On the Road from Albuquerque: Reflections on a 1/4 Century of Responding to Homosexual Argumentation

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line.

My name's James White, and we are coming to you live from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I hot -footed it over here today from Holbrook. It's not that massive of a ...

It's three and a half hours, maybe, not that massive of a drive, but I had to get started early, and oh, yeah.

This is going to be a mess, by the way, folks. Folks haven't done this in ages, and so there's too many things to remember to do.

Hot -footed over here from Holbrook because I did Iron Sharpens Iron with Chris Arnzen for two hours.

We didn't discuss as much as we should have, but we discussed

The Same -Sex Controversy, the book that Jeff Neal and I put out in 2001,

I believe, with Bethany House Publishers. We're supposed to talk about developments over the past 20 years.

I guess we sort of did, but we ended up really focusing more on the development of the

Side A, Side B terminology, which really didn't exist when

Jeff and I wrote the book. Some of the foundational ideas were starting to circulate, but that particular idea wasn't there yet.

You really could talk about a lot of stuff since 2001, over the past 20 years, 22 years now, since we put out

The Same -Sex Controversy. An update for the book would simply mean a much longer book, because now we'd have to deal with all that stuff.

The number of books that have been written since then is astonishing, and what's interesting, a lot of the pro -homosexual books that have been published since then probably aren't even in print anymore.

And the biblical argumentation, I suppose we could include a section in response to Brownson and his

Stoicism stuff. We could certainly include a section in regards to Matthew Vines and his

Romans 1 stuff. And there'd need to be an entire section on Side B argumentation, gay

Christianity. So we'd have to add three or four chapters at least, and I think it'd be worth it.

When I met with Jeff when I was speaking in Georgetown, he seemed in great health.

He had had a stroke a number of years ago, but he seemed to be in great health. His memory was great. So I'd certainly like to see that happen.

I would like to see an update on it, if Bethany House is willing to do it. I'm not sure that they would be.

I haven't contacted them to ask, but I probably should, because the biblical argumentation hasn't changed.

There's just more permutations of the excuses. I can honestly say that, at least in the chapters that I wrote, and we actually did it to where he did a certain number of chapters,

I did a certain number of chapters. I can honestly say the exegesis of the texts that I did, like Genesis 18 and 19, really hasn't changed.

I've not seen anything that would cause that to change. The only thing that would change would be application stuff, where, like I said, when

Matthew Vines says that Romans 1 is only about heterosexual men who abandon their wives to have homosexual encounters,

I don't think we covered that. What we did is, after we'd give the positive exegesis, we'd have various excuses that had been offered, and we dealt with them, and we could add sections there,

I would imagine. But neither

Jeff or I could have known in 2001 where we would be in 2023.

And so for those of you in the Pennsylvania area, and I suppose that would include some of the bordering states, next week, the 16th, is the debate between myself and Gregory Coles on whether gay

Christian is an appropriate identification for a member of Christ's body. So that's really the entire side

B argumentation, and if side A affirming Brandon Robertson, Shepard, those types of people,

Matthew Vines, that's side

A. Side B, gay Christianity, revoice, celibate, no marriage type of perspective.

But also, honestly, side B accepts the idea of sexual identity and therefore does not believe that you can change.

That's going to be one of the central issues. And in fact, to be honest with you, if you and your church and the leadership of your church, or if you are in leadership of a church, if you're not willing to get with the program, and if you look at First Corinthians chapter six and you go, you look at these words, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

The answer to that question is supposed to be a given. It's not so much a given in our day. Do not be led astray, deceived.

Neither uta pornoi, and that, of course, pornaia, pornoi, sexually immoral, that is a big category.

That can be a very, very wide category. A lot of stuff that can be put underneath that, but pornoi, uta idolatrai, idolaters, idolatry, moikoi, standard term for adulterers.

Then you have the key text, uta malakoi, uta arsenokoitai, which, as we've explained before, most translations separate those out, malakoi, soft, effeminate, arsenokoitai, homosexual.

Arsenokoitai means what? I've found no reason to not accept what

Jeff Neal said years ago. He and I went to Grand Canyon, back then it was

Grand Canyon College. He was a year ahead of me, graduated the year before me. And I remember that he had, you know, we were good friends.

We'd play tennis together. We'd climb Squaw Peak together. And at some point,

I don't remember what prompted it, but at some point he mentioned that at his church, he had done a multi -week study on homosexuality.

This would have been like 99, maybe even 98, I don't remember exactly. And you got to understand, that was really unusual back then.

This is stuff, you know, I was raised, you're not supposed to talk about this stuff in church.

And so he and I had both known the same guy at Grand Canyon, who was a

Bible major, as I recall. And he had gone on to become the chaplain, either of the

House representatives or the Senate in the state of Arizona, and had come out as a homosexual.

And I don't remember how it was put together, who had suggested it. I think it was probably

Marty Minto, because it was his program. But Jeff and I were invited to go on KPXQ Radio with this fellow chaplain and another man who's homosexual to discuss the issue on Marty Minto's, to debate the issue of Marty Minto's show.

By the way, that's where the same -sex controversy came from, because Steve Lobby, acquisitions editor with Bethany House, lived locally, heard the program, knew both of us.

Jeff worked for him for years at Bree and Christian Bookstore. And he knew me from Bree and Christian Bookstore, too.

I didn't work there, but I drove him crazy trying to buy books from him. He heard the program and said, this sounds like a book to me.

Would you two be willing to do it? And that's how the same -sex controversy came along. We weren't looking to do that.

That wasn't something we were trying to do. So during the course of the debate,

I remember it very clearly. I remember where I was sitting in the studio, where they were sitting, where Jeff was sitting.

Jeff was sitting over to my left. I was here. Two guys were there. Marty Minto was right there. And the meaning of this term came up.

And Jeff had said this before the program. I think he said after the program.

But on the program, he said, Arson Acoites means that which men do with men in bed.

And that ain't eating crackers. So all the years since then,

I've seen nothing that has caused me to change my understanding of the exegesis that we offered, the meanings of the terms, you know, the 1946 movie thing.

Is that thing finally available? I mean, what happened to that? It was supposed to be showing in these certain places.

And I've seen nothing. I mean, talk about a flop as far as having any kind of meaningful impact.

Wow. But is it available anywhere? Could someone let me know on Twitter or Facebook?

Facebook all that often, but go ahead and try. Is there some way of obtaining a copy so that we can review it and respond to it?

And of course, reviewed it. I'd be really, really interested in knowing that. But I just we've seen nothing that would change the exegesis that was that was offered a long time ago.

And so most translations in First Corinthians 6, 9 say effeminate nor homosexuals.

The ESV simply says homosexuals because it sees Malakoi and Arsinokoitai as the.

Passive and active partners in a homosexual encounter, basically.

Nor thieves, kleptai, you've heard of kleptomaniacs, neither the pleonektai, greedy individuals, neither methisoi, drunkards, loidoroi, would be revilers, blasphemers, things like that.

Category of sin almost unknown in our society anymore because it has to do with with the use of the tongue, language, meaning of words, and who even thinks about things like that anymore.

So drunkards, revilers, swindlers.

People who cheat other people, none of these. Will inherit the kingdom of God.

So there so do not be deceived, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. Well, you've covered a pretty broad spectrum there that would cover a lot of people.

So if you stop right there, that would be a bad wouldn't be any good news there. But verse 11, kaitautatenes eita, and such were some of you.

So Paul doesn't sugarcoat this. He doesn't hide the fact that he knows the past character of the

Corinthians and the Corinthian church, and that there were people there who had been drunkards.

There are people there who had been thieves and greedy and had been dishonest.

But the key issue is such were some of you, not such are some of you.

There is no question it's an imperfect verb. It's in the past. Such were some of you.

But the adversative Allah, but it has nothing to do with Allah, by the way, people get really confused, but you were washed.

But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified.

So each one, each use of Allah there is creating a disjunction between what they were.

It's interesting, he doesn't use the errors, he uses the imperfect. So it's a, those were their ongoing experiences in the past, but you were washed.

So the reason that there is a were is that being washed creates a transition and a movement out of every one of those lifestyles, those sinful defining lifestyles.

And now he uses the errors because it's not, you are being washed or it's, there was a break.

There was a break with these things. You've got ongoing actions in the past.

You were these things, but then there's a break. You were washed.

You were, and we could translate it as made holy, sanctified, set apart.

But it is a passive, so it's, it's God doing this, as was washed, as is justified.

So these are all things that God does. They are a definitive point in time and they are all in opposition to and a break from the old way of life.

And you have washing, being made holy, being justified in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit of our God, which is rather Trinitarian.

Spirit of our God, maybe not so much, but you probably would be able to see that there.

Which might have something to do with, you know, baptism representing that break, you know, death to the old life, resurrection of the new life.

So for the apostle, he can simply look to all the Corinthians and say, yeah, this is what you once were.

This was what your lifestyle was, but there's been a break.

And so one of the, one of the questions, one of the issues that has to be discussed, and see,

I have no problem talking about this now. I'm not doing the debate for gotcha moments. So if, if, if Dr.

Coles wants to listen in and be prepared for everything, great, fine. That's, that's, that's the way to do it.

This is one of the key issues because it just seems to me that side B Christianity is questioning the tense of the verb in verse 11.

And it's like, they want to say, yeah, all the rest of that stuff, sure.

We're not saying that there should be swindler Christians. We're not saying that there should be drunkard

Christians. We're not saying there should be idolatrous Christians because none of these things, even if, even if someone said from my earliest memories,

I've always been greedy. My earliest memories as a child,

I wanted all the other kids toys. And this is something that I have struggled with my entire life.

And I, I simply can't look at what other people have without wanting what they have.

And I've prayed and prayed and prayed, and I've tried to pray the greed away and it's not worked.

And so this is what, this is how God has made me. Well, everybody realizes that's not going to work, but there's, and I wonder if, and I'll ask

Dr. Coles how he understands Malakoi. And if he does differentiate, if he rejects the

ESV joining of Malakoi and Arsene Koitai, then is effeminacy something you can be washed from?

I mean, I don't know how he would answer that question, but the, but the, I think the question for most of us would be, is it something you would need to be washed from?

Made holy from? Why is it considered a sin to be effeminate for a man?

Because obviously it's not talking about woman, woman's supposed to be feminine. So why would a, a feminine man need to be washed of being feminine?

Because in our day, that's just considered, hey, that's just some, some guys that way, right?

And it's okay because God made you that way. So these are questions that I think side

B Christianity, side B celibate gay Christian advocates need to respond to, need to explain.

I have been, it's been, I'm thankful that over the past, it's only been a number of weeks since we arranged this debate.

It was right at the end of my last trip. So toward the end of July, I have found new resources and gotten in touch with people that I did not know before.

Well, okay. That I did not know had written before. I, um, some people

I've met in the past, talked with the past, didn't know they had new books coming out. So I got Rosaria Butterfield has a book coming out, um, just a few days before the debate.

And she says some really strong things in there, uh, about things that she herself has said in the past.

And I, and I appreciate that. And, um, MD Perkins of the

AFA reminded me when it's, I got in touch with them that we had met when

I had recorded for the video that they did, um, on this subject.

I am in it along with Michael Brown and Bob Gagnon and lots of, lots of other folks. And I remember going down to do that recording.

For some reason, I remember the hotel I stayed at and, um, the, the roads around it that I ran.

I miss running. I really miss running. That was very, very enjoyable. I was never overly fast, but it was, it was fun being out there.

Um, anyway, uh, it's been good to rekindle some of those conversations and get to know folks again.

Uh, certainly they're asking their churches to pray for the debate. And, and I would ask you to pray for it as well, because it,

I, I'm, I'm hoping, and I, I have every confidence that Dr.

Coles will work with me to make this as clear as possible. Um, we're, we're not coming down the same side of things.

So, you know, each side may have to say some, some strong stuff. And, but I, I, I can't possibly see it at all becoming a food fight.

And I can't see, I, I hope, I was just looking at, right before the program,

I, I pulled up, I, I pulled up the video from 2001.

You know, video cameras have improved a lot since 2001. They really have. Um, of the debate with Barry Lynn.

I thought Barry Lynn died. Evidently he hasn't. I, I, I buried him early.

Poor guy. Sorry about that. I had heard somewhere that, uh, he had, he had passed away or either that or I confused it with John Shelby's song.

But, um, I don't see Barry Lynn anymore. I don't see him doing stuff.

So maybe that's why I figured. If you're listening to Iron Sharman's Iron Gun, you've talked about a lot of this. Yeah, I've, it, it had definitely triggered all this stuff in my mind.

And this is what I'm preparing for. This is, I have, I do not have my presentation ready yet. And there's more

I need to read like tonight before I can really start outlining it and putting quotes together and stuff like that.

And I'm, I'm speaking twice that same weekend. And then I've got to get ready for G3 and I'm not ready for that yet either.

And I still got 2000 miles to drive just to get there. So I'm going to be very, very busy the next few days.

So pray for traveling mercies so I can get where I need to go. I have time to work on stuff at night and not have to be working on fixing a propane issue like we started off yesterday with and stuff like that.

But anyway, I was looking at the Barry Lynn debate from 2001.

And I was thinking back on just how frustrated and angry he became.

And it was not because of anything more than he knew he was in the minority.

He knew that he had not made his case. And he knew that I had asked him all sorts of questions he could not answer.

And that was the only reason I was not in any way, shape or form unkind to him. In fact, if I recall correctly,

I think that was the same trip as the debate with Peter Stravinsky. I think it was.

Because I think I'm wearing the same coat and tie too. And as the

Stravinsky's debate. And he just, he lost it.

I mean, in his closing statement, he just berated the audience. It was ugly.

It really, really was. I just can't see Gregory Coles doing that. And given that during the debate,

Barry Lynn had literally claimed to receive revelation from God. On the level of the

Apostle Paul. People like that don't like to be questioned. And they don't like to be made fools of.

Because they can't answer questions because they've never even considered these things before. I just can't see that happening with Gregory Coles.

So hopefully we don't have to give that much thought. But my hope is at the end of the evening, as this recording is made available and things like that.

My hope is that more and more Christians will understand these new, relatively new developments, these new positions.

And be able to recognize, oh, this guy's talking side B, celibate gay

Christianity. But that means he's embracing sexual identity.

And probably accepting it as an innate, unchangeable aspect of an individual.

And if that's the case, what do you do at 1 Corinthians 6? How do you understand that?

In light of the testimony of the New Testament. That there were former homosexuals in the church at Corinth who were no longer homosexuals.

They were no longer idolaters. They were no longer drunkards. They were no longer swindlers. They were no longer effeminate.

So if you take that interpretation, if you keep it separate from arson and koitai.

That means there were men in the church at Corinth who were no longer acting like women.

And what's the only thing we're told? But you were washed. But you were made holy.

But you were justified. We're not told they went through reparative therapy, conversion therapy, aversion therapy.

Whatever terms you want to do for whatever quote unquote therapies. There was a radical break.

There was a change. And it seems that side B says that's not what we should expect.

We should not expect Paul's words to be relevant to us today.

It seems to me a lot of Christians in quote unquote evangelical churches are going, yeah, that makes sense.

That makes sense. And that's very troubling. It really, really is.

That also caused me to consider, once again, just a few things.

I know we've covered this before. My apologies if you have learned it all and can teach it.

Great, that's how it should be. But to also remind you of some basic things that you can't forget about in the discussion in Romans 1.

And just a reminder, there's an extensive exegesis discussion in Romans 1 in The God Who Justifies.

It is one of the most important passages in all Scripture for so many apologetics issues, theology issues, cultural issues.

You have to understand Romans 1. I've said that Romans 1 for me is one of the passages of Scripture that most clearly demonstrates the inspiration of Scripture to me, is

Romans chapter 1. But remember just a couple of key issues that always come up in these debates.

More so with side A than side B, but you have to remember these things. Remember, and if you watched the very

Linn debate, I asked him what pathe atamias meant, dishonorable passions.

And he had no answer.

He was trying to divide the list of sins up and it didn't work.

And that's the description that Paul gives of both lesbianism and male homosexuality.

Dishonorable passions. And so should a spirit indwelt

Christian want to be identified by dishonorable passions?

Because the side B says, hey, as long as you're not acting on them, it's not an issue. But it is an issue.

It's a matter of the heart. If Jesus can say, if you look on a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery with her already in your heart, that means heart issues are relevant.

To sin. And so if God gave them over to dishonorable passions for their females, exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural.

And parafusin here, standard response that is, well,

Paul says long hair is against nature, so that can't mean anything. No, in the context, he's talking about the natural function of sex.

Clearly, the very next part of the sentence, continuation of the same sentence.

In the same way, also, the males. Not just the men, but it's arsonous.

Sound familiar? Arson a coitus? Yeah, it's the technical term for male. Rather than mankind in general, it's a male in opposition to a female.

Same way, thaliai. Females.

Specifically, not just women in general, but women. Back then, they knew what a woman was and what a male was.

We didn't have the problems we have today. The same way, also, the males abandoned the natural function of the female.

So all the stuff about long hair is irrelevant here. The males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another.

So this is part of the twistedness of sin that idolatry brings. Is that the natural desire of a male for a female is turned around and becomes narcissistic.

Instead of the etzer k 'negdo, the woman who is the one who is like, is corresponding to, but different.

They help me. Instead of that natural sexual desire, it becomes a narcissistic mirror image.

Which leads to destruction. You can't have children. You can't continue a species.

If you engage, if everybody became homosexual, you only make it one generation.

That's it. Everybody dies out. And it's something that they abandoned in their lusts.

They're burning in their desire one for another. This is mutuality. This is mutuality between two men.

Males with males committing indecent acts. Indecent acts.

Receiving their own person as a due penalty of their error. There's been lots of speculation as to what that specifically would mean.

And I don't want to go into the details on a webcast.

There are lots of possibilities there. But they're indecent acts, dishonorable passions. It's an abandonment of the natural function.

It's unnatural. These are Paul's descriptions. And there have been plenty of homosexual scholars who have read these verses and gone,

Yeah, you can't make any case whatsoever that the Apostle Paul would ever have anything positive to say about homosexuality.

But the standard response is, but they didn't know about what we know about today.

Where you have monogamous, consensual, loving relationships.

Well, of course they did. Plato did. Plato knew about men and those types of relationships.

He wrote about them. It's just silly to say that people didn't know.

Or there weren't people that did that. At the same time, human experience and all the studies

I've ever seen, demonstrate that, especially for males, there are at least more examples of female homosexual relationships that could be described as monogamous than there are for men.

99 plus percent of male homosexuals are promiscuous.

99 percent plus have multiple partners. And we're not talking just a few multiples.

The normal male homosexual experience is a massive number of partners.

And that's always been. It's not something that just now started happening. And so, there you have the clear discussion.

And it is interesting that he then goes on to talk about all these things that are not proper.

Unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, haters of God. Maybe that term actually might be hated by God.

They asked Geis, there's an actual argument as to whether that should be taken, which direction it'd be hated by God or haters of God.

A violent, arrogant, boastful, avengers of evil, disobedient to parents. All of a sudden, in the middle, something that we all go, what?

That just happens to everybody, but right there. Without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

And verse 32. And although they know, and it's epikinosko, it's the strengthened form.

They not only have it in mind, but they've experienced it. It's a stronger assertion of possession of knowledge.

Even though they know the righteous requirement or law of God.

That all the ones practicing these things, axioi thanatu aisin, are worthy of death.

Some people might say, well, that can't have any application to European nations anymore, because no one's worthy of death.

What's that guy in Norway that did the massive shooting a number of years ago?

And even though a lot of people wanted him executed, not going to do that. Worthy of death.

And they know this. They know that the heinousness of their crimes before a holy

God is worthy of death. They not only do these things, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them.

To approve of, to agree to. That's what they want.

They want other people to agree that what they're doing is right and proper.

Sin loves company. In that sense, the more the merrier. And what we're seeing in our society, what we've seen for decades now, they don't want equal rights.

They don't want to be left alone. They want to force the rest of the society to either join them or to celebrate them.

And if you're not willing to, you already know. In the West, you're going to end up at the

HR office probably getting fired. There's a lot of you. Listen to this program right now.

You work in situations, you work for companies, where if a card came along congratulating a manager upline who's getting married to another man, same -sex mirage, if you refuse to sign it, you'd probably lose your job.

Minimally lose any opportunities for advancement in the future. That already exists.

That's already how it is. And so they give and receive approval from one another.

We're all doing the right thing. That's why you have gay pride. That's why we have June now. That's what

June is. June is the fulfillment of Romans 132. If we all get together and we all parade down the road in various states of undress in front of children and make

Target literally...

I saw this last year, not this year. I didn't go to Target during that period of time. But I remember the year before, after it was over, so like in July, I needed some cat food, as I recall.

And I'm coming out of the cat food aisle. And at the end cap in the pet food section is...

They've got all this rainbow stuff for your doggies and kitties. It was still sitting there because nobody wanted to buy it.

You really wonder how much they've lost. Not just in the boycott and stuff, but how much this stuff really sells is really the question.

That's... Oh, okay. So I got something to add here from Rich.

Yeah, okay. So yeah, that guy's name was Charlie. I don't remember what his last name was. He was in the

House, not the Senate. From 1946, the movie becomes... Currently 1946 is not available for viewing outside the film festival circuit.

November 2022, during DOC -NYC, there was a period where streaming the film was available in the United States.

But that is closed now. The festival is over. But we have in -person and streaming opportunities available with more to come as we make our way playing festivals.

So keep an eye on this space for festival ticket information and for all screenings in North America and around the world.

When will the film be made available? At this time, we do not know. We do know, however, that our following is growing by the day.

Really? We have 200... Charlie Coppinger, that's right.

We have 200 ,000 followers on TikTok alone. We've had amazing feedback from audiences.

Why are you hiding it? Why are you hiding the 1946 movie? We all know why.

You know it's indefensible. I know it's indefensible. I'm one of the people who can demonstrate it's indefensible.

Wow. Really? Charlie Coppinger died

February of 2013 at age 48. I did not know that.

That's sad. That is so sad. Charlie Coppinger was a student at Grand Canyon when we were there.

He was in classes with me. He's been dead for 10 years. I didn't know that. Wow. That's sobering.

Very sobering. Very sobering indeed. Okay. Appreciate that information.

But that 1946 stuff just makes me chuckle. It really does. What are you hiding it from?

They know that once that is put into the public realm, where you can do actual refutation of it, though I can guarantee you,

I will guarantee you that once it's available, the first time we quote almost any of it, play it on this program, they will try to DMCA us.

You just write it down. Write it down. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. We will have to fight to get anything posted demonstrating the incoherence of the idea.

The sense that target language, which did not exist when the original was written, target language 2 ,000 years down the road is somehow relevant to the actual original meaning of what

Ars Inquoites means, utilization, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1, all that kind of stuff.

They know they don't have any refutation of that. That's why they're hiding it. This is just simply to give people reason not to believe.

That's all it's about. They know it. That's why they live in fear.

It's a sad thing. There you have

Romans 1. There you have some of the things that have happened since 2001 when the book first came out.

I did not know he had died. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I had heard that. I don't know.

Switching gears here briefly, the last quarter of the program here, Dr. Taylor Marshall, Roman Catholic, had posted, it was a part of a thread, maybe it was late at night, but he described

Sola Scriptura in a grossly inaccurate fashion.

Just horribly inaccurate. I don't know how to mention it. Where is this here?

I think this is the thread that it was in. No, it's not showing that that was a thread that it was in.

Did I put that under replies? Yes, I did put it under replies. I haven't been able to be doing much posting on the trip so far, so hopefully

I can grab it here. There it is. Quote, September 5th.

This was only yesterday. Dr. Taylor put,

Sola Scriptura, parentheses, everything true must be written in Scripture, parentheses closed, is never taught in Scripture.

I've heard lots of bad definitions of Sola Scriptura, but that's definitely one of the worst from a doctor.

No one has ever claimed Sola Scriptura. Everything true must be written in Scripture. It is true that you must put death in a

GMC Sierra if you live in Maricopa County or so.

Some people take that stuff off their trucks. I can't because I live in Maricopa County. Since it's not in Scripture, then it can't be true.

It's just so dumb. I don't even know how to respond to it. I had responded to that.

He had also posted, all 12 apostles prayed to Mary. Oh, right.

His proof of that was, well, look at the liturgies hundreds and hundreds of years later. It must be apostolic.

I made the comment, this is doing church history backwards. Backwards and upside down.

It's what Rome is stuck with by her own dogmatic teachings. He wrote to me.

I haven't responded to this yet because I ran out of time for the program. He sent to me today, did

St. Augustine pray to saints? Yes. Was he a corrupted Roman pagan or a true

Christian predestined by God? Why don't you condemn Augustine and preach against his evil Romanism?

Well, one thing we clearly learn is that Dr. Taylor Marshall doesn't spend a whole lot of time listening to others outside of his sphere of influence.

I have been giving my lessons from Augustine's contradictions presentation since the 90s.

And that's easily demonstrated. Go to aomin .org, go to the transcript section, search for Donatists.

D -O -N -A -T -I -S -T -S. See how far back that goes. And you will see numerous times where I've talked about not only the contradictions in Augustine's theology that were developed because of the different conflicts he engaged in in his life.

And how the Donatist controversy formulated his views of sacraments and the church.

The Pelagian controversy, his views on grace. And that's why

Warfield was right when he said that the Reformation inwardly considered was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.

So I've used Augustine, as an example, of how the context in which you live and the conflicts in which you engage will deeply influence your experience, your understanding of things.

Well, there's not only that, I was going to pull it up but didn't have time to.

If you want to see how non -Roman Catholic Augustine was, put sermo, not sermon, but sermo, no n at the end, sermo 131, 131, into the transcript search box at aomin .org.

And you can actually just put it into the regular search box because the full article, it's a lengthy article, on sermon 131 from written in the late 90s, is on the blog.

It's part of the documentation material that's found there. And if you find the discussion in the dividing line,

I'll just be referring you to the blog article anyway, so you might as well look it up that way. That's the same thing

I made reference to in passing in the debate with Stravinskis, that he didn't have any idea. He had misquoted

Augustine, as people always will. The church has spoken, the case is closed.

And that article I wrote went through how Augustine and the North African bishops actually made the

Bishop of Rome back down and rejected his meddling in their affairs, just like Cyprian had done the century before.

And so there's so much in church history that demonstrates that Dr.

Marshall is being very flippant with church history. He's not engaging it in a meaningful fashion.

And this just illustrates again what I've said repeatedly in the past.

When I teach on church history, when I teach church history, I taught early church history just a few months ago.

When I teach that subject, I can allow Augustine to be Augustine. There are no dogmatic statements like sadus cognitum that have authority over me that will tell me that I have to see as the constant faith of the church these dogmatic teachings of centuries later.

And therefore, I have to turn the lens around and look backwards and anachronistically cram doctrinal teachings into the writings and experiences of people who lived long ago.

I don't have to do that. So I can read them for what they actually are saying. That means

I can look at Augustine. And just a few days ago, Chris Wisena posted a

I'm not sure if I can it wasn't that long ago, so it might still be right there if I can bring it up fast enough.

He posted a section from from Augustine and we all you know, there's all sorts of neat stuff.

Remember when we were demonstrating that Ken Wilson had no idea what he was talking about. We've all read stuff from Augustine and gone, oh man, this is so good and so deep and so fantastic.

And then you turn the page and you just go what on earth was that?

Well, here's I think I'm getting close to it here. I think it was before that.

There's a section here where Augustine speaks of basically a form of numerology.

And why can't I find it? It can't be that far back.

No, it can't be that far back. I must have I must have missed it. I'm sorry. I wanted to just dive into it here.

Where he's demonstrating something about the birth of Christ and the dating of the birth of Christ.

And for me, it was a little bit troubling because it had to do with Christmas. So it's like make a long story short.

It is not is this yes.

OK, there it is. That's why I couldn't see it before. It is a graphic. I was looking for text. Guys, please don't post anything in element right now or this will disappear while I'm reading it.

Listen, listen to Augustine. The numbers six plus nine plus 12 plus 10 plus eight make 45.

Therefore, add one and they make 46. This times six makes 276.

Now it is said that human field development reaches completion in the following way. In the first six days, the fetus is similar to a kind of milk and the following nine days it is changed to blood.

Then the following 12 days it becomes solid and the remaining 10 and eight days the features of all its members achieve complete formation and the remaining time until birth it grows in size.

Therefore, to 45 days add one which signifies the sum because six, nine, 12, 10 and eight brought together into one sum make 45.

Add one as was said and the result was 46. When this number is multiplied by six which stands at the head of the series 276 results i .e.

nine months and six days. This is the time between March 25th the day on which the

Lord is believed to have been conceived since he also suffered and died on that same day to December 25th the day on which he was born.

Therefore, it is not absurd to say that the temple which signified his body was built in 46 years so that there were as many years in the construction of the temple as there were days in the completing of the

Lord's body. Great tradition here.

One thing especially to catch about that this is the time between March 25th the day on which the

Lord is believed to have been conceived since he also suffered and died on that same day.

There was a common belief that great men always died on the day of their conception.

Why? I don't know. But it was such an overwhelming belief that here,

Augustine thinks it's part of a good argument. And as much as I like to defend

December 25th I ain't using that argument. And when you look at someone like Augustine when you look at any of the early church fathers you've got to let them be who they were.

And you can read Sermon 131 and go wow he just gave the

Pope a poke in the nose. And then you can read something like that and go yeah swing and a miss swing and a miss reading through his book in the

Trinity. One page yep there you go oh yeah and then the next page what on earth?

The way it is. The way it is. There's a dialogue going on right now at Credo with Chris Carter Craig Carter sorry

Craig Carter not a basketball player. And it's relevant to some of these things but it's there are other parts coming so we'll comment on the whole when it comes out.

So there you go. So to Dr. Taylor Marshall why don't you condemn

Augustine and preach against his evil Romanism? Because I'm a professor of church history sir and I don't behave in such silly fashions.

So I would highly recommend to you that maybe you might not want to you might want to consider possibly adopting that perspective as well.

When will we do our next program? I don't know. We're on the road.

Time's gonna change. Depends on you know what I've got going on in Amarillo.

And how long it takes me to get to the next place and all sorts of stuff like that. Whether I've got a good internet feed or whether I can get

Starlink hooked up to get a feed that way. But we'll just continue to do our best and seek to continue to serve you with important information that hopefully you find edifying and helpful to you.