December 28, 2023 Show with Dr. James R. White on “Vital Issues Facing the Church & the World Today” (Part 1)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 28th day of December, 2023.

I'm asking your prayers right now for my guest today because he is feeling seriously under the weather, and you may wrongly detect from his voice that he has no interest in being on this program today or that he is bored to death with me and my presence and on and on.

Those things actually may be true, but the primary reason his voice is rather low -key sounding today is because of the aforementioned sickness.

But I am speaking of none other than my dear friend dating back to the 1990s,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. This is day number one, God willing, of a two -day interview with him, and we are going to be discussing burning issues facing the church and the world today, and also giving an overview of all the many speaking engagements and debates that he has lined up for the new year.

And Dr. James R. White, if anyone in my audience is unfamiliar with him, which would be rather shocking, but you never know, we do have on occasion people who listen who are not even believers for that matter.

But Dr. White is the director and the apologist for Alpha Omega Ministries, the author of numerous books, a seasoned debater, and he is a highly sought -after conference speaker, and he is the professor of apologetics and church history at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio for day number one of our two -day discussion.

Well, it's good to be with you, Chris, and no, I'm not bored yet, you haven't finished your introduction yet, give yourself at least some credit there, but no, it's good to be with you here at the end of 2023, and I'd like to say that I feel better than I sound, but actually at the moment, not really,

I thought I had made progress yesterday, but I guess I'm not the only one experiencing the ups and downs of this stuff.

You know, it's funny when you think about it, if this was 2021, you know, we'd be thinking very differently than we're thinking even now, because, you know,

I've been on the program when I've been sick in the past, and you know, it would happen very frequently.

I know that some of the debates we did, I remember trying to find, you know, cough medicine and stuff like that, just to be able to make it through the debate, and nobody really thought too much about it, and then

COVID hit, and you know, two years ago, we would have been being told that I'm killing little old ladies by daring to, you know, do anything outside the house right now, so it's, you know, and I am still convinced it will return, that worked way too well for the go -by -the -wayside, but honestly, the thing that I know

I was thinking of before the program was I have scheduled this trip that we're going to be talking about today that will begin in early

February and end in mid -March. It's almost 40 days long, longest trip

I've done, and I should mention to folks who don't know me, I used to fly all the time.

In 2019, I flew 165 ,000 miles. I debated and taught in places like Samara, Russia, and Kyiv, Ukraine, and Durban, South Africa, and Melbourne, Australia, and spent almost two months in London, and I don't fly anymore, and it's not because I've become afraid of airplanes or anything.

It's because we were giving, you know, over a hundred thousand dollars a year to the airlines, and they decided that I could just go ahead and die because putting a mask on me puts me into something called supraventricular tachycardia, which is significantly more dangerous than COVID turned out to be, but they didn't care, and so it's sort of like, you know what, and then they got rid of my wife, who had worked for the airlines for almost 25 years.

They used that as an excuse to the airlines you work for, which is the largest one in the United States.

I got rid of 40 ,000 people. They're top -end people as a result of that stuff, too, so anyways,

I drive now, and so I'm limited to the U .S.,

and I have never—now, you know this because we had to talk about this a lot when we were doing the debates back on Long Island.

We did do trips with multiple debates, but very—I cannot—can you think of a time—I cannot think of a time where we ever did two debates back -to -back, so in other words, two nights in a row.

No, I don't think so. Can you think of anything? No. I can't think of one either. On this trip,

I'm doing five major debates, and I know we never did—I don't think we ever did more than two debates in any one trip back there on Long Island, as I can recall, anyways, so five major debates.

The first two are back -to -back with Trent Horn of Catholic Answers, and Trent is obviously a very challenging, well -spoken individual, very challenging individual to engage with, and then that's in Houston, and you've had

Evan McClanahan on the program, and he—that guy,

I'm going to tell you, I think he likes debates more than you do because,

I mean, you know how much work goes into setting debates up, and four of these five debates will be at First Lutheran there in Houston, and so, you know, that means—it's a little bit different.

It was a little bit different back in late 90s, early 2000s when you were doing it, a little bit different how to set things up and doing the advertising and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

It's a little bit easier with the internet now and stuff like that to do ticket sales and things like that.

There's entire websites you can use to do that kind of stuff, but still, it takes a lot of work, and so he is doing four of these five debates, two with Trent Horn, and then

I leave Houston, and I go to Tullahoma, Tennessee, where Jeffrey Rice is going to be having a conference that Tom Buck and Sam Walder and myself are speaking at called

Why Calvinism, and I'm doing a debate there with a fellow by the name of Jason Bretta, who is a former

Calvinist, and I will be defending particular redemption in that debate in that context, and then

I'm going from speaking there. Then the next weekend, I'm teaching an entire

Baptist history class, intensive class, at the seminary in Conway, Arkansas, and for those of your studio audience,

I know you've, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99 % certain you've had

Jeff Johnson. Oh, of course. Yes, a number of times. And if you haven't scheduled him coming up here soon, he has a new book called

Revealed God that is now shipping, and I should get mine in a couple days.

I've read it twice already, actually, and it will be highly controversial,

I can assure you, but very, very important, very good, and so I'll be teaching at the seminary on Baptist church history, and then going from there back to Houston, where we will have two debates, again, at First Lutheran Houston, the first with Leighton Flowers on John 6, and then one night off, and Saturday, I'll be debating

Dr. Dale Tuggy, who is, most people don't know who

Dale Tuggy is, unless you are a part of one of the Unitarian groups in the United States, and I don't mean the

Universalist Unitarian groups, I mean the more conservative anti -Trinitarian

Unitarian groups, and Dr. Tuggy and I will be defending the assertion that Jesus is

Yahweh, that Jesus is Yahweh incarnate, and so that'll be the fifth and final one of the debates, and so I suppose you could say that the third and fourth are at least marginally related, they're on the topic of Reformed theology, in essence, the first two are related, oh,

I didn't even mention the first two were, Trent Horn and I will be debating Sola Scriptura, and then

Purgatory, both topics that you have put debates on before, of course, on Long Island, and I'm going to be interested in seeing his take on Purgatory, you would think it would be more logical, having done

Sola Scriptura, to do something like the papacy, but right now I can't find any

Roman Catholic on the planet that is to debate the assertion that Pope Francis is the infallible

Vicar of Christ on earth today, for some odd, strange, actually obvious reason.

Yeah, all of a sudden it's no longer a focus upon the papacy, but the magisterium. Oh yeah, you're seeing it,

I'm seeing it, you and I both remember so clearly, back when we started doing these debates, that, you know, it was in the middle of John Paul II's pontificate, he was

Pope for a long period of time, there was stability, he was at least fairly conservative.

I've got to find out if Arnold Pilsner, who used to help draw the

Catholics into the crowd, I wonder if he is still running an organization called

Americans United for the Pope. That would be interesting to find out, because there have been a lot of people who actually use the terminology red -pilled, they've been red -pilled about what's going on with the

Vatican and the directions that things are going, and it's so obvious, it's so plain, it's so clear that it,

I just don't know how anyone can even pretend any longer that the

Pope of Rome today is in the same line of apostolic succession as pretty much any

Pope before him. It's just, you have to turn apostolic succession into some nebulous, meaningless, contentless concept to make that kind of assertion, and what had happened was,

Trent had offered, well, we could debate apostolic succession rather than the

Pope, but that doesn't make any sense. That becomes a vague concept that you can try to apply in all sorts of different ways, but the

Roman Catholic claim is that you have the infallible vicar of Christ, the head of your church, and so to debate some type of vague concept rather than the specific, you know, here he is, here's a man, he's changing doctrine, he's changing teaching, you cannot for a second tell me that what he's teaching on the blessing of same -sex unions and the, you can't tell me that he represents any kind of Roman Catholic position on these topics because he doesn't, and so we ended up, we'll be doing

Purgatory, and I personally think one of the most fascinating debates that we did on Long Island was in 2001 with Peter Stravinsky, and it was on the subject of Purgatory.

I thought it brought out the differences significantly more clearly than the debate we did with Bobs and Justification because, you know, in that situation,

Stravinsky is a lifelong Catholic, and St. Genes had been all sorts of different things, but had been somewhat reformed at some point, and in my opinion, a lot of these converts who were once reformed muddy the waters because they'll use our language and just fill the words with different meaning.

Stravinsky didn't do that, and, you know, to this day, if you put

Peter Stravinsky into Google, the very first things that come up are the cross -examination questions from that debate.

Well, I'm sure he loves that. Oh, let me tell you something, I happen to know he does not.

Obviously, I was obviously, I was reeking with sarcasm when I said that. Oh, believe me, yeah, no, but I happen to know that really, really, really angers him to no end, and, you know, you may remember that Michael Fallon was there that night, and he told,

I'm sure you remember the story, but he told of, you know, after it was all over, there'd normally be a solid hour of conversation and stuff like that as people are packing up, and frequently it would continue in the parking lot and stuff like that, but he was standing there, and he heard a

Roman Catholic talking, and he was saying, oh, when Father Stravinsky was speaking, you could just sense the

Spirit of God moving, and it was like there were angels in the room, and then white would get up, and you could almost see the horns coming out of his head, and the demons dancing on his shoulders, and that was actually you.

Anyway, it had been a long night.

We need to forgive Chris. He was tired, but, excuse me, don't make me laugh now, but, yes, no, seriously, that is what happened, and.

And he wouldn't even touch the video that Rich Pierce was attempting to hand him of the debate.

That's interesting. He had no interest in it. Rich was holding out his arm with the video and said, this is an unedited master,

Father Stravinsky, here you go, and he was totally ignoring Rich and didn't want anything to do with it, so he knew.

That was just evidence of a massacre that had taken place. Well, it did, and I think we should explain why.

Remember his opening statement. Who did he talk about primarily in his opening statement?

Do you remember? Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy Swaggart. He talked about correspondence he had with Jimmy Swaggart on the subject of Purgatory, which means he had never even taken the time.

He was just like so many of the people I've debated. They don't believe that someone who believes what

I believe has anything meaningful to say, and so they don't think there's any reason to do any studying, any reading, anything like that at all.

So he had no idea he was about to take on someone who had taught

Greek and Hebrew and all the rest of this kind of stuff. It's like Barry Lynn. We've been there, done that, got the t -shirt.

We see exactly what happens when this type of stuff happens, and they're just not prepared.

And so his opening statement was pretty much completely irrelevant, and then

I give a pretty focused opening statement dealing with biblical passages, church history, the development over time.

Now he's behind the eight ball, and he realizes it. He doesn't know what to do about it.

He looked like a Nazi at the Nuremberg trials. He did, and he was pulling on his collar.

He wanted out of there so bad, and to be honest with you, there were times I thought he was just going to walk out, especially during some of the late night

Q &A, the guy who asked, pay me now, pay me later. But yeah, those videos are classic, and they are amazing.

So I don't know how Trent is going to approach this particular subject.

It's hard to avoid the dogmatic definitions that Rome has made on the subject, but we will see.

Well, I'm delighted that he agreed to, at least on one of your debates with him, to defend a

Roman Catholic dogma rather than have you always defending specific

Protestant views over which Protestants are divided. Right, right, right.

Yeah, we did want to have something there that would make it at least somewhat fair, but I still wish, honestly, that we were dealing with Pope Francis and same -sex marriage blessings and the synod and synodality and things like that.

I just don't think that Catholic answers can dodge this.

I mean, this guy's been Pope for 10 years. He has spoken against sheep stealing.

He's been about as opposite to what Catholic answers used to be about, because I'm old enough to know what

Catholic answers was when it started and what the intentions of people like Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid and Mark Brumley and Jerry Matitox were.

I was around back then, and so it does show the fact that these apostolates, these

Roman Catholic ministries, have had to really alter their perspectives. They've got to feel like they're just walking through a minefield.

They must get up every morning and just go, okay, what has he said now?

What are we going to have to try to spin today? It can't make things overly easy for them whatsoever.

It does make me wonder. For example, I've not heard almost anything about Tim Staples in quite some time.

It makes me wonder, is he looking at this whole situation and realizing

I can't say a lot of stuff that I used to say? I really don't know. I don't have any inside scoop information on Catholic answers and stuff like that, but it is going to be interesting.

Those will be the first two debates, but I forgot to mention that we extended the trip by a day or so, so I could go through Dallas.

I think those debates are on Thursday, Friday, or Friday, Saturday.

Right before that, I will be in Dallas. I may be on with Trent again, but I'm going to be on with Allie Beth Stuckey to talk about Roman Catholicism on her show with a

Catholic apologist. It may be Trent Horn, it may be somebody else. They're not sure yet, but we actually tacked that on at the beginning, just simply because that's a great opportunity.

I don't know if you remember when the black lady who has a program on the same network,

Candace Owens, her husband, who's

Roman Catholic, was on, I think, with Allie Beth to talk about Roman Catholicism, and I thought she did a great job.

Then I recorded about an hour and a half. It was one of the first things I recorded in our new studio, my mobile studio in the

RV, and a lot of people found that useful. Well, you know, she converted anyways.

I don't know if she ever even listened to what I said. Oh, Candace Owen converted? Yes. Well, that's a shame.

Yeah, yeah, and I had responded to the stuff that her husband had said rather fully in a recorded, not a dividing line, but a response to the stuff that was said.

So I'm sure that's what's behind the desire to have a conversation about the issues that divide believing

Protestants and believing Roman Catholics. But since Trent and I are doing Sola Scriptura, I don't see how, and I cannot imagine, though, well, okay,

I could imagine it happening, but it would seem obvious that we have to have some conversation in this debate about the current situation within Roman Catholicism.

If Trent does the, oh, no, no, that's all we're debating. We're only talking about Sola Scriptura. You and I both know that when

Jerry and I debated Sola Scriptura long, long ago, which was, as I recall, the second debate we did, the first was on the

Marian dogmas, the reality of the papacy and the idea that the papacy provides this kind of stability was part of the

Catholic answers apologetic. It was central to their,

I mean, one of the most famous lines that came out of that period from Catholic answers was from Patrick Madrid.

Sola Scriptura is the blueprint for anarchy. Well, the problem is, where's the anarchy right now?

The anarchy is in Rome. The anarchy is in the Vatican. The anarchy is in the synod and synodality.

And so if it was good for the goose, it's good for the gander. And Trent Horne is a

Roman Catholic apologist, and he's representing an epistemological claim.

He's representing an authority claim, and that authority claim is wrapped up in the

Bishop of Rome. So he cannot possibly complain if I use as an example of what happens when you abandon

Sola Scriptura. Your church ends up changing its doctrine on capital punishment, changing its doctrine on marriage and homosexuality and everything else.

And so we'll see what develops there during the course of the debate itself.

But I think eventually one of these better known

Catholic apologists is just going to have to step up to the plate. I don't know how.

It's far too easy to demonstrate the inconsistencies and incoherences, but that's the way it's going to be

I am not giving up my search for that, by the way, for an opponent for you who will actually debate on is

Pope Francis a safer guide for the church than Sola Scriptura? Yeah, well,

Chris, you know, I've often said that you could sell sand to Arabs and ice to Eskimos, but I think you may have finally hit the wall.

Well, let's let's pick up where we left off here, because I have to go to our first commercial break. And if anybody wants to join the conversation, our email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail dot com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com.

Give us your first name, at least city and state of residence and country of residence. If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question is a personal and private one, such as you are perhaps a

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That's completely understandable. But if you're asking a general question, please, as always, give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

We'll be right back. Don't go away. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

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And we're now back with Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and we are giving an overview of a lot of his upcoming speaking engagements and debates.

And one thing I wanted to ask you about before I forget, you had mentioned before that in Tullahoma, Tennessee at the

Open Air Theology Conference on the theme, Why Calvinism? A part of that conference you are debating

Jason Breda or Breda, I don't know how to pronounce that. I think it's

Breda. Breda. And you identified him as a former Calvinist.

Right. In all my years being a Christian and that is nearly the same amount of time that I've been a

Reformed Baptist, I have only heard of one person who left the

Reformed faith and became an evangelical Arminian.

Every single time I hear about and I've heard about a departure of a

Reformed Christian from Calvinism, they either become Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, become absolutely nothing, perhaps atheist, agnostic.

I hardly have ever heard of anyone other than Michael Brown making that transition from Reformed to evangelical

Arminian. And that's a specific emphasis I'm giving there. And so how long was this brother a professing

Calvinist? Well, I became familiar with him on one of my last trips.

Someone sent me some videos he was posting and I downloaded some of them, listened to them while I was driving on the next leg of my trip.

And so on the next dividing line, I had heard some stuff about John 6.

And so I'm just going to be like, okay, over the years, I have sort of made a practice of collecting methodologies for getting around John chapter 6.

And there are a lot of them out there. And so at that point,

I wasn't going to do anything more about it. But I guess he heard about my responses and stuff like that and recorded an extensive on John chapter 6.

And so when I listened to it, I realized that he was utilizing what's called the

Blue Letter Bible, which I guess is associated with Calvary Chapel or something along those lines. It's an online

Bible program type website type thing, I guess. And it was a situation where you have someone who is using...

Well, there's a lot of websites like that. There's open... You're breaking up there a little bit.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Well, hopefully it will clear up here in a second.

And he was coming to conclusions based upon just...

He doesn't read Greek. And so it's a situation where you're referring to the Greek and you're putting the

Greek up on the screen and you're saying, this tense means this, and this form of the verb means that.

And it just doesn't mean any of those things. It's sort of like when years and years ago before computers, we had these things called interlinears.

And they still publish some of them out there. And I would tell people, I said, you know, the interlinear is without a doubt the most worthless thing you could ever buy.

Because if you don't read Greek, it's of no use to you. And if you do read

Greek, it's of no use to you. It's true.

But I've met many a person who thinking that, you know,

I can go on my phone and, oh, that's a present tense verb and that means this. Well, unfortunately, that has led to a lot of real serious problems.

And it did there. So make a long story short, Jeffrey wanted to do a debate as a part of this conference.

And there was someone else that we had talked with some about it. I did not want to follow through with that.

I've had an encounter with this individual before, and I just did not want to have to go through the same thing again.

I did not find it useful or beneficial for anybody. And so I gave him

Jason Breda's number or email contact. And to my surprise, he's agreed to do so.

Now, the topic is particular redemption. I forget the exact phraseology.

I think something like particular redemption is biblical and important or some basic vanilla thing like that.

But you know me, I am more than happy to make a positive presentation of the concept of what

I call the Trinitarian harmony in the gospel, the harmony of father, son and spirit, which is illustrated in particular redemption and the fact that the son dies for the exact same people the father has elected and that the spirit will come and make application to.

And so there's perfect harmony in the Trinity in the accomplishment of that redemptive act.

And I think the Bible is very clear on the subject. And so that's going to be the subject.

My hat is off to Jason. My understanding is he was a

Calvinist for 10 years. And of course, as I've listened to his and the main reason that I even did the response initially was it's sort of a study in converts when people leave a position.

Why is it that they can no longer accurately represent what they once believed?

Right. You know, when people become Roman Catholics or become Eastern Orthodox or become atheists or Mormons or whatever, all of a sudden, their recollection and their understanding of what they allegedly once believed becomes extremely muddled.

And, you know, why is that? What is the what is the process that the people go through?

Hank Hanegraaff was a classic example who was raised in the Christian Reformed Church when it was still conservative.

His father, his father was an elder in the CRC. And when he spoke about Calvinism, it was as if he never ever set foot in a

Reformed church. There were caricatures and slanders. And of course, then he eventually became

Eastern Orthodox. Right. Right. Right. Well, that's that's a whole other long story we could get into, because obviously

I was a part of the inside conversations in that particular situation, too.

But but yeah, it's true. And so that was that's the origin.

I cannot begin to tell you how it's going to turn out, because I would assume that this is

Jason Breda's first debate. And I do hesitate about debates like that because I'm going into it disadvantaged from the start.

Pretty much everybody in the audience knows that'll be my let me see, 182, 183, 184.

That'll be my 185th. Wow. Moderated public debate. And I can remember

I can remember introducing you as he's had 10 debates. That's true.

That's true. And and he almost hung up on me the first time I called him. Used to be used to be this boring, stiff, straight

Reformed Baptist guy. And now I'm getting all my material from him. So I don't know what's going on.

But no, but no, it's true. Yeah. So I'm at 182 right now.

And and, you know, that's just a number in the sense that I was looking at the list of my debates and there was stuff listed on it that I'm like,

I'm not sure if I should count that one. For example, you've undoubtedly seen the one that I did in 2016 with the

Calvary Chapel guy. Oh, yeah. George Bryson. No, no, no.

That was 2001. Oh, George Bryson. No, this was oh, the guy's name is skipping my mind at the moment.

It was so bad that I don't even list it on my list.

Wow. I missed that one. Wow. Well, OK, I'm going to have to find the link for you because we it's on Radio Free Geneva, which, by the way,

Tim Bushong is finished with the video, the new video introduction to Radio Free Geneva. We're just there's one last thing we've got to do.

I'm going to get Jeff Durbin to record something for us. But oh, why is that guy's name skipping my mind?

It's going to really bother me now. But we play a section of it where he goes.

Now he's gone from foreknowledge to some kind of middle knowledge. And I go, but I I categorically deny middle knowledge.

I've heard that clip. Yes, that's the day that's yeah, that's

I that was so I've never facepalmed literally public as many times as I did in that in that particular debate.

It was Steve Tassi. I just looked it up. Steve Tassi. I just brought it up.

Yeah. Came seven years ago. GBF Norwalk. Have you not watched that debate?

No. Oh, Chris, you could you could the stuff you could do with that particular debate would be rather, rather entertaining.

Yeah. So anyways, so I didn't include that in the hundred and eighty two debates.

You know exactly how do you determine when you're doing something? Because I have done some debates on radio where it was moderated and there was a thesis statement and stuff like that.

Do you limit it to only stuff that's like at least 90 minutes long? You know, how do you know? So I don't want to be like Eric Cantor, because if I used

Eric Cantor standards, I've done about three thousand five. So have

I. So anyway, hopefully that's a fairly accurate listing.

But back to the point that gives me that puts me at a disadvantage when you're debating someone and it's their very first debate.

So, you know, Gregory Coles, you use that to his advantage. Yes. You know, that was just that was his first debate.

He made sure to bring that point that out and almost pulled a geriatrics on you. Yeah. David and Goliath.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much so. Yeah. Yeah, he did. And that is, you know, and I don't blame him for doing it.

But, you know, so we'll see. I just figure I'll have the opportunity to present a strong and biblical case for particular redemption and for the harmony of the gospel.

And and we'll see what goes from there. Obviously, the audience is going to be on my side.

It's it's a but in some ways that's even a disadvantage. I mean, he's he's walking in and I like I said, my hat's off to him that he'd be willing to do this.

Give him give him props for that. But, yeah, that'll be that'll be different because there will be three or four guys out in the audience that honestly could do just as good a job on the presentation as I'll be doing.

So that also puts a little pressure on you as well. Now, the thing that puzzles me about the debate thesis is the last word.

The reform doctrine of atonement is biblical and important because very rarely do you find a non -Calvinist thinking that limited atonement is an inimportant issue, even though they're obviously opposing it.

They think it's extremely important. So I'm confused by that word. Yeah, I really wasn't involved in, you know, once I gave the name and I think

Jeffrey just sent it to me and I'm like, OK, fine. I'm going to say it's important if he's

I don't think that's going to end up really having any thing to do with it. The debate's going to be on whether it's biblical.

That's that's what we're going to be focused on, I'm sure. And so, you know, we'll we'll see how it goes.

All of this, though, you know, the background, all this I'm sitting here trying to keep my volume down and stuff like that because I'm sick.

And you you do a month long road trip and I'm going to be around all sorts of people.

Right. You know, I'm going to be greeting people after those debates in Houston.

I'm almost I'm almost tempted to, you know, say to Evan in light of everything else

I have going on. And, you know, this. But I think

I think this needs to be mentioned, and I know we're about out of time, I invest myself in the audiences after debates.

Yes. I'm not like certain people that I could name. I know that run out the back door and will not shake a hand, will not greet somebody, will not take pictures, will not sign books at G3.

I was it was an hour and a half, hour and a half to two hours after those debates.

I'm standing greeting people. And I think that's perfectly fine.

That's a good thing to do. But honestly, in the back of my mind, I'm not

I'm seriously going. I wonder if I shouldn't not do that.

Right. At least for those first two debates, hold it off until the last two debates so that, you know, if I do get something, then it's something

I've got on my way home and it's not going to impact the rest of the of the trip. So, yeah,

I'm actually I may I may make that request. And I would hope that the audience would understand that.

I would hope that the people who want to meet me would understand. Yeah, you've got this is just the start.

So let's let's try to get you out of here with the least exposure to stuff that could take you down as possible.

We'll see. We'll see. But that's really what I'm asking prayer for those who support the ministry and support we're doing is, you know, this is this is going to be the most challenging physically, the most challenging stuff that I've ever

I've ever done on a trip. So, yeah, we'll see. And we have to go to our midway break.

Please be patient with us, folks, because it's the longer than normal break. But we will be back after these messages with more of Dr.

White. Send in your emails to chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Give us a first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

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Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Also, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful church,

I have extensive lists spanning the globe, and I've helped many people in my audience in all parts of the world find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

That may be you, too. So if you are without a biblically faithful church home, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question for Dr.

White, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

We have several questions waiting for you, and I'll go through some of them before we get to some other points that you have pressing upon your mind.

We have, let's see, Matthew in Tupelo, Mississippi, and Matthew says, let's see here,

I've got to enlarge this. Do you think most Catholics and even some

Reformed Christians have a fascination with being a part of the institution of the church, and he has in quotes the word church, that might compromise on the truth rather than being a part of a separate smaller institution that upholds truth?

I'm seeing this more and more, especially here in the South, where some will claim the

United Methodist Church is indeed heretical, but they can't bring themselves to come out and be separate.

Well, there's an element of truth in the fact that if you are a part of a local

Bible -believing church, that you are a part of the greater universal church, the, you know, visible, invisible distinctions.

There's truth to the recognition that what

God is doing is bigger than anything that we ourselves are involved with on a local level, but he does it in that way in those local churches all around the world.

So, yeah, there's clearly a desire to be part of something that's big, something that is ancient.

One of the, I think one of the big attractions right now, we're going through a phase, and we've gone through lots of them before, but we're going through a phase where not so much into Roman Catholicism, but there's a movement into Eastern Orthodoxy for certain people.

Now, obviously, very often that's a stopping point to getting to Roman Catholicism, just like there are other

Protestant denominations that are sort of on the way to Roman Catholicism, but the attraction of that kind of liturgical, ancient church,

I'm a part of something that's gonna be around long after I'm gone type of thing, you can't underestimate that, and I just believe personally that when you're truly committed to gospel truth, you're committed to something that is in fact going to be around long after you're gone, and it's been here from the start, and you are a part of the ancient church.

The true apostolic succession is a succession of truth.

If you teach and believe what the apostles taught and believed, then you are standing in succession with them in the only meaningful way that you really can, and so I think we should be emphasizing that to our people more than we do, and there should be more teaching about how we are continuing what has come before us.

I think that especially American Christianity tends to be very individualistic, very disconnected from church history, and gives people that sense that, well,

I'm just sort of out here all by myself, when that really isn't the case. We're not out there by ourselves.

We're part of something that God's been doing for quite some time, so I think that I do teach church history, so I think it's really important for people to understand where we stand in that spectrum, and to recognize that what we endure, and what we're called to be faithful during especially difficult times like this, is a part of something a whole lot bigger than we are, and will be relevant to our kids, and our grandkids, and our great -grandkids, and stuff like that.

So yeah, there is an element of that, and I think there's an appropriate element of emphasizing those things.

And of course, since he includes Reformed Christians in this, our Presbyterian brethren have a firm belief, typically, in their understanding of ecclesiology, which is different than Reformed Baptists who believe in the autonomy and independence of local congregations, where there is no hierarchy other than God himself above the local elders, and they are sometimes vociferously adamant that it is dangerous to be an independent and small, local, autonomous congregation.

And yet, history has never backed up their belief that that denomination somehow keeps them preserved in biblical purity, because we see over and over again, even within Presbyterianism, obviously, those things collapsing.

I remember I was out on Long Island when I was working on a chapter in the

Five Views of Church Government book long, long ago. This would have been right around the time of the earliest of the debates we did back there.

And it turned out of the five views that were presented in that book,

Dr. Robert Raymond and I were the only ones that really took our assignments overly seriously.

And we ended up having quite the written debate. We maxed out the number of words we could use and stuff like that, where we debated that very issue.

And that is the Presbyterian session concept and the

Presbytery. And he went to Acts chapter 15 and stuff like that. And so if people want to read sort of a back and forth on that,

I did the plurality of elders perspective. He did the Presbyterian perspective. And that book's still in print.

I still get a about $16 check once a year for my contribution to that particular book.

I think it's still out there. But even the Presbyterians believe in the plurality of elders, but they've gone beyond.

Well, yeah. Yeah. But that wasn't sufficient that you needed to have the session, the

Presbyterian stuff. Right. Well, this is a good springboard to a question from my dear friend who actually sponsors this show,

Sterling Vanderwerker, owner of royaldiadem .com. He asks, what are the benefits for multiple elders like your current home church,

Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona? Right. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm going to have to get contact information there.

I've got some, every time I've heard that advertised, I was like, you know, there's some stuff

I've to do. We might have to do something along those lines. Well, let me give an example. Tomorrow morning, we're going to be doing a funeral, real difficult funeral.

I had mentioned to you before the program, at least I think I did. Yes, you did. Yeah. And the young couple who lost a child at birth has asked that it just be the elders.

And so Jeff and Luke and I will be doing this and it's extremely difficult, extremely hard.

And, you know, I was raised in an independent fundamentalist Baptist context where when

I was 10 years old, I made the commitment to never go into ministry because I had seen my dad so horribly mistreated and fired by deacons that he had led the

Lord and stuff like that, because it was a, it was not a plurality of elders situation.

The pastor served at the pleasure of a deacon body. And I remember when

I just started reading the New Testament and considering the issue, it's like, huh, it seems to be a plurality of elders here.

Oh, there it is again. And oh, the apostles are strengthening the churches by establishing elders.

And there's all these elders at Ephesus. And it certainly has been my experience that, you know, we live in a fallen world and simply because someone has a plurality of elders doesn't mean that necessarily those elders are going to hold a particularly strong personality in check.

There should be, I think on the part of the church itself, a desire to have elders who are willing to stand up for what they believe to be true.

And hence there needs to be grace amongst the elders to allow for differences of opinion.

And in fact, a willingness to back down and go, no, I still think this would be the best way to do it.

But you know, if we can't get unanimity on that, then let's not force it.

And it takes compromise and it's helpful to have another perspective.

Sometimes you can become so deeply involved in a situation or you're so invested in it that it can be very, very helpful to have someone who's not that close.

So, you know, aside from the fact that it's just simply apostolic, I certainly have seen numerous situations where having those different gifts represented by a plurality of elders is really, really needed because no one person has it all.

And that's the problem with the single pastor model is you're in essence forcing one person to take every role and fulfill every demand.

And it just simply doesn't work. Speaking of that book, the guy that did the single pastor model started off his chapter saying, you know, it sort of strikes me that the

Bible actually presents plurality of elders, but I've been asked to do this, so we'll do it. But it's true that you really are putting a massive amount of pressure on someone.

I think it's one of the reasons you have so many people working in IT that are former pastors. You know, they got burned out.

They got abused. I think we abuse a lot of people that end up in that situation.

And a plurality of elders, I think, is extremely useful at that point. Obviously, you know, you can end up with political situations.

If you have lots and lots and lots and lots of elders, you can have, you know, political infighting that can develop and stuff like that.

So, we live in a fallen world, but I think we need to obey scripture and go with what it says.

Amen. And well, thank you, Sterling, and thank you also for sponsoring this program.

We have Ted in Moundville, Alabama.

I've long wanted to ask Dr. White, as he closes in on 200 moderated debates, does he consider himself to have lost any of those debates, or is he basically 186 to zero?

And irrespective of the win -loss statistic, which of his previous debate opponents does he think got the best of him compared to the others?

Yeah, you know, people ask a lot about that, and I generally say, well, I try not to get into the win -lose debate stuff, since we're not doing collegiate style debate, where everyone's talking as fast as they possibly can, and you've got judges, and somebody wins, and somebody loses, just based upon arbitrary stuff.

I don't think that it's really a useful metric to go at.

I mean, obviously, there are debates that just weren't even close, and the people that were involved in those debates have probably never done a debate again, and have developed a permanent twitch as a result.

But I normally try to say, well, you'd have to break those into categories.

I mean, you have the Roman Catholic debates, you have the Muslim debates, you have atheistic debates, you've got intramural debates on reformed topics, and things like that.

How do you compare debating John Dominic Crossan with debating

Doug Wilson? Okay, I mean, they're both extremely intelligent individuals, but one's a believer, one isn't, and they're coming from completely different backgrounds, and the topic's completely different, and the context is completely different.

So, when I'm debating Crossan on the reliability of the New Testament, and then

I just did a debate last year with Doug Wilson in Moscow on paedo -communion, completely different contexts.

Now, he technically doesn't even believe in that, right? I mean, because he's not giving communion to actual infants.

Doesn't he insist that they have? Well, that's interesting, because he did bring that up.

Greg Strawbridge, who I debated on paedo -baptism, would say that, well, before he passed away, obviously, had specifically said that Doug Wilson is not a paedo -communionist, because Strawbridge would say that you need to dip a little piece of bread in a little wine and shove it down the kid's throat.

So, real paedo -communion.

And Doug doesn't do that before about year one.

There has to be some expression of desire on the part of the infant for Doug to do that.

And, of course, there is the collapse of logical consistency. Well, you know, you have to listen to the debate.

But the point is that when you're debating fellow believers, that's completely different than you're debating unbelievers.

And if you're debating an apostate, that's different than debating someone who's never heard the truth before.

There's a lot of stuff that goes into that. There was a debate on some topic within Calvinism that I did, and I can't even remember where it was now.

It was a church that I didn't know, first of all.

And the guy that debated was an attorney. He's one of the few attorneys that I've debated. You know,

Farrar, the guy that you set up, he knew how to do cross -examination. This guy knew how to do cross -examination.

The vast majority of attorneys that I've debated had no clue what they were doing. It's always stunned me at how easy it's been to debate the vast majority of attorneys that I've debated.

Like Barry Lynn, for instance. I'm sorry? Like Barry Lynn, for instance.

Very much so, yeah. And so there was this one guy, and I don't remember his name because they failed to record the debate.

Wow. We got done with the debate. I go to the back, and they're just looking at me, and I'm like, so what's going on?

Well, we forgot to record it. I'm like, what? So I don't even know what the guy's name was.

He was an attorney. He did really well, much better than I expected. That may have been due to the fact that that was a situation where I had never heard him speak before.

In other words, this may have been the first theological debate that he had done, and so I couldn't be prepared for what his specific arguments were.

So I thought he did a really good job, but no one will ever hear it because he didn't possibly record it.

And it's like, oh, okay. There have not been many of those.

I think it was about two that are completely missing that were not recorded.

But you know, I have favorite debates. I think the debate with Abdullah Kunda at the

University of New South Wales in 2011, can God become man, is still my favorite

Muslim debate because Abdullah read my book on the Trinity, attempted to communicate with our audience.

That was extremely useful along those lines. And of course, my debates with Mitch I thought were really good, very useful.

For our listeners who aren't familiar with that, that's Mitch Pacwa, the Jesuit priest. Mitch Pacwa, we did, well now that I think of it, we did two there on Long Island, one on the papacy and one on the priesthood.

And he and I also debated Sola Scriptura in 1999 in San Diego. And I think it was, wow, was it 1991?

Yeah, January of 91. He and I did two debates. I was sick for those two on the mass and on justification.

So we've done five topics over the years. I don't think anybody who saw any debate you did with Mitch Pacwa would think, wow, that Mitch Pacwa clobbered

Dr. White because Mitch Pacwa was honest, defending the defenseless.

Yeah, yeah, no, no. I had a number of Roman Catholics who said, yeah, you won those debates.

Mitch is a nice guy, but he's not a debater, blah, blah, blah. Um, so, you know,

I, I think very obviously the Stravinskis debate went very, very well. Um, you know, and so there, but there are some people you can debate that, that do not cooperate with you in making the debate clear.

So, so you can, you can sort of force a draw by just, um, you know, abusing the audience in a sense and abusing the topic and stuff like that.

Every hyper -preterist I've ever seen debate, not that I've seen them debate you, but every hyper -preterist seems to absolutely disregard the importance of those present at the debates.

And they're relying upon people just watching these things later on, uh, on YouTube where they can stop, make notes, you know, cause they usually speak, uh, a hundred miles an hour and don't really care what is being absorbed.

Yeah. I don't appreciate when people do that. Um, to, to be honest with you, that sort of happened, uh, with one of our more recent debates on the textual issue in Pennsylvania.

Um, with my opponent as well. Um, and so, yeah, you know, every, every debate's different and that's why it's really difficult to rank them or, or, or anything like that.

Um, so, so there have been debates where there wasn't a clear winner.

Um, and it normally wasn't because of a real strong performance from the other side.

It's normally been, uh, misbehavior really, uh, that, that made the debate less worthwhile than it would have been otherwise.

I, I, I guess some of the people I debate debate for the same reason that I do, but most don't.

Um, I'm, I'm, I want stuff that's going to be useful years down the road. And a lot of people, they're just not thinking along those lines, um, at all.

So that, that can influence things too. Now, uh, I can't remember if you said this both before or after the debate, but I remember years ago you saying that one of your opponents was the toughest you believed you ever faced.

And that was Gregory Stafford, the former Jehovah's witness. Well, yeah.

Um, yeah, Stafford, uh, and, and part of the reason for that is, uh, whenever you're debating

Unitarians, uh, Stafford is a much better speaker than the guy I'm going to be debating, um, in, in March, uh,

Dale Tuggy. Um, but very similar perspectives and approaches.

Stafford was still a witness when we debated. And, um, I don't remember how long after that it was that he was disfellowshipped.

And because he wasn't even supposed to be doing the debate because they're not allowed to do that. Right. Right. And then he started witnesses of yaw and it's the, the challenge with that debate is that it's extremely technical.

Um, no, you're, you're debating stuff like, um, anarthrists, free verbal predicate nominatives and stuff that most, most folks just are not encountering on a regular, regular basis.

And so, uh, I've, I've often said that dealing with the witnesses is far more challenging than dealing with the vast majority of Mormons.

Mormonism, you have to know a much broader, uh, spectrum of information, but with the witnesses, you have to go much, much more in depth in a much more narrow, uh, fashion.

And so, uh, yeah, that was a, that was a really challenging, uh, debate.

Um, I don't remember the specific thesis now that I'm thinking back on it.

That may have been part of the issue is it may have been a bit on the wide side. Um, and it's, it's not always possible to get the exact thesis that you want.

Um, the other side has some things to do with that. Um, so, you know, uh, we have

Blackie in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Imagine trying to convince somebody to move to Lava Hot Springs.

Blackie says, how do you respond? You're going to lose your one listener there if you're not nicer to the, uh, to the name of the tent.

Blackie in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho asks, how do you respond to those

Christians who say that it is not only improper and unbiblical, but dangerous to conduct live moderated debates because you are giving an enemy of the gospel very often when it's not an in -house debate, a platform to spread their heresy?

Yeah, I've heard that during the decades that I've been arranging debates with you. In fact, even, even one of my, uh, very close friends who's now in heaven,

Richard Bennett, the former Roman Catholic priest, he did not believe in debates before that very reason.

Um, I can even remember when I had Robert St. Genes on my show to critique as a conservative

Catholic, Pope Francis, uh, the, the, the most liberal Pope in history.

And even though it made it very clear that, uh, I was not an ecumenist and that I did not view

Robert as my brother in Christ and that we had different gospels and so on, didn't matter.

Richard called me up and said, oh, Chris, what happened to you? This isn't the

Chris Arnson that I know. Oh, you gave a platform for the devil himself. So there are people out there who have that view.

And, uh, I've still, I still encountered them. So how do you respond? Well, um, look, um, the, uh, the, the, the devil has all the platforms that he needs.

Um, the, the, the issue is, uh, the, the rarity that we, that we get to actually expose the fundamental errors of these, these various religious groups and movements and, and things like that.

They, it's, it's not like they would not be able to get their message out if we weren't providing them with some kind of a platform to do so.

They're, they're getting their message out. You know, Jehovah's witnesses have the largest publishing, uh, had anyways, the largest publishing capacity of, of anyone outside the

U S government, uh, for a long, long time. So it's not, it's not that at all.

What is rare is getting individuals that can meaningfully represent these groups into a where they have to answer direct questions.

Um, and so Jehovah's witnesses, you know, they don't want their people doing that. And that's why we've only had one debate with Jehovah's witnesses, uh,

Mormonism. We were doing that for a long time. Um, uh,

Jason Wallace, of course, was chasing every Mormon in Utah around. Uh, you know,

I, I, I, I almost figured that some of these folks, they'd be out with their friends and, uh, you know,

Bryce Canyon or something in Utah. And all of a sudden Jason would pop out from behind a tree. Hey, how would you like to do the debate?

Um, and, uh, you know, I mean, he was, he was just really, uh, working hard at doing that stuff until the last debate we did, um, with Dr.

Dennis Potter at the university of Utah. Uh, he, he showed up, this guy shows up, he's carrying a no war in Iraq backpack and he's got an earring and we're debating, if I recall correctly, something about Adam and his posterity and the fall and sin and stuff like that.

And after that debate was over, this guy comes up to me and he says, I've, I've attended every debate you've done in Utah.

And he says, I'm a Mormon and I am asking you, please stop debating us.

We don't have anyone. We have, we don't have anyone that can debate you. That doesn't make you right.

But we have no one that can debate you. And that, that ended up being, they got the word out.

And it, the debate stopped, unfortunately, uh, at that point, uh, with, with Mormonism.

Now, the funny thing is the guy, I think, you know, this story, became a homosexual openly.

Oh no, no, no, no. Oh no. It's Kelly Potter today. Sex change operation.

Uh, Kelly Potter is a transgender socialist activist.

Still a Mormon? No, no, no. Um, and, uh, uh,

Jason has tried to get him, uh, to possibly debate transgenderism and stuff, but yeah, no, that, that, that ain't going to happen either.

But so, um, so look, I, you know, I wouldn't,

I know churches that will, will not sponsor debates and they won't have debates and because they, they have that kind of conviction.

Okay. Uh, fine. Um, but I just know how many people, uh, have been over the years, um, brought out of these groups.

For example, um, one of, one of our deacons at Apologia is just super solid guy.

He's just, just a great, great guy, huge hearted, super servant. Uh, he was a black

Hebrew Israelite and, um, he and his wife sat down to watch a online internet debate that took place back in,

I believe 2016. Uh, but it was a really busy year for me. Um, and it was the debate that I did with Elder Raka on the dividing line.

And it was a very clear victory, um, on our side.

It wasn't even close. It, it rattled the black Hebrew Israelites all over the

United States and beyond. And they watched that debate and turned it off and looked at each other and went,

Oh no, what are we going to do now? And that started, that started them not only out of the black

Hebrew Israelites, but into the gospel itself. So there's so many of those, so many

Muslims that have, have come to know Christ and Roman Catholics and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneness Pentecostals and, and, and things like that, that, um, you have to, now, now you,

I admit that if you're talking to people who are, uh, either hypocrites or people who are just playing at religion, sure.

A debate may cause them to go from one level of rebellion to another level of rebellion.

That, yeah, that, that, that, that can happen. No two ways about it. Um, but you know, it's, it's, it's like going out and, and, and straight preaching and engaging people there.

As soon as they start pushing back, I don't just shut up just in case someone, you know, makes some kind of a false statement.

And I don't want to be responsible for somebody hearing that type of situation. Um, I, I can,

I can trust the spirit of God to, to draw his people at his time in his way and, um, leave it at that.

Okay. We got to go to the final break. Don't go away. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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We're now back, Dr. White. We have Winifred in Log Cabin, Texas, and I hope

Winifred travels to Houston to see you debate and speak at the

First Lutheran Church there. But Winifred asks, what topic have you always wanted to debate that you have yet to debate?

You know, the secret desire of my heart is actually to debate

Chris Arnzen. Debate Chris Arnzen on what?

Swedenborgianism. We all know that you are a secret Swedenborgianist on alternate

Thursdays. Hello, people just don't know how long, how many years you have talked about Swedenborgianism.

I mean, it's you don't even realize it. It's no longer than about 10 seconds at any given time.

Well, that's true. I will affirm that. But yeah, I think that would be awesome.

You know, we've tried to get Francis to debate, but so far he's just not up for it. You know, obviously,

I would love to see a general authority in the Mormon Church. That'll never happen.

You know, right now there are some conservative, like Bishop Strickland, who just got canned by the pope.

I'd love to see him, you know, but that's not going to happen either. So I don't know.

I'd love to get Bart Ehrman to debate again, but, you know, that's 25 ,000 bucks to walk through the door.

Wow. Is that what Michael Fallon paid him the last time? No, no, not last time, but we have contacted in the past, and believe me, there is a well -known

Christian apologist that that's his starting price, too. Wow. But I would love to see him.

There's a number of topics I'd like to debate him on. I'll bet you Scott Hahn's charging that now, because the one time when

I was having a conversation with him, when he kept rejecting my invitation to you, he said something to the effect of, okay, if I did it, you got to pay me $10 ,000 up front.

And that was back in the 90s, so. Yeah, yeah, there's some big paychecks out there.

We have a long history of sacrificing honorariums to make sure the debates actually happen. So, I think that should be mentioned in passing.

So, anyway, but we sort of covered three of the five, so tomorrow we still have two debates we can get to.

So, we will have some stuff to do in the first hour there, so that'll be helpful. Well, I would like you to summarize today with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we go off the air.

Well, right now, given that we're going to be talking again tomorrow, just ask believers to pray for preparation and for health and safety and travel once this trip starts.

So, I think I head out February 9th, and that's not that far away, and I still have a lot of preparation to do.

There's preparation to do on the vehicle, there's debate preparation, there's so much. So, it's going to be a challenge, no two ways about it.

Well, if you want to find out more about these speaking engagements and debates, go to aomin .org.

I want to thank you so much, Dr. White, for being our guest. I'm looking forward with bated breath for your second interview tomorrow, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater