Upcoming Debates, Tom Buck and Sam Allberry, Steven Anderson and Textual Traditionalism

Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Thursday, last Dividing Line of this week, which would be normal, but tomorrow evening the South Texas Conference begins and Justin Peters and I will be speaking, so we'll be looking forward to meeting you folks down there.

Lots to get done between now and then, obviously, which means we got to get to it and get it done and and get at it. And then next weekend up in Morgan Hill, California, a little nervous about that. California, you know, no constitution or anything like that there.

The People's Republic of California, not very far from Sacramento, which is the absolute black hole of political common sense. And so, you know, just hoping I'll get in and out. And that's sort of how it goes.

Upcoming Debates and the Travel Fund

But anyway, we'll be taking some phone calls a little bit later on. I want to do a couple things first and we'll take some calls and go from there. First of all, I forgot to ask Rich if he had done what I asked to do, but I mentioned on Facebook yesterday, we have some, a large number of opportunities coming our direction, including one that I, since we haven't gotten it, you know, absolutely nailed down yet, and the topic is still up in the air, I can't mention too much about it.

But let's just say September, October, November is going to be really interesting on the debate front. Have been doing a lot of debates this year. I've been doing a lot of traveling, but not necessarily a lot of actual formal debates, but we could add to that number come October and November.

Right now, hoping for at least three major debates in that time frame, working with Justin Brierley on some programs for Unbelievable in just a matter of weeks when I'm over in London on the first part of the two times I'm there in London.

And one's going to be on Romans 9, but not with him. Someone else, hopefully. But again, I don't count the Unbelievable programs, because man, if I did, then I'd be pushing 200 by now. But anyway, two big debates overseas coming up in this fall.

And so, those kinds of opportunities are very valuable. I can't tell you how many times I have spoken with people who have said, you know, it was the debates that got me thinking about these things, that got me willing to listen to the gospel, willing to consider what the Bible actually teaches about what the gospel is, people coming out of other religious faiths to a knowledge of the truth.

Those are important things. They have long-lasting value. They're not just a flash in the pan. There are still people who are watching the debates from the 1990s that we did even back then, though the quality of video hopefully is better now than it's, especially audio.

I think that first debate on Long Island, it's like, oh man, wouldn't that have been great if we had had individual microphones on and it had been recorded directly from those mics. Would have been great.

We eventually got to it. Anyway, these are great opportunities. And it does seem like there is a bit more interest for the big debates overseas. Maybe because we just, you know, it's sort of like I haven't been to the Grand Canyon since 1985.

So that's a long time. But I live in the same state with the Grand Canyon. And the reason is, well, I could go whenever I want to. You know, it's no big deal. Maybe that's why there's just not as much interest in the U .S.

Well, we can do that anytime we want to. Overseas, it's a little bit different. And there's just more interest. And so to be able to do these debates on important topics with well-known people, I've got to be able to get there.

So I made mention on Facebook yesterday, and I'll make mention of it now at the beginning of the program rather than at the end, which is normally what I do, that we need your assistance to be able to do these things.

When opportunities come up, you basically have to say, well, will we be able to get there, to be able to do this? And, you know, London isn't that bad. But, you know, Jo 'burg, Sydney, places like that, long trips.

And there's a lot of expenses that you don't think about. It's not just the plane ride. If you're going to, for example, we are looking at a debate in Sydney, and I'd have to be there minimally 36 hours ahead with really nothing to do during that time other than try to adjust, because I'm going to tell you something.

I don't know why, but going east is a lot easier than going far west as far as the jet lag impact is concerned. So it takes less out of me to be seven or eight hours that direction than 17 hours. Well, it's 17.

It's seven hours, but backwards in a day earlier. All I know is I made the mistake the first time I went to Sydney of doing something the night I landed, and that was a disaster. So you've got to have some place to be and the transportation and stuff like that.

And so we have something called the Travel Fund. If you go to the donate, if you click on the little donate thing on our website, there will be a drop down menu and you can designate funds there or just give to the ministry as a whole.

But obviously, right now I'm talking about the Travel Fund is how you pay for all that stuff, which includes, you know, very frequently I'm going places where we're sort of inviting ourselves and that because it opens up opportunities to do other things.

And so there's transportation, hotel. I like to eat once in a while, you know, that type of thing. I don't travel with a staff. It's just me, myself and I. So, you know, a lot of people travel with least one other person.

And a lot of the big boys travel with multiple people. And so we're only doing the one person. But anyway, if you want to see these things taking place, then we could use your help. Go to AOMN .org, the donate button there on the support us, support us, support us.

And there's a donate button. You can see the the drop down thing there. And basically, the healthier that Travel Fund is, the more that says to me, accept the opportunities when they when they arise. Okay.

Used to say support us. Now it says donate. Okay. I can't keep track of these things. But anyways. And no, we do not. No, most of the big boys themselves do not have their own fleet of jets. We're not talking about the word of faith guys.

We do not consider them to be part of the promotion of the kingdom of God in the world today. They're not going and debating folks anywhere on anything overly relevant. What's that? Yeah, they're going and collecting money from those folks.

We're trying to bless them and they're trying to collect money from that. That is a good description of the difference between the two. So make mention of that. Ask for your assistance in getting us. And hopefully I'll be able to let you know about some of the specifics coming up.

But they're pretty exciting. And so. All right. Now, if I wanted to be having more and more folks who would be willing to give, I wouldn't be hosting, as we did this week, a series of articles by the doctor troublemaker from Texas pastor Tom Buck, who just successfully defended his dissertation.

So I'm calling him Dr. Buck. He says the wait till next month when it's absolutely official, but I'm calling him Dr. Buck anyways. But anyhow, because it's better than troublemaker. I mean, troublemaker doctor, pretty much, you know, Dr. Troublemaker.

That might be as Dr. Troublemaker. Anyway, for quite some time, Tom has been looking especially at material relevant to living out. And you'll recall. Well, obviously, we have been dealing with the subject of homosexuality for decades.

And what was his name? Robinson? The young fellow that we well, you know, we did the Matthew Vines response. It was what? Six, five, six hours. And the Gushy response, which I think was six hours. And so we've we've we have really invested time to go in depth into the exegesis and the backgrounds.

And I'll be honest with you, it's it is a hard subject to deal with. It's oppressive. It's an oppressive subject to deal with. A lot of what we're dealing with in the church today is oppressive. I find the whole social justice, critical race theory, critical theory, period thing to be oppressive.

Robbing of joy and happiness. You know, at least when you're dealing with Mormonism, you get to speak the truth about the one true God or the glory of the gospel and stuff like that. Some of these topics just just really take it out of you.

And anyway, but we've been dealing with this particular this particular subject for a very, very, very long time. And it just keeps coming up in new. It keeps reinventing itself. It's very obvious to me that back in the day when we first started, you know, when I first saw Matthew Vine's gospel, you know, it was before the Reformation Project.

The Reformation Project drew out of it. But that that presentation he made at the Presbyterian Church in Kansas seems like many years ago now. Was that 2011, 2012, somewhere around there? Anyway, the conversation within sound biblical churches was totally different than it is today.

That's how quickly things have changed. And my response to Vine's would be different today, mainly because I would imagine his presentation would be different, A, and B, I would have to more widely define, I couldn't, let's put it this way, I could not assume as much unanimity on the part of my fellow Christians in the Church in how I'd respond to Matthew Vine's.

I think it would be a longer response because I would have to lay more of a foundation. And part of what has happened is that there has been this push, starting about four years ago, to emphasize the, not just the existence of, but how we should interact with the, not just, you know, there's still a divide here, not with gay Christianity, not with those who are on the one side, like Matthew Vine's, who say, I am gay, I am Christian, and I demand that you change the historical beliefs of the Church to make me feel better.

Really, the, one of the reasons that, for example, many quote-unquote evangelical churches aren't even involved in this subject is because one of the key issues, one of the dividing lines here is whether we're talking about repentant individuals or non-repentant individuals.

A non-repentant homosexual, a person who believes that their same-sex attraction is a gift from God and hence are unrepentant. There is a whole massive movement of that. You saw that in the United Methodists.

If it hadn't been for the African cohort in the United Methodist Church, they would have been, they would have jumped right off the cliff. Well, they probably would have done that a long time ago. But you see that in the PCUSA, obviously in the liberal Lutherans and the Episcopalians and so on and so forth.

So you have non-repentant homosexual activists promoting gay Christianity. But then what started happening a few years ago is people starting to come out and say, you know, I, too, experience same-sex attraction.

But unlike these others who have been coming out and saying, and that means it's good, it needs to be incorporated in the life of the church, I am repentant of these desires. I recognize that they are not what God would have us to do.

To act upon them would be sinful. And therefore, I am a Christian who experiences same-sex attraction but recognizes that it's not something that is God's will for my life. And there have always been people like this.

It's just never been a subject that has been overly comfortable for anyone to address. But the loud voices of the people on the one side have created the space for these folks to speak up and say, we reject that, but we are here and you need to deal with us.

Most of us have never thought these issues through. When I say most of us, let me take that back. Most of the people who are in my generation and older, this was not something you talked about at church.

This was not something that you talked about in seminary. And so, when someone comes along and says, everything you said about those verses in the Bible is correct. Romans 1, yep, spot on. Yep, that's actually what's going on in Genesis 18 and 19.

Yep, can't get rid of that. And yep, Leviticus, that's what it's talking about. And yep, Arsonicrites, mm-hmm, you're right about all those things. And I have to live in light of that. Jesus honored that law.

These are the teachings of the New Testament. I cannot follow these other people in unrepentantly demanding that the church abandon what is plainly biblical truth. But what are you going to do with me?

Because I want to faithfully follow Jesus. And what's that going to look like? Well, most of us have never even thought about it. And to be honest with you, most of us don't want to think about it. And so, you started hearing people coming out and saying that I experience same-sex attraction, but I know it's not proper for me to act upon this.

Well, what was that book? I think every time you grab that diet root beer and drink it, it makes me want to do the same thing with my water in here. Yeah, I'm thirsty today. In fact, I think I'm going to run out here pretty soon, so I may need a refill.

But anyway, I just happened to notice you were doing the same thing. I was wondering if it's like yawning, where if you were yawning in there, if I started doing the same thing. I don't know. Yeah, people are now asking on the RichCam to see you drinking diet root beer.

Now, I think that is an inappropriate utilization of the RichCam, don't you think? Yeah, I think so too. Anyway, the only reason I know it's diet root beer is because that's the only thing. I think there was one can in the refrigerator when I looked earlier, and that had to be it.

You don't know. You don't care. Okay, never mind. Okay, back to the subject. What happened? I was hoping that during that interlude, I would remember the name of the book because I mainly remember where I was listening to it, where I was writing when I was listening to it out along Carefree Highway.

Yes, it's the same Carefree Highway from the song. The exact same Carefree Highway. Anyway, and I remember at the time listening to this book, I'll have to go back and look at my Kindle stuff because I think it was a Kindle book.

It may have been Audible, but I'll go back and look. Well, I'll try to remember to go back and look with my schedule over the next couple of months. I may not remember to do so. Anyways, I forget who it was, but as I listened to what was being said, I was struck by the importance of one key issue, and that is, is homosexual desire simply a different...

How does homosexual desire relate to, for example, excessive heterosexual desire that might be seen in polyandry, polyamory, polygamy? Is there something different about same-sex attraction that, by the nature of the attraction itself, sets itself apart?

Now, you know what my answer to this is. You know what Robert Gagnon's answer to this is. The answer is yes. We derive that primarily, positively, from the Creation Ordinance. The fact that mankind is made in the image of God, and that that image of God is seen in male and female, that this is a fundamental creative aspect that, therefore, to experience attraction that fundamentally denies this, is itself disordered on a different level than an excessive desire for what is a proper sexual experience.

It is appropriate for a male to be attracted to a female. It is not appropriate for a male to be attracted to a male in the sexual realm. God made us to be attracted in certain ways. That's how the species continues.

And believe me, there have been times in the history of the species that its continuation was up in the air. The Great Mortality would be a time when that was the case. But anyway, there is a disorderedness, a confusion, a perversion in the object of desire that points to an internal twistedness.

And that's why homosexuality is the illustration that it is in Romans chapter 1, because it's saying that the creator-creation relationship has been disrupted. It has been twisted all the way down to what defines us as human beings so that even their women give up the natural function for that which is unnatural.

So, on the one hand, it's very easy to say, well, it's all sin and flatten it all out into it's all the result of one thing. That's what we criticized in the J .D. Greer sermon, was it's all just idolatry.

Well, idolatry is at the root of the vast majority of human sin, to be certain. But that does not mean that all human sin then becomes one big vanilla cake and it's just how big of a bite you're going to take.

No, there is a difference. And there is a difference between hating your brother in your heart and actually taking out a gun and shooting between the eyeballs. They're both murder, but you don't just go ahead and shoot the person because, oh, well, I already hate him, so I might as well.

It's not going to make any difference. Yes, it does make a difference. And so every naturally functioning male has to admit they've experienced lust for the female form. But there's a vast difference between experiencing that lust and then acting upon that lust and then acting upon that lust again and again and again and again.

You know, remember when the stories came out? I forget when it was back in the 90s about Magic Johnson and a bunch of the other basketball players that admitted they had had literally 10 ,000 women in their lives.

That is a perversity. It is a perversion, but it's a different kind than to admit a woman doesn't attract me, only the male form does. There is a disorderedness, a confusion, a perversity, whatever are the terms we want to come up with there that exists there that does not exist in the other situation.

And so what has happened over the past few years is now the conversation has come up, well, what do we do with people who are same-sex attracted in the church? And now you have people saying, well, they can still have leadership positions in the church, and there are people saying that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children.

Now, I don't care whether you're Christian or non-Christian. I consider that child abuse. It is purposefully placing a child in a situation where they cannot, where they will be not only denied the natural example of how a husband is to love his wife, how a man is to treat a woman, but the unnatural same-sex attraction.

We know why reprobate people are doing this and how they are purposefully attempting to reproduce themselves in a way they can't reproduce themselves in any other way. But it stuns me that Christians would be promoting and accepting of this kind of situation as well.

And so when Tom began pointing to things at the Living Out website, one of the things that struck me, and you can check this out for yourself, I detect perspective differences within the writers for Living Out.

Now, some people might say, well, it's the same type of thing in TGC. You've got lots of different perspectives being presented. You can't do that Living Out. Living Out is specifically Sam Mulberry's ministry, and so it would be like, because it has a specific focus, then there needs to be some type of consistency in what is being presented.

It'd be like, you know, we have different people who write for the blog. It's not like we really put a ton of emphasis upon the blog, but we do have different people who write for the blog, and we have Presbyterians and Baptists and people of different stripes, but we are focused on apologetics and there needs to be a consistency there.

Well, Living Out is primarily focused upon one subject, and so if you see a perspective being expressed, then you have to ask questions as to exactly what's going on, and so these issues began to pop up, and when I reviewed the material in Is God Anti-Gay?, I took the time to read Sam Mulberry's book, which did not address the same-sex, I'm sorry, the transgender issue, which was what I was going to review, because Mr. Mulberry said certain things at the Ravi Zacharias thing that were really troubling, and I didn't know what the source of them really was, and so I wanted to read published work.

The published work is a couple years old. I'm not sure what the exact age of it was, but and what you encounter, and what Tom Buck said in the article, is you encounter all sorts of really good stuff, all sorts of important stuff, and sound stuff.

The exegesis is sound and that kind of thing, but you then get these other things, and sometimes they're in links, and sometimes they're in these odd statements that are made in passing, and that's what Tom found in his analysis of the website as well, is you would find these links over to other places, and it's just extremely troubling, extremely troubling indeed, and so he asked if we would post these, and we started on Monday.

The last one was posted, I believe, this morning, as I recall. Would you be able to quickly grab a couple of commercial type things for a brief break before I comment on the response that has come to Tom Buck's articles, and then we'll look at a couple other items, but that would be very helpful if we could grab something real quick and just take a quick break.

Is that a possibility? He's looking. He's looking. Probably should have those always ready queued up. Yes, you were just walking around out there, you know, just letting me... Sorry. So, okay. All right.

We need to take a break. I'll be right back in just a moment, I think,.

I hope. Breaking news from the White House and the issue, gay marriage. For a lot of people, you know, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs. I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

The NAACP has passed a resolution endorsing gay marriage as a civil right. This comes two weeks after the president announced his support for same-sex marriage. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened and accused of discrimination. It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.

How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2 Timothy 2 .15.

Dr. James White and Pastor Jeffrey Neal have partnered to bring you their book, The Same-Sex Controversy. If you are a Christian, this book is just one of the tools you'll need to be prepared to give a proper defense of the faith in the face of the unrighteous onslaught we face today.

The authors write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on this subject, explaining and defending the foundational biblical passages that deal with homosexuality, including Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans.

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and return to God's plan for his people. The Same-Sex Controversy, Defending and Clarifying the Bible's Message about Homosexuality.

Get your copy today from the bookstore at AOMN .org. And don't forget to search for other resources like debates and past dividing lines dealing with this very provocative issue. And remember,.

Theology matters. More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils. They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements.

And many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age-old disagreements that have divided Protestants and Catholics.

Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatory and indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored. Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at AOMN .org.

And welcome back! Sorry, folks,.

Sometimes life continues on even when we're in the middle of something and there was just something I had to take care of right then and there, or I wasn't gonna be able to think straight, and neither would somebody else, and it's just a long story.

But anyways, all I can say is, spammers deserve a very warm place in Hades, but we will not go there. All right, let's get back to what we were talking about. The reaction, you know, when you read Tom's articles, these are not flamethrowing articles.

Tom isn't a flamethrowing guy. If you know Tom, you know that he's a big guy, but he's got a big heart. He's just great, he really is, and he wants to do what is right in all things. He's just a real pastor guy, doctor, but he's also very concerned about truth.

And the reactions to daring, I mean, I haven't seen anybody saying, well, those aren't actually links, and those articles didn't actually, no, the articles have been there. What's weird is Sam has admitted that some of them are unclear, you know, like the one about, you know, one way you could deal with your same-sex attraction is go to a nudist beach.

What? I mean, some of the stuff was just so far out there that Sam has made, well, you know, I'm going to pull that article. It hasn't been pulled yet. There's just all this strange stuff going on, but more so are the political maneuverings of high-powered people in some of the big-name ministries in the background, the phone calls buzzing back and forth and everything else from just daring to come out and say, hey, this is troubling.

There's a problem here. You all are promoting this. You're bringing these people in to speak. And then when somebody goes to the website, they're getting hit with this stuff. Have you checked this out?

And, you know, there've been the passive-aggressive tweets. I think it's called subtweeting. I had to ask somebody because I didn't know. By some big names, you know, taking, you know, passing shots and stuff like that, and just offense being taken.

How dare you question someone like Sam Albury? Well, you know, okay, I know there are some people that would be considered on my side of the aisle that would just want me to go after Sam Albury with both barrels blazing and just simply kick him off into the flames of perdition, and that's what everybody wants.

I have tried to be as absolutely fair and balanced and just bent over backwards to try to do any review and disagreement in a proper fashion, in a way that is appropriate. So, you know, go ahead and use that kind of argumentation you want.

It just seems to me that what we're seeing is emphasizing to me more and more, and I'm going to have to do some programs on this in the near future, but it's emphasizing for me more and more the reality that we are living in an age where the infection of our ways of thought by critical theory is reaching critical mass.

It's too bad we're using the term critical in 14 different ways and can't define it any one particular way, but critical theory is what holds all this together. If you understand critical theory, then you understand what's going on here.

You can have critical race theory, critical gender theory, critical space theory. Put anything in there that can be an oppression, oppressor category, and you'll have it. So, Jussie Smollett, gay plus black plus Hollywood equals who needs to prosecute him.

Why? Because in the new critical world, the greatest moral imperative is to do away with oppression. Now, here's the problem. We Christians define oppression from the Bible. That's not what oppression means to these folks, not even close to what it means to these folks.

If you are a gay black man, then you are in two oppressed groups. Then make yourself a movie or television star. I had never even heard the guy, never seen this empire or whatever it is. I've never seen it, would have no interest in ever seeing it.

It's irrelevant to me, but that doesn't matter. You get your oppression points for being gay and black, and then you get your positive social justice points for being a Hollywood elite. Combine those things together, and the greatest moral good is for you to do away with oppression.

So, remember what he said? I'm going to continue working for the betterment and the ceasing of oppression against people and minorities. See, that's your virtue signaling. That's your good part. It's more important to do justice, which in critical theory, justice is doing away with oppression, even if there's no meaningful definition of oppression, even if he was the one doing the oppression by breaking the law.

That doesn't matter. In the critical world in which we now live, you have to add up the intersectional categories, and that's what defines what should be done now. Law? Irrelevant. Truth? Justice that is blind?

Irrelevant. Doesn't exist anymore. Doesn't exist anymore. So, it seems like even in the Christian church, one of the parts of the reaction to this has been, look, Sam Alberry experiences same-sex attraction, and so that puts him in a different category.

He has not claimed that for himself. I'm seeing it being claimed for him by the very same people who tend to be the social justice warriors. How dare you criticize someone who is oppressed? Critical thought coming into the church.

Folks, critical thought and biblical Christianity are at opposite ends of the spectrum, absolute opposite ends of the spectrum, and it just seems that there are a lot of people who have very quickly become deeply, maybe fatally, infected with the critical theory in the way that they look at all of life, and it is amazing.

Obviously, there have been plenty of people who have positively responded, thanked Tom Buck for taking the time to do this and to speak to these issues, and there are all sorts of people, especially within the Southern Maps Convention, who agree that this needs to be pointed out.

These are issues that need to be addressed, but they can't say anything about it. They just can't say anything about it. It's the 11th commandment again, and the 11th commandment will kill the Southern Maps Convention.

The 11th commandment will result in a fracturing of the Southern Maps Convention sooner or later because the 11th commandment is contradictory to the 9th commandment in essence, because by your silence, you end up promoting untruth.

So as long as the 11th commandment continues to be obeyed by the leaders, there will never be any meaningful debate within the convention, and there's only one inevitable result of that, and that will be the destruction of the convention.

So there you go. So it will be interesting to see over the next few days. I do not predict. What I predict is what I'm actually seeing even in my feed, even as I've been glancing over at it briefly. My prediction is a passive, aggressive, we're going to support you type thing.

All these nice, warm tweets about, oh, our church has just been so blessed by living out instead of, well, let's deal with these subjects. Let's deal with these issues. Let's ask the hard questions. I don't expect that that's going to happen.

That's what needs to happen. I don't expect that it will. So there you go. I hadn't seen your comment in the stack until just now, and I can assure everyone, remember I was talking about the travel fund earlier?

There is not another Steve Tassi encounter coming up. That's not going to happen. Okay. I spent a lot longer on that than I expected to, partly because we took the break. I apologize for that. I have a new head, not headphone, but earpiece thingy here, because we will eventually get the microphone working.

We will make it happen. But until then, I've been not getting this done. So even if I have to sacrifice the calls today, I want to get to, let's stick with, let's see what happens. But I do have a few minutes worth of still chapter three left with Steven Anderson.

So if the last subject bores you or doesn't bore you, but depresses you, we're going to be changing subjects here. And it's not just weird Steven Anderson stuff. There's stuff here that I think is relevant to a lot of areas of apologetics.

So we go back to Steven Anderson's response to the King James only controversy. We're in chapter three, which we've tried to get this done, I don't know how many times, and I just keep getting distracted.

I apologize. Let's jump back into it right now. And then he said, the reality is that the amount.

Of variation between the two most extremely different New Testament manuscripts would not fundamentally alter the message of the scriptures. So what James White says over and over again is that the changes in the modern versions don't affect doctrine.

If we took the most different manuscripts, it still doesn't affect doctrine. And of course, we demonstrated over and over again in our film, New World Order Bible Versions, that the changes in the modern versions do affect doctrine.

They affect salvation. They affect doctrines regarding hell and the Trinity.

And all kinds of different things. Now, it's interesting. An article was put out by an individual who's been sniping at me for about a quarter of a century now, just last week, that though he would not be supportive of Steven Anderson in general, likewise made the same argument and attempted to make that argument by looking at individual variants in Codex Sinaiticus in one book of the Bible over against the general Byzantine readings as a whole, one of which, for example, that I pointed out was whether a slave referred to his master as kurios or not, and that this somehow indicated that you would end up with a different doctrine.

Again, my point has been, and I stand by it, and the more people attempt to get around it, the more that all they do is actually document it, is when you look at the New Testament as a whole and do not cut it up into little parts.

The most Alexandrian manuscript versus the most Byzantine manuscript, and I know I'm using what are now dated categories there, but it's still useful in at least some context, is going to teach us that there is one true God who exists in a triune nature, that the second person of that triune Godhead entered into flesh, that he did so voluntarily to give his life as a ransom for sinners, that we are to repent and to believe in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and for the receipt of eternal life, and that God is building a church, that that is the body of Christ, that Christ is going to return, and all the issues regarding adoption and sanctification and justification.

If you apply the same methods of interpretation to those, the two extreme ends of the manuscript spectrum, you're going to come up with all of those teachings. As I have said many times before, the list of verses that you might have for a particular doctrine might change.

I've used the illustration of 1 Timothy 3 .16 versus John 1 .18. In 1 Timothy 3 .16, Byzantine manuscripts, Jesus is called God, not in other manuscripts, and vice versa in John 1 .18, where Jesus is called God in those other manuscripts but not in the Byzantine manuscripts.

And so, you're going to have a different list at some points. It's not a radical difference, but you're going to have a different list. Those who are primarily interested in promoting their books or a particular perspective or just being a gadfly and getting attention for themselves, I feel sorry for them for many reasons, and this issue I find offensive.

I know why Anderson does it because Anderson has to do it because if Anderson admitted this, then most of his yelling and screaming and railing and the same thing with all the other NIFB guys or Gene Kim getting down on his knees in Asheville and all the rest of this type of stuff, they'd have no reason to be doing it.