James White vs Ann McKinney (Fundamentalists Anonymous)

In any event, we're going to be talking about fundamentalism. Fundamentalism. What is it? What does it mean? What effects does it have? And, of course, you heard like us the other day with a very, very active debate between a fundamentalist and an atheist, which I thought was very, very interesting.

Again, two sides of an issue, not this wimpish approach to radio where you just get one side. We have in our studio Mr. Jim White. He is with Alpha and Omega Ministry, which I have to assume is a fundamentalist organization.

And we have on our information line Ann McKinney, and she is the head of the Dallas chapter of the Fundamentalist Anonymous. We have two opposing forces here, and that's the way we should dissect issues, see both sides of it.

Welcome aboard, Ann McKinney. Well, thank you, Bob. You're in Dallas, Texas, and you are the head of the Dallas chapter of the Fundamentalist Anonymous. I would like you to say hello, if you will, to Mr. Jim White of the Alpha and Omega Ministry.

Well, hello, Jim. I think you're going to find in the long run that we probably have a lot more points in common than you think, and we're probably shooting for a lot of the same goals.

Well, I don't want you people agreeing. I want you disagreeing. I mean, come on here. Okay, we'll try. All right, fine. Now, I'm going to start off first with Jim White with Alpha Omega Ministry. Is it true in my assumption that this is a fundamentalist organization?

I am a fundamentalist Christian minister, yes.

And what do you espouse in this particular organization?

Well, Alpha Omega Ministries is a Christian organization that trains Christians to deal with other religions. We deal in Christian apologetics. For example, I was as interested as you were with Tom's program two days ago because we deal a lot in that area of sharing the Christian faith with atheists, with people who would take a Christian label but would deny the central doctrines of Christianity.

And that's the main function of our ministry.

But you are a fundamentalist. Yes, I am. Beneath it all, you are a fundamentalist. And, of course, we'll need to define that. Yeah, I would like to do that right now because for the benefit of our listeners, we've heard a lot about fundamentalists.

Pat Roberts is a fundamentalist.

What does that mean? What is fundamentalism? Well, unfortunately today, the original definition of fundamentalism has seemingly been lost in the shuffle. Whether that was purposeful or not is obviously open to debate.

A fundamentalist historically is a person who holds to the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, which would include the acceptance of the Word of God, the Bible as the Word of God. It would then follow that we would believe that there is one God, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that we believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth of Christ, the Atonement of Christ, the Resurrection of Christ, and, in other words, the fundamentals of the Christian religion.

Now, the term evolved when the wave of, quote-unquote, liberalism swept through seminaries at the beginning of this century, specifically Princeton and others, when these fundamentals were attacked. And so those who held to those beliefs in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ became known as fundamentalists over against those who would take a whole metaphysical interpretation that, well, it doesn't really matter whether Jesus rose bodily or not type idea.

That is what a fundamentalist is theologically. Unfortunately, a lot of excess baggage has been added to the term fundamentalist, especially since the Christian right has risen in the political spectrum over the past decade.

Do you not consider yourself part of the religious right? Well, politically, I would be.

But to completely identify fundamentalism with a particular political viewpoint, I think, is to do a great disrespect to the fundamentalist position. If a person is going to, for example, name an organization Fundamentalist Anonymous, which would be similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, which would have a negative connotation to what a fundamentalist is, then I think you should define who it is you're talking about.

All right, let's find out from Ann McKinney. She is the head of the Dallas chapter of Fundamentalist Anonymous. Just what is this organization?

Well, FA is basically set up as a self-help and support group by people who have not had the kind of happy, joyous experience in fundamentalist religions that Jim has obviously had. Basically, what we're stating goes along with certain fundamentalist religions and certain people's experience within fundamentalist religions.

People get into the fundamentalist religions because they have so many problems in their lives, and they go in being promised a bill of goods, God will take care of this, God will take care of that, everything will be rosy and sunny if you're born again our way, and then when they get to the other side and they find that the answers are not there, the kind of promises that were sold and packaged with God were not there, there's a great deal of frustration.

Quite often, people leave the fundamentalist religions because they have a question within doctrine or a question, say, you know, some people get upset about Darwinian theory of evolution and scientific creationism versus that, but they will leave religion.

Some people, on the other hand, are forced out of the church, whether it be for a political view, personal view, political battle within the church, whatever. Those people are left quite often without a support system because their lives are within the church, all their friends are within the church, sometimes their jobs are within the church, and they have no stronghold.

They are left angry, depressed, and they're so upset with the experience of religion that they turn their back completely on faith, and I think that Jim would agree with me that a lot of stuff is done in the name of religion that has absolutely nothing to do with faith, and those kind of situations occur.

These people are left like the religious walking wounded. Some people carry this pain, the anger, the guilt. Backsliders, if they question any point of doctrine within that specific church, it may not have anything to do with what's in the Bible, but, you know, it gets a lot to legalism, and legalism would be defined as, you know, you can't dance, you can't smoke, you can't drink, you can't, you know, some religions that people get the most frustrated, and that's where we are dealing with the pain.

We're not anti-God, we're not anti-religion, we're not even anti-fundamentalist because some people are very happy and are very spiritually and personally enriched in fundamentalism. We think that's great, but for those people who need a support system in the interim, we're there.

It is my understanding from this little booklet that I have in my hand right now, Ann, that there are some very serious problems that are associated with people who are disenchanted with fundamentalism, and I'm just going to name a few of them, and then allow our guest to react to it.

Number one is low self-esteem, loneliness, and isolation. These are symptoms of somebody who is disenchanted with fundamentalism. Chronic depression, fear of divine retribution, sexual difficulties, fear of harassment, coercion, and persecution by fundamentalists, inability to talk about past involvement and background, occasional lapses into fundamentalist consciousness, bitterness and anger over lost time, in other words, the time that they have devoted to the pursuit of this belief, they resent that, and chronic distrust of peoples and groups.

You find these to be common denominators with former fundamentalists, is that correct?

This has been almost a blanket situation nationwide. In any situation where someone has come out of the fundamentalist religions, not all of them, but some of them are for any reason, you know, they've devoted a great deal of time, their entire livelihood quite often, their entire emotional value is put in that religion, and when they are left, those are the kind of responses we have.

I counsel people every day, people who are suicidal, people who are alcoholic, people who are depressed, and I've talked several people down for a moment. I've heard a gun barrel whirling on the other end of the phone one time, and that will tell you the kind of level of depression that I'm having to deal with.

All right, let me jump in here and give Jim White another opportunity. This is a hell of a religion if it results in depression and bitterness and retribution, fear, guilt, and so forth.

How do you respond to this? Well, I'd just like to point out that the idea that fundamentalism is the cause for this, I think, is completely off base. First of all, you will find liberals who are depressed, who have low self-esteem, the whole nine yards.

This has nothing to do with fundamentalism. It has to do with a mindset that some people might get into, but to say that a fundamentalist, per se, then creates a mindset in which they are liable to undergo depression, suicidal thoughts, something like that, is to misrepresent what fundamentalism is.

Obviously, a fundamentalist answer to that is simply this. If a person truly follows the precepts that are laid down by fundamentalism and understands those things, there are answers for all the things that she has brought up.

Those things occur in everyone's life, whether you're a fundamentalist or not.

You're saying that they can solve their own problem through the fundamentalist precepts that she's saying are causing the problems.

Exactly. I'm saying that fundamentalism is not the source of these problems. These problems happen to everyone, whether they're fundamentalists or not. I mean, would you not agree we could probably find a few liberals who have attempted to commit suicide to identify the acceptance of the central core of Christianity and make that an equation in which that results in these kinds of things, I think just is simply not true.

I, too, have counseled with many people who were not fundamentalists who were going through this kind of a situation. To identify fundamentalism with a mindset that creates this, I think, is simply not true.

I am a fundamentalist. I have as many strains on my life as anyone else does. I'm not suicidal. I don't have a low self-esteem. The things that you listed there, you are going to find people in any church organization that are going to have problems with suicide.

Any church organization. You name the most extreme cult on the left or the most extreme church on the right, and you're going to find people that are attracted to those things. That does not mean that the teaching of that church fosters that kind of a reaction.

I'm going to recite a few quotes, and I would invite both of you, Jim and Ann, to jump in here, and we'll try to establish a theme. Some of these quotes are somewhat disturbing, and I'm going to ask you, Jim, to respond to it.

God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. Agree or disagree?

You have to define the context in which it was stated.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Don't dance around this. God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. That is a quote from Reverend Bailey Smith, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. I'm sure it's been around the country a thousand times.

At least. At least. Now, you're a fundamentalist. You would have to agree with that utterance.

No, wait a minute. Let's get some ground rules down here. First of all, do you have the entire quote there with an entire paragraph in it? Well, then you know as well as I how you can take something out and make something out of it, right?

If it's not in its context. Go ahead. The context would be in reference to, it is a theological position, by the way, that the believer has direct access to God through Jesus Christ. No unbeliever has the same access.

That does not mean that God does not hear an unbeliever's prayer. He just does not hear it in the same way as a believer. And you have to put it in the same context in which he spoke it. That's unfair to put it in the context that is foreign to what the speaker originally said.

I heard him explain that or attempt to explain that away and I didn't get any substance from it.

Well, let's put it this way. I would agree with it if you put it in that context.

Alright. Do you have any comment on that?

I found that to be one of the most reprehensible statements that came out of that particular Southern Baptist convention. And that happened to have occurred here. And I heard the entire speech and I heard the context in which the statement was made.

And those kinds of comments are quite common within certain fundamentalist religions. The aspect is we have the only true way to God in the big picture. That's like Jimmy Swagger recently stating that Mother Teresa, while a good and noble Christian woman, and doing everything she could in the piety of Christ-like piety, was still going to go to hell because she wasn't born again in the same way that he felt was prescribed as the ultimate way to heaven.

Well, again, this is a very common problem in discussing this subject. And that is fundamentalism has become this massively broad definition that pulls anybody and everybody in who makes a Bible comment all of a sudden they become a fundamentalist.

Again, I would have to say that fundamentalism, if you're going to define it that way, is your own definition. It is not the definition that is historically based and able to be discussed on its own maritime ground.

Well, I can see how some of these quotes could cause a great deal of suspicion on the part of those who are not truly initiated into fundamentalism. Let me quote another one. God Almighty says that when you enter into marriage, Jesus Christ is the head of the man, and the husband, in turn, is the head of the wife.

In important decisions, if there is any kind of dispute, the ultimate authority needs to be the husband. Agree or disagree with that? You agree with that? I can see where this would cause some very definite problems within a marriage, Anne McKinney.

Out of context, yes. No, wait a minute. Why is it out of context? It's a direct quote from Reverend Pat Robertson.

I'm well aware of that, but let's finish the topic. See, you're taking that, and the way I heard you, and I listened this morning. I'm a faithful listener, too, Bob. I listened this morning. I heard you mention that, and that does not finish the fact that the person who originally taught that, i .e., the Apostle Paul, that's not Pat Robertson.

That's Paul.

That's New Testament. Pat Robertson obviously believes it.

Well, yes, because it's in the New Testament. But that is not all the New Testament teaching concerning the man-woman relationship.

The bottom line, Jim, is that women should be subservient to men within the confines of the fundamentalist religion. That they are to be suppressed. They are not to be consulted.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. State that with a massive vote.

Jump in here, man. Jump in here. But I find that quite often that is the situation. Not only are we conditioned within fundamentalist religions as women, that we are to be totally subservient unto our husbands.

But in many cases, like right here in Dallas, it is perfectly fine for a woman who has a calling to the ministry to go to Dallas Theological Seminary and audit courses. But a woman will never be allowed to be a full-time student.

A woman will never be allowed to be a minister. In many churches, women are not even allowed on the pulpit. It is a situation that states that women in fundamentalist religions have the ultimate double whammy here.

Because we are told not only are we to be totally subservient unto the man, because that is the way God planned it according to Paul. But second, that we are the ultimate perpetrators of the original sin.

And there are a lot of religions that punish women for that. They are saying Eve was beguiled by the snake. Thus, every woman will pay for the rest of her life. And I think a lot of fundamentalist religions continue to promote that, continue to propagate that in their testimonies in churches.

Allow me to finish what I was saying. There is so much misunderstanding of what the New Testament teaching on this is. It is unbelievable. You listen to talk radio stations across the nation, and oh boy, everybody calls in and says, oh the Bible puts down women, the Bible puts down women, they are subservient, and all the rest of this stuff.

Anyone who says that has obviously not spent three picoseconds studying the subject. Not at all. When Jesus Christ came, women were nothing but chattel. They were complete property. That's it. They were not a person.

They had no equality with man in any way, shape, or form. The New Testament presents the woman as a person who is saved in Jesus Christ. The Bible says, Galatians 3, there is neither male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus.

They are treated as a person in him that was completely and totally revolutionary. Jesus ran into problems with the people of his day because he treated women in a way that was unknown. Now to take the fact, excuse me, let me finish my point.

Now to take the fact, to take the fact that Paul then says the home is not to have two heads. It is an organization, there is supposed to be one person at the top. To take that and say that women are therefore made somehow lower than the man is to ignore the fact that the man is to love the woman with the same love with which Christ loved the church.

He is to love her, respect her, consult her, take care of her. There is a mutual relationship there. And to present the Christian viewpoint of the man-woman relationship as a simple put down of the woman is to completely and totally misunderstand it.

Now, realize also, try to be fair with us for a moment, that there are going to be people who are going to take one verse and men who are going to take one verse, and men have taken one verse out of its context and have therefore mistreated their wives and mistreated women on the basis of that text.

A very basic thing in fundamentalism, you quote the Bible in context. Alright, hold on, hold your point right there.

There is a strong possibility the fundamentalist preacher will be running for the presidency. This causes some pause with many Americans. We have on our information line Ann McKinney. She is the head of the Dallas chapter of Fundamentalist Anonymous.

And Mr. Jim White who is with Alpha and Omega Ministries, a fundamentalist organization. We invite you to participate. Are you comfortable, uncomfortable with this? Let me go ahead and declare myself on this for both of you.

I feel uncomfortable around fundamentalists. I feel that it is based on narrow-mindedness, fear, guilt. I attribute it very closely to the Ayatollah Khomeini, similarly. The restriction of freedom, I think, is a very serious threat among fundamentalists.

They are concerned about what people read, what movies they see, what they see on television and so forth. They seem to want to impose their moral values on other people who may not share their same religious experience.

How would you react to that, Jim?

Well, I'd say you've been exposed to, unfortunately, probably a very vocal, but I would say a minority, of what I would identify as fundamentalists.

Now, Jimmy Swaggart is one example of a man who has turned me off from religion.

Okay, I do not support Jimmy Swaggart in everything that he says. That's one neat thing. People think fundamentalists have no freedom of choice. That is completely and totally false. Fundamentalism does stress adherence to particular doctrines and, indeed, is intolerant of rejection of those doctrines because those doctrines are central to the Christian faith.

But to misconstrue the understanding that all fundamentalists are, I think you used the term, close-minded. Is that the terminology you utilized a few moments ago? I'm a fundamentalist. I have exposed myself to atheism in its full attack upon my faith.

Many other religions I am aware of philosophical viewpoints. I am an open-minded person when it comes to listening to what other people have to say.

Then you obviously don't object to somebody going into a store and buying Playboy magazine.

Well, now, wait a minute. How are you equating that?

I'm equating it because Jerry Falwell has made a campaign and a career out of purging stores of Playboy.

But your question to me was, am I an open-minded individual? That means, am I willing to expose myself to...

...and picket a Circle K or a 7-Eleven or any other store that sells what you perceive to be pornography. I am against pornography. You would picket with him and deny me the right to go in and buy a Playboy magazine.

That's what I'm talking about, narrow-minded, restricted.

I don't think that most people who are involved in that are taking it on the stance that it is available to almost anybody in that situation. If you want to go out and buy a pornographic magazine, fine.

But I think that my children, when they go into Circle K, should not have to be exposed to it. It should be in a situation where you, as an adult, like beer. You can go get your beer if you're old enough.

And fortunately, most of those magazines, you don't have to pick them up to see what they are.

I mean... They're behind the counter and they're behind plain brown wrappers. Your children aren't going to be exposed to it. Not most of the time. Let's go to some of our callers. Ann, any time.

You jump in here. I'd like one quick comment here. Go ahead. On the recent efforts of Mr. Swaggard in particular, he made a speech that made a policy change with the Wal-Mart. And now Wal-Mart has pulled all the rock and roll magazines, rock and roll records, anything rock and roll.

And they still allow the sale of country music and certain rap music. Now, country music is far more pornographic. You know, sleeping single in a double bed, etc., etc., etc. And I see them jumping all over rock music because it's something visual that youth is attracted to.

But I don't see Jerry Falwell making a stand. I don't see Don Wildman from National Federation for Decency making a stand against rock music. And then we see Swaggard suggesting that it is moral and correct.

And here we have Jim suggesting that it's perfectly fine to pick at these stores. Well, Dallas, buckle of the Bible belt that it is, is the capital office of the Southland Corporation, which owns 7-Eleven.

7-Eleven was protested by 4 ,000 people last year on the other side. I will admit to you openly and quite proudly that outside my work as FAA contact person, I'm a political activist. And I proudly hold my head up as the organizer of the anti-Falwell march here last Labor Day.

Not that I am pro-pornography, but I think as a First Amendment proponent, it is important to give people an opportunity and an option to decide. And when you go out and support, through the Meese Commission, such heinous activities, to send every store owner nationwide letters claiming that they're going to be listed as a national pornographer, what the fundamentalists are doing is a religious scare tactic and emotional blackmail.

There is no causal link to verify that pornography is the downfall of America. And I personally would much rather see them pull Soldier of Fortune and Blood and Death magazines as being far more dangerous and detrimental to their children.

I don't think the sight of Miss September's bare thigh is going to have the kind of traumatic experience on a 13-year-old child that's seen Soldier of Fortune with an Afghani rebel blown apart from page 405 to 407 in graphic living cover.

I think that's going to be the ultimate downfall of youth.

Right. Jim? Let me just mention the very fact, just point out, that two different, Jerry Falwell takes a different position, has not taken a stand on the issue, points out the fact that you do not, you cannot identify fundamentalism with the broad general definition you're using right now as being a unanimity of opinion.

You cannot do that. What you're saying is you're split philosophically. You're not united in fundamentalism.

Using the broad definition that you're using right now.

I'm not saying that every fundamentalist is out to close down the bookstores, to close the libraries. You know, we have a situation here where they're talking about going into the art museums now. We have in San Antonio, they're trying to force the school district to remove Clan of the Cave Bear, a rather innocuous, you know, harmless book.

They've tried to remove a lot of other books, including Catcher in the Rye, books that are traditional taught subjects in the school, because they consider them to espouse what they classify as secular humanism.

And in the debate recently on TV, they stated on Nightline, that secular humanism is anything that doesn't fit their criteria of godlike behavior. And that's what terrifies me. It may not be you that's trying to close down the bookstores.

It may not be you that's trying to force their politics down America's throat. But people that hold themselves up as your allies are doing it, and that terrifies me.

And would you admit, however, that there are many people who hold a fundamentalist Christian position, who are not involved in doing the things that you are talking about, that you can believe in the central doctrines of Christianity, without necessarily going off the edge?

I agree. I don't think people are worried necessarily about that. And I never said there wasn't. I don't think people are worried about the little guy sitting back quietly, letting life go by. I think people are worried about the Pat Robertsons, the Jerry Falwells, and the Jimmy Swagerts of the world.

But don't blame that on fundamentalism. Who are imposing their will on people. Don't blame that on fundamentalism. They claim to be fundamentalists, Jim.

Fine, fine. They claim to be the highest form of fundamentalism.

These are the ones we're worried about. That may be, but I think it's illogical to blame all fundamentalists for something you don't like politically. If you want to say a political right-winger, a political fundamentalist, fine.

But don't lay all the problems of everyone who's on the right wing, and who happens to carry a Bible, on the footsteps of a theological position. That simply is not logical.

There's no logic to that at all. We're going to have to go to our phone lines right now. Let's talk with Norm from Phoenix.

Good morning, Norm. Good morning. Look, I'm not a student of the Bible, and I hope you guessed it, but is he? I would assume he is. Now, somewhere in the Bible is a passage referring to God in the four corners of the earth.

Is that correct? Yes. Now, do you take the Bible literally? Yes, I do. So is the earth flat? No. Well, then how can you take it literally?

Because it has nothing to do with that. Well, you can't go to four corners and around. Sir, let me say something. Do you read Greek? No, I don't. How about Hebrew? Well, I'm listening to you talking. Well, sir, sir, you asked me a question.

I'm trying to answer your question. Please answer it for me. Do you read either Greek or Hebrew? I read a little Hebrew, yes. Now, have you studied biblical backgrounds? Slightly, in Hebrew. Okay. The point is this.

People like to say, well, all fundamentalists believe you interpret the Bible literally, and then they go on to make absolutely absurd statements, as if no fundamentalist on earth has any gray matter between his ears at all.

But why is that absurd?

Of course, there are many people. I mean, if you take the Bible literally, word for word, there are... Sir, sir. Let him finish his point, Norm.

Let me finish my point, will you please? Go ahead. When you're talking about taking the Bible literally, it is included in that, if you've read any fundamentalist literature, I would suggest, for example, Dr. Norman Geisler or some others along those lines, they will mention and will make it very clear that when you say you interpret the Bible literally, that means you interpret it in the way it is written.

If it uses symbols, then you refer to those symbols and you interpret them as symbols. If they make an obvious metaphor, you interpret it as a metaphor. If they're using the language of the time, you interpret it as the language of the time.

If they use idioms, so on and so forth. And so, to force a person to take everything literally in the Bible, means that you would take... The Bible says, Jews went out and hanged themselves. It also says, go ye and do likewise.

It also says, what you do, do quickly. Now, I could take those three passages, take them literally, and we should all go out and commit harry-carry. Obviously, that's not what the biblical writers intended.

Yeah, but I'm not taking the Bible literally. You are.

You claim it literally. Again, I don't think. You listen to what I just said. I think the whole problem here, and Ann might agree with me, that there are probably 100 ,000 different interpretations of the Bible, which prove nothing.

Well, there's been so many versions of the Bible, and there's been so many interpretations. And, you know, like the Catholics will have 9 or 10 different books that say King James wouldn't have. You know, the thing that the bottom line is here, is that if you believe that it is the inerrant word of God with no errors, and there are many people who believe it as is, as written, and are not as open and as not as willing to interpretation as Jim is, and for those people, you know, there is no errors.

There are no problems in the Bible. You know, I could point out, you know, we could go from nitpicking aspects, the way the gentleman on the phone, Norm, was talking about, you know, with, say, when Judas realized what he had done, he had, in one interpretation, in one of the Gospels, he used the money to buy land and then hung himself.

In the other, he threw himself off the rocks and exploded onto the ground. Okay? When a friend of mine who was a minister went to a seminary, he asked his teacher, well, what is it? You know, did he explode on the ground, or did he hang himself?

And the man, to try to pacify his situation at the point of being brought up, said, well, I guess the rope broke. You know, and if you want to go and nitpick that way, that's perfectly fine. If that's how you can interpret and accept the Bible as is, then do it that way.

But for some people, the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. There are a lot of questions. There are a lot of points, and there are things in the Bible that are so heinous that in modern-day society they would be arrested for.

I'm talking about all of the good old guys in the great Old Testament who had sex with their daughters and recreated an entire line. A man who threw his virgin daughters out so that allegedly the angels would be prepared and saved from the sodomites.

I mean, there are some really heinous, heinous aspects of the Bible. And to hold the Bible up is a wonderful book all the time. There's romance and mystery and violence, like they say in the Pat Robertson commercial for the book, but there are also tragedies and criminal activities and horrible activities that are being promoted and propagated in the name of Jesus.

And you shouldn't say that the book is Jesus's only word, because you have to admit that the Bible was written down by men. Men make errors. Men have judgments. Men are prideful. Men will change the word to suit their own purpose.

And unless you can show me a copy of the Bible, written in stone, that God put himself, you know, like the Ten Commandments, it would be impossible to say the Bible is inerrant.

You know, a couple months ago I debated Ben Ackerley. Well, I was just mentioning that I don't know how many of our listeners have heard Ben Ackerley. He is the author of the X-rated Bible. Yeah, he's been on this show.

Yes, I debated him a couple months ago here. And every point that he made was just brought up by Ann, which I think is significant in the orientation of the discussion. I would just like to simply say that if a person is willing to take the time to do the work that is necessary to deal with an ancient document, which is what the Bible is, the supposed contradictions and things that have just been brought up can be dealt with.

You do not have to turn your brain off to do so. You have to, instead, ignore a vast mountain of evidence, a vast mountain of research to make some of the statements that are made in reference to the Bible.

People call up all the time and make the most half-baked references to the Bible, and yet when you ask them, have you ever read it? Well, I've read parts of it. You mean you don't really know much about it then?

It would be like me, have you ever read or heard of Goethe's Faust? Okay, it would be like me attacking Faust when I've read two chapters of it and only in English. It was written in German. If you're going to deal with it, learn German.

Read with it in its original languages. Don't depend on somebody's translation, the idea that there are so many Bibles. What do you mean there are so many Bibles? That's not true. There's one Bible. It was written in Hebrew.

It was written in Greek. There's one Bible. You have a lot of translations. That's what you're dealing with. To bring these points up, I think, really demonstrates that some people are not being fair in their statements.

All right, let's go to our callers.

One quick one. Do you support Pat Robertson as a possible contender for the presidency of the United States?

I believe Pat Robertson has every single right to run for the presidency. I didn't ask you that. I asked you would you support him.

I don't want him to vote for him. I haven't even taken the time to. Do you like the idea of Pat Robertson being president of the United States? Like I said, that's a political decision.

Yeah, sure, if he wants to be. If he can muster the electorate. But I'm not going to say I'm going to vote for him. I don't know.

Okay, that's a typical Hubert Humphrey-esque type of answer. Let's go to Dan. Where are you from, Dan?