spirit an idea and it's like no spirit's transcendent it transcends normal common creaturely categories that we see as normal to us but it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist because we say it is spirit and Isaiah 29

God says you think the potter is like the clay and the

Mormon says exactly and that's what Craig was going to say we'll play where he literally says this is the

God we worship he's created he has a physical body he's ruled by law he's a man that's the

Mormon God he's being consistent there and the biblical God says you're an idolater because I'm not like the clay and the fundamental worldview assertion of Mormonism is yes you are that's where Mormonism is totally separated from us and will always be separated from us so God the

Father being an immaterial governing force is just an idea and the most honest look at mainland

Christianity God the Father is just an idea that's not an honest look at all that is pure here

I had him out on the Michael Heiser stuff I do need one you can't have this one sorry

I don't know it sort of looks like your hair it does a little bit yes but doesn't have a beard we need to put a beard on it mine will have a beard for sure so somebody out there start making

Jeff his own nice big beard but he would burn easily so you need to be very careful because I have

I actually took the Bic in the other room because I have gotten it too close a few times it's been a little bit scary but this is a straw man misrepresentation of what

Christians believe to say that God the Father is an idea I mean let's just let's just be straightforward

I don't care what flowery terms is going to put upon it this is a massive misrepresentation and if Kwaku continues to use it without providing substantial documentation that he is seeking to accurately represent us that's that's really what this is about and I don't care what flowery terms going to it this is a massive misrepresentation and is going to put upon it this is massive what flowery terms going to put it this is a massive misrepresentation and I don't care what flowery going to this a massive misrepresentation and don't what flowery upon it this is a massive misrepresentation and I don't care what flowery terms going to it this a massive misrepresentation don't care what flowery terms this a massive misrepresentation don't this is a massive misrepresentation and don't care terms this is a massive misrepresentation and I don't what flowery it this is a massive misrepresentation and I don't care what flowery this is a massive misrepresentation and going to and I don't care what flowery terms going to this is a massive misrepresentation care what flowery and I this is a massive misrepresentation this is a misrepresentation

If there was to see I know people on the other side. I know Mormons. I know

Muslims They are the minority But I I have met these individuals who have taken the time to listen to the side

And they will accurately represent what we're saying so it's not impossible to do no So you have to have a deep prejudice or a purpose

Behind what you're doing to come up with a presentation like we well You're trying to create confusion you're trying to create confusion

The only difference you can say is that they function differently well if they function differently Then you have made a distinction between one of the other well if you made a distinction between one of the other then you've divided so there you go so You've divided which was dividing the being or essence into parts

Which we're not doing the distinction is the person's which the creed itself did yes, so this is a completely invalid argument he should know that but Again, maybe he's just maybe this is just for his own audience

Maybe even though it's all Christians need to listen to this or maybe he realizes There's a lot of nominal

Christians that have never thought through any of this and hey Sadly, can you imagine most

Christians in most evangelical churches that have never even heard of a meaningful? Presentation on the doctrine of the

Trinity haven't read the Forgotten Trinity well there you go I need to everyone go to Amazon and get it now If you haven't then you're gonna be in in big trouble this type of thing is gonna

Left you leave you I mean, I've done this I've role -played a Jehovah's Witness this is back before YouTube when

I get away with stuff like this and I had I had a youth minister at one church in Florida spouting modalism within 30 seconds

It was just that easy was your heart broken Expected it and I put him back together again before the end of the thing but but it was very easily done and and That's that is a reflection on The Christian Church and our priorities today,

I mean we worship God, but we're not gonna say a whole lot about him That's paganism. You don't want to go there. So You know, we don't obviously that's not something we do at Apologia people know exactly we believe why we believe it and I think most of our folks would be able to recognize

I mean there is a That videos act that was that was posted the the shadow video

When when the Jehovah's Witnesses came to his door before he went to Hawaii, oh, yeah Yeah, the shadow preaching is the beard video the shadow beard video

I don't know if you haven't seen it you you got to see it rich guy see it But but his wife is around the corner

Yeah with the cell phone and the doors open and the lights coming through and so Zach's at the front door talking to Jehovah's Witnesses and there's

Zach in Silhouette his shadow against the wall and you can hear everything. Yeah, and He's just rip snorting

I mean he's going through what prototocos means and firstborn and you're gonna see these Jehovah's Witnesses are trying to find some some excuse

Do we have another appointment somewhere somewhere? You know, so that that's what our folks do

And and I know there are many others do the same thing, but we are unusual in that in that sense Yeah, and so this kind of stuff would cause a lot of a lot of confusion

Again if Kwaku if you hear this my friend the Creed makes the distinction

Clearly you read it between persons. It says no dividing the substance so every time you say

I thought you said you can't divide the Creed says distinction and the persons don't divide the

Substance and so every time you throw out this don't divide. I thought we're not supposed to divide the

Creed says There is a distinction in persons. No dividing this substance. So yep.

It's right there God the Triune God is three persons one being as many like to say However, the definition of being in person are just about the same

There you go. Are they there you go. And there's there's so No, they're not and by you're ignoring that that's where you're that's where you're creating.

Uh -oh When see see whenever the the microphone swings over like that. That's when I know something is

I just heard that beep at the end. Was that the alarm on his computer going? I Don't remember.

I don't I don't remember what that was I'm not sure if he was if he was showing he showed something at that point.

I don't remember I'm only looking at the audio here So I don't know but anyway all of us all of us recognize the difference the distinction between being in person

I mean, oh, yeah, if you open a science textbook when it defines Different parts of nature and and different creatures in the world

All of us recognize that when we're talking about the nature of a human being. We're not we're using a different category and Definition than when we talk about person you are a human being you are a human being but when

I talk about who you are I'm saying that's James and that's rich and That's a different.

That's a different Category when we're talking about human being versus person and quick and quake who knows this quite

Well the difference between his person and my person in your we talked about when he was I was gonna say

Isn't this something you guys went into detail in that discussion? He's had this explained to him.

That's right and doesn't want you know, this is the parallel would be if I were to talk about what goes on the

Mormon temple ceremony and I make up some wild crazy thing that has never happened and doesn't now it keeps changing.

They changed again just recently, but You know if I were to say that they did

X Y & Z and then someone says wait a minute Wait a minute. No, no, no, that's never happened. It doesn't happen. Here's the documentation and then six months later

I'm out saying this happens in Mormon temple ceremony at some point. You've got to go. Wait a minute.

You're just not being honest Well, you could turn that table on him and go I insist you believe that Adam is

God Joseph Smith taught this Brigham Young bring me on taught this you believe it.

You have to believe it. I know you believe it You're just and and just argue Dishonestly with him up one side and down the other twisting knowing full.

Well, that was abandoned long ago. Mm -hmm Yeah, well a lot of Christians when they think of God They think of a man a human being because that's what

Jesus was But the reality is the Christian God is to immaterial omnipresent spirit idea essences and Jesus now, that's

I think we're gonna be hearing this Unless he takes this to heart and decides to be honest

But this is the new definition because he repeated it before it listen listen way says but the reality is the Christian God is to immaterial omnipresent spirit idea essences and Jesus So that's the definition that you forced on me now to spirit idea

Essences never heard a Christian saying it but if it works, we're gonna use it and I'm voice this upon Christians This is what you're right.

This is what you believe and and we just sit back and go no That's not what I believe to spirit idea essences

It's not it's almost capitulation as part Because if you have to totally redefine what the other side says into into categories like that That means you haven't been having much success dealing with what they actually are

Saying and so before we even hear more of this Christians believe this is part of our catechism.

We're doing catechism every Sunday in church. That's right. It's part of our catechism. We're memorizing Yeah, actually, this is so perfect.

I think it is in here. Let's see Love the current question because yes, basically, it's basically the

Chalcedonian definition. I know it's in here somewhere I saw it. Yeah, I think I mean, oh,

I there you go right here So this is our Lord's Supper part one. This is from last

Sunday. This is Right there.

I should know this right? There you go catechism So we stand up every every Lord's Day in church and we go through our catechism and confession

Question number 25 who is the Redeemer of God's elect our whole church stands up and we read this together including the children

It's like and it's right joyfully and we we read through the we memorize the scripture together so the only

Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ who Being the eternal Son of God became man and so was and continues to be

God and Man in two distinct natures and one person forever

So that's part of our we're doing that Hypostatic Union Council of Caledon right there.

That's right. So our church is Learning about this kids are learning that that's right before I saw your video

Kwaku We've been doing this for weeks now Every Sunday our children are learning this and memorizing these things and they have competitions every couple of weeks when we go on to the next

Catechism question that children have a competition where they can win prizes about who can do it the for who can do it fast and memorize

The whole thing. So we try that's when they're not going to the Phoenix City Council and that's right leading to make a

Phoenix a Sanctuary city and we do it after by the way after service is dismissed.

So everyone knows that for everyone who's worried about that but The point is is that we're a

Christian Church who is Confessional and we have a catechism and we go through these things and we understand these things

We understand these things to the degree that when we hear someone like Kwaku redefining things creating straw man a straw man

We can see it and we go you don't understand what we believe Right, you and you clearly don't know the history when you talk about the hypostatic

Union when he says spirit Ideas and then one man. It's like wait a second.

How do you have Kwaku? Have you spent any time actually? Trying to study what

Christians believe at this point when we talk about the hypostatic Union because when he says to spirit

Idea essences and then one man in the middle Jesus. It's like You realize this discussion has been had for a very long time, right?

And there were some serious fights over this The thing here is if you listen to a quake who's saying as a

Christian I'm gonna be going this is a person who either does not care enough about me to be accurate or has other reasons why he's doing what he's doing a

Mormon reads this and They're gonna go You did your homework.

I disagree with you, but you did your homework which means at least you respected me enough to go to my sources use my language and Argue against my position

Accurately and fairly it's a huge difference between those two things and I think he needs to he needs to understand it Let's get a few more in here before we completely run out of time the restored gospel of Jesus Christ God the

Father It's just the way he's described in the Bible. He's a human being. He's a perfect glorified human being

Okay, so there's God the Father is a perfect glorified Human being and I people need to understand that there is no

God in Mormonism Right. There are exalted men God men and angels are all the same order of being at different levels of exaltation

But we are all the same there is one continuum of existence and Fundamental to any definition of any religious system is whether you believe in a transcended

God the creator of all things That's why I have said and this causes people no end of trouble but it makes them think and of course

I explain it that Islam is much closer to biblical

Christianity in its Foundational conceptions of the universe and the existence of God the Mormonism ever could be right because there is no creator creation distinction

Right within within Mormonism, but there is within Islam. Mm -hmm. So And it's funny

I've had a lot of people push back on that only because of their dislike of Islam right and Muslims not because of their like of Mormonism rather than thinking about what

I'm saying and realizing Wow, that is a foundational Fundamental issue and that's gonna impact your apologetic.

It's gonna act how you approach a Mormon. How are you gonna? So many Christians approach Mormons as if they're just a variant denomination.

They're not I mean on a foundational level It's a it's astonishing the difference.

Mm -hmm. That's something I think that is really really really important to To grab. Okay, so that's who

God is There's another place where he says that we're uses the term created but just a couple here Jesus Christ is his son and essentially our heavenly elder brother

He is made in the image of God the same as we are. So Jesus Christ is our elderly brother. He is a man

And He is made in the Imago Dei. Mm -hmm. Not the maker of the

Imago Dei, right? Totally different concept. Mm -hmm. Totally so but they use the word

Jesus Yeah but when you define Jesus in such a way as to put him

Categorically so far beyond and outside of what the Bible does What does it matter that you're using the word

Jesus? That's right. It does not make any difference Just say quickly one of the things he does at the beginning of this video is he says, you know

He talked to evangelical Christians. They'll just you know, say well, they'll just start tossing out taxes say there's only one God He says without even giving you the context of those passages

Well, first of all when he tries to do it later in this video and tries to explain away those passages

All he does is let the passage speak and he starts loading his Mormonism. Yep into the passage He doesn't let the passage only for in contact

Any of those prophets ever would have exactly he doesn't let the text speak and develop context from the text itself and understanding back

Around all he does is read the text and he goes well This is what it means and he loads his Mormonism into it That's called ice of Jesus and that's not contextual

All I will say is that based upon what Quake who says here you couldn't believe John chapter 1 Right, and all

I would say is this look if you don't want to go far and wide to research this topic in terms of Comparing the Quake who's

God versus the biblical God then just say I'll just ask you this just read John chapter 1

Verses 1 through 18. That's it. Just read that and let that speak in terms of who

Jesus is and what he's created and The definition of his person all that stuff that takes place in John chapter 1 and then compare that to what

Quake who says about His God and his his version of Jesus because if you read John chapter 1 it says that an arcane halagos

He was already there Forever ago and he was face -to -face

Prostante on toward the father an intimate relationship with the father and he was God but it says he was in the beginning with God All things were created through him and without him

Nothing's come into being that's come into being Nothing has come into being that's come into being now if you take that What John says in John chapter 1 and compare it to what

Quake who says about his God? It's not the same God No, it's not the same Christ and there's no way to make it look like it is

You might be borrowing quick capital from Christianity and Christian terminology even using terminology like image of God And saying

Jesus is created in the image of God but that's just a complete perversion of the biblical view of who Jesus is and so you just need to read

John chapter 1 and Then go listen to Quake who and just ask yourself the question who's being faithful to the text, right?

He's a perfected glorified being as well and he sits on the right hand of the father. So he's a perfected Perfected glorified being holy spirit is not an idea either the word

God says there's no such thing as immaterial matter All spirit is matter but more fine -tuned. So there's your your there's this strange

I think almost unique to Joseph Smith idea of spirits actually Matter that's so fine that it's invisible or something

I've never met anyone who actually really understood what any of that was saying, but yeah there there you go

He's so powerful. Amen. My god is perfect You can use all those pretty words and descriptions to build off that foundation

But ultimately those pretty words and descriptions don't really matter if the foundation doesn't make sense Then those descriptive terms are kind of meaningless and I know that might be really harsh to hear but I don't mean it in a rude

Way, it's just the reality of it. So the reality of it is that Given his confusion.

Yeah that he is now promulgated That means what you're saying doesn't make any sense because I have so badly misrepresented it and therefore

All those words that you use just simply don't have any particular meaning to them I guess is I guess this is the new

Quake who apologetic? I'm not sure what has caused this development But the evangelical God or the mainline

Christian God Christians of all denominations will say Jesus is God Jesus is Lord think about this if the

Father the Son and the Spirit are just one God together Then that's saying that Jesus the second part of the

Triune God is the encompassing three father son spirit all three together make God Right, but if you say that Jesus is

God then this is actually all of this Now that's not possible, right? That doesn't make any sense But when you say things like Jesus is

God Jesus is Lord You're saying the second part of the encompassing three is the entire three So this is what happens when you do not make the basic distinction that the

Athanasian Creed Which he read you read it taught you to do and that is when you're saying

Jesus is God He takes that term God to be an all -encompassing

So he he what you're saying is that Jesus? Shares the one being that is

God as the Father does as the Spirit does but if you don't allow for those distinctions Then now you're saying that Jesus is all -encompassing of so that makes him the father that makes him the

Spirit and makes him himself Because you just won't allow for the distinctions that have already been been made.

That's right And you know biblically I would fire back at this and say the New Testament teaches that Yahweh Places our sins upon the

Messiah. That's the father I turned that program off I Don't even know how to how to shut it down right now other than to turn the volume down Which won't work because I'm playing it off of this.

So, sorry folks I Took that down, but it's it's being anyways, so I would respond by saying the father is identified as Yahweh Jesus is identified as Yahweh and John 12 41

Hebrews chapter 1 verses 10 through 12 and the Spirit is the spirit of Yahweh He is the one when

David spoke by the Holy Spirit. That was Yahweh speaking So you have one name of God that is applied to three persons that Kwaku admits are

Differentiated from one another in the text of Scripture. Mm -hmm. So if we use his reasoning, they're all one person

Unless he makes the proper distinction to recognize that there's a difference between being identified as Yahweh and being identified as the same person

He just won't he's just he's playing games with language Yep, and it it's it's clear to us, but unfortunately it may not be clear to to other folks

So jumping back to the restored gospel when Latter -day Saints say we're going to become gods We don't believe we're going to become

Trinitarian omnipresent spirit ideas We believe we're going to become heavenly beings who live forever who grow forever in knowledge and intelligence and power

Not trying three -person being ideas, but heavenly beings gods so heavenly beings

Did you notice who are always growing in knowledge and power?

Mm -hmm now back in the 80s when I first started studying Mormonism There was a debate going on amongst

Mormons as to whether God the Father had achieved Final exaltation the sense of all knowledge and power or whether he was continuing to grow in that.

Yep And here it seems Kwaku takes the continuationist

Perspective has that side won out. I don't know I don't know but so you've got a human being who is still growing so growing in power and knowledge.

That's right That's not a god worthy of worship That's the God that Mormonism has has to offer to you

And in fact didn't Joseph Smith and Lorenzo Snow say that God actually had a God before him? Let's talk about for one second and actually it's such a why that makes sense and is actually the only way

God can be good Christians say that God is all -powerful. God has all power He created everything nothing happened outside of his power and authority

So let's examine good and evil if God created everything and saw everything that was gonna happen and hit that first domino and said let it

All rip let it all go then. He's the creator of good and evil. He's the father of evil Some people may say no.

No, God is not the father of evil He's only the father of good but evil is a perversion of good But remember if God saw that evil was gonna come to pass he saw that it was gonna be present

He let it all happen What does that mean that means he's still the creator of evil because he's the creator of all evil is a part of all things now this section

I wanted to get to because this actually allows us to touch briefly upon theodicy and We'll just do this section and then we'll call it good.

We've been going for 90 minutes I've still got some other stuff that I'll get to would you trust me to handle this? Okay, I just just want to make sure you know,

I learned everything I knew from you so So but this is this is the theodicy section and it

Honest with you Jeff it saddens me greatly. Okay, because I don't know well, you know, there's been a lot of discussion for a lot of years about the

Suicide rates in Utah and and things like that. I don't know if this is a directly related to that but you have here really a humanistic

Desire to so limit God that you think you have

Solve the theodicy issue when in fact, you've just simply made all evil meaningless.

Mm -hmm My Arminian friends get close to doing this not to the radical level that this does but this is a desire on the part of mankind that we need to fight and So his argument here,

I think we need to hear it. Let me let me with that in mind. Listen, listen to this again So let's examine good and evil if God created everything and saw everything that was gonna happen and hit that first domino and said let it

All rip let it all go then. He's the creator of good and evil So you don't even have the possibility of open theism there.

Mm -hmm. I think even he recognizes really serious open theism Mm -hmm. He's the father of evil.

Some people may say no. No, God is not the father of evil He's only the father of good but evil is a perversion of good But remember if God saw that evil was gonna come to pass he saw that it was gonna be present

He let it all happen. What does that mean? What does that mean does how does the Mormon God have knowledge of future events if he does is

The Mormon God even sufficient as a basis for prophecy. For example. Mm -hmm. How does

God know future events within Mormonism? I've never had anyone really be able to explain it. Is that just a gift given to you over time or something?

I I don't know that means he's still the creator of evil because he's the creator of all evil is a part of all things

So you cannot have a creator? Who would have a purpose in the existence of moral evil

It's just it's just a given you can't do it. It's the same thing in in Islam You cannot have a God who enters into his own creation.

It's just a given most almost no Muslims I've ever even thought about why as a Mormon there can be no creator

God Because that would mean he has to somehow answer for the existence of evil

That's what he's saying. God is creator of all things He's also the creator of evil if you're the God you're worshiping is the creator of evil and they can't be escaped

You can try to think about it a million ways to make God not the creator of evil But if you're gonna hold God to the Christian standard, he's been held to for a long time

He is also the creator of evil But if our God if our Heavenly Father had a God before him and was created guess what that means

Okay. So how does how does he turn the internal law of progression? Allow the

Mormon God to not be the creator of evil. What's it gonna be? That means that there's something called eternal law

You push it off to eternal law. Mm -hmm, which you then cannot give any

Rational explanation for the origin of that's right And he hasn't thought through that Clearly enough to even articulate what that even means and how that solves the problem.

It doesn't solve the problem, right? But it makes the eternal law impersonal and You can just sort of say disconnect not guilty.

Not guilty, right? Guilty that good and evil have been around before our God existed the cats that I want you to hear this

Everybody you need to understand the Mormon God here. Listen that good and evil have been around before our

God existed So he can't be accountable for it because hey, it's a problem He and he you know, it's sort of like how every president blames the last president for the economy.

Mm -hmm That's right, whatever God whatever God stage you're at same thing, right it's it that's that we've always been dealing with this issue

It's it's a tough one And when he was exalted into godhood and when he became a creator That means he only organized good for the benefit of all of us when he became a creator

Mm -hmm. Now you've got multiple creators. Mm -hmm and and We're watching

Mormonism Collapsing on homosexuality why Because they have no ground for a meaningful definition of creator in the

Imago Dei. Mm -hmm because we're Image of God, what's that supposed to mean? Mm -hmm, even

God's in the image of God in the image of God It's in the image of God in the image of God Where's the stop?

I don't know. There's no regression. No origin for it. No meaning to it exactly and and and that that really important thing there is that the difference between quake whose

Theology and his God versus the biblical theology. The biblical God is that quake who has a law a standard operating above or outside of His God that his

God must bend to be shaped by had to learn to obey

Can you just consider that quake who? worships a man who had to learn to obey a law that is higher than himself that has existed outside of himself and When he sets things in motion, all he does is she's quick who says he shapes good

Well is good a substance. Yeah, is it a sub? What do you mean? He's shapes good I like to ask maybe he can articulate what he means by that What do you mean he shapes good because you just said that it exists outside of God It's a good and evil or standards that have existed in preceded

God our man God that we worship and then his God and his God and his God and then all the other mother gods that have

Existed and so what do you mean by shape is good material is good made of matter exactly

Or is it just an idea and therefore not real in the first place, right? That's what that's what

Richard's gonna say is that we're gonna say so the ten seconds here and then yeah to fight against people He didn't create evil evil was already there good was already there good and evil are labels of actions.

They're abstractions They're not actual tangible things. He organizes good to fight against evil.

He isn't the creator of evil There's somewhat of an answer that doesn't seem coherent no

No, it's a There's there's no meaningful discussion happening here and it shaping good even though good isn't material and it's just an abstraction and and it's but it's always existed and So it you can't

Come up with an idea as to why it was made or who made it or what the ground of its existence is I mean, this is a

There's a reason why Mormonism has never produced a Coherent worldview and that's why it cannot even begin

To engage with the modern culture and what's going on right now. That's why we're seeing in Utah. We are seeing this incredible Collapse, I mean it just struck me they have a

God that is gendered Mm -hmm. I mean, he's got a physical body and he has got genitals

He I mean he has sex with his wives And it's directly physical.

I mean Joseph Smith made that plane You've heard the story about the guy at the

West West gate of the temple and now you've been up there So now you can sort of vision this so the West gate of the temple

This was back before the beating house was was built big tall guy was flying through there And I managed to keep up with him long enough to keep a track in front of him.

He grabbed it He immediately did the the wrist flip to see who had made it He walks through the gate and you can just see him.

He stops and you can see his shoulders go like this Because you know, he's just decided I don't know why

I'm gonna do this But I'm gonna talk to these people and he turns around he walks up to me in front of all

I've got a about four or five of my volunteers and this is years ago. He says You know what's wrong with you?

No, that's not an uncommon thing Fair how many times you heard fairly fairly normal, you know, what's wrong with you?

He says you think sex is dirty. No, I had not heard that one before. Okay, I was

I'm sitting here going He says you think sex is dirty You don't think God the

Father could have sex the Virgin Mary to create the body of Jesus and that's why you're wrong and this is the true church and he reeled around and walked straight in and I turned around and my my my volunteers are looking at me like going

What just happened we weren't ready for that the seminars you gave us did not prepare us for that That was worth the price of the trip right there

And and I was just just like well that was refreshingly honest because what he was

Specific he was specifically recognizing that in and a lot of Mormons. They don't know that so I says that's why

I had to put entire chapter documenting this in is the more of my brother because so many

Mormons do not understand this but the reason that Jesus Could rise from the dead is he had an immortal father

God the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as any man's that's what Doctrine Covenant section 130 verse 22 says and He had sex with his spirit child

Mary Uh -huh to create the body of Jesus and because he's immortal than the body of Jesus is immortal and that's why he can rise from the dead so you have this and You you look at that and that means

God is gendered What could be more utterly Contradictory to the eternal law of regression than a homosexual deity.

Yep, either male or female Because the whole purpose of the female is to have literally

Millions of spirit children. I mean any Mormon woman, you know that basically her calling is to be eternally pregnant

She'll never see her feet again. That's what she's called to do. She's an eternal baby -making machine. Mm -hmm and For the man, it's you're getting make those babies with all your multiple wives

I mean you're basically you go to heaven and have sex constantly That's what you do But you've got to have the parts to do it and you've got to have the desire to be doing it with a female

There is nothing that I could even begin to think of that could substantiate the idea of an acceptance of any concept of homosexuality

Within Mormonism and yet we are seeing it rising and I just wonder

I honestly mentioned to someone how long till we see a homosexual General Authority and Could the church even survive something like that I thought that I remembered a statement from either be what

Brigham Young or Joseph Smith very early on stating that Homosexuality was one of the most grievous sins because of the law of eternal progression because Maybe mankind was created for one purpose and that was to procreate

Population violation of this law and it is one of the most grievous sins and I believe it's a blood atonement level sin

Well, you're gonna have to look that up now. I'm gonna have to find that that sounds familiar. You know where I heard it recently a

Documentary going after the FLDS these young women trying to escape Arizona no,

Colorado City. Yeah, right and One of their prophets had included that in his sermon interesting that was played on the show well,

I Would like to look that up. That would be that would be very very very interesting I was just gonna say not to be

I don't want to be offensive But when I hear stories like this about gods and eternal sex and things like that,

I I think to myself yeah, that sounds about right like the kind of thing that fallen man would try to develop a view of the future perspective of the future where it's eternal sex and multiple different women and all those different things and this is our dream and I again,

I don't mean to be offensive or to hurt the feelings of any Latter -day

Saint friends that I have I just I just want to say that if we consider the the the fallen nature of Mankind and what men do and obsess over and the human loss and those sorts of things it just seems like the kind of God that we would create a

God and a future of eternal sex and unlimited sex so yeah,

I think that It's that it's sad to hear that sort of a thing but um, yeah well, you know the nice thing about doing the things we do think around here is we've gone for an hour and 41 minutes and we can stop right there because we don't have any

Networks say we have to have a certain time. That's great. You guys do too. Yeah, are we done? Yeah, we were done

Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, we can go from there. That's sort of that's the one thing I've enjoyed about not having to have a network type thing and have a you know

Whenever I filled in for people or like Michael Brown, he's got he's got that clock and that clock is unforgiving

Mm -hmm. You must obey you must bow to it. Yes, and everything. I know what that's like I've been we've been in the radio station and it's hard.

It's hard. It's very very hard Yeah, so and I remember that was I was on that on the program a couple times boys.

People are weird. Yeah, that's right Yeah, didn't know what was coming in the future, that's right, that's right it's coming so Anyways, well, thank you for coming all this way

Jeff to have this discussion with us and I'll be interested.

I would like to think that there might be a response, but I just I just haven't gotten the feeling that Quaker is really

Interested in doing that kind of thing, but yeah, you know, we'll see I hope this will be up as a benefit to those and we'll tag

The other videos we put it up as well We'll tag make sure that it gets connected to his video so others can at least hear a response and response to it

And I'll I will try to remember there's not that much more. I was gonna cover this and there's some church history stuff

I wanted to hit because he totally misrepresents church history totally does not recognize that the early church fathers were monotheists

And I can document that I did in is the more of my brother very very clearly and so I think he really

Misrepresented some of the things you put up on the screen and I've got some counter screens to provide to that So we'll try to get to that when

I get back to this. By the way this Sunday I will be preaching in the morning at Faith Community Church down in on I think it's

Orange Grove in in Tucson. I've been there a number of times before so it's the one I've been to before And great church down there.

So I'll be preaching from John chapter 5 There twice I believe on Sunday morning if you want to join us and then

I'm gonna try to make it back in time for Apology at church at four o 'clock. That's right church the Redeemer on Stapley where I'm preaching and And and and have you have you gotten have you gotten used to that now?

I'm getting used. Yes Yeah, having having me because because there's when we first started it was it was sort of like So if I stood in the back with my arms crossed shaking my head back and forth

This this would this would probably throw you off. I mean, I'm good now You're good first first. Yeah, a little little start was it was weird.

Yeah, it's weird having the person who's taught you and Inspired you and encouraged you at times and it's sort of like yeah, that's what

I meant. Yeah That's right. I mean I grew I grew up as as as a believer on I was listening to obscene

Amounts of hours of your lectures and your debates. I mean I have a lot of your debates memorized So yeah, it was a little awkward at first It's getting better.

I'm getting the hang of it. Yeah, I'm getting the hang of it I'm getting the hang of it by the way Also for you guys who are watching this and you want to reach

Mormons the gospel for Mormons tracked You can get apology of studios comm we have just got a new shipment in.

Yeah, I saw the you've got boxes Yeah, we're sending these out constantly. So apology of studios comm we have a

Gospel tract and a gospel for Mormons tract. We're working on one for Jehovah's Witnesses right now I I've tried

I need to do one on Islam and And because the million tracks guys are working with us.

And what's the we've got we've got another we have the Christian message they're doing another printing of the

Christian message tract And we're also doing the pillar and foundation of the truth tract which

I wrote in You sure cuz it was because we were distributing it what 93

I was gonna say 99 is 1993 when the Pope came to Denver Oh, that's right.

And so we're that's the track We were passing out to all the pilgrims going across walking to the to the mass and in Denver So I remember that so so long ago now that it's hard to hard to believe but we will have those

As as well. So yeah get those tracks have them available for folks and thank you again for coming out

Thanks, brother, and we will see you Sunday evening for church and we'll see you next week here on the dividing line.