Jeremy Tate's Reformed to Rome Journey

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line on a Tuesday afternoon, a little different time, but hey, it's still
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Tuesday, that's all that matters. And I'm watching the big kahuna vice president out there, got
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Adobe Edition running, got that started up, got that going, everything's started. You know, I do. And I want to tell you how exciting it is for you and I to be here today.
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It's a momentous occasion. It's momentous? Do you know why? I don't know, it's because it's the 7th of June?
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That's right. 7th of June and every great theologian out there knows what this day marks. It's the 36th anniversary, because on June 7th, 1975,
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Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver hit number one on the charts on this day. I would turn that off before moving it, actually.
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Your microphone's still on, you want to turn that off there. That was
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Thank God I'm a Country Boy back there. I could have cued that up, that would have been all right, but 36 years ago, wow, that doesn't seem that long ago.
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Yeah, I just figured since everyone kind of questions about the John Denver songs they hear occasionally. Yes, well it was number one, that's right, that's right,
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I appreciate that, thank you very much. I want to start a very important, you know, program today with that kind of information, make sure everyone's up to date on that.
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Anyway, we are, the dulcet tones of Riche Pierre not with us today, even though you heard him doing the countdown, that's because guess what, that is recorded, he does not do that live, but Barry is sitting in and we will see how it all goes.
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If I just disappear in the middle of a sentence, don't worry about it. No Skype calls today, but the regular phone number is 877 -753 -3341.
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I've got some things to cover. First of all, a big announcement on this Thursday, I've already announced this on Twitter, I have even contacted the pastor who preached this sermon to let him know we're going to be doing it.
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We will have a Radio Free Geneva on Thursday at the regular time, 4 p .m.
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Mountain Standard time, 7 p .m. Pacific Daylight time, 4 p .m. Pacific Daylight time, whatever.
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Radio Free Geneva, because I was directed, I don't even know who directed this to me,
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I guess you can just simply send Vimeo links to people, but someone sent me a Vimeo link and said, be prepared for this one.
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So if we've got the audio up, I want to play just a little segment here of Cornerstone Community Church over toward the
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Temecula area in Southern California. Ron Armstrong is the senior pastor, and a couple years ago he preached a sermon, seven topics in the church, and one of them was predestination.
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It was funny because he kept saying, I don't know why you all want me to talk about this, but we're going to go ahead and do it, and so he preached a sermon, and it's not there's anything overly new, but every once in a while you've got to go back over all the common objections and you have to deal with the fact that the vast majority of criticisms of Reformed theology are very, very shallow, and this was in a, you know, you've got the drums and stuff in the background, and Pastor Armstrong has a sweater on with his shirt tails out over his jeans and looking really cool there, and it's just sort of that kind of thing.
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And so I just want to play a little clip here just to give you a little taste of what he has to say here.
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Ugly girls, ugly guys, handsome guys. Does that apply to everybody? In other words, it says whoever.
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So if I confess my mouth and believe in my heart, I have the opportunity for a relationship with God.
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And then finally, James 1, 13, when tempted, let no one say God is tempting me for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.
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So does God send temptation to anybody? Does God push anyone to do evil? In other words, if someone does something really bad, can they say, well, you know,
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God really made me do that. Could they say that the evil they did was part of God's plan?
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How many of you have ever heard that God has a plan for everything? I've never heard that before. So. If I do evil.
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Isn't that evil from God, then? Oh, problem, because let's go back and read the verse one more time.
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Whoa, problem. Now, if you're expecting that Pastor Armstrong is going to exegete
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Genesis 50 or Acts 4 or, you know, any Isaiah 10, any of the texts specifically talk about God and his sovereignty over man's evil and his sovereign decree.
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No, of course, none of that's there. That's one of the reasons we're going to be addressing it is how to do eisegesis and how to twist the
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Bible's message by just just ignoring major sections of it. The Q &A at the end was interesting because someone did bring up Romans 9.
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If you want to hear one of the most surface level responses to Romans 9 and the fact that Romans 9 actually says that God does what he does in response to what we do, which is, of course, the exact opposite of what
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Romans 9 says with great clarity, force and repetition. Well, anyways, we're going to work through that.
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It's going to take us more than one shot, but it needs to be done every once in a while just to remind us of what's out there, what people are being told.
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I feel for the young people in this audience because it seemed to be the young people, to be honest with you, it seemed like they were being talked down to a lot, but it seemed to be the young people and boy, they were really given a bill of goods on this one.
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So we're going to be responding to that. I've already dropped to Pastor Ron a note. I will need to be careful and I will need to be straightforward because at one point,
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Pastor Ron raises, as an objection to God's sovereignty, the fact that his own son was murdered a few years ago.
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And Katie Bowen Channel linked me to the story of that. And it's an interesting story, especially because when he was killed, someone else was injured and someone else was
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Hugh Ross's son. December 26, 2008, the three men allegedly killed
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Joshua Armstrong, 22, and tried to kill his friend Joel Ross in an alley behind E .T.'s bar in Temecula.
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Armstrong was the son of Ron Armstrong, the senior pastor at Cornerstone Community Church in Wildomar. Ross, who was injured in the incident, is the son of Hugh Ross, a creationist author and public speaker.
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I had no knowledge of any of this until I listened this morning on my ride to this sermon.
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And some might say, well, you just shouldn't address what this guy has to say. I'll be perfectly honest with you, that makes it all the better to address because it raises the vitally important issue of whether evil in this world has a purpose or whether it is purposeless.
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When God created, did he know all the acts of evil or are they just random?
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When he created, did he know they're going to happen? And if he did, did he have a purpose for them or are they purposeless? That is a huge question.
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It's fundamental to how you do grief counseling and everything else. And I refuse to skip it.
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I refuse to dodge it. It needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed biblically. And I think that's the important way to do it.
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So we will have a Radio Free Geneva coming up on Thursday.
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I want to comment at the beginning of the program today on an article that was posted just today by Jeremy Tate.
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Jeremy Tate graduated three days ago, June 4th, 2011, from Reformed Theological Seminary in D .C.
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And he did so as a Roman Catholic. This is on the Called to Communion website, which is a website of formerly
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Reformed people who have embraced the authority of the Bishop of Rome and apostatized from the
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Christian faith. I want to comment on what he has to say, because a lot of people ask me about these issues and about how it can be that a person can claim to have been passionate about Reformed theology and then embrace
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Romanism. And I think it's something that, you know, I have an insight in these people.
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I've debated many of them, not ones on Called to Communion. This is a new group. But most of the people that I was debating back in the 90s, people like Jerry Matitix, converted while he was at Westminster in Philadelphia in the doctoral program there.
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And I spoke with Dr. John Gerstner before his death about Jerry Matitix and Scott Hahn and people like that.
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And Robertson Jenis claimed to have at least been involved with a Reformed church. Of course, Robertson Jenis was involved with a lot of different churches, including,
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I don't think he puts this on his resume, Harold Camping, at some point in the past as well.
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And so a lot of these people will make these claims. And so I think it's important to consider how it can be.
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Let's take a look at what he has to say here. The fall of 2008, when I finally resolved to convert to the
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Catholic Church from the Presbyterian Church in America, so he's PCA, same as Jerry Matitix, I faced the tough question of whether I would stay at RTS and finish my degree.
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At first, I didn't even know if I would be allowed to stay. I had already heard horror stories of Catholic converts at Protestant institutions being pushed out after the decision to convert.
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Well, I would say that if the institution has a rule that you need to be a follower of Jesus Christ and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that would be perfectly appropriate and absolutely necessary.
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And if you were actually a meaningful, convinced Calvinist at one point, how could you argue with that?
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After realizing I could stay, I had to ask the difficult question whether I should. After consulting with numerous people
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I respect, both Catholic and Reformed, if you don't mind, I do not grant to the
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Roman communion the term universal. It is the exact opposite of universal because it demands allegiance to one man totally outside of biblical parameters.
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And so I will be reading Catholic as Roman Catholic or Roman both
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Roman and Reformed. I made the decision to continue at RTS. I withdrew from the MDiv program and finished out
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RTS in DC with a Master of Arts in Religious Studies. I graduated on June 4th of 2011.
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I can say with all honesty that the faculty of RTS in DC treated me with more kindness than I possibly could have imagined.
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They never made me feel unwelcome at the seminary and were willing to engage Roman Catholic questions whenever I would ask.
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Nonetheless, the situation made for some awkward experiences. I sat in class and talked with students. I'll never forget the reaction of some of my classmates when they asked me what church
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I was at. I think the most common response is a look of disbelief and then a simple, seriously. That certainly would have been a mild part of my response.
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My response would have been something along the lines of, well, what could possibly convince you to abandon the gospel of Jesus Christ for that which is promoted by the
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Roman Catholic Church? Do you really believe that your priest is an alter Christus? Do you really believe that the bishop in Rome is the vicar of Christ, Holy Father, terms only used of deity in the
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New Testament? Do you really believe in purgatory and indulgences? Do you really believe that Christ's sacrifice is represented upon an altar over and over again and never perfects anyone?
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And do you really believe that Mary was immaculately conceived and bodily assumed into heaven and all these other dogmas?
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Those would be the things I'd be asking about. I don't know if those were the questions that were being asked at that time.
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Going back to the article, in the summer of 2009, I had the chance to take a three -day incensive class, Ministry in a Postmodern Context, with Michael Horton.
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A couple of times he made jokes about the Catholic Church and the reason people convert. At one point, maybe only in a half -joking manner,
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Horton suggested people convert because the papacy offers a senior pastor that many Protestant congregations are failing to offer.
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Horton makes a similar comment in his book, God of Promise. This mindset suggests that people become Catholic primarily because their existential experience in Protestantism is unsatisfying.
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Well, if I could comment, that is always a part of it. But I think it's much more—and
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I know a lot of Catholic converts. This is something where I think I can claim a little bit of expertise, been at this a few years, and there are a lot of reasons why people convert to Roman Catholicism.
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Dissatisfaction with where they are is, you know, obviously, if you're not focused upon the
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Gospel, if you do not find your deepest satisfaction in the contemplation of the finished work of Christ, the glory of the
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Atonement, union with Christ, justification by grace through faith alone, the sufficiency of Scripture—if all those things are merely words to you, and they are not that which provides you with daily joy and foundation for life, then, yeah, you're going to be focused on what people do or do not do for you, and whether your, quote -unquote, experience of, you know, experience of worship or music or, you know, you get focused on all this other stuff when you're not focused upon what is really central.
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And then it's really easy to start looking for the other church at that point. And the allegation of the continuity since the
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Apostles, the ancient church standing the midst of time, is very, very attractive to people at that particular point in time.
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As I sat in the class, though, I realized that Horton was mistaken. All the Catholics I knew who had converted from Calvinism had embraced the
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Catholic Church through a thoughtful and scripturally informed theological journey. Well, that is not my experience.
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That is, that, you know—and I'm sorry, scripturally informed? Uh, when I listened to the argumentation, especially in regards to the subject of Mary and the constant droning attacks on the soul of Scriptura, um,
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I'm sure that that's what they want to think that is, but it's anything but. During breaks, which we frequently had during the intensive classes,
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I had the chance to have lunch with groups of RTS students, and I was always surprised to discover how many had been at least baptized in the
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Catholic Church. This reality reinforced the perception, almost always present in Reformed circles, that when
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Catholics have a true conversion to Christ, they leave the Catholic Church. Well, yeah, that is the perception, because it's a gospel thing.
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And if Jeremy Tate's understanding of Reformed theology was such that the gospel is not definitive, the gospel does not define what it means to be
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Reformed, um, well, then I'm—okay, I suppose there are people who call themselves
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Reformed that are not overly focused upon the gospel these days, but, uh, yeah, that is perception.
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In truth, however, these students had never really entered into the fullness of the
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Catholic Church. They were never catechized. They were never taken to Mass regularly. They were never taught the unbroken history of the
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Church back to the apostles themselves. Or maybe they actually know that's a completely bogus claim.
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Maybe they actually know enough about Church history to know there is no unbroken line, and to even claim otherwise is to so horrifically twist
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Church history as to boggle the mind. Maybe they know about the
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Avignon papacy. Maybe they know about the pornography. Maybe they know something about the papacy and its teachings and its evolution.
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Maybe they know something about the patristic writings and the growth of papal primacy in the
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West over time and all the rest of that stuff. Maybe they're fully aware of that stuff. You never, never know.
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Since they now lived in the Reformed world, they were likely only to meet other people with similar stories who had likewise left the
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Catholic Church. Well, there's some truth to that statement. If, you know,
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I really think that it should be Reformed people especially who are the most actively involved in bringing the gospel of grace to Roman Catholics.
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And if they're not, then I really wonder why not. Where would they come in contact with people who had gone in the other direction, who had been baptized in Reformed Church, became
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Roman Catholic for theological reasons? I found that these interactions simply didn't happen. Well, actually, they do, and I've been involved with them for a long, long time.
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You can just ignore that they happen, but they do happen and have been happening for quite a while.
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Even from a sociological standpoint, I was fascinated by the mindset of these two groups. From their own experiences, the
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Reformed believed that Roman Catholics who truly found Christ became Protestant. Now, listen to this. While the
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Roman Catholics believed that any Protestant who truly wanted pure and undistorted Christianity became
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Catholic. Now, notice the difference. For the Protestants, it's an issue of salvation and the gospel.
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For the Roman Catholic, it's ecclesiology. It's submission to the Bishop of Rome. Both groups,
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Catholics from Calvinism and Calvinists from Catholicism, were either unaware of or maybe just ignored the existence of the other group.
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Well, that certainly isn't my experience. However, I did notice a profound difference between these two groups and the stories they shared of their conversions.
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Those who had left Catholicism for Calvinism never loved Catholicism to begin with.
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On the other hand, the Calvinists who had gone Roman Catholic had previously been the most zealous of Calvinists.
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They were believers who knew and loved the Reformed tradition and had essentially followed it until the road came to an unexpected end. This does seem to be a part and parcel of the conversion story.
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You know, started by Scott Hahn and Jerry Matotix and Steve Wood and all these guys.
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We were the firebrands. I, you know, I'll never forget. I've got to find this. I, you know, I think it's,
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I got to check the website. It may have fallen into that gap in 2004 or something. But I got to find this thing or find some volunteers willing to go through all my dusty copies of This Rock magazine.
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But I want to find and scan, again, the whole page ad from This Rock magazine where Jerry Matotix is standing in a
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Catholic church. He's got his suit on and all this stuff. And he's a young guy. And the big title above it is,
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I'm the one who led your loved ones out of the Catholic church. And, you know,
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Jerry Matotix used to be the big Catholic answers guy. They don't want, they don't really talk about that much anymore.
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Trying to sort of suppress that. But he was real, real up there at the top.
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And he was their darling apologist for quite some time. And, you know,
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I'll never forget the conversation I had with Jerry. I remember we were over at the, on our old
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Camelback location where, you know, I know Barry, you spent the evening there one night waiting for young Mormons to throw rocks to the windows again.
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I remember that one. But, and surprising people that just sort of showed up in the middle of the night. But anyhow,
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I remember what my office looked like. And, oh, if you remember that place, the carpet was horrific.
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You know, it was all bunched up in places. And, oh, it was, we've been in some really lousy digs over the years. But, you know, we're always, we're always poor.
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And that's just the way it is. I think that carpet brought a nice price down in Mexico City. They ripped it out.
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I think so. It's terrible. No offense in Mexico City. Sorry, folks. Anyway, that was
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Barry, not me. And so I'm in this, I had these metal shelves and, you know, the stuff you get at Home Depot or something like that.
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And that was all my, where my books were and stuff. And I'm sitting there on the phone with Jerry Matitix. And so I just started asking questions because he made some comment about,
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I know where you're coming from, James. Really, really, Jerry. What books did you write on Roman Catholicism when you were a
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Presbyterian minister? Well, James, I didn't write any books. How about some tracts? No, I didn't.
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Articles? You have some articles published. Maybe some tapes of some conferences you did where you spoke on this subject.
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Did you debate anybody? Well, no. Well, Jerry, why do you make yourself out to be this, quote unquote, anti -Catholic?
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This guy who is this big anti -Catholic. When the reality is you were just a
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Protestant. You know, I mean, you were opposed to Roman Catholicism, duh. But you were just a
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Protestant. You weren't, you don't, weren't doing what I'm doing. You didn't put yourself out there like that.
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You know, but that's, that's how they wanted. We were zealous for the Reformed tradition and we were all the rest of this stuff.
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Let me, let me say something to, you know, to Jeremy Tate and to the rest of these folks here.
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You are not zealous and you are not really even truly Reformed if your entire self -identity is not wrapped up in a recognition of the sovereignty of God and the glory of his grace.
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I mean, you can go to a Reformed church and you can memorize Westminster Confession of Faith or the
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London Baptist Confession of Faith. You can do whatever you want to do. You can, you can have all the, all the credentials you want.
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But I know what it means to walk through the deep and difficult times of life and you find at the bedrock that you stand upon when everything else is given way, your absolute conviction that God is sovereign over human events and what
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I'm going through is a part of his purpose for my life and it is part of his work of his spirit in my life to conform me to the image of Christ.
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And you can't just turn away, turn around and throw that out and say, well, I was a really good Calvinist. I was really
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Reformed. You just can't do that. And so, you know, you can, you can talk about, you know, how zealous you were or, you know, knew and loved the
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Reformed tradition, all the rest of that stuff. And that's really what caught my attention here because the end of this thing, we'll get to it in a moment.
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Then we're going to take our calls. We've got two calls online. We'll get to you. But don't talk to me about your externals.
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You can have all the credentials you want. And, you know, sometimes
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I have to remind my Reformed brethren of this too. You know, and everybody wants to look at me and say, well, you're not
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Reformed because you don't believe this, that or the other thing. And there are people, you know, at certain seminaries that, well, you know, he's not
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Reformed because he's a, you know, there's no such thing as Reformed Baptist, all the rest of the stuff. Let me tell you something. Let me say something to my
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Reformed brethren. There is a heart and soul to what it means to believe in the
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God of the Bible, unedited and undiminished on the basis of modernistic assumptions.
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There is a heart and soul to that, that transcends any document written in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
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And if you don't see that, then you are not lifting your eyes up high enough. There are a lot of people today going to quote unquote
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Reformed churches that do not have nearly a high enough view of scripture to remain Reformed or nearly a high enough view of the gospel to remain
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Reformed. And that's why you see formerly Reformed denominations going into apostasy.
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There is a core, there is a heart of accepting
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God for who he is, that transcends anything else.
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And if you don't see that, then I'm sorry, you're blind. You're just not looking. You're blinded by your own traditions.
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And I'm talking to Reformed people right now. And it binds us together despite differences we might have in other areas.
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And I'm not saying those other areas aren't important. I've debated them enough times to demonstrate I do think they're important.
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But you see, when I debate my Pato Baptist brethren, they are my brethren.
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And what unites us is that commitment to the absolute freedom of God to accomplish his own self -glorification in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And if you can't see it, that's enough to be a basis of unity. Well, I feel for you.
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But I'm not going to stop proclaiming the fact that that's our foundation. And you know what?
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I think a lot of people hear me when I say it. And I think when people say, well, he's not really
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Reformed, I think they look, they end up looking a little small at that point.
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So anyway, that sermon was free.
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I have frequently been asked whether or not the professors that I'm going back to the article now in case you're wondering.
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I have frequently been asked whether or not the professors at RTS accurately articulate the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church when juxtaposing it with the
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Reformed tradition. The answer here is complicated. There is no doubt that at times
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I heard gross misrepresentations of what the Catholic Church teaches. For example, in the Michael Horton class
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I mentioned earlier, a class of probably 50 students in it, Dr. Horton condemned the Vatican to a position on the possibility of salvation for those who do not profess faith in Christ.
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Horton offered a caricature of the Roman Catholic position, which suggested the
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Vatican II taught that anybody who lives a good life will be saved. In fact, Vatican II taught nothing of the sort, though Vatican II affirmed the truth that some men may be saved apart from a conscious knowledge of Christ as Savior, a truth affirmed by the
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WCF, as well in the case of infant mortality and mental retardation, the council maintained with clarity that salvation comes only through Christ.
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Now that, I'm sorry, is a misrepresentation of Romanism on the part of Jeremy Tate.
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We all know what Vatican II, first of all, who is Jeremy Tate to interpret
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Vatican II? He's a graduate of RTS, he's not even a graduate of a Roman Catholic institution.
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And so are there priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church who interpret
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Vatican II in a much broader way than Jeremy Tate ever would? Well, of course. And that's the problem because Rome won't,
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Rome can't provide that kind of final word, or at least the modern Roman Catholic Church won't, because they're trying to hold together such a massively wide variety of perspectives.
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But what's more than that, we know Vatican II taught in regards to the Muslims and said that they, together with us, adore the one true
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God. What does adore mean? You can actually worship and adore a
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Unitarian God, and that's the same thing as Trinitarian worship? Really? And that they are heirs of eternal life?
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Really? Now, there are all sorts of interpretations of these things by Roman Catholics today.
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That's why they're, most of their arguments against Sola Scriptura are just so utterly bogus.
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But the fact of the matter is, that's, he gives one interpretation, of Vatican II, but it's not the only one.
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And how's his authoritative? I mean, he can get to choose his favorite, you know, folks and his favorite interpreters, but that's the problem with Roman Catholicism.
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Once the Pope speaks, it's got to be interpreted. Once the council speaks, it's got to be interpreted. And that has only led to more confusion, not less confusion.
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The other distortion of Catholic teaching that I noticed took an unexpected form. As might be expected, several classes discussed the crucial differences in the understanding of justification between the
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Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed tradition. At times, the substance of the root facts concerning how the
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Roman Catholic Church understands justification were accurately presented. Well, it's not difficult to do, at least historically.
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It's questionable today. These facts, however, had been completely removed from the context of God's love.
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In contrast, the professors presented the Reformed view of justification as the most wondrous act of God's love. Well, what would you expect them to do?
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To be fair, Catholics tend to do this to the Reformed as well. I've heard Catholics present the Reformed view as if God still despises us, but has found a loophole to his own justice through the death of Christ.
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If the dialogue towards unity is to continue, the dialogue towards unity, we must recognize that for both the
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Roman Catholic and the Reformed, the death of Christ on the cross is the supreme act of God's love.
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For it is here that he merited salvation for us and attained the promised blessings, the old covenants for God's people.
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It is here that salvation can be by grace alone and not by works. It is here that God's love melts away the hardness in the hearts of his children.
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It is here that we must focus our eyes if we are to make any progress towards Christian unity. That all sounds so wonderful, but what does any of it mean?
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The cross is the supreme act of God's love. Agreed. Which is why Rome's view of the cross due to the mass is such a gross blasphemy.
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To rob the finishness of the work of Christ, so that some man who calls himself an alter
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Christus, another Christ, a father, can by some sacramental authority unknown to the sacred writings, bring
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Christ down from his throne and render him body, soul, blood and divinity as a bloodless sacrifice that perfects no one upon an altar.
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Oh, what blasphemy. That's why I just don't understand how anyone who has ever understood the finished work of Christ and gloried in that atonement could ever embrace such a thing and call it
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Christianity. It is just amazing to me, for it is here that he merited salvation for us.
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Merited as in a treasury of merit that then the church controls and then can dole out through indulgences,
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Mr. Tate. You attain the promised blessings, the old covenants for God's people.
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How about the promised blessing of the new covenant? It is here that salvation can be by grace alone and not by works.
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Really? Grace alone? And we've got faith alone.
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It is here that God's love melts away the hardness in the hearts of his children. Really? I thought his children had had their hearts of stone taken out and been given hearts of flesh.
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That was the promise of Ezekiel, wasn't it? And Jeremiah.
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It is here that we must focus our eyes if we are to make any progress towards Christian unity. That's true. And you see,
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Christian unity will be obtained when we proclaim the gospel and those who have embraced a false gospel embrace the gospel of Christ.
33:36
Subtitle. Indebted to the Reformed Tradition. I had expected that as I settled into the
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Roman Catholic Church, I would begin to feel less indebted to the Reformed Tradition. As I reflect on my experiences at RTS, however,
33:48
I realize the exact opposite has happened. If you click on the welcome link on the Call to Communion homepage, you'll find it answers the question,
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Who are the members of Call to Communion? There you'll find this statement. We are grateful for all that we learned about the Christian faith in the
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Reformed Tradition. We are also grateful for the piety that we found within the Reformed congregations to which we belong and for the love for truth that is a significant aspect of the
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Reformed Tradition. We do not view ourselves as having left our Reformed faith behind, but rather as having found its fullness in the
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Catholic Church. Now, let me just say, as again, as warm and fuzzy as that sounds, that makes as much sense to someone who really is
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Reformed as someone starting a website for Mormonism called
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Called to LDS Communion and saying, I was once a
34:36
Calvinist, but now I'm a Mormon. You see, I use that as an example because you go, well, wait a minute, the
34:43
Mormons worship a completely different God. They think they can become gods. Their God lives on a planet that circles a star named
34:49
Kolob. Well, that's true. These men at Called to Communion have embraced a gospel that is the fundamental denial of the heart of what it means to be
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Reformed. It is a fundamental denial of the sovereign freedom of God to save his elect people by grace and grace alone.
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Now that I have graduated from RTS, I feel a deeper affinity with these words than ever before. I am humbled by the leadership at RTS DC.
35:27
My professors are among the most scripturally knowledgeable believers I've ever met. The whole of their lives is clearly informed by the love of God.
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Their focus is Christ and they live out of a profound thankfulness for his saving work on the cross, even though from a Roman Catholic perspective, they utterly deny the central act of Christian worship in the mass,
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I would think. I do not wish to estrange myself from them or pick or pick
35:50
I fight with them. I think there's a typo there. I simply want them to discover what I have.
35:57
I want them to see that the glorious benefits that we have in Christ benefits, which they articulate so well benefits, which they first taught me to relish in are available right here in this life.
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They're available in the Roman Catholic church. They're available in the Eucharist and liturgy to confession, absolution and holy water and witnessing baptism and real communion with the saints of old.
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Mr. Tate, you don't understand the heart of the gospel that is the
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Reformed gospel. Because if you can embrace repetitive confession, indulgences, purgatory, the repetitive representation of the alleged one sacrifice of Christ that will never perfect you, then you do not understand what those men were teaching.
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That is just all there is to it. 877 -753 -3341.
36:59
Let's get to our phone calls and let's talk with John. Hello, John.
37:05
Hey, how's it going, Dr. White? Going well. I have a comment. I noticed a couple of weeks ago on the dividing line, you made a comment about some guys who had contributed articles to BioLogos getting fired.
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Yeah. And if I'm wrong, if I misinterpreted you, just feel free to tell me.
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But I got the impression you were rather pleased with that happening. Yes. Yes, I would be.
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I consider BioLogos a gross act of compromise, the entire website. Well, I just wanted to let you know that those of us who are theistic evolutionists, we believe in God as a creator as well.
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It's just we believe he took his time and used natural processes rather than doing it instantaneously.
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I know. I've been fighting that system for decades. I know it very, very well. You just have no biblical leg to stand on,
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John, that's all. And I think these men, if they are going to contribute to a movement that is fundamentally undercutting the authority of Scripture and attacking
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Scripture, I mean, the articles on BioLogos have been very, very clear. One fellow,
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I guess, just left recently. I've forgotten what his name is. But the things that he was saying in regards to the fundamental authority of Scripture, it's very, very clear undercutting the authority of Scripture.
38:30
Well, I haven't read all the articles. I've just read a handful. But I just thought, you know, that seemed strange to me.
38:35
I thought I might ask you about it. Yeah, well, no, I see absolutely positively.
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I fully understand why people embrace theistic evolution. It has to do with not recognizing the ultimate authority of the
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Word of God and wanting to fit in with the modern world and its viewpoints on cosmology and things like that.
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I fully understand that. I've finished a degree in biology.
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I was a biology major. I was the only person, even at a Christian university, that went against the trends.
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All my professors were theistic evolutionists. I understand the pressure that's put upon people.
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I understand all of that stuff. I just go, yeah, well, you know, fundamentally, it comes down to ultimate authorities and cosmologies come and cosmologies go.
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But what I'm seeing at Biologos is a fundamental assertion that the method of interpretation that must be applied to the scriptures needs to be informed by current scientific methodology rather than the intention of the original writers.
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And that is a tried and true path directly into the destruction of the authority of the
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Word of God. It's been happening for, well, ever since the Enlightenment. Hello?
40:04
Oh, I'm right here. Well, I find that interesting. I'm not saying
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I agree with everything Biologos says, but I used to be creationist for most of my Christian life.
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I've been saved for, oh, since I was 15 years old. I'm 35 now.
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And it was actually studying the Word and reading over and over again how human beings were compared to pottery and how we were shaped from the dust of the earth and the potsherds of the earth, so forth and so on.
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You think that has something to do with theistic evolution? Well, you know, I viewed the pottery metaphor as something being sculpted from the dust of the earth, so to speak.
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And I'm like, well, wait a second, that's what evolution basically shows you is how through natural process you go from dust of the earth to living things.
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And I was looking at that. John, that is not what any of those illustrations have to do with.
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They are talking, the emphasis upon that is the sovereignty of God and His power as creator has nothing to do with the mechanism that God would use to create.
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What's more is, you know, I don't know how well people are informed on the actual mechanisms of neo -Darwinian micromutational evolutionary theory, but to look at the complexity of life as we know it today.
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And as more information comes out day by day, we are amazed at the designed -ness, not the apparent design, but the designed -ness of life.
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Now, unless you're saying, well, yeah, and God designed all that. He just did it very, very slowly. That's not neo -Darwinian orthodoxy.
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And you see, the neo -Darwinians don't have any room for you at all.
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I mean, let's just be honest. I understand the Dawkins types view it as strictly atheistic terms, but as someone...
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Well, the system is purely atheistic. There is no room for teleology in neo -Darwinian micromutational evolutionary theory.
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It is the exact opposite of what the system is based upon. There is no teleology.
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So if you're saying that God was tweaking things along the way, you find yourself in between the two groups in no man's land.
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The real evolutionists don't want anything to do with you at all. And those of us over here are going, why are you out there in the first place?
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All you're doing is you're sort of doing what the Molinists do in the sense that to try to save free will, they end up with a
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God who micromanages every single thing to a level that is infinitesimal.
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And those of us over here on the Reform side go, why are you bothering to do that? It doesn't make any sense.
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And so I look at the cell, and I look at the mechanics of the cell, and I don't know if you saw my debate with Dan Barker, but I talked in there about the
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F1 ATPase and its functions. And I look at this and I go, how can anybody, whether it's a...
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And I know why Dawkins doesn't see it. We see his dogmatism. But how can anybody look at this and go that this is the result of natural processes?
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Now, if you say it's not the result of natural processes, it's the result of divine processes... What I would say is that God writes the laws of chemistry, physics, et cetera, et cetera, that lead to the natural processes that do that.
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Well, the problem is you cannot explain by natural process, John, how something that complex could ever arise on the level that it has arisen.
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There aren't any mechanisms that can possibly explain how that level of complexity can arise based upon natural laws that God just simply put in place.
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And you don't see that happening. We do see natural selection, but natural selection has to have something to work upon.
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And things like F1 ATPase are fundamental for any type of natural selection to take place to begin with.
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So the complexity is below the level at which that works. So there had to have been special creation to bring those things into existence in the first place.
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Once you allow all of that, there's no reason for all the rest of the evolutionary theory to explain it, because you've now brought
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God in to such a level that the evolutionists are going to have nothing to do with you anymore anyways. And if what
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Biologos wants to do is make Christianity, quote, unquote, well, what was it Bruce Waltke said?
44:54
If we're not careful, Christianity can become a little cult. That's what Biologos is about, is, well, we want to be acceptable in the sight of the world.
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Look, folks, the Lordship of Christ is never going to be acceptable in the sight of the world. That will always be a scandal.
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And when we try to, quote, unquote, fit in, it's not going to work. So, yeah, what
45:14
I was saying on that comment, and I didn't ever get back to it, and I don't even have those pages bookmarked anymore, but what
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I was going to get to is, yeah, if you teach for an institution that says X, Y, and Z in part of its statement of faith, and then you go over and contradict
45:30
X, Y, and Z at Biologos, I think that it's appropriate for that institution to say, oops.
45:37
I mean, if I started posting stuff at some, well, call to communion or something, you think the folks at PRBC would be appropriate to ask me what in the world
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I'm doing and remove me from eldership or something? Yeah, I would say so. Wouldn't you agree?
45:56
Well, I wouldn't call Biologos cultic. I think they just have a different viewpoint of creation.
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You know, and like I said— Yeah, but they also have a different viewpoint of the authority of Scripture. And I think that is absolutely central.
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I mean, if we don't stay focused on that, if we haven't learned anything from church history, we've just got to look back over the past 150 years at the
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United Methodists and the old Presbyterians that have split off into all these little groups and all these churches that once had a meaningful theology and a view of Scripture, and as soon as they abandoned that, that's what's resulted in the
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Episcopalian Church and PCUSA and the United Church of Christ. They took a step that led to where they are now, where they're ordaining lesbians and doing homosexual marriages and promoting abortion and have an absolutely acidic view of Scripture that destroys any faith in it.
46:54
And it started someplace. Well, I think it's when they abandoned Calvinism, I think, a lot of that.
47:00
John, let me tell you something. Calvinism is based upon a much higher view of Scripture than can possibly be maintained if you start questioning the reality of God's revelation.
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I mean, the only way—the only reason to be a Calvinist is if you actually believe that God has—that what isn't found in Scripture is theionistos.
47:22
It's God -breathed. Once you abandon that, there's no reason to be a Calvinist anymore. There's no reason to be a Trinitarian anymore, to be very honest with you.
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Rest assured, I'm a Calvinist and a Trinitarian. Well, I would—that's great.
47:36
I am not kicking you out of the kingdom of God. I'm just simply saying, John, I think you need to rethink this.
47:41
And I think if you're really interested in scientific stuff and things like that, there's a lot—there is so much reason, and the amount of information grows every day to question the quote -unquote scientific consensus.
47:57
Because when you really dig into what it's created by, it's created by politics and an ungodly worldview.
48:04
It's not created by the facts themselves. That's just the way it is. Okay? All right.
48:10
Thank you very much. Thanks, John. God bless you. All right. Bye -bye. All right. Let's talk with Arlen.
48:17
Hi, Arlen. Hello, Arlen. Going once, going—
48:24
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, there he is. Boy, you had one more shot there, and then you were history.
48:31
Yeah, yeah. My iPhone likes to mute me accidentally. It doesn't like me talking.
48:37
So you probably don't like me talking either, so— Well, that's true. Yeah, I just kicked you out of the channel.
48:43
But anyways, what's up? Yeah. Did you really? Yes, I did.
48:49
You experienced a coogee kick, so anyway. Oh, wow. I'm in shock now.
48:54
I don't know if I can even ask questions. I was curious if—okay, my question has to do with penal substitution.
49:01
I've encountered a lot of pseudo -Eastern Orthodox -esque kind of theology from a number of students at Biola.
49:10
That's because they've allowed Eastern Orthodox people to teach there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And generally speaking, when
49:19
I talk to these people, they dismiss penal substitution. And usually I can kind of give a decent enough defense of it, but it comes down to basically, well, that's your opinion, this is mine, let's agree to disagree.
49:33
And my question to you is, how would you make a case for penal substitution that can't be dismissed that way?
49:43
How can you get around that kind of a defense? Well, not too many people pulled that stunt with me in the first place.
49:48
I have a little bit of advantage on you at that point. But a number of books have come out recently on the subject of penal substitution because there is an attack upon it that is ongoing right now, especially from Wesleyan and Armenian perspectives.
50:07
But it's a simple biblical reality. The language that is utilized is so clear.
50:16
The Greek term hupere is used over and over again, not only in Paul's writings, but in Hebrews in regards to the work of Christ in behalf of his intercession, in behalf of his death, in behalf of the union with Christ leads to penal substitution.
50:32
All of these things are part and parcel of that. And prophetically, I preached at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Houston Sunday morning, and I preached on Isaiah 53.
50:44
I did the same thing over two sermons at PRBC a few weeks ago. And it's amazing the consistency of the substitutionary aspect of the language that is utilized in Isaiah 53.
51:05
I mean, given that the prophetic witness is so clear, you know, he bore our iniquities and our transgressions and he carried, carry, bear, take place of all.
51:20
It's just, it's incredible. And then that just becomes fleshed out so clearly in the
51:26
Great Exchange in 2 Corinthians 5 and the terminology of Hebrews. I mean, it's just a matter of going to the texts that speak of the death of Christ and the consistency of the
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New Testament writers in making that application. So it's, you know, anybody says, well, it's just your opinion.
51:42
It's like, well, that's nice, but can you deal with what the text is actually saying? Or do you just hold the viewpoint that the text has no objective revelation of itself and that any interpretation is just an opinion?
51:55
Because if you're talking to somebody like that, then you have much more fundamental issues of epistemology to deal with. And very often, these conversations actually boil down to that rather than to an actual meaningful interaction with the text.
52:10
Yeah, I saw that with one particular person constantly appealed to church tradition and saying, well, we don't see penal substitution in the church fathers very frequently.
52:20
Well, and as if his interpretation of self -contradictory patristic sources has some relevance to the determination of God's truth in regards to penal substitution.
52:32
You know, Pastor King just posted in Channel words of Christistom on that very issue.
52:42
And, you know, anybody can pick and choose. I just don't find anybody who makes that kind of, you know, someone makes that kind of argument.
52:51
I go, wow, who made you the interpreter of church tradition? That's real nice.
52:57
Yeah, I get back to scripture. And if they don't have ears to hear, you know, what can
53:04
I say? Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much. Okay, man. Thanks, Carl.
53:10
Yep. All right. Have a good one. All right. Let's talk with Andrew. Hello, Andrew.
53:16
Yes. Hello, Dr. White. Yes, sir. I had a question on your thoughts on something.
53:22
I've been in a disagreement with some friends of mine on the Internet who have asserted, them coming from a
53:29
Lutheran perspective, that the behavior of the West Borough Baptist Church and their quote -unquote theology is more or less
53:38
Calvinism taken to its logical conclusion. That's another reason not to spend too much time arguing with people on the
53:47
Internet. Well, yeah. But I thought, you know, there are probably people
53:54
I'm going to run into in person that are someday that may say the same thing. Calvinism being not that popular, and especially in America, it doesn't seem...
54:05
Oh, I don't know. It sort of depends on where you go. But no, it's certainly a minority report, but actually a high view of scripture is a minority report, too.
54:15
Well, my initial response was, well, they're hyper -Calvinist, and even a more grotesque version of hyper -Calvinist than I can probably find anywhere else, and that the reason they behave the way they do, in part, besides just being evil to the point of insanity, is that they think they know who the elect are already, and that's why they treat everybody else the way they do.
54:43
Yeah, I'm sorry. I really struggle with anyone who would look at Fred Phelps and his little family cult and draw any meaningful theological conclusions from what is so clearly and obviously...
54:59
I mean, first of all, any type of meaningful observation of a theological tradition, it has to be based upon enough time and enough people to carry some kind of weight.
55:09
And we're talking here about a tiny, almost incestuous little family cult group that you could find in any religion anywhere.
55:21
So to build anything upon that, again, I find that to be disingenuous at best and absurd at worst.
55:31
Further, to look at anybody and say, okay, they affirm this, and yet at the very same time, they are so clearly out of balance with so many of the commands of Scripture, means that they are not seeking in any way, shape, or form to actually be obedient to the entire counsel of God.
55:56
Well, let me ask you this. If you think this is a good way of looking at it, because I thought so, but I just kind of wanted to un -spy you.
56:07
What I said was they took the, quote -unquote, tulip, and sort of a deformed version of it that cut it out of everything else, and just sort of, you know, they cling to that.
56:19
And then, like you said, they don't, for instance, obey the command to go preach the Gospel to everybody.
56:27
And the reason it looks like it does is because they've taken a piece of something, overemphasized a couple pieces of the piece they took, and like I said before, or to, you know, just not to absolve them of responsibility, but in a way, just not.
56:48
Well, Andrew, it's real simple. The answer is, very clearly, their profession of Reformed theology is laughable because they do not live in accordance with the very profession that they make.
57:06
They hate other Christians. I've experienced this myself. I've encountered
57:12
Fred Phelps personally. He is not under the authority of the
57:17
Word of God in any way, shape, or form. Refuses any correction. He's just as bad as Harold Camping on that level.
57:24
He's his own little cult leader. And therefore, it doesn't matter what he says.
57:29
I mean, it would be just as grossly wrong to take this little group, if he was a
57:35
Wesleyan Arminian or something, and say, ah, see, this is the clear example of what happens when you do this.
57:46
No, this is one little, tiny, little group. And you just do not make grand conclusions based upon what you've got in something that small from someone who is so completely imbalanced and consumed with hatred and so completely disconnected from what it means to be
58:04
Reformed in any way, shape, or form. So hey, Andrew, I'm sorry. The music's coming up.
58:09
We are out of time. Thanks for your hanging on and the phone call today. God bless you. Thanks for listening to the program today.
58:16
We covered, again, a wide variety of things. Thank you, Barry. That was pretty simple, wasn't it?
58:23
Didn't throw you any major curves, anything like that. So of course, whether it was recorded or not,
58:28
I don't know. We'll find out. The people listening right now may have been the only ones to have ever heard it.
58:35
So if you're recording it, folks, keep that around. We might need the file. Who knows? Lord will and don't forget,
58:42
Radio Free Geneva coming up Thursday afternoon. This same time. We'll see you then.
58:48
God bless. Are you tired of praying religion?
59:23
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59:43
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59:50
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59:56
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