Finally! We Concluded the Matthew Vines Response on Today's Mega Dividing Line

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Last time we were together, we were continuing our response to Matthew Vines and we need to try to conclude that someday.

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And but I did not actually really feel like we've completed and finished some of the comments that we needed to make on the subject of Romans chapter one.

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Now, you may want to go to Sermon Audio and listen to the two -part Bible study series that I'm doing on Romans chapter one relevant to this for some of those comments.

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But before we continue on with Mr. Vines' attempt to get around the meanings of especially the term arsenokoites at 1

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Corinthians 6 -9, I wanted to address part of the issue that is raised by his comments on Romans chapter one.

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If you recall, the primary essence of his argumentation was that Romans chapter one is about individuals who are not by nature homosexuals acting in a homosexual way.

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Now, this went against the actual text itself, which talks about adult males burning with desire for one another.

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That's a clear description of male homosexual behavior and orientation.

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But he then went on to try to say that nature is only just a customary thing. So he used two different contradictory definitions.

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First, he said that there are those people who are by nature homosexuals and that Romans one is only talking about people who by nature are not.

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But he then turned around and attached a completely different meaning of the term nature contradicting himself.

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Now, there are numerous other ways that pro -homosexual activists today are attempting to get around the clarity of Romans chapter one.

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I wanted to read a section. This is from an online—this is from the enrichmentjournal .ag .org.

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Robert Gagnon has written a great deal on this particular subject.

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I've been listening to a number of his lectures as well. And unlike Matthew Vines, who clearly has basically read

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Boswell but not read any of the responses to Boswell, I have not simply read Gagnon and I'm just simply going with what

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Gagnon says. When I give you these citations, especially from other authors, thanks to the kindness of God's people and certain people out there who keep an eye on the ministry resource list, these books that I'm going to be quoting from are sitting on the desk next to me.

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And they're marked and I've checked the context and done due diligence at that point.

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Some of these books are not exactly the type of books you necessarily want to have in your library, but my library has a lot of odd stuff in it as it is.

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And my section on homosexuality has grown a good bit over the past two weeks or so with the discussions that we've been having.

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So I just wanted to read this because it completely and thoroughly refutes the assertion that Mr.

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Vines has made that, look, no one back then knew anything about committed homosexual relationships.

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And we didn't know anything about orientation. Those people back there just didn't know. And as Robert Gagnon has said many, many times, if you hear anyone saying that the person you're listening to clearly has no idea what they're talking about, none at all.

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I'm going to read the fifth point of a particular article online from Robert Gagnon.

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Fifth, contrary to false claims that people in the Greco -Roman world had no concept of committed homosexual unions, there is plenty of evidence for the conception and existence of loving homosexual relationships, including semi -official marriages between men and between women.

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Moreover, we know some Greco -Roman moralists who acknowledge the existence of loving homosexual relationships while rejecting even these as unnatural.

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In Plato's Symposium circa 380 BC, the comic Aristophanes is said to remark about male -male relationships.

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They, i .e., the two men, continue with one another throughout life, desiring to join together and to be fused into a single entity and to become one person from two.

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His remarks play off of the positive view of same -sex eroticism expressed by Phaedrus and Pausanias at the banquet.

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Neither Phaedrus, the beloved of Eryximachus, also at the banquet, nor Pausanias, who was a lover of the tragic poet and host

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Agathon, a relationship that began when Agathon, now 31, was 18 years old, advocate for same -sex hedonism.

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On the contrary, they stress an attraction for the soul or mind more than the body, and the relationship's inducement to moral excellence.

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Pausanias, in particular, emphasizes that, quote, love is neither right nor wrong in itself, end quote, but only right when it is, quote, done rightly, end quote, and, quote, for the right reasons, end quote, that lovers who love rightly, quote, are prepared to love in the expectation that they will be with them all their life and will share their lives in common, as if having been fused into a single entity with, end quote, the soul of the beloved.

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It is thus evident that Aristophanes reflects Pausanias' view of himself when the former states that men who love males, quote, are not inclined by nature, fusae, the same term we find in Romans chapter one, by the way, toward marriage and the procreation of children, yet are compelled to do so by the law or custom, namas, with the result that the two joined males, quote, live their lives out with one another unmarried, end quote.

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In Plutarch's Dialogue on Love, late first second century A .D.,

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Protogenes argues that man -male love is superior, not because it is more hedonistic, but because instead of having as a net result the reaping of the fruits of pleasure, it comes through friendship to the end and goal of virtue.

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Daphnaeus, defending the superiority of male -female love, concedes that homosexual relationships are not necessarily exploitative for sexual intercourse and is contrary to nature with males, does not do away with nor damage a lover's kindness or amorous goodwill.

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Yet he declares that even the intercourse that comes about from joining males is done willingly, it remains shameful, since males are with softness, that's malachia, and that's a term that we're going to encounter in first Corinthians six again, and effeminacy, surrendering themselves, according to Plato, to be mounted in the custom of forfeited animals and to be sewed as if to produce children, contrary to nature.

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In Rome, the epigrammatist Marshall and the satirist Juvenal, early second century

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A .D., refer jeeringly to effeminate men who willingly commit themselves as brides to other men.

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For example, Gracchus, a man renowned for his family background and his wealth, became the bride to a common cornet player and signed semi -official documents.

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Lucian of Samasota tells of two rich women who regard themselves as married, the masculine Megia of Lesbos, from which lesbianism comes from, and her wife,

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Demanassa the Corinthian. Remember Corinth had lots of problems, and there you have an example of it.

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The astrologer Ptolemy of Alexandria writes of manly women born under a certain constellation who are lustful for sexual relations contrary to nature and take the active sexual role with women whom they sometimes call their lawful wives.

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Clement of Alexandria mentions in disgust women contrary to nature marrying women. Obviously, marriage implies commitment, yet commitment does not change the unnatural and sinful character of the relationship.

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Some Greek and Roman moralists condemned all homosexual acts on the ground of a nature argument. Literature of the first century

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CE bears witness to an increasing polarization of attitudes toward homosexual activity, ranging from frank acknowledgement and public display of sexual indulgence on the part of leading

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Roman citizens to severe moral condemnation of all homosexual acts. If even some sectors of the pagan world were beginning to develop absolute opposition to all forms of homosexual practice, what is the likelihood that Paul would have made exceptions for committed homosexual unions?

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Paul operated out of Jewish scriptures and a Jewish milieu that were unequivocally opposed to homosexual practice, even of a committed sort.

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For example, first century Jewish historian Josephus stated the obvious to his Roman readers.

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The law of Moses recognizes only sexual intercourse that is according to nature, that which is with a woman. But it abhors the intercourse of males with males.

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Several rabbinic texts forbid marriage of a man to a man. One referring to Egyptian practices even forbids marriage of a woman to a woman,

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Sifra on Leviticus 18 .3. It is hardly surprising, then, that even Lewis Crompton, a homosexual scholar, acknowledges this point in his massive work,

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Homosexuality and Civilization. However well -intentioned, the interpretation that Paul's words were not directed at bona fide homosexuals and committed relationships seems strained and unhistorical.

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I stop for a moment just to point out that's exactly, that is exactly what pro -homosexual apologists like Matthew Vines and like another man we're going to listen to briefly today, that's exactly what they're saying.

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But here is a homosexual scholar saying this seems strained and unhistorical.

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Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same -sex relations under any circumstance.

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The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other

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Jew or early Christian. Do you hear that? I think it's very important that you hear that.

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There is no evidence, none whatsoever in history, that there was any positive promotion of homosexual or lesbian behavior amongst the

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Jews the time of Christ or Paul. So you would have to pull both the

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Lord Jesus and Paul completely out of their milieu and completely out of their context to say, oh well, but they wouldn't have had any problem with this.

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Nobody in their context was promoting such things. It is a complete abuse of history to even begin to make that kind of statement.

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I go back to Gagnon, two more short paragraphs. Also worth noting is the falsity of claims that the ancient world knew nothing akin to our understanding of a homosexual orientation or of congenital influences on at least some homosexual development.

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You catch that? You will hear every pro -gay apologist saying they didn't know about what we know about today.

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That is false. Now don't expect anybody on CNN or MSNBC or even

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Fox News, for that matter, to challenge that. It's just taken as a given anymore. But it's not true.

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As classicist Thomas K. Hubbard notes, quote, homosexuality in this era, that is the early imperial age of Rome, may have ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and began to be viewed as an essential and central category of personal identity exclusive of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation.

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End quote. And finally, Bernadette Bruton, a lesbian

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New Testament scholar. If that doesn't tell you immediately that when you hear someone talking about New Testament scholar, you need to ask a little bit further as to the commitments of said person.

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Bernadette Bruton, a lesbian New Testament scholar who has written the most important book about lesbianism in antiquity, also acknowledges this point.

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She states that, quote, Paul could have believed. Paul could not have believed.

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In fact, what I'm going to do. Never mind. I think there's a typo in this. So I'm going to open the book, which is in my hand, and I'm going to get my reading glasses out because it is a small print book.

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This is page 244, chapter nine. I'm just going to read you the entire quote here, which is longer than what

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Gagnon produced. Further, even if Paul condemned only homosexual acts committed by heterosexual persons, many lesbians in the church who feel that they have chosen to love women as well as all bisexuals would fall under that condemnation or thereby not helped by this interpretation.

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In some, the category of the innate homosexual who is thereby free of shame and whose sexuality counts as natural does not fit the

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Roman world and does not address the self -understanding of many contemporary lesbian, bisexual and gay

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Christians. I believe that Paul used the word exchange to indicate that people knew the natural sexual order of the universe and left it behind.

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Paul uses the plural throughout Romans 1, 18 through 32, showing the communal aspect of the behavior. As a people, they suppress the truth about God.

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And as a people, they change their form of sexual behaviors. In other words, I see Paul as condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of people who had turned away from God.

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Bernadette Bruton, page 244 of her book, Love Between Women, Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism.

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So what is her conclusion? What does she say should be the result of all this?

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Um, we need to reject Paul. There you go. At least she's honest.

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We need to reject Paul. He was, his viewpoints are culturally mandated and culturally oriented and created by cultural categories.

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And so we just need to reject him. So there you go. That's, that's, that's where it comes from.

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So I wanted to add that information because it, I think it's important that you recognize that there is factual historical evidence behind what we're saying.

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And when they make these claims, nobody knew anything about them. That's a lie. That's a lie.

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It is, it is untrue. And if Matthew Vines has been spending two years studying this issue, um, why hasn't he found this information?

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Two years. Now, one other thing, I was listening to a debate, um, and I believe

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I'm, I'm 99 % certain this was the debate between Harry Knox, director of religion and faith program at the human rights campaign.

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Human rights campaign is a pro homosexual organization. It just angers me to no end. They use human rights as a pro homosexual thing.

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But my good brother, Michael Brown debated Harry Knox in 2008. And I, I had actually,

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I had actually grabbed a bunch of, of Michael's material on Isaiah 53 to listen to.

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And the middle of it, I just accidentally grabbed this too. So I ended up listening to it, uh, on a, uh, on a ride yesterday and I'd heard it before, but listen to it again.

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And I was struck by listening to Harry Knox's opening statement. And I want to just play a portion of this.

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Then we're gonna get back to, uh, Matthew Vines. Some of you are going, you are never going to finish this, but I think you'll see why this is relevant and how it's relevant and how this is illustrative of the fact that you might think that you have come up with answers to the pro homosexual apologists.

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If you're listening to just Matthew Vines and then you go listen to Harry Knox and all of a sudden he's got a completely different view that contradicts

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Matthew Vines. But you're not going to ever find them debating their positions because they don't mind.

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They don't care that they're contradicting each other as long as all of their arguments are against Christian orthodoxy.

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As long as all of their arguments are contrary to, contradictory to Christian orthodoxy, then they don't care if they are contradicting each other.

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It's the gather all of the arguments you can together, even if they're self contradictory and throw it like you're throwing everything in the kitchen sink and just hope that if you can then connect that with enough emotion that you'll convince your audience.

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And guess what, folks, it's working. It is working. Just just look around and you will see that it is working.

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Now, let's let's listen to Harry Knox's comments on Romans one.

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All right, and what we're gonna do, we're gonna listen to his comments and then I'm going to stop it and then

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I'm going to play the first section of his rebuttal. What happened in between was that Michael Brown got up and obliterated these comments.

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He did so kindly. Michael Brown is a much nicer man than I am. He did so generously, but he obliterated his comments with facts, with language, with linguistics, with lexical sources.

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Totally destroyed it. And then listen, listen to what happens.

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Robert Gagnon has said that this happens in all of his debates. It's happened in my debates. It happens in Michael Brown's debates.

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When you finally expose the biblical bankruptcy of the argumentation, then you always get the same argument back.

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So let's listen to what Harry Knox said in this debate on the subject of Romans chapter one.

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In every conversation that I ever have about this— I went to the wrong one. That's the beginning of the second one.

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I thought it was queued up. Let's go to the right one here and go. Temples, priests copulated with adolescents.

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You know they were homeless kids with nowhere else to go. In hopes of ensuring good harvests and growth in populations threatened by disease and war, the lives, the feelings and well -being of individual children were sacrificed for what was perceived to be the common good.

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And in the process, it became a commonplace of the priestly life to take part in orgies that, if they were not good for the children, were pleasurable for the adults.

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To leave that part of the story out of your study of Romans one is intellectually lazy for you and spiritually life -threatening to your lesbian and gay neighbors.

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But explanation of Paul's writings in that context, though scary and provocative, offers you the chance to speak words of real hope and reconciliation to a nation obsessed with sex and talking about sex in every venue except church.

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And please don't forget to go on to study Romans two, where Paul begins to admonish us not to judge our neighbors.

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How badly America needs to hear the message of hope through Christ expressed in First Corinthians six.

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So there he goes on from there. So what is the argument? The argument that he just made was this is all about pederasty.

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It's all about pederasty. Now that is not what Matthew Vine said. Matthew Vine's interpretation is completely different than Harry Knox's interpretation.

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It's all about adults using children. Even though Romans one actually says men lusting after other men with one another, the mutuality, it's right there.

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There's nothing in the text supportive of this, but that's what he says. And Michael Brown gets up, points that out, demonstrates that.

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And so what does Harry Knox do when he gets up for his rebuttal?

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Well, here we go. Whether the person with whom I'm talking values the.

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I don't know why this is starting just slightly after what I'm telling it to. So I'm going to back it up again here.

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But we cannot and dare not to our own detriment change what God's word said.

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Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Very good, Harry. In every conversation that I ever have about this hard topic.

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It becomes pretty quickly clear whether the person with whom I'm talking values the experience of the

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Holy Spirit in my life. And whether they're going to be presumptuous enough to deny that the experience that I have had exists.

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And not just me, my lesbian and gay Christian and sisters and brothers of many other faiths, too.

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So fully embodied the beauty of those faiths all over this world.

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That we stand in stark contrast to any rhetorical argument on this.

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The love of Christ, I pray, is simply available to you through my life. And apparent to you through my life.

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I work very hard to make it be so every day. And I know that that is something that the church over time has valued as highly as it has the

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Bible. What it has sought not to do when it has been wisest is to make an idol of the

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Bible. So what do you do? You become completely subjective.

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You say, this is, you are questioning the Holy Spirit in me. The Holy Spirit's in me.

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You're making an idol of the Bible. No rebuttal. In the first part, he had actually said, well, the

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Bible means this. Then it's shown that he's wrong.

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That's not what the Bible means. And so what's the response? Well, how dare you turn the

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Bible into an idol? And how dare you question that I have the Holy Ghost within me? And I'm just reminded as I listen to this exactly what happened to me when

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I debated Barry Lynn on this. Because remember, this man is a member of the same church as Barry Lynn, the

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United Church of Christ. And what did Barry Lynn claim? That he receives the same kind of inspiration and revelation as Paul did.

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The Holy Spirit in me, he says. And yeah, the Holy Spirit contradicts what he says in the

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Bible, but that's no big deal. Absolutely amazing.

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So there you go. You need to recognize all these different kinds of arguments are out there.

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And we have responses. They're factual. They're true. They're consistent.

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They're defensible. They're documentable. But the time that we will have to be able to say those things in the public square is vanishing quickly unless God is in the public square.

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And I'm not saying that God is merciful, and there are certain people out there that aren't helping with that.

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Dr. Al Mohler tweeted a reference to a video of a North Carolina fundamentalist pastor who in his quote -unquote sermon—I hesitate to call it a sermon—Pastor

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Charles Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church.

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I wonder if someone on the channel can look up Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina and see if there's something about the

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King James Version on the website someplace. Because I just got the feeling listening to the man that this just might well be.

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It's definitely a good old fundamentalist church. And if you listen to Charles Worley, he says, we're a

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Guinnett and stuff like that. What the man did is he, in the middle of a sermon, demonstrated exactly what attitude we cannot have, we dare not have, that is utterly and completely opposed to the attitude any believing

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Christian should ever have on this subject. But the problem is the world thinks that's how we all are.

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And we all suffer when people like this. There are people who oppose homosexuality simply because they are bigots.

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There are homophobes. There are homophobes out there. There's no question about it. There are people who have an irrational fear.

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They've never thought through Romans 1. They've never thought through 1

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Corinthians 6. They might quote Leviticus 18 or 20, but they've never invested 10 minutes in thinking about the holiness code.

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They've never even bothered to try to understand Jesus' teaching in Matthew chapter 19, the positive aspect.

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No, it's just, well, the Bible says it's wrong, so it's wrong. It's a surface level mechanism for feeding bigotry and hatred.

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And it's real easy for them to do that because we see the bigotry and hatred on the other side. So it's like, well, there you go.

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But he said in this video, which has gone viral, and folks, if you've got a camera on you and there's a microphone on your lapel, realize something.

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You're speaking to the whole world. Think about it.

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Build a great big, large fence, 50 or 100 miles long, and put all the lesbians in there,

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Worley went on to say in his 13th May sermon at his maiden

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North Carolina church. Guess I could have given you the location there. Sorry about that. Fly over and drop some food.

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Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out.

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And I'm not even doing a thick enough accent there. Feed them, and you know, in a few years, they'll die out.

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You know why? They can't reproduce. Well, thank you, Pastor Worley.

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Thank you very much for assisting the world in recognizing that there are people who call themselves fundamentalists who will use the

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Bible as an excuse for not thinking things through and for being ignorant.

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Thank you very much, sir. We needed that assistance and that help. What an amazing thing.

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What an amazing thing. So it's all on us, folks.

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It's all on us to not compromise, to speak the truth, but to speak it in love and to be ready to give an answer, not like that man did, but like we are trying to do here, like Michael Brown's trying to do, like Al Mohler's trying to do, like so many others are attempting to do in that way.

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Am I saying that their website has disappeared or something like that? Because I saw something about it. I don't know.

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But we need to get back to Matthew Vines, or we're never, ever, ever going to finish this.

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So we've just gotten to the point where we're transitioning out of the Romans 1 material into the 1

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Corinthians 6, verse 9 material. Our two remaining passages are less involved than the others, so I'll spend somewhat less time on them.

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Hello? Our two remaining passages are less involved than the others, so I'll spend somewhat less time on them.

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Okay, I have no idea why it's doing that. Let's see if we can fast forward past it. Start with the King James Version of this passage, which was published more than 400 years ago, and so predates this modern controversy.

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It reads, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor violers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

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Our keywords for the discussion here are the words translated as effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind.

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These somewhat ambiguous translations in the King James are consistent with how these words were actually translated into English for hundreds of years.

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Some kind of immorality or abuse, but specifically what kind was never stated. This changed halfway through the last century, when some

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Bible translators began connecting these terms directly to homosexuality. The first occurrence of this shift came in 1946, when a translation of the

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Bible was published that simply stated that, quote, homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Several decades later, after the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual behavior came to be more widely understood, this was changed to say that only practicing homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom.

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But these terms and concepts regarding sexual orientation are completely alien to the Biblical world.

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Neither Greek, the language of the New Testament, nor Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, nor Latin, the language of early

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Christian translations of the Bible, had a word that means or corresponds to the English word for gay.

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The concept of sexual orientation, and of same -sex orientation in particular, didn't exist in the ancient world.

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The English— Now, now, I just stopped long enough. Did you catch all the quotes that I gave you just a few minutes ago, which demonstrate that this is pure mythology?

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I mean, it's just, it's just sad. I mean, I've actually had people contact me who said they had relatives who attended this talk and who were convinced by it.

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Well, if you can be convinced by this kind of thing and you don't check it out, then you can be convinced by anything. You're obviously convinced by the sincerity of the person, or at least the perceived sincerity, and things like that.

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You're not convinced by facts. You don't, you don't check things out for yourself, because this is just absurd.

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But anyway. English term homosexual was not even coined until the end of the 19th century. And so translations of these words that suggest that Paul was using these distinctly modern concepts and categories are highly suspect.

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But today there are many translations of the Bible, though certainly not all of them, that link these terms in some way to homosexuality, rendering them variously as males who practice homosexuality, men who have sex with men, or male prostitutes.

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What is the basis for this shift in translation? The word translated as abusers of themselves with mankind in the

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King James is a compound word. In the Greek, it is arsenekoites, arsene meaning male and koites meaning bed, generally with a sexual connotation.

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And so the argument is that we can determine the meaning of this term from its etymology. Male plus bed in the plural form must then refer to men who sleep with other men.

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Now, we have already given the foundation here. We've already given the background.

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We've talked about this before. But obviously, it's important to point it out again, because when we went through these texts,

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I pointed out the fact that, for example, in Leviticus 2013.

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Now, what's the term? Arsenekoites. Let me read

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Leviticus 2013 in the Greek Septuagint, which is the Greek translation that the Apostle Paul utilized and would have been utilizing.

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In fact, the early church to whom he was writing, this is their version of the

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Bible. Now, you have koimethe and then you have metaarsenos with a man koite.

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Arsenos and koite are right next to each other in the text. And I point out when we went through this before that it seems that the earliest appearance of this term either is from Paul himself, and hence it's probably a term he has made up to describe this sin straight out of Leviticus, which remember,

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Matthew Vines did not attempt to explain to us that Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 are not condemning homosexuality.

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All he said was, it doesn't matter anymore because we don't believe any of these laws are binding on Christians. But he didn't even bother to try to argue that that's not what he was talking about because it plainly is.

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So if the Apostle writing to the church, which is using the Greek Septuagint, uses the very language of the

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Greek Septuagint in describing this activity, how can you come up with anything other than homosexuality?

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So, men lying with men in bed, men doing with men what you normally do with a woman in bed.

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That's exactly what both texts are saying. And as Jeff Neal said, this is one of those, you know, it's funny, as certain people look for ways of inflating their number of debates that they've done who remain nameless.

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Um, but one of the debates that I've done, which is, has never been heard by anybody but those who were listening that day.

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Sort of like the debate I did with the imam a few weeks ago that only people ever heard it were the people who were listening live.

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But Jeff Neal and I were on the radio station here in Phoenix, KPXQ, and we debated two homosexuals and they didn't record it or they lost the tape or whatever.

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I forget what it was. Yeah, I didn't record it. And so no one ever got to listen to it again. But one of the things that I remember very clearly

37:08

Jeff saying in that debate, in talking about arsenokoites, was arsenokoites means what men do with other men in bed and that ain't eating crackers.

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That was how Jeff put it. Uh, that was it.

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That was a wipeout debate. It was not even close. It was just a massive destruction of the homosexual side.

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But no one's ever heard of that again because unfortunately that's what happened.

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But so this is the information. It's right there. It's right in front of our eyes.

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The source from which Paul is driving this. If you allow for any intertextuality in the

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Bible, if you allow for the relationship of Old and New Testament in the Bible, it's right there.

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It's clear. If you want to know what the Bible is actually saying, you can know. If you don't want to know, well, you can always just twist it.

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But there are several problems with this approach. First, simply looking at a word's component parts doesn't necessarily tell us what it means.

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There are many... Unless, of course, they're found right next to each other in the very scriptural source that Paul would be driving them from.

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Many English words for this approach would fail. For example, the words understand, butterfly, honeymoon.

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And television, which doesn't mean far -seeing, none of which is relevant to arsenokoites because...

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Why? Because it does not have an established lexical meaning prior to Paul's usage of it. Therefore, you must look at the sources from which

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Paul derived his technical vocabulary. And remember,

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Leviticus 20 .13 in the Greek Septuagint. The component parts here, honey and moon, really don't tell us anything about what that word actually means.

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In order to understand what a word means, you have to consider how it's used in context. Oh yes, that's true.

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The problem with the word abusers of themselves with mankind, arsenokoites, is that it was used extremely rarely in ancient

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Greek. In fact, Paul's use of it in 1 Corinthians is considered to be its first recorded use anywhere.

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That's interesting because there is possibly one previous use.

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I read you already the footnote on that subject from the

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Same -Sex Controversy, from my study of the term using this Thesaurus Lingua Graecae CD -ROM many, many, many moons ago.

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And after Paul, the few places that it appears tend to be in lists of general vices, which are not the most helpful of contexts.

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Fortunately, however, many of these lists are grouped by category. And this Greek word consistently appears among sins that are of a primarily economic nature, rather than those that are primarily sexual.

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This and some other contextual data indicate that this term referred to some kind of economic exploitation.

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Some kind of economic exploitation. OK, so you've got

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Paul. You've got him using the Septuagint. There is no question in scholarship of the absolutely intimate relationship that exists between the

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Apostle Paul and the text of the Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint.

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None whatsoever. And you have malakoi and arsenokoitai right next to each other.

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And yet this somehow is some kind of an economic thing.

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It really, all those, all those people that are translating this as homosexual, they just got an agenda.

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They're just missing it. Likely through sexual means. This may have involved forms of same -sex behavior, but coercive and exploitative forms.

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There's no contextual support for linking this term to loving, faithful relationships.

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Again, eisegesis. Taking a concept that would not have existed for the Apostle Paul. That is the idea of loving, faithful, homosexual relationships.

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Utterly rejected by all. There is not a single Jewish source contemporary with Paul, 100 years, any direction, 200 years, any direction, that could begin to substantiate this, read it in and turn the text around.

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On its head. That's how you do it. The other debated word in this passage, translated as effeminate in the

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King James, is malakos in the Greek. This was a very common word in ancient

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Greek, and it literally means soft. It was used as an insult in a wide array of contexts to refer to those who were considered weak -willed, cowardly, or lazy.

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And all of those failings were particularly associated with women in ancient times.

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Hence, the rendering effeminate. In a specifically sexual context, the word was used to describe general licentiousness and debauchery.

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But this wasn't limited to any particular kind of relationship. Men who took the passive role in sexual relations were sometimes labeled this term, which is the basis on which some modern translators connect it to homosexuality.

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But so many people were labeled this term for so many different things. Most of them not even sexual in nature.

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Now, notice how he's doing this. I mean, this takes some effort to take something so plain, so clear, so obvious, so contextually compelling, and to sow confusion.

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You have to cut the text into little parts. Don't allow malakoi to be right next to arsenokoitai.

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Why? Because if you allow the text to stand as it is, the two terms contextually influence your translation of both of them.

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And see, it's not because we just have a bunch of mean, nasty, fundamentalist Bible translators that are just picking on us, loving, monogamous homosexuals, about which 99 % of us aren't.

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That's not why it is. You see, translators, honest translators, recognize these two words are right next to each other, and therefore, contextually, they mean something together, don't they?

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And we know what arsenokoitai means. We see the connection to Leviticus 18 and 20.

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And so malakoi, what's talking about here, are both aspects of the homosexual sexual encounter.

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There is the aggressive male, and there is the passive effeminate.

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And it's interesting what he didn't read. Did you notice what he read? He read verses 9 and 10.

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He did not read verse 11. He didn't read verse 11. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified.

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In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God. You see, that text is the great offer of hope to the person who has become trapped in the soul and body -destroying lifestyle of homosexuality.

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And because it is, those who refuse to repent find it tremendously offensive.

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Because you see, it closes the door on quote -unquote gay Christianity.

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It says, such were some of you, not such are some of you.

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It specifically uses a form that cannot possibly allow. It's the imperfect of I -me, eta.

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And so some of you in the past, not, and it doesn't use an error, it uses the imperfect.

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So it was an ongoing action in the past. Some of you in the past, this is how you acted.

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That was your lifestyle, but it isn't any longer. There has been a change.

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There has been a break. You were washed. That means you have to be washed of this.

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It is a dishonoring thing. It is sinful. It's a rejection of God's purposes.

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It defiles. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of our God. But you see, it says you were, not you are.

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And the man we're listening to has to change the Bible to justify his continued rebellion against God's will.

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And most of the sexual ones about men in relationships with women, but there's no valid basis for picking out one possible reason out of dozens and saying that that must have been what

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Paul had in mind. See, lexical agnosticism. Oh, we don't know what it means.

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I mean, we, you know, this context thing, we just can't put too much emphasis on that context thing, you know?

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It would be more faithful to the text to return to the ambiguity that prevailed for more than 1900 years of translation.

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The notion that Paul is singling out gay people here and saying that they will not inherit the kingdom of God simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

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Well, as we have seen, Matthew Vine's argumentation does not hold up under scrutiny. In the final passage, 1

47:51

Timothy 1 verse 10, the first word, abusers of themselves with mankind, reappears in a list of people

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Paul says the law was written against. Here, the translation is them that defile themselves with mankind.

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The translation issues and debates here are the same as those from 1 Corinthians. Again, the strongest inference...

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In other words, it's arsenicoites again, except here it's arsenicoites because it's in the plural.

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...inference that can be drawn from other uses of this term... Plural data, we mean. ...is that it referred to economic exploitation through sexual coercion, possibly involving same -sex activity, but a very different kind than what we are discussing.

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So those are our six passages. So they're not exactly a compelling argument there either, but he's just going back to what he's already said and we've already demonstrated is untrue about arsenicoites and its use here right after the term pornoise.

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Pornoise, arsenicoites. But it doesn't have anything to do with that homosexuality thing and what men do with men in bed.

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No, that's not that. The six verses in the Bible that refer in some way to same -sex behavior, and indeed, they're all negative.

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But that isn't a conclusive argument. The majority of references to sexual behavior in general and to heterosexual behavior in the

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Bible are negative. It's not because sexuality is a bad thing, because most of the references to it in scripture are to lust, to excess, to infidelity, promiscuity, rape, or violence.

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And yes, the Bible also contains positive affirmations of opposite -sex relationships, in addition to hundreds of negative verses about forms of them.

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And it does not contain explicit positive statements about same -sex relationships. It certainly does not.

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But it also hardly ever discusses same -sex behavior of any kind. And the very few references to it are in completely different contexts than loving relationships.

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There are no loving relationships, because there can be none, because you have not even seemingly given consideration to the concept of mutuality, the concept of the fact that loving relationship is biblically defined on the basis of God's creative decree of man and woman, male and female, you cannot biblically love a mirror.

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Sexual narcissism is not the biblical concept of love.

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In Genesis 19, there's a reference to threatened gang rape. In 1

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Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1, there's a reference to what appears to be sexual exploitation.

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In Romans 1, Paul refers to lustful same -sex behavior as part of an illustration of general sexual chaos and excess.

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And though he labels this behavior unnatural, he's using this term in the sense of uncustomary gender roles.

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See, now what happens is you've had this argumentation presented that has never taken into account the inconsistency of it, the arguments against it, and now these are being presented as facts, as if it's already been established, which of course they have not.

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And unfortunately, many, many people simply do not follow arguments carefully enough.

51:40

They have not been taught to think critically. And so what's going to happen here in the last eight minutes, approximately, maybe a little less than that, is you take these false assertions that you've made, you weave them together, and then this is how you make this effective in our culture today.

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You now cement it with emotion, and that's how you make it work.

52:16

Just as he's referring to social custom when he labels long hair in men unnatural, the only place in Scripture where male same -sex relations are actually prohibited in Leviticus comes in the context of an

52:32

Old Testament law code that has never applied to Christians. The Bible never directly addresses, and it certainly does not condemn loving, committed same -sex relationships.

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There's no biblical teaching about sexual orientation, nor is there any call to lifelong celibacy for gay people.

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But the Bible does explicitly reject forced loneliness as God's will for human beings.

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Not just in the Old Testament, when God says that it is not good for the man to be alone, but in the

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New Testament as well. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul writes about marriage and celibacy.

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He was celibate himself, and he says that he wishes that everyone else could be celibate as well. But, he says, each person has their own gift.

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For Paul, celibacy is a spiritual gift, and one that he realizes that many Christians don't have.

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However, because many of them lack the gift of celibacy, Paul observes that sexual immorality is rampant.

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And so he prescribes marriage as a kind of remedy or protection against sexual sin for Christians who lack the gift of celibacy.

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It is better to marry than to burn with passion, he says. And today, the vast majority of Christians do not sense either the gift of celibacy or the call to it.

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This is true for both straight and gay Christians. And so if the remedy against sexual sin for straight

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Christians is marriage, why should the remedy for gay Christians not be the same?

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It is. You can marry any woman you want. The problem, of course, is you want to redefine out of the biblical categories what marriage is.

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Now, I hope you can see this, how clear this is. Because if you can, many in our society cannot.

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But you may be one of the few people that can explain it to them, that can try to get them to see it. But there does seem to be a veil of blindness, certainly upon those who have deceived themselves into thinking that marrying another man is actually a marriage, or a woman marrying another woman is actually a marriage.

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But certainly amongst many others as well. And I think we know exactly where that's coming from when we go back to Romans 1.

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The arguments and debates that we have, both in the church and in civil society about gay marriage, tend to get lost in abstractions.

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Is it right for a man to marry another man? Or for a woman to marry another woman?

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Well, it doesn't seem right. That isn't how God designed us. He made men for women, and women for men.

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That is His design. His definition of marriage. Amen. And it's not for us to tamper with or change.

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True. But these arguments are always made by people who are themselves heterosexual.

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You mean the way that God made us? Who have always fit in. Who haven't endured years of internal torment and agony.

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Now see, here comes the transition. Now what you do is you create a victim mentality.

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And you start talking about how you've been hurt. And you see, people naturally are afraid to say anything negative towards someone who claims victim status.

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We see this in the law courts all the time. I'm the victim here. And that's why we have laws.

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And that's why judges are supposed to judge on the basis of law, not on the basis of emotion. And so now you start talking about the suffering that has been theirs.

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Well, sin brings suffering. And all of us experience suffering in our lives.

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Some of it from sin. Some because we live in a fallen world. You lose a loved one, you experience suffering.

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Because of abiding sin, there's relationships that are broken, we experience suffering. But you don't start redefining reality itself based upon your suffering.

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It is such a massively self -centered, narcissistic thing to demand that all of society adopt and adapt and change just for you, just because of your desires and your perspectives.

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And yet that's exactly what we have going on here. Because they have a different sexual orientation than their friends, than their parents, than seemingly everyone else in the world.

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But those people, gay people, are just as much children of God and just as much a part of his creation as everyone else.

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And there's something terribly unseemly about straight Christians insisting that gay

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Christians are somehow inferior to them. Now, again, we simply reject at its foundation the very concept of a gay

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Christian that has no more meaning than an incestuous Christian or a

58:18

Christian who engages in sexual activity with animals. And there are actually a whole number of other realms of behavior that Dr.

58:29

Brown's brought up that I just, I can't mention on this program.

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I just can't. I mean, there are things that arouse sexual desire in people that just,

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I mean, we know what necrophilia is, but there's even more beyond that that makes necrophilia look tame.

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Are we going to allow, because as everyone will point out, even the most perverse behaviors, even the most perverse behaviors have some kind of biological foundation to them.

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So are we going to, if we're going to go this direction, do we just simply allow for any biological, any behavior because it has a biological basis?

59:18

That's anarchy. That's the end of all ethics and morality. And this closing statement that Matthew Vines makes could be made by a person promoting intergenerational love.

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Just change the words and the arguments are absolutely identical.

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Absolutely identical. How dare you straight Christians deny that God has made me this way and deny to me happiness and deny to me fulfillment.

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You are forcing me to be alone because you won't let me have sex with eight -year -olds.

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How dare you do that? And you think, oh, no, no, no, no.

01:00:04

It's happening, folks. It's already happening. At the speed it's going, who knows what's going to be next.

01:00:16

Or broken. Or that gay people only exist because of the fall and that God really intended to make everyone straight like them.

01:00:26

But you know, I am a part of creation too. Including my sexual orientation. I'm a part of God's design.

01:00:34

See, put these words in the mouth of anyone. A polygamist, a person promoting incest, a person promoting pedophilia, bestiality.

01:00:46

Let them stand up there and make the exact same arguments. My sexual orientation comes from God.

01:00:54

I'm a child of God. I'm a part of his creation. How dare you do these things to me?

01:01:00

And the sad thing is, you'll have a bunch of people sitting at United Methodist Church going, oh, I'd never thought about that.

01:01:09

Because they have abandoned any meaningful biblical foundation.

01:01:16

That's the first thing that I learned growing up in Sunday school. That God created me.

01:01:22

That God loves me. That I'm a beloved child of God. You know, if you were taught that in Sunday school, you were lied to.

01:01:31

Because unless you've repented and put your faith in Jesus Christ, you aren't any of those things.

01:01:39

Theology matters. No more and no less valuable than anyone else. I love

01:01:47

God. And I love Jesus. I really do. But that doesn't mean that I need to hate myself.

01:01:57

Or somehow wallow in self -pity. I love God and I love Jesus, but I hate my sin.

01:02:03

And it is not a Christian response to say, I love God, I love Jesus. But even though Jesus died on the cross for my sin,

01:02:11

I'm going to redefine my sin so I don't have to repent of it. Misery and loathing for the rest of my life.

01:02:17

That's not what God created me to do. Our discussion of this issue, of the gay issue, can't take place in the realm of abstractions.

01:02:28

Of musings about ideal design and ideal gender roles. As though gay people don't even exist.

01:02:36

Jesus placed a particular focus on those others overlooked. On those who were outcast.

01:02:42

On mistreated and marginalized minorities. And if we are working to emulate the life of Christ, then that's where our focus needs to be too.

01:02:52

So now what you do is you associate your sinful behavior with marginalized and outcast minorities.

01:03:00

Once again, playing yourself as the victim and trying to draw to yourself the sympathy that is rightly due to the widow and the orphan, but now being attached to sexual perversion.

01:03:14

Which in and of itself is a perverse action. And is very offensive and should be offensive to anybody who for a moment honors what

01:03:26

Jesus actually taught and what its actual application should be.

01:03:31

Romans 12 tells us to honor one another above yourselves. Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.

01:03:44

Hebrews 13 3 says, remember those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

01:03:53

Wow, that one is incredibly offensive to me, since the context is talking about Christians, remembering fellow

01:03:59

Christians who were in chains and enslaved and persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ.

01:04:05

Not about sexual perversion and not about perverting the message of Christianity as Matthew Vines has done this.

01:04:13

Talk about something that is truly reason to be offended. There's a reason to be offended.

01:04:21

How fully have you absorbed not just the existence of gay and lesbian

01:04:27

Christians? We reject the existence of gay and lesbian Christians in the sense that you have defined it.

01:04:36

There are Christians who struggle with same -sex attractions, but they do not allow those same -sex attractions to define the

01:04:47

Christian faith. They repent of them. They seek

01:04:52

God's grace to quell them. But the depth of the pain and the hurt that their own brothers and sisters have inflicted on them.

01:05:04

Their own brothers and sisters have inflicted this upon them. Here comes the absolute guilt trip, that if you do not accept the twisting of Scripture that we have just endured for coming up, we're just past five hours now in this response.

01:05:22

If you do not accept these things, all of the falsehoods, all the bad arguments, the contradictory arguments, the fallacious arguments that we've documented, then you are inflicting pain on others.

01:05:33

How dare you do that? This is clear evidence that the twistedness that Matthew Vines experiences in his sexual orientation is not limited just to his body, but to his mind and his spirit as well.

01:05:53

Because if you can take God's truth and twist it like this, to where you're projecting your own rebellion upon others and accusing them of causing hurt, when it's you who are bringing about this hurt to yourself by your refusal to repent, an amazing thing to see.

01:06:15

Does that pain grieve you as though it were your own? And how aware are you of the ways in which you may be contributing to suffering and hurt in gay people's lives?

01:06:27

It's still commonplace for straight Christians to say, yes, I believe that homosexuality is a sin, but don't blame me,

01:06:34

I'm just reading the Bible. That's just what it says. Well, first of all, no, you are not just reading the

01:06:43

Bible. You are taking a few verses out of context and extracting from them an absolute condemnation that was never intended.

01:06:54

Notice that the arguments which have not been compelling at all, which we have refuted thoroughly and completely,

01:07:01

I think any rational person would be able to see that. Now, they're absolutes.

01:07:07

It's no longer just, well, you know, it could be seen this way or it could be seen that way. Now they're absolutes and you're guilty if you believe those absolutes.

01:07:20

But you are also striking to the very core of another human being and gutting them of their sense of dignity and of self -worth.

01:07:29

So if you talk about incest, if you talk about bestiality, intergenerational love, you are gutting that person.

01:07:37

So in other words, there can be no ethical or moral discussion whatsoever.

01:07:43

Anything goes if you're going to be truly loving. You are reinforcing the message that gay people have heard for centuries.

01:07:54

You will always be alone. You come from a family, but you'll never form one of your own.

01:08:05

You can't form one of your own. You cannot produce life with another male.

01:08:14

That is the facts of reality. It is a fantasy world. For you to think otherwise.

01:08:22

You are uniquely unworthy of loving and being loved by another person. And all because you're different.

01:08:30

Because you're gay. Being different is no crime.

01:08:38

Being gay is not a sin. And for a gay person to desire and pursue love and marriage and family is no more selfish or sinful than when a straight person desires and pursues the very same things.

01:08:55

The Song of Songs tells us that King Solomon's wedding day was the day his heart rejoiced.

01:09:06

To deny to a small minority of people not just a wedding day, but a lifetime of love and commitment and family is to inflict on them a devastating level of hurt and anguish.

01:09:23

And by redefining reality itself, by refusing the categories that God has forced upon you,

01:09:33

Mr. Vines, by creation itself, you are the one who is inflicting this pain upon yourself.

01:09:42

You want to have family. Well, family is defined by God's creative act.

01:09:52

You want to have children. Children are wonderful. Children are fantastic.

01:09:59

I will never forget the birth of my children. And I love them to this day.

01:10:07

And I'm really looking forward to loving my grandchild that I'm going to have by the end of the year,

01:10:12

Lord willing. Yeah, I'm going to become a grandpa soon. And I'm going to hold that little child.

01:10:19

And I'm going to marvel that my youngest child has now got a child too.

01:10:26

And I'm probably gonna start singing sunrise, sunset or something along those lines as I experienced that grandpa thing.

01:10:36

But you know what? The reason I'm experiencing those things because I didn't rebel against the way that God created me.

01:10:44

I have a wife. I have a wife.

01:10:52

And therefore we had children. And Matthew, I'm sorry that you have given up the battle against unnatural sexual desires.

01:11:06

And you've allowed that to define who you are. But I am not inflicting anything upon you that you have not inflicted upon yourself.

01:11:23

To tell you the truth is not to inflict anything upon you. I've listened to you.

01:11:30

I'm not like that guy in North Carolina. And by the way, someone did mention to me it is a King James only church, which makes perfect sense.

01:11:37

It's King James only fundamentals Baptist church. I'm not like him.

01:11:44

I've listened to you. I've checked out your facts and found you're wrong.

01:11:51

But I know what arsenokoites means. I know what malakoi means. I've looked at the original languages.

01:11:58

I've looked at the historical sources. Far more deeply than you have. And I'm telling you your emotions have become your ultimate authority.

01:12:16

And you are abusing not only yourself by giving in to your sexual desires, but you are abusing the word of God.

01:12:27

You are abusing the Bible. And I have the honesty to tell you that.

01:12:37

And you say, but that hurts me. When the doctor tells you you have cancer, that might hurt you, but you need to hear that.

01:12:46

You need to know that so that you can take steps to do something about it. It is not love for someone to lie to them about their real situation, their real state.

01:12:59

There is nothing in the Bible that indicates that Christians are called to perpetuate that kind of pain in other people's lives, rather than work to alleviate it.

01:13:09

Especially when the problem is so easy to fix. All it takes is acceptance.

01:13:18

The Bible is not opposed to the acceptance of gay Christians or to the possibility of loving relationships for them.

01:13:28

And if you are uncomfortable with the idea of two men or two women in love, if you are dead set against that idea, then

01:13:40

I'm asking you to try to see things differently. For my sake, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

01:13:48

I'm asking you to ask yourself this. How deeply do you care about your family?

01:13:58

How deeply do you love your spouse? And how tenaciously would you fight for them if they were ever in danger or in harm's way?

01:14:09

That is how deeply you should care. And that is how tenaciously you should fight for the very same things for my life.

01:14:20

Because they matter just as much to me. Gay people should be a treasured part of our families and our communities.

01:14:30

And the truly Christian response to them is acceptance, support, and love.

01:14:40

Thank you, and thank you to everyone for coming tonight. The question that was not asked is how much do you love

01:14:49

God? How much do you love his truth? And how much will you allow him to define his own creation?

01:14:56

Because what Matthew Vines has done is in his rebellion against God, he has chosen to rebel against God's creative order.

01:15:04

And then to blame everybody else for the resultant pain and suffering that his own capitulation to his sexual desires has brought into his life.

01:15:16

Acceptance, indeed, of what, Mr. Vines? Of a completely different moral and ethical system that would allow you to salve your conscience, but in the process to destroy yourself and anyone else that you would bring into that rebellious relationship.

01:15:46

We have now spent at least five and a half hours, I think that's correct, responding to an hour and five minute video.

01:15:57

And I know there are some of you that would rather I talked about Dave Hunt's new book or something else.

01:16:06

But this is the issue of our day. It's not because this is the most important issue in the

01:16:12

Bible. It is because this issue is defining the cultural rejection of any kind of moral or ethical sanity.

01:16:25

And that's why it's important. And that's why we need to address it. We're going to take a brief break. When we come back after this,

01:16:33

Tony Campolo capitulating on this very same subject. We'll be right back.

01:17:03

White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week, as he seeks to leave no stone unturned.

01:17:11

Based firmly upon the bedrock of scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see. The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his word.

01:17:20

What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? The charges are as follows, prostitution using the gospel for financial gain, pandering to pluralism, cowardice under fire, felonious eisegesis, entertainment without a license, and cross -dressing, ignoring

01:17:37

God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women. Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town? Get pulpit crimes in the bookstore at aomen .org.

01:17:54

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

01:18:00

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

01:18:06

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

01:18:12

Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

01:18:20

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

01:18:30

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.

01:18:40

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at aomen .org.

01:18:48

The history of the Christian church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith. Once the core of the

01:18:54

Reformation, the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine. In his book,

01:19:00

The God Who Justifies, theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of, understanding of, and dedication to the great doctrine of justification, and then provides an exegesis of the key scripture texts on this theme.

01:19:13

Justification is the heart of the gospel. In today's culture where tolerance is the new absolute,

01:19:19

James White proclaims with passion the truth and centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith.

01:19:25

Dr. J. Adams says, I lost sleep over this book. I simply couldn't put it down. James White writes the way an exegetically and theologically oriented pastor appreciates.

01:19:35

This is no book for casual reading. There is solid meat throughout, an outstanding contribution in every sense of the words.

01:19:42

The God Who Justifies by Dr. James White. Get your copy today at aomen .org.

01:20:10

And if you go to quip .org slash article slash is dash homosexuality dash a dash healthy dash lifestyle backslash just read what's there.

01:20:22

Well, let me take that back. If you are a strong person, read what's there.

01:20:28

If you're not, then don't. Because it is difficult to express in public the depth of depravity that is part and parcel of the vast majority, vast majority, over 50 percent, over 75 percent of the experience of homosexuals.

01:20:55

It is hard to express. It really is. I just,

01:21:01

I just, I mentioned that. And anyway, we go on from there.

01:21:09

Um, there's so many things I want to be talking about. And I want to get back to, I need to get back to some

01:21:15

Islamic stuff. Eventually, I am working on the book. I've got, I thought about bringing up some of the stuff that I'm writing on right now.

01:21:23

Folks in channel, I posted a, you know, one of the reasons to sort of hang and prosper on is that when

01:21:30

I'm writing a book, I pad my stats by quoting what I just read or what I just wrote.

01:21:36

So earlier today, folks saw about, I don't know, three or four paragraphs, including a section from the infancy gospel of Thomas that I translated myself and some discussion about materials appearing in the

01:21:51

Quran and stuff like that. So it's sort of fun for people to see a book before it's actually published and before it's edited.

01:22:01

In fact, sometimes they'll go, did you mean to spell it this way? Oh, thank you. I get a little free proof editing that way because we have lots of smart folks in channel.

01:22:12

But I need to get back to all that. And I have some that queued up. I have, I'm ready to move into the

01:22:18

Abdullah Kunda debate. And I plan on doing that on Thursday to be able to do that. I really felt that the

01:22:24

Matthew Vines material, I don't, I, Rich, can you remember a show where you've had more people coming up to us and saying, man, thanks for addressing this.

01:22:33

I cannot think of a series we've done where people have said, man, we needed this. I've got this person in my family, this person at work.

01:22:41

It's just all over the place. For what it's worth, I've been working with you for 25 years. And honestly, it's one of the most valuable things for me in the 25 years.

01:22:52

I mean, we look at each other often and say, the world is falling apart.

01:23:00

The wheels are falling off the bus. It's just all around us insanity. And this is at the very heart of it in a lot of ways.

01:23:08

It is. It is. But like I said, I've had people come up to me at church and say, thank you so much for doing this.

01:23:15

So we are, what we need to, one thing we need to put on the to -do list immediately is to take the audio from those five hours and 15 minutes,

01:23:27

I think, and create a single file and post it for direct downloading on the front page.

01:23:35

All right, we're on it. We got to do that as soon as this is, this has got to be one of the first things we do.

01:23:40

Because I've said we're going to do it and now we need to do it. So I don't want to be giving folks URLs to four different programs.

01:23:48

I want one file right there, just like the Romans 9 sermon. Here, pull it down and pass it around.

01:23:54

Give it to folks. Stick it on a jump drive and hand it to people. I think that's the way to do it.

01:24:01

Point of order here real quick. If you don't separate them, in other words,

01:24:08

I was just thinking as you were saying that we could simply list links on one blog to all of the files.

01:24:15

But the problem with that is if you put them all in one, that becomes a pretty big file. Not really.

01:24:21

Okay. To be honest with you, I deal with pretty big audio files when

01:24:27

I convert books. My books are frequently six, seven, eight, nine to 12 hours long. And if you put it in the right format, they're not that big.

01:24:37

Okay. Not in comparison. I mean, you can't hardly even buy a jump drive anymore. It's not two or four gigs inside.

01:24:43

Well, that's very true. I wonder how somebody on Dial -Up does this. I'm sorry? I wonder how somebody on Dial -Up does it.

01:24:49

Does it still exist? Anyway. I think

01:24:55

Carla was the last one. Carla's not on Dial -Up anymore. No, but I think she was the last one on Dial -Up. I think they turned it off once she...

01:25:01

Yeah, I think that's true. Anyway. Yeah, we want to get back to other topics.

01:25:10

But I did want... I heard this. I forget. I think one fellow did email this in.

01:25:17

Thank you very much. And I couldn't...

01:25:23

This was a Canadian television program. Now, let me give you the background of this. It's going to sound a little bit weird because it was...

01:25:31

Because it is a Canadian television program, I had to record this sort of old school over the air.

01:25:38

And so the recording isn't quite as good as... Nah, it sounds pretty good.

01:25:43

It's fully understandable. It just sounds a little bit odd. Anyway. Before this segment with Tony Campolo, I was almost going to play this too, but I decided not to.

01:26:02

But they had a segment. And I forget what this guy's name was. I'm sorry.

01:26:07

I had this up in here before and I can't find it now. And... Well, wait a minute.

01:26:15

This is Chrome and Chrome has a pretty neat little thingy here. Recently closed. What was that guy's name?

01:26:26

It's a Greek name. And he's on the

01:26:32

Canadian broadcasting system. And he's got a long Greek name that ends in "-opulus".

01:26:38

Maybe somebody in channel will be able to pull that up because I can't... I don't see what it was here.

01:26:46

Three tabs. What was... Nope. That's not it either. And now

01:26:52

I've lost everything. Oops. Oh, this is a different one. Okay. Did someone in channel come up with it?

01:27:00

Yeah, no. Anyway. Sorry about that. But Zorb...

01:27:09

Oh, come on, Algo. They had a thing with a woman with six gays.

01:27:19

And they were talking about what's fabulous about being gay.

01:27:24

About being homosexual. One of them I really couldn't repeat, even if I had wanted to play it.

01:27:30

It was clearly off color. But what was repeated over and over again was, you can have sex all you want, not have any kids.

01:27:44

Another guy, I can have a fabulous wardrobe as long as I date only guys that are as tall as me.

01:27:53

And I'm like... They went through the whole thing. Yes, Ralph has it right there.

01:28:01

Is that what you're going to say? George Strom... Strombolopoulos. There you go. There you go. Yeah, Ralph got it too.

01:28:07

But you had it first because you had your hand on the thing, but Ralph got it in channel as well. George Strombolopoulos.

01:28:16

That's the program this is taken from. And right before they had this section with Campolo, here's this whole thing. What's wonderful about being gay is

01:28:23

I get all these extra clothes, or I can have all the sex I want and not have any kids. And over and over again, it was the freedom

01:28:31

I have to be free of the very things that Matthew Vines was just saying he wants so much.

01:28:38

And everything they said was so empty. It was so surface level.

01:28:45

It was so empty. It was horrible.

01:28:51

And then the very next thing, the very next thing, here comes... Yeah, here comes

01:28:58

Tony Campolo. And Tony Campolo starts off with a sex joke, which I have skipped. And so I'm just going to dive right into what he said because...

01:29:09

Well, anyway. This conversation has been great, again, about same -sex marriage. And your notion, you've talked about that.

01:29:17

The idea that just Republicans are the only ones who believe in God. How big is the divide in the evangelical community? Well, it's wide because politicians are making it wide.

01:29:26

They're pushing Christians in two directions. The liberal wing of the church is pushed towards Obama.

01:29:32

The evangelical wing of the church is pushed towards now Mitt Romney. And the politicians are really setting the agenda for Christians instead of it being the other way around, which is crazy.

01:29:44

How is it that anybody who has a politician set the agenda for the conversation?

01:29:50

Shouldn't they have their own opinions? I would think so. And it's largely the clergy that nurtures it.

01:30:00

You know, they hear the politicians and they identify with one or they identify with the other. I think it's about time that we recognize that Jesus in the

01:30:08

United States is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Jesus transcends partisan politics.

01:30:14

I think when anybody asks a red -letter Christian, are you a Democrat or are you... Now, I got to stop right here and explain red -letter

01:30:22

Christian. I guess this is what he calls himself now. He calls himself a red -letter Christian. Which, in of itself, what?

01:30:33

I've dropped the page, but I thought he was interviewing him. He's written a book. Yeah. Called Red -letter Christian.

01:30:38

Yeah, yeah, he has. Okay. Yeah. Red -letter Christians. I have spoken against hyper red -letterism many times.

01:30:47

It is a perversion of Scripture. It is a perversion of the Christian understanding of the inspiration of Scripture.

01:30:53

It dishonors the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament outside of the red letters of the

01:31:00

Gospels. And it explains Tony Campolo's heresies.

01:31:07

It really does. But this is the terminology he's using.

01:31:12

You're a Republican. The answer should be, would you please cite the issue? Because on some issues, if you're going to be faithful to Jesus, you're going to vote with the

01:31:21

Republicans. On some issues, if you're faithful to Jesus, you'll vote with the Democrats. And so as a red -letter Christian, you mean the

01:31:27

Christians that just basically take the words of Jesus as opposed to all the other stuff that come with it? Well, the thing is, two things are true.

01:31:34

All that other inspired stuff, you know. First, Jesus makes it clear that what he has to say is more important than anything else.

01:31:42

Than anything else? Really? What he has to say is more important than what the Holy Spirit has already said in the

01:31:48

Old Testament? Is that why he always finishes his arguments with, for as the Scriptures say, or the promise to his apostles, that the

01:31:58

Spirit will lead them into all truth? I do not leave you alone? Really? Is that what Jesus said?

01:32:04

If you read through the Sermon on the Mount, he often says, you have heard it said, Moses taught you this.

01:32:11

The old prophets taught you. But I give you a new commandment. I have something new to tell you. A wonderful, great misunderstanding of that discussion in the

01:32:20

Sermon on the Mount. And his morality is so radical. I mean, you can't believe in Jesus and take the

01:32:29

Scriptures seriously and believe in capital punishment. Everybody who's against homosexuality based on religious reasons, if they're legitimately religious reasons, as opposed to their own intolerance, or their own hate, or their own ignorance, or whatever, say because the

01:32:43

Bible says it's an abomination. Jesus doesn't say it's an abomination. So is Jesus against homosexuality? Jesus doesn't say it's abomination.

01:32:51

Jesus says that if anyone teaches you to relax even the least these commandments, they'll be leased in the kingdom of heaven.

01:32:59

I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill. You would think it would be nice if Campolo gives some correction to this man's obvious ignorance of even the most basics of biblical exegesis, but that ain't gonna happen.

01:33:14

I don't know. What I do know is that Jesus— I don't know? I don't know?

01:33:21

Jesus did not put his emphasis there. How did he cover it at all? Well— How did he cover it at all?

01:33:27

Come on, Tony. That's an easy one. I think he is very much in favor of people being loyal to each other, of being faithful to each other, of people being loyal to each other, and I remember that.

01:33:42

That's in 2nd Hesitations 4 .3, right? How about he affirms

01:33:50

God's law and takes it to a new level? How about he takes the moral law and applies it to the heart?

01:33:58

How about that, Tony? of being kind to each other, and most of all, being loving to each other.

01:34:04

I think to deny justice to gays and lesbians on the one hand, and then turn around and say, we love you on the other, it seems weird.

01:34:17

What do you mean, deny justice? Who other than the guy in North Carolina is suggesting you deny justice?

01:34:26

Oh, you mean to redefine marriage so as to profane it for the homosexual?

01:34:34

Oh, that's a completely different thing, isn't it? I mean, you can't say I love somebody and then say, but I'm going to deny certain rights and privileges that I have that you can't have.

01:34:45

A justice is nothing more than love turned into a social policy. Now, that is just pure perverted thinking on the part of a man who calls himself a minister.

01:34:54

Why is the establishment and the traditional church against homosexuality?

01:35:04

Maybe because there's this positive thing, you know,

01:35:10

Matthew 19, Jesus teaches a man, woman, you know, leave father and mother, maybe that, possibly.

01:35:18

I think that they pick on this issue, and I'm conservative on this issue, but they have overemphasized this issue.

01:35:25

What do you mean, you're conservative on the issue? Well, you know, my point is - Do you think being gay is a sin? No, I think that -

01:35:30

Do you think being gay is a sin? Now, first of all, this guy, this John Balopoulos fellow,

01:35:37

I mean, talk about not even trying for fairness. You know, he made that very clear.

01:35:44

He doesn't even care to, he's not even around there.

01:35:50

But this is what happens when you go on these programs, and you try to be a friend of the world.

01:36:00

Here's a direct question. The answer is easy, but he can't answer.

01:36:06

Certainly not being gay is a sin. People don't choose to be gay. Okay, so people are born gay.

01:36:12

I don't know what makes people gay. Okay. I'm a sociologist by trade. There is a sociologist

01:36:17

I know who understands what makes people gay. What's more is I think that when the church offers this possibility that, you know, if you get good counseling, if you pray enough, you're going to change.

01:36:29

I think we hold out a hope that doesn't really exist. Wow, there you go.

01:36:34

There's Campolo. Spirit of God can't change you. So much 1

01:36:40

Corinthians chapter 6. Such were some of you. Oh, I forgot.

01:36:45

That's not in red letter. That's not really inspiring. There are unusual cases where it does happen, but it's so unusual that to make this a normative expectation for gays and lesbians is unrealistic.

01:36:58

Explain to me what you mean you're conservative on the issue. Well, I basically believe this, that the government should not legitimate any kind of well, should not legitimate marriage, period.

01:37:13

That's a strong, strong statement. Yeah, here's his conservative stuff. Yeah, he's really, really a conservative.

01:37:19

Yeah, right. You can't come out and say what's biblically honest here. He's already so completely compromised himself.

01:37:28

Marriage is something that the church should do. The government should guarantee people's rights, whether it's a gay couple, whether it's a heterosexual couple.

01:37:38

When they go to the city hall and register, they should get the same rights. If you want to call it a marriage, you should go to the church.

01:37:45

The marriage. So in other words, he's at the point that Obama evolved from.

01:37:53

I guess you just drive around in these different roads and evolve from different positions.

01:37:58

But he wants partnerships. He wants all the legal rights.

01:38:05

You can get into this relationship, which we won't call a marriage with anybody you want.

01:38:12

I don't know why. I don't know why he would have any problem with it being with more than one. You know, three women, one man, one woman, three men, whatever.

01:38:20

Doesn't matter. You know, the foundations are gone anyway. So who cares? Fathers with daughters and mothers with sons.

01:38:28

And you know, why not? You know, the foundations are gone. Jesus didn't talk about that either, did he?

01:38:37

But let's just leave the wedding thing and the marriage thing for the church.

01:38:49

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Marriage is a religious institution. It's a religious ordinance.

01:38:56

It doesn't have to be. Marriage can just be a bond between two people. Marriage can just be a bond between two people. Just thoroughly secular mindset.

01:39:05

You know, hear the amoral modern man in George Stroumboulopoulos or whatever his name is.

01:39:16

It's just a bond between two people. That's all it is. Nothing more. So, you know, when

01:39:22

LeBron and Dwayne Wade high five each other on the way down, they're married.

01:39:30

It's just a close relationship between two people. That's all. Well, then, yes, it can be.

01:39:36

But I think that people should make it into a religious relationship.

01:39:42

That's my own feeling. That's my own feeling. It's just my own feeling, man. I don't want to say this is actually, you know, it's just me.

01:39:49

You know, just me. No, I don't want y 'all to feel bad about this now. If somebody's gay and wants to be married, they should go to a church that marries gays.

01:39:58

If somebody's heterosexual and doesn't believe in gay marriage. Now, what I love about this is that Kempola is being such a wimp here and such a spaghetti noodle has no moral foundation, no backbone, no spine, no nothing.

01:40:19

And this guy, who is just a wild eyed secularist, sees it and he doesn't respect it.

01:40:28

Ha ha. Go to a church that doesn't marry gays. How about this? Freedom should be the norm. Check this out with this idea.

01:40:34

How about that? I hear you're saying we're using that because you're trying to be respectful to individual faith. Yes. But if a golf club says black people aren't allowed to golf at this club, then you're saying an

01:40:44

African -American should go to a club that allows African -Americans or should all citizens be entitled to the same rights regardless of what like no institution is allowed to impose rights that violate everybody.

01:40:54

I believe everybody is entitled to the same rights. First and foremost, marriage, by definition, has always been a religious statement.

01:41:03

The president of the United States, George Bush, once said marriage is a sacred institution. Then the government should.

01:41:09

Wait a minute. When did George Bush become the arbiter of these things?

01:41:15

I mean, I ain't gonna be quoting Obama about the nature of marriage anytime soon. Where did that come from?

01:41:21

I was like, well, you're in Canada on a Canadian program quoting

01:41:26

George Bush on this issue? Hello? Hello? What happened to Matthew 19?

01:41:31

You should not control it. The church should control it. And there are some churches that would go with gay marriage. There are some churches that wouldn't.

01:41:38

And I think the churches should decide who gets married and who doesn't get married. The government should guarantee people civil rights.

01:41:45

You know, there's a lot of people, speaking of civil rights, the Reverend Jesse Jackson weighed in after President Obama did. He said

01:41:50

LGBT people deserve equal rights, including marriage equality. Discrimination against one group of people is discrimination against all of us.

01:41:58

That's the strong statement for Reverend Jesse Jackson. He knows the civil rights movement. Yeah, oh yeah, there's Jesse Jackson.

01:42:03

He knows the civil rights movement. Oh yeah, sure. And so now you're going to take sexuality.

01:42:09

That is so offensive. I, man, I don't see LaShawn in channel this time.

01:42:15

But in fact, she said she was going to miss the program. But I know a lot of African -Americans that are really, really angry when gays try to hijack the civil rights movement and force it into their service.

01:42:32

Because that's what it is. It's hijacking. It is absolutely, positively horrific.

01:42:39

Absolutely right. As do you. But I still don't understand why people can't say being gay is normal.

01:42:45

Because it is. Well, it's normal for gays. It's normal for everybody. Being defined by who you desire, being defined by your, why is everybody afraid of going there?

01:42:56

Now, again, just complete capitulation. This guy doesn't even know there's another side.

01:43:02

This is his worldview. And they become very angry when their worldview is challenged.

01:43:10

Very, very angry. But it's just, this is how most people are now. It's judgment.

01:43:19

They tell me this. They tell me they're afraid that if we accept gay people as married, it'll destroy or weaken the institution of the family.

01:43:30

That the family is being endangered. My response is... You think, Tony? You think maybe it has something to do with God ordained the family and Jesus taught that was the way it should be?

01:43:42

And when we go against God's purposes, we destroy life? You think maybe, possibly, that has something to do with it,

01:43:49

Tony? Maybe? So that is, let's be honest, the family is in trouble because heterosexual couples.

01:43:56

That's right. And it's the heterosexuals that are getting divorced. The gays want to get married. And if you can't see the humor in that, you have no sense of humor whatsoever.

01:44:04

Actually, the vast majority of gays do not want to get married. The vast majority of gays do not want to get married because they do not want to even consider the possibility of limitation of their partners.

01:44:21

The vast majority. The reality is, the reality is that the marriage needs to be upheld.

01:44:31

Interestingly enough, while Jesus does not speak about homosexuality, the

01:44:36

Apostle Paul does, especially in the first chapter of Romans. But that's not written in red. So I'm really not sure how that could be relevant.

01:44:45

Which is the basis for evangelicals taking the stand that they do. But Jesus never talks about homosexuality.

01:44:50

That's not the only basis. Once again, I think we've demonstrated in providing five and a quarter hours of response to just one presentation that there is a very positive case to be made for the biblical definition of marriage and its relevance to human happiness.

01:45:11

He talks about gays. He does talk about divorce and remarriage. I'm amazed.

01:45:17

The same people that say we've got to be faithful to scripture turn around and marry people who are divorced, even though Jesus specifically says don't do it.

01:45:27

Now listen to this, because this is right at the end. I mean, there's only like 20 seconds left.

01:45:34

But he just said this. And when I first heard it, I'm like, I wonder if this guy's going to pick up on this and challenge this.

01:45:40

But this is coming to a very, very abrupt end. Where is this consistency? But then

01:45:45

Jesus can't be talking about inclusion. If Jesus thinks once you're divorced, you're out. You're off the market. Well, he does seem to be a little narrow in that story, doesn't he?

01:45:53

You're out of time. You've got to come back. I want to talk to you another time. It's so great to see you. Good to be with you, buddy. He does seem to be a little narrow on that.

01:46:09

How in the world can Tony Campolo see what

01:46:14

Jesus is talking about in other areas? And yet, I just feel sorry for that guy and all of his listeners.

01:46:25

Because here's a guy who claims to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:46:32

And he just threw the gospel, the scriptures, everything right under the bus.

01:46:39

All for the sake of connectedness and being cool and being with it.

01:46:47

And it's disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Yes, sir. As I'm listening to that, it occurred to me that, okay, let's say

01:46:56

Tony gets his way. And the government just simply butts out. Take a page out of L.

01:47:02

Ron Hubbard. Scientology is a religion that, basically, if you know the history, it's not really a religion.

01:47:12

So we take the North American Man -Boy Love Association, and they look at this and go, hey, great big loophole there.

01:47:20

And let's go ahead and start opening up our NABLA churches all over the country. And the government cannot stop us.

01:47:27

Why? Why would they? I don't know. I don't know. Campolo's position, the position of everybody on the left, as far as people who just refuse to allow the

01:47:44

Bible to speak for itself. Um, cannot be defended logically.

01:47:49

That's why these folks don't do debates. They only discuss these things on programs like this where they're either not gonna be challenged because, believe me,

01:48:01

I learned, I saw the result of how this is discussed in our society when

01:48:09

I debated Barry Lynn. This was over a decade ago, but Barry Lynn had already been a promoter of homosexuality, and the gay marriage thing really wasn't big yet.

01:48:24

But homosexuality and homosexuality in the church and all the rest of this stuff. And I had seen him on all sorts of television programs.

01:48:33

And these programs, you know, you normally have like a four and a half minute segment to discuss something.

01:48:40

That's absurd. You can't even begin to do a decent introduction for one side.

01:48:46

But hey, in our society, that's what people want. They want, they want the briefest possible period of attention.

01:48:59

And here's a guy that very clearly, you know, he's been on with Jerry Falwell and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

01:49:08

And when he was forced to do a debate, first of all, you could tell that he was uncomfortable going for,

01:49:21

I forget how long our opening statement was, 15 to 20 minutes at the most. You know, most of my opening statement, 20 minutes to me is a short opening statement.

01:49:29

I much prefer 25 and 30. But it was probably 15 to 20 minutes.

01:49:37

You could tell that was tough for him. That that's a lot longer than he's expected. And then you've got rebuttals.

01:49:44

And he was not at all expecting to have to deal with someone coming back and having enough time to actually quote facts in opposition to his surface level argumentation.

01:49:59

But then what really got him was we had to do cross -examination.

01:50:05

And everybody who watched that debate knows that through the statements, through the rebuttals, he was fairly in control of himself.

01:50:15

But he started losing it. He started getting angry during the cross -examination.

01:50:21

It's not because I was a jerk. People say, you're just so mean to people. I ask questions that force you to be consistent in your responses.

01:50:32

And if your position is inconsistent, I am going to expose it. That's what cross -examination is all about.

01:50:42

That's what it's there for. And you could just see him mentally melting down.

01:50:52

And so if I recall correctly, if I recall, well, now

01:50:59

I don't remember. It's been a while since I watched it. Whether I went first or second in the closing statements,

01:51:07

I don't recall now. All I remember, it's been 11 years, is that when he did his closing statement, my recollection is he was angry because the people had applauded at what

01:51:25

I had said. So either we had another period of rebuttal or clarification, or I did my closing statement first.

01:51:34

And I think I did my closing statement first. Anyway, he was really,

01:51:41

I mean, he just started berating the audience. I know you think

01:51:46

I lost this debate, and you all are happy about that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he really was incredibly upset.

01:52:00

Yeah, he took a show of hands. How many of you think I lost this debate? I don't remember that part.

01:52:07

No, he took a show of hands asking who was on your side and who was on his side. At the beginning or the end? I think it was actually toward the beginning.

01:52:14

So he knew he had a hostile audience from the beginning. Well, you expect that, yeah. And of course, well, they were consistent and applauded accordingly.

01:52:23

But he really got upset, and he started berating the audience, and how dare you people. And I forget how this worked out, because as soon as it was over,

01:52:35

I had a really angry lesbian in my face. I mean, just, boom, you know, just seething with anger, just raw.

01:52:46

She hardly waited for Chris to finish his closing comments before she was right there. And so, you know,

01:52:53

I talked to some folks and answered some questions, and I'm packing up my stuff. I obviously had a whole lot more to pack up than Barry Lynn did, since he didn't show up with a

01:53:02

Bible to a debate on whether homosexuality is consistent with the

01:53:09

Bible. But anyway, I don't remember exactly how this worked.

01:53:15

All I remember is, I think I took some stuff out to my car or whatever, and I think

01:53:24

I was walking back toward the church, and here comes

01:53:30

Barry Lynn. And he's walking up the sidewalk, and you can tell he is not a happy camper.

01:53:41

And he sees me walking toward him, and the look on his face, because I just smiled and stuck out my hand.

01:53:55

And it was like he was swallowing nails to have to even acknowledge that I existed.

01:54:04

Oh, he was not happy. And he informed us,

01:54:09

I would say, within 18 hours that we could not make that debate available.

01:54:18

So here's a guy who testifies before Congress that child pornography is a guaranteed

01:54:26

First Amendment right, but then when you videotape him in a public situation, when he knew it was going to be videotaped, he knew it was going to be made available, you videotape him in a debate, in a public situation, and then he's going to try to use the law to suppress the tapes of that debate.

01:54:45

There's a reason why he wanted to suppress the tapes of that debate. Because he lost, and he lost badly.

01:54:53

Just like John Shelby Spong lost badly. Was the guy Dee Bradshaw in Salt Lake City lost badly?

01:55:04

And all of these are available at www .aomin .org. I bet you know which numbers they are too, don't you?

01:55:13

You probably, yeah, they can look it up. All these are available on the website if you want to see these debates.

01:55:22

But we've taken the time to, who else would play all of Matthew Vine's presentation?

01:55:30

I could take the time to play all of that debate between Michael Brown and Harry Knox.

01:55:41

I don't really need to because Michael does a fine job taking apart those guys and responding to those.

01:55:48

He's an excellent speaker. He's got this information down. And again, let me highly, highly, highly recommend.

01:55:54

In fact, I may re -listen to it myself because Michael was kind enough to give me the file of the book before it even came out.

01:56:01

But A Queer Thing Happened to America. We were talking about that a year ago now.

01:56:11

And it's still on our Amazon page at www .aomin .org. You need to read that book.

01:56:19

And the thing I like about it is that the same -sex controversy, my book on the subject, is not really just doubling up on what you'll read in Michael Brown's book.

01:56:33

Our book is primarily focused upon the biblical text. Michael's is not. It gives you much more information about the broad social issues and the developments and things like that.

01:56:43

So you read both of them and you're going to be in really good shape. And then if you want to get really, really, really, really deep, then you go get

01:56:52

Robert Gagnon's book. And again, I'll warn you, Robert Gagnon's not as conservative as I am in some of the biblical comments he makes.

01:56:58

But again, a goldmine of information. That's right. Sandroid is right in Channel.

01:57:05

There is a 64 -page condensation of Michael's book.

01:57:11

It's still all the same stuff. And it's from the former Coral Ridge. And yes,

01:57:17

I even mentioned to Michael, we would like to get that too. And he sent me the information. I just need to send it to you if we want to grab hold of that.

01:57:25

Because it'd be nice to have a booklet to give to people along those lines. And if anybody wants to get that off the

01:57:30

Amazon store, it's amazon .aomin .org. Oh, amazon .aomin .org is our Amazon store.

01:57:35

And if you want to get Michael Brown's book there, that also helps us to be able to continue doing what we are doing, what we have done in the past number of programs.

01:57:43

And what we'll continue to do on Thursday, as we will have a radio -free

01:57:50

Damascus, as we launch into Abdullah Kunduz's debate from Sydney.

01:57:57

Well, I'm not sure if it was in Sydney, but somewhere around there, which took place just a matter of weeks ago.

01:58:02

And so that will be coming up as well. Thanks for listening to this mega edition of The Dividing Line.

01:58:09

Don't forget to be looking for the five and a quarter hour response, as we will be posting it as soon as possible.

01:58:18

Share it with your friends. Give it out. That's why we did it. We'll see you again on Thursday. God bless.

01:59:20

The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602, or write us at P .O.

01:59:28

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

01:59:34

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.