Is Homosexuality Compatible with Christianity? (White vs Lynn)

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As most of you probably know, the issue of homosexuality is one of the most talked about, discussed topics in the media.

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Almost every sitcom on television now features a prominent chancellor who is homosexual.

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And more and more you hear about the different denomination of debates amongst Christians discussing this issue as to should it be tolerated, should it be allowed, accepted, or should it be abhorred, or should we ordain people who are homosexuals, etc.

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But very rarely in the media do you see this subject approached the way we're approaching it tonight, on a theological level, as it will be tonight, with two guests that I'm just delighted that they're both here, and I hope that you give each of them, as I announce them, a warm round of applause, despite whether you're on their side or not, because these two people are both the cream of the crop in their fields, and to defend their positions,

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I think they both deserve our greetings for taking the time and effort to be here tonight to present their cases.

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I don't know if any of you have been going through your minds when you came here tonight, I'm not sure how many people here are on one side or the other of this issue, but one thing

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I want to make clear is that this is not about hate.

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A lot of people think these debates that are done every year, even the Catholic evangelical debates that we do, is somehow there's hatred as a motive.

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I can assure you that both sides of this debate both profess to love homosexuals and to want what is best for them.

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One side of this debate believes that to love homosexuals, to show compassion toward them, means to support them in their lifestyle, to applaud them in their lifestyle, and to afford them every opportunity to experience their lifestyle in the way that they see fit, whereas the other side of this debate believes that to love homosexuals and to have compassion for them, true

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Christian compassion for them, means that we must rescue them from that lifestyle because we believe it is deadly and damning.

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And that is not a hateful position to have. They both are professing to love homosexuals, but as in all debates, only one could be right.

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There is one side of this debate that is very correct and there is one side of this debate that is very wrong, and it's not my job to tell you what side that is.

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That's why we have a debate and it's for you to open your Bibles and to go home and to pray and to discover for yourself the truth of this matter.

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But there is no gray ground here. There is one side of this debate,

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I believe, that is doing a great honor and the cause of doing what is best for homosexuals in calling them to repent and so forth.

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And then there is another that believes that they are doing the same thing. But remember, only one side can be right and only one side can be in God's favor in this issue.

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And unfortunately and sadly, one side is very, very wrong and very dangerous. But I would like to introduce to you our debaters this evening.

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And first we're going to announce, defending the liberal position, defending homosexuality, the

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Reverend Barry Lynn. He's an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a long -time liberal activist.

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Since 1992, he has served as the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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From 1984 to 1991, he was legislative counsel for the Washington, D .C., office of the ACLU. Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts such as the

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NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the Today Show, Nightline, Crossfire, 60 Minutes, the Phil Donahue Show, Good Morning America, National Nightly News from NBC, ABC, and CBS, Equal Time, and Larry King Live.

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He now does a weekly syndicated radio program, Review of the News, defending the left against conservative co -host

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Colonel Oliver North. Reverend Lynn, his website is www .au

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.org. And ladies and gentlemen, the

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Reverend Lynn's opponent, the evangelical who will be opposing homosexuality, is Dr. James R.

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White. He is the director of a conservative Christian apologetics organization in Phoenix, Arizona called

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Alpha and Omega Ministries. He frequently travels across the United States engaging in public debates with religious liberals,

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Roman Catholics, Muslims, and other apologists who oppose historic evangelical Christianity. He's the author of 17 books, including one expected to be in print later this year,

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The Same Sex Controversy, which seeks to refute the attempts of liberal theologians to defend homosexuality.

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Dr. White is a frequent guest on nationally syndicated Christian radio broadcasts, including

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Janet Carson's America and the Bible Answer Man with Hank Anagraff. Dr. White's website is www .aomin

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.org, if you'd care to write that down. And here he is, Dr. James R. White. Our moderator this evening is

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Warren G. Frazina. Warren earned a Ph .D. at the University of Chicago in 1987.

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He taught at Rice University, the University of Houston, and Emory University before coming to Hofstra in 1997.

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He has research interests in both religion studies and philosophy, and has published widely on American philosophy and Chinese Neo -Confucian thought.

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His book, The Unity of Knowledge and Action Toward a Non -Representational

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Theory of Knowledge, is scheduled for release by SUNY Press in December of 2001.

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Before coming to Hofstra, Dr. Frazina spent four hours in the highly regarded university for years.

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I'm sorry. Heck, I beat that.

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Spent four years in the highly regarded University of Houston Honors College and six years in the executive offices of the

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American Academy of Religion, an 8 ,000 -member learned society for faculty with research interests in religion.

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He served the AAR as Associate Executive Director and Acting Executive Director. While at Hofstra, he has taught in the

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University Honors Program and served as Honors House Mentor and Acting Director of the

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University Honors Program. Here is Dr. Warren G. Frazina. Dr.

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Frazina will give you a breakdown of how this debate is going to play out, and before this debate begins,

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I'd like us all to bow in a silent word of prayer if you choose to pray. Very much, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope that you enjoy the debate this evening.

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As I was saying, how pleased I am to be with you today.

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I appreciate the invitation to join you and the opportunity to hear these two men present their positions.

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I've spent my life in universities where inquiry and debate are the lifeblood of what we do, and I always appreciate an opportunity to hear a good argument.

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The structure for tonight is fairly clear and straightforward. Our two speakers will each be given 25 minutes to present opening remarks.

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Then each will take 10 minutes for rebuttal. After that, we'll have a brief break for a collection.

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Then we'll begin the cross -examination period. Each person will be given 15 minutes to cross -examine the other.

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We'll do that from the table. Then a second cross -examination, again 15 minutes each, and then 10 minutes each for final remarks.

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That's the whole program. I'm expecting a fairly easy job tonight.

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The only thing to say is that we each have one of these little timers here, so we will all set them at 25 minutes so that we can keep track of one another.

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My job basically is to keep the clock and keep us running on time.

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Without any further ado, our first speaker tonight is Reverend Lynn, who will begin his opening remarks.

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I'll start the clock when you get upstairs. Now, to honor. This is one of the more difficult things, is learning how to do this and set your

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VCR at the same time. Okay. Thank you very much for inviting me to be here tonight.

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You know, in Washington, where I live and work, we tend to live and sometimes, if we're politicians, even die by polls.

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And I just wondered, honestly, is there anybody here tonight who does not already have a formed opinion on the correct answer to the debate topic?

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Okay. That's good. Two or three. That either means we're going to have a very long evening or a very short one.

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I was intrigued by this invitation for a couple of reasons. As much by the second part of the question, that is authentic Christianity, as I was by the first topic, which was homosexuality.

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And I am here tonight as a minister in the United Church of Christ, who also happens to run Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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That group, however, is not a religious organization. It does not have a theology on the topic of gays or any other subject.

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So the views this evening are my own. If you want to hear about the views of Americans United, you'll have to watch every other night or so when

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I appear on the Fox News channel yelling at Sean Hannity. Then you can get the official word on what we believe at Americans United.

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I will, of course, address the topic of homosexuality, of course. But I do find it somewhat astonishing that even if one believes that homosexuality is a distinct and clear sin, that anyone could believe that being gay makes you, per se, inauthentic as a

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Christian. Put another way, it certainly leads to some other interesting questions. Do other sins place you in the same category, per se, an inauthentic

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Christian? How about wearing clothes of mixed fabric? How about eating shellfish?

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How about theft? How about lust in the heart? Or is it only this and perhaps a few others that are so grievous in the eyes of God that they put you in a literally different category than anyone else?

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And indeed, I thought it was the very nature of Christianity to accept that we are all sinners.

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That Jesus Christ died not just for the sins of our forefathers, but for our own. Try as we might not to commit it.

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I thought, indeed, it might even be a sin of pride for anyone to dare think that a homosexual

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Christian is less authentic than any heterosexual Christian in this building, or in this country, or in this world.

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I just thought I'd ask those questions. Those were my very first thoughts, in fact, when

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I agreed to do this debate tonight. Now, as both an ordained minister and an attorney,

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I've got to comment on a few other matters of style here. How does one even go about defining what it is to be an authentic Christian?

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Is it a person who devoutly studies the Scripture? Is it someone who has accepted Jesus Christ as his or her

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Lord and Savior? Is it a person who attends church regularly, tithes, and even teaches

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Saturday or Sunday in Sabbath school? Is it a person who rarely goes to church, but who spends his or her life doing daily that which, according to the

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Book of Micah, is all that God requires, only to act justly, to love loyalty, and to walk wisely with your

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God? So I do look forward to what Dr. White may have to say in explaining what he believes constitutes the life and the essence of an authentic Christian.

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There's one other intriguing issue that emerges clearly for me because of my dual vocations of a lawyer and a minister.

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Constitutional scholars for a long time have debated the question of original intent of the Constitution.

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How is it related to contemporary legal issues? If we really knew what the first Congress thought when they passed the

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Bill of Rights, would it be easier for us to resolve as a matter of law those questions like church -state separation and abortion, gay rights?

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Would it be enough, though, if we only knew what the framers of our Constitution thought in that first Congress?

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Or would we not have to also know the original intent of all of those state legislatures that ratified the

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Bill of Rights before it became a part of our Constitution? And in fact, could we even do that?

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Because isn't it true that the original intent is next to impossible to determine for even a document like our

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Constitution? Because in only one state, verbatim records were kept of the debate over what this meant to the people who sent this to become a part of our

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Constitution. Jefferson, for example, didn't even believe that original intent made all that much difference.

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He referred to what he and others had helped to craft in and out of the Congress as majestic generalities, the specifics of which would have to be filled in in the future.

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He didn't think he was writing something that would be interpreted by no one but the framers themselves.

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And all this confusion is only over a document that's 211 years old. What we're talking about tonight are scriptural texts that go back 2 ,000 years, not 200 years.

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But some of the same issues come up. What versions of the Bible should we consider authentic? Which is authoritative?

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Is it the King James Version? Is it the Revised Standard Version or the Revised Version of the

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Revised Standard Version, the New Jerusalem Bible, the New English Bible? We know that most Christians do not believe that the

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Bible was literally dictated by God to an author with a pen in his hand. The books of the

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Bible clearly reflect different sources, not necessarily contradictory, but which reflect a somewhat different perspective.

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Indeed, what constitutes the Bible? There are many works contemporaneous to what we

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Christians call the New and Old Testament that are not in the Bible, but could have been. It was the

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Church Fathers, after all, who selected some books for inclusion, so we do learn about the visions of Ezekiel about the

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Valley of the Dry Bones, but we don't hear, unless we read the Apocrypha, the story of Bel and the

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Dragon. Those were decisions consciously made by people who were attempting to understand what

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God's Word was and exactly what works of literature were to be included as the works and the words and the ideas of God.

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So it turns out to be a very, very difficult question. And then, by the way, is Scripture the only way in which we develop our

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Christian faith? It seems to be central to the question that we're posing tonight, to know whether Scripture is indeed the only authority.

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I'd say that it is not. I'd say that Jesus gave us a very direct answer to that question. He said that neither Hebrew law nor his own words were to be the last word on the topic, on any topic.

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Listen to this passage, of course, well known to you, I'm sure, from John's Gospel, the 14th chapter.

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And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another to be your advocate, who will be with you forever.

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The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will call to mind all that I have told you.

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And it then continues in verse 12 of chapter 16 with this extraordinary statement.

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There is still much that I could say to you, but the burden would be too great for you now.

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However, when he comes who is the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth. Imagine that,

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Jesus, who said, if you have two coats, don't just give one away, give them both away. He said there were harder things to explain, too hard for people to bear.

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That would have to come through the workings of the Holy Spirit. And we know that the revelation of God to humanity did not stop with Jesus, not just because Jesus said that, but because the very inclusion in the traditional

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Bible of the theologies of Paul and of Peter, and the revelation of John shows that there was a continuing revelation of God to man.

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Should there not, should we assume that with John ended all individual, authentic revelation of God to man?

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I hope not. I still think we're talking, and we need to consider carefully, what the

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Holy Spirit of John's gospel has to do with our day -to -day decisions on questions like homosexuality.

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I think that there is still a God who communicates very personally with us in times of prayer, in times of study, in those moments of acquiring new wisdom, even when we least expect it, when we have experiences which open our hearts, our minds to truths which we may feel hard to bear.

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Maybe as life -changing as Paul's transformation on the road to Damascus. I know that Dr.

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White is a scholar of biblical languages. I don't purport to be that. I respect that study. I just won't concede that it has an advantage in this debate, necessarily, because a living

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God does not reside, in my view, just in the ancient texts of a work produced by men.

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I accept the possibility, of course, that I'm wrong, that I might change my mind even tonight.

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With all those caveats and digressions, though, because I think they are important, so that you recognize from where I come and where I start,

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I'd like to talk to you about the very limited amount of scripture that really deals, even impossibly deals, with the question of homosexuality.

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When I was a child, my Sunday school teachers, with some discretion appropriate to the developmental stages of a child's life, told the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and made it clear that the basic sin of the people was clearly some sin involving the body.

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It was a sexual sin. Later, of course, people said very directly it was homosexuality.

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I believe it's now safe to say that most scholars believe that that is not a simple and correct understanding of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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It's a simplistic view of what is in Genesis 19, verses 4 to 11. Bring them lots visitors, of course they're talking about.

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Bring them unto us that we may know them, to know, yad ha. This word occasionally means engage in sexual activity, but it usually means know in a more traditional sense, as in getting familiar with, learning about.

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That word is used in the Old Testament 943 times. Only ten of them does it refer to any sexual activity, and only twice in those passages about Sodom and Gomorrah is it even arguably about homosexual activity.

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Remember, Lot had just arranged for two unknown persons. We know them to be angels now, but nobody quite knew who they were then.

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Persons of foreign origin to come into his home. So, of course, the people of Sodom were quite reasonably worried about these strangers, because they could have been spies.

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We know that Lot was not born in Sodom. He was under some level of disdain and skepticism originally.

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Of course the townspeople would demand to know who these characters were that were being allowed in his house.

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They didn't want to sleep with them. They wanted to make sure they didn't pose a danger to the town.

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There's no reason to believe that sex, rather than security, was on their minds. Of course,

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Lot didn't want the angels to face this angry mob, so he tried to sexually seduce the men with his own daughters.

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That does not reflect well on Lot, but the notion that he was trying to sublimate the homosexual desires of the male mob by presenting them with the female equivalent of Jennifer Lopez is,

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I think, quite absurd. But wait, if it's not homosexuality, then what is the sin so egregious that it comes up constantly as a reference point by the prophets and even by Jesus?

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Why would God rain destruction on the city? What was the sin? The city, Lot accepted, was inhospitable to strangers.

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The city did not offer shelter as Abraham had in the story that you find in Genesis 18, verses 1 to 5, to the angels.

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It was the quality of love that God demanded of Abraham. Indeed, no writer in the Old Testament even suggests that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality.

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For Ezekiel it was pride, it was excessive wealth, lack of care for the poor, others it was slavery.

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Indeed, Jesus' only reference to the matter is found in Luke, chapter 10, verses 10 to 13, and he tells his disciples that if they go to a town and are not welcomed, they should warn the inhabitants that such treatment means that when the kingdom of God arrives, quoting one version, on that day

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Sodom will fare better than that town. Jesus wasn't talking about sexual ethics, he was talking about strangers and what happened when one hated them and was inhospitable to them.

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Many churches these days are struggling in the mainline denominations with whether they should become open and affirming congregations, that is, welcoming gay men and lesbians into full communion.

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One could suggest, I guess, whether those churches ought to be spending less time dealing with the purported sin of being gay and more with the actual sin of being so inhospitable as to fail to welcome people who are gay.

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When we move to the New Testament we run into some other difficulties, most curiously, of course, Jesus is silent on the topic of homosexuality.

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Whatever he thought about it, if anything, is lost to history. It's safe to assume, though, that if it had been a major moral question, he would have mentioned it repeatedly, just as he regularly condemned hypocrisy in the religious leadership of his time and repeatedly talked about mistreatment of the poor.

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We're then left primarily with the words of Paul, or the Pauline tradition at least, in 1 Corinthians and 1

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Timothy and in Romans. Paul, of course, was the first theologian of the Church. He did have a spectacular conversion to the belief in God.

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He was not a friend of Jesus. He was an interpreter of the word of God, as theologians remain today.

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They may believe they're in touch with the divine, but ultimately they are authors of opinions on the divine.

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Difficulty in assessing Paul's meaning and Paul's words is many -fold, including the fact that he had one fundamental problem, and that is that Paul clearly felt that the end of human history was already occurring.

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He was writing in a time not when the kingdom of God was imminent, but as he put it, the kingdom of God was already in breaking into this world.

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It was already over soon. That explains those curious, controversial passages about slavery and about the role of women.

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He basically said, don't rock the boat, because the better vessel is in sight. Indeed, it's on the horizon.

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You can see it. You can see it already. Sticking to my earlier track though,

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I do want to talk a little about Paul's language, because there are those who use these

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Pauline epistles to condemn homosexuality and suggest that many competent scholars find less there than might meet the eyes of some, including

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Dr. White. First Corinthians 6 -9, we read a list of those who will not enter the kingdom of God, a list which includes adulterers, drunkards, idolaters, thieves, and then these words that are very difficult, including to pronounce, palicos, arson and oistase.

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They're very difficult Greek words because they aren't used too often to describe anything remotely like this topic.

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Palico, soft. You see references are made to soft cloth, using that word.

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When it comes to oistase, it's a word only Paul uses. It doesn't exist in any other form of what's contemporary with Paul, so we really have to struggle for what it means.

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It certainly could suggest something about sexual behavior. The New Jerusalem Bible, I think, though, gets closest to its meaning by capturing its meaning as self -indulgent, a kind of general condemnation of excesses of the flesh of many forms.

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1 Timothy 1 -10 also contains a list of offenses, including the murder of one's parents, being a liar, a fornicator, and again, that strange

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Greek word only used by Paul, which was translated into at least 15 different ways in 15 versions of the

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Bible, including practicing homosexual, sodomite, all kinds of other ways. But the word literally, as I said earlier, has no context, because it's only used by Paul.

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It literally means, we go back to the Greek words, man penetrator, man penetrator.

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It doesn't say what man is penetrating. It's hard for you to understand it, therefore, as only referring to gay sex, because it doesn't say that.

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I think it is condemning... ...all forms of male prostitution, probably a very common practice in the

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Canaanite communities and in other communities that Paul was very critical about.

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Sometimes this prostitution was for religious, allegedly religious, cult of purposes, sometimes just for financial gain.

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But I think that the sin in both of those important passages of the Bible has not to do with sexual activity per se, but the exploitative sexual activity of engaging in it for pay or for furtherance of the idolatrous views of certain other religions.

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Corinth was notoriously corrupt in many ways. Paul seems to be writing a list here of all the offenses that have been reported against it.

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It's just very difficult to find any support for the idea that these lists are about homosexuality per se, or that it condemns all sex between men.

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Moreover, it doesn't even mention sex between women. Of course, many passages of the Bible act as if women do not exist, are not very important, because they too were written at a time in history quite different from our own, not just because of cultural changes, but because Paul was writing at a time when he thought the old order was literally to end.

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There were no things like gay unions, gay marriages in Paul's day.

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These were unknown, at least to Paul, as activities in which anyone engaged. So to talk about homosexuality then, precisely as it is discussed today, is really to do history a disservice.

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Of course, there are other passages. What about Romans? What about Romans chapter 1, verses 18 to 32, particularly verses 26 and 27?

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Don't they authoritatively say that there's something sinful about being gay? For this reason

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God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men giving up natural intercourse with women were consumed with passion for one another.

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Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

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Unnatural is a reasonable translation of the Greek word here. All things unnatural, though, are not inherently evil.

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How do we know that? We know that because God himself is referred to as performing unnatural acts at least once.

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He is said to have grafted a wild olive branch under a cultivated tree.

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An unnatural union is a metaphor for teaching the wild Gentiles the cultivated truths of the

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Jews. So this is not an ethical condemnation of same -sex relationships.

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It's just an observation that such actions are outside that which is expected. Paul often uses this very word to describe things that are not seen commonly.

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They are the outliers. They are the things that are not common. He talks about, he says, Jews expected to be

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Jews. He says of people, men are expected to have short hair. Some men, though, he acknowledges, have long hair.

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He uses the same word. Not necessarily to describe it as sin or as evil, but to describe it as something that is different from the norm.

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Different from the norm. Paul wants to make something clearly known as being sin.

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He says it. He says it unequivocally. He doesn't use words that can be translated as meaning different.

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He uses words that mean it is wrong. Condemnatory language. He does that in Romans 1.

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He says liars and people who know the truth but don't tell it are wicked. Wicked.

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Not unnatural. They're wicked. They're committing unethical acts. Because the Gentiles, he says, are given to idolatry, two different kinds of things happen.

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They fall into practices that are wrong, that is outside the norm, including sexual activities, and also they do something else that's much worse.

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They fall into wickedness. That is idolatry. That is murder.

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Those are the sins. The other practices, which he doesn't like, but are not in the same moral category.

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Paul's interested in building the church. He's concerned mainly with people who fall away from God. He is, throughout his letters, trying to tell people not to get bogged down in petty details, but to see the big picture before it is too late.

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The world, he says, that is breaking into our world now, as he writes, quoting a famous passage in 2

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Corinthians 5, verses 16 -17,

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From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view. If anyone is in Christ, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

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Everything old has passed away. Everything has become new. And that's even true in the area of sexuality.

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Back in Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verse 1, verse 1 unix, in which there are several types, including people who could act sexually but choose not to, are said not to be a part of God's community in Israel.

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But in Isaiah's prophecy, he suggests they will have a new role someday. Thus says the

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Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.

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Did the prophecy come true, as they often do? Yes, it did. How do we know that?

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Because of Acts, chapter 8. Starting at verse 26, Philips, following the Holy Spirit, he meets an

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Ethiopian eunuch at the court of Candace. The eunuch believes in Jesus. He is baptized.

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We are then told he goes on to lead a life full of joy. So here,

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Christians are asked to accept those whose experiences of sexuality were outside the pale for inclusion within the world of the

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Israelites, but in the new world, the new world of Paul, the new world of the post -Jesus world and experience, people who were outsiders are now in the fold.

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There are many other scholarly pieces of material that you can read that talk in far greater detail than I could tonight about these and other interpretations of these critical passages.

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I do hope, though, that you can accept that thoughtful people can realize and reach alternate conclusions about these very difficult passages, difficult words, difficult constructions, and that biblical texts are not to be the sole basis for laws in our society.

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Please do not demand that legislatures, for example, enact laws for all Americans based on the scriptural interpretations of some

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Americans. That's wrong. Second, consider the very words of Paul with whom we've just been wrestling on some other matters.

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In Romans 14, he writes, Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another.

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I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean.

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I look forward to Dr. White's explanation of why he believes that homosexuality is inconsistent with authentic Christianity.

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Thank you very much. This proves

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I didn't take the whole thing. Good evening and welcome.

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Thank you very much for being here this evening. In 1993, at the

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March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi -Equal Rights and Liberation, the people who gathered presented a list of desires that were theirs for what they wanted to see happen in our nation.

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They pushed for implementation of homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered curriculum at all levels of education.

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They desired the lowering of the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex, the legalization of homosexual marriages, custody, adoption, and foster care rights for homosexuals, lesbians, and transgendered people, the redefinition of the family to include the full diversity of all family structures, and the access to all programs of the

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Boy Scouts of America, affirmative action for homosexuals, and the inclusion of sex change operations under a universal health care plan.

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As we look back over the past eight years, we can see that already some of those goals have been met, at least with partial success in certain areas, and others are still under a tremendous amount of controversy.

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We gather here this evening to consider what our society is to do in light of the fact that I would assume many of us here this evening claim to be

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Christians, and we claim to be authentic Christians, and we have to struggle with the question.

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We have to answer the question, is homosexuality compatible with authentic Christianity?

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Now, it is a life and death issue that we are facing here. Yes, it is an issue of God's truth. It is an issue that I believe the scriptures are very, very clear on, but it is also a matter of life and death, and if we care for people, we will care about this issue.

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Why do I say that? In 1994, there was a study published by the

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Omega Journal of Death and Dying, and in that particular study, they studied the obituaries printed in homosexual publications, in other words, these were materials that were provided by homosexual organizations, there was no anti -gay bias, shall we say, in that type of material, against a control group at the same time period of non -homosexual people.

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And by comparing that data, they discovered that for married men, the median age of death was 75 years of age, and 80 % of married men moved past the age of 65.

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For single or divorced men, the median age of death was 57 years of age, and only 32 % of those men moved past the age of 65.

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For homosexual men without AIDS, the median age of death was 42 years of age, and 9 % lived past the age of 65.

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For homosexual men without AIDS and with a long -term sexual partner, the median age of death was 41 years, and 7 % lived past the age of 65.

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Homosexual men with AIDS but without a long -term sexual partner, the median age of death was 39 years of age, and less than 2 % lived past the age of 65.

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And for homosexual men with AIDS and a long -term sexual partner, the average median age was 39 years, and less than 2 % lived past the age of 65.

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If you're wondering, yes, they did examine lesbians as well, and the median age of death was 44 years.

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Later research has confirmed these numbers. In a 1994 study, the social origins of sexuality, 3 ,400 people were asked anonymously about their sexual orientation.

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The percentage of men and women claiming to be homosexual dropped by 840 % between the 30 - to 39 -year -old age group and the 50 - to 59 -year -old age group.

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Why might that be? Unless the OMEGA study actually did come across something that is very, very important to us this evening.

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It is a matter of life and death. It is not simply a matter that we gather and we talk together about something and then votes take place, excuse me, and, you know, it's just sort of like whether we buy a new facility for a city or do a tax plan or whatever else it might be.

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This has to do with human life itself. Now, authentic Christianity has been already brought up, and of course that is a very important part of our thesis this evening.

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Authentic Christianity, following the normative words of Scripture, allows God to define all areas of human life, including the intensely personal area of sexuality.

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This flows from the fact that God is our creator, and as creator has defined for us how we are to experience the fullness of his will in our lives.

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Authentic Christianity does not take from God the right of defining sexuality and entrust it to the creature.

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Instead, it says plainly that the true joy and fulfillment of human sexuality is to be found solely in following God's decrees and not departing from his will for our lives.

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Authentic Christianity is defined by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

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It is the radical claim of authentic Christianity that Jesus Christ was the

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God -man, the incarnate son, the very creator, who entered into his own creation.

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Authentic Christianity believes Jesus Christ came into the world to do something, to save sinners.

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Hence, it likewise says there is a clear and understandable revelation from God as to what sin is, and that the penalty for sin is death, eternal separation from God.

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My friends, if this were not so, the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ as our perfect and substitutionary sacrifice is left, quite simply, without meaning.

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It becomes an empty symbol. The reality of sin and its punishment is central to the

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Christian message, for the gospel is spoken to those who seek peace, not a surface -level peace, not a peace with society, not a peace with themselves, but a peace with God, the creator, whose law they have rejected and whose way they have spurned.

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Authentic Christianity likewise affirms that this revelation is found for us in fullness and clarity in the scriptures, the

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Bible. There is no authentic Christianity where the source of our knowledge of God's truth is rejected.

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Those groups that abandon the highest view of the Bible will always, in time, abandon the gospel itself, replacing it with a man -made substitute.

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Authentic Christianity takes the words of the Lord Jesus, recorded in Matthew 19, verses 4 -6, as final and authoritative.

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There Jesus answered and said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said,

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For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

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So there are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore

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God has joined together, let no man separate.

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Words we all know, of course. But in these words, we have

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Christ's own interpretation of the creation narrative itself. The original creative purpose of God is plainly stated for us by the

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Lord Jesus. From the beginning, God has created us male and female.

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The family is defined as father and mother, and this union results in children.

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The male child, upon reaching maturity, leaves father and mother and is joined to a woman, and the two become one flesh.

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This intimate union is between male and female, never male and male or female and female.

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Male with male cannot make one flesh, but is always two distinct persons, and the same is true of females as well.

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The union of male and female in marriage is a divine union, according to the

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Lord Jesus, for he says what God has joined together. Man does not have the power and man does not have the authority to effect such a union, hence all same -sex marriages, all same -sex unions, are by that unnatural and lacking divine approbation and approval.

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We take the words of Jesus in authentic Christianity as defining

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God's purpose in the creation of man as male and female.

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Now, I hope you will take the time to look at these passages, I know they're going by fairly quickly, but when we look at Leviticus chapter 18 and Leviticus chapter 20, we enter here into the law of God in the

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Old Testament. And it is often said that these passages are no longer relevant to the Christian people.

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Yet, isn't it interesting when we read in Leviticus 18 and 20 of the sinfulness of homosexuality, the fact that it is toevah, an abomination, that carries the death penalty, that this section comprises in the

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Scriptures a body of revelation that is cited as authoritative and binding in its testimony by Jesus, by Paul, by Peter, and by James.

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In fact, Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself comes from this very section in Leviticus 19 .18.

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And most telling is the fact that if this section of Scripture is irrelevant to the moral teachings of the

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Bible today, then we must likewise drop all condemnation to the following activities as well, because they are condemned in this section.

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Abomination, adultery, incest, child sacrifice, and bestiality.

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Notice well that chapter 18 specifically identifies these sins, including homosexuality, as being the practice of the

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Canaanites who were being driven out of the land and punished for doing these very things.

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Those who attempt to limit these words solely to the Jews in Palestine miss this important fact, and the rest of the

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Old Testament likewise applies these same moral absolutes to the nations around Israel and calls their actions an abomination.

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Given the context itself and the reaffirmation of the binding nature of these prohibitions in the

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New Testament, there is no reason whatsoever to classify the condemnation of homosexuality as being merely a

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Jewish law without relevance to Christians. Now that testimony you read in Leviticus 18 .20

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says, You shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife to be defiled with her. You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your

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God. I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female.

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It is an abomination. Also, you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it.

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It is a perversion. Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations which

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I am casting out before you have become defiled. And then in Leviticus 20 .13,

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the death penalty is brought about for this type of activity just as well. The act of homosexual sex is identified as a detestable act,

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Now, there are other references to this sin of homosexuality in the Old Testament. This general identification of homosexuality as abomination is found throughout the text in many places that have not been discussed as yet.

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The men of Sodom and Gomorrah, despite half a dozen incredibly inventive yet likewise futile attempts on the part of pro -homosexual revisionists to deflect the fact, were obviously desiring to engage in homosexual relations with the men who came to visit them, fulfilling the earlier description in Genesis 13,

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Now the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord. The Greek subjugant clearly understands the sin of Sodom to be homosexuality and translates that Hebrew term yada with terms that are only used in the subjugant of sexual activity.

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And later Jewish writings in the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha only strengthen this conclusion.

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Homosexuality again appears in the incident in Judges chapter 19 and 20 and is seen as sinful there as well.

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Male homosexual acts and those who engage in them are condemned in 1 Kings 14 -24 and other places where temple prostitutes identified as Sodomites in the

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KJV perform abominations. Comparison with extra -biblical writings confirm that these particular as they were called were male temple prostitutes who engaged in homosexual acts.

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But with time fleeting we must look to the New Testament since we're talking about authentic Christianity which takes very seriously of course

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God's law and if it does not it is not authentic Christianity. But the New Testament is very clear on this subject.

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We know that the Lord Jesus himself taught plainly that the law of God was normative. He did not come to destroy it but to fulfill it.

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That doesn't mean to put it on a shelf. He said that those who would teach anyone to break the least of the commandments was a person who had grave consequences that would come upon him for doing so.

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The Apostle Paul not as a theologian thinking about God but as authentic Christians believe in inspired

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Scripture. The words of Scripture are not merely men's opinions about God. As Paul himself taught they are they are

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God breathed they are God's revelation to us not men's ruminations about God.

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And in a passage I already read to you in Romans chapter 1 we read these words.

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who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason please note the connection.

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These verses do not exist in an island unto themselves. This continues the thought of the impurity we just read.

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For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

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And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

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Man with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error surely anyone can see that Paul here is condemning these acts as impurity and as sin.

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He is very clear in his language. Note a few things about Romans chapter 1.

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Paul speaks of males with males committing indecent acts. He does not say men with boys a common claim of the revisionists that this is only about pederasty.

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This is a mutual reciprocal relationship for it speaks of their burning with desire toward one another.

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Hence all ideas of mere pederasty gang rape or cultural ritual activity are refuted by Paul himself.

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The men of whom Paul speaks have sexual desires for other men. Thirdly the phrase the natural use of the male or female likewise shows that Paul is not limiting his comments to pederasty as assumed by revisionists.

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Natural use can only refer to normal adult heterosexual behavior which is part of God's creative purpose.

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Lesbianism is referred to as unnatural that is against nature not just simply out of the ordinary.

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God in his revelation has made it known what his creation is to be and how it is to function.

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Paul certainly recognized that and by the way Paul would have known about many of the things we talk about today as we will see as we get later on into the debate the documentation on that is quite clear.

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This is a chosen act on the part of those who commit it in Romans 1. They choose to leave the natural use and engage in indecent and unnatural acts.

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Paul says that those who engage in all the sinful acts of Romans 1 20 -31 we can't cut it up we need to see the whole thing in its context know

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God's ordinances that those who do such things are worthy of death that is in Romans 1 .32

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Now how can that be if such things as Leviticus 20 .13 do not remain vital to the discussion to this day.

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As I pointed out we will look a little bit later at some of the material that is available to demonstrate to us that Paul would have known in writing to the

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Romans many of the things we talk about today including individuals who live together through their entire life etc.

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etc. But I'd like to at least get to the rest of the passages that we would like to look at this evening.

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For example in 1 Corinthians 6 the passage has already been read in your hearing but I'd like to give the context and have some comments about the meanings of the words that are provided here.

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In 1 Corinthians 6 9 -11 we read Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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Such were some of you but you were washed but you were sanctified but you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. Now of course the key term used by Paul here is so clear that the great effort has been put out by revisionist writers to attempt to blunt its testimony and cause people to be confused as to its meaning.

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Paul draws here two terms from the Greek septuagint that are found in Leviticus 20 -13 in the condemnation of homosexual.

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Arsenos meaning male and koitos the term from which we get the word coitus sexual intercourse.

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It refers to men laying with men as a man lays with a woman i .e.

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homosexuality. Given the Old Testament background of Leviticus 20 -13 and the use of those terms there can surely be no question about this meaning and interestingly enough in many of the books that have been written many of which are right over there on the table there is no even discussion of the

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Greek septuagint background of Paul's coining of this particular term. Revisionist attempts by Boswell, Scrogg, Scanzoni, Mollenkot all fail miserably to take into consideration all of the relevant factors and some of the most important writings such as Boswell have been shown to be so highly selective in their use of the data as to be simply dishonest.

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The meaning is clear. The term refers to what men do with men in bed and here the

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Christian scriptures identify this activity as something some of the

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Corinthian believers had been involved with past tense.

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Now to win this debate this evening Mr. Lynn must explain why Paul said such were some of you and not such are.

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There are some of you for one thing is obvious. For Paul there were no practicing homosexuals in the

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Christian congregation. It would make no more sense to go back through that list of sins that he provides to us and say well actually what we need to realize is in the

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Christian church today you can have idolater Christians and you can have fornicator

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Christians and these are people not people who slip into a sin but these are people who say you know what this is my lifestyle.

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My lifestyle is to engage in the practice of idolatry. I have been made by God to be an idolater.

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I was born this way and therefore I do not I believe in the ethic of love or just to love everybody.

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Everybody is to be accepted in the congregation and therefore I am going to continue in my idolatry because I think that all those

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Old Testament prohibitions are worthless and in fact the words they use I'm not really certain about there's confusion about that so I think we need to be broad minded.

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We don't need to worry really what the scriptures say we just simply need to accept everyone and so we're going to have idolater

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Christians as well. If that kind of thinking is convincing to you then

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I don't have a chance in this debate this evening with you. But if you recognize with me that the

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Apostle Paul if he was who authentic Christians have always believed him to be and that is an apostle of the

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Lord Jesus Christ Peter himself referred to Paul's writings as scripture and if Jesus said the scriptures cannot be broken then if this is our standard then this passage absolutely closes the door on the thesis of the debate this evening.

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For Paul says to the Corinthians such were some of you but and here is the key message for this evening but you were washed if it's not sinful why need to be washed but you were sanctified what's the need for that if it's not something that is unholy but you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of our God that is what the gospel does to those who hear the message of what

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God would have us how God would have us to live and how God would have us to come to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ that is why we're here this evening and I thank you for doing the right thing in being here

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I hope you will listen closely this evening thank you very much God bless. We are ready to move to the next stage which

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I remind you where our two ten minute rebuttals Reverend Lynn will be the first to rebut and then

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Dr. White after him Reverend Lynn Well we see something happening oops

01:00:13

I'm going to start this I have to repeat it we see something happening in this debate already and that is that all kinds of material and ideas in order to inflame the debate have come up not from scripture although there have been plenty of those but also from social science data and the demands of people at a gay rights march several years ago as if to suggest first of all that all gay people demand the same thing that's clearly not the case or there wouldn't be gay republicans as well as gay democrats that's why there were gay catholics and gay episcopalians apparently they are able to see a diversity of ideas about politics and about sexuality that may or may not embrace all of these ideas legalized marriage affirmative action sex change under a universal health care plan

01:01:10

I don't even agree with some of those myself and I'm on the board of the ACLU so I think it really sets up what is the beginnings of a false dichotomy here an idea that because some people have made some statements which shock all of us therefore we should go on and condemn and that's what's going on here condemn an entire group of people who consider themselves under many circumstances to be every bit as authentic Christians as any one of us here who considers him or herself to be an authentic Christian and we find not only this political agenda brought up but now medical data which is controversial but I just pose one question in the social origin studies and the other studies of obituaries that Dr.

01:02:03

White's discussed if it is in fact true that this act or this character because we don't even know we're talking here about people whose acts we don't know anything about we're knowing only about their self -described orientations why is it that 9 % of these gay men who do not have

01:02:24

AIDS do make it past 65? What is the nature of them that makes them different so that they are able to survive?

01:02:32

Perhaps they're the only authentic Christians in the group. I don't know but certainly to use this kind of data to prove something about the theology of homosexuality is utterly inappropriate if the only thing that matters is the text itself but we're already starting to see that that doesn't matter because we've heard that Dr.

01:02:53

White's going to discuss later in the evening what are extra -biblical texts including statements in the

01:03:01

Apocrypha the Pseudepigrapha the books that didn't make it into the canon of the Christian Bible suggesting that in fact we don't have only these sources to generate information about sexuality and its theological and the proper theological point of view which is of course not a bad idea in fact it's what

01:03:23

I said at the beginning it's because I do not believe and do not accept the idea that the only way to define authentic Christianity is to determine what the original meaning of a text of the

01:03:35

Bible was written two thousand years ago I know that many of you don't agree with that but to not accept that to not accept any other source of information or revelation is to deny that your prayer life is ever likely to gain you anything new anything you haven't thought about you might as well just repeat it put it onto a tape recorder and play it to God every day because it's not really a communication where you could receive new insights to suggest that study of the texts of the

01:04:10

Bible study of the cultural experience of those who were participants in the creation of the

01:04:17

Bible that that doesn't mean anything that new truths can come from that is to reject the idea of continuing to study the very texts that we consider to be important even if not the only source an important source of how we gain knowledge about our relationship to God to put so much weight onto the words of Paul I believe is an astonishing error because Paul made the astonishing error that I've already mentioned there's no other way to describe it he believed that the kingdom of God was upon him not decades millennium in the future he was already talking about the the inbreaking of the kingdom of God into the world that he knew he was wrong there's no polite way to say it he was a theologian he may have talked all the many theologians believe that they are of course right all the time when

01:05:21

Jerry Falwell and I debate on television he thinks he's right I think I'm right one of us may be right one of us may be wrong maybe there's even a little truth in both

01:05:33

I deny this idea that everybody is all right or all wrong we think we're saying that which is true but obviously there is a difference of opinion on the matter and I'd suggest that that's what we're talking about in these very critical passages why is it that Dr.

01:05:52

White's interpretation of lists in 1 Corinthians I think he talked about the list of of wrongs and he quoted them as including effeminates and homosexuals

01:06:07

I can find you literally 15 other translations of the two words that he chooses to use effeminates and homosexuals to describe is he the only person who got it right and the other 15 are all wrong it's possible it is possible but I ask you to consider whether you want to make life or death decisions about yourself and your ability and willingness to condemn others based on one interpretation instead of one of the other 15 interpretations of that because it is a serious matter and it is to be taken seriously a couple of other points much has been made of the passages that Dr.

01:06:56

White has talked about suggesting what is the only way in which a person can be an authentic Christian two shall be made to one flesh family he says includes children that literally cannot be true because of the story of the eunuch in the book of Acts eunuch was a person who was not going to engage in sexual activity we don't know about that eunuch whether he was castrated whether he was not but chose not to have sexual intercourse but we know in Acts that he was a follower of Jesus was baptized and lived in joy the rest of his life it cannot be true it cannot be true that he cannot be described as an authentic Christian because he was unable or unwilling to have a family that is a very dangerous proposition because it suggests that anyone who chooses celibacy for example is inherently an inauthentic

01:08:00

Christian I don't believe that is true Dr. White has talked a great deal about the death penalty and I will want to question him about this as we go through the evening because one has to remember that under the description that he has a culturally derived description of what is right and wrong there are plenty of other things that in the holiness codes in Leviticus and in other sections of what

01:08:28

Christians call the Old Testament there are many other offenses that do deserve the death penalty there are many other forms of relationship including living with a second husband or wife after a divorce that are seen in the same way and in the same character as Dr.

01:08:48

White believes all same gender relationships need to be seen and we need to consider whether we have agreed to a slavish that's what it would be slavish interpretation of scripture such as to write out of the possibility of authentic Christian experience not just gay men and lesbians and transgender people but even people who are divorced or who choose not to engage in sexual activity with the possibility of having any children there's a great deal of controversy about whether people choose to be gay or not and there's a great deal of debate even among more liberal constituencies about that issue but again this analysis tonight from Dr.

01:09:39

White does assume that all of these feelings not just acts but feelings are in fact chosen and I personally don't buy that I don't buy that at all

01:09:50

I was out at Rice University a few months ago with Tony Campola and someone asked him in the middle of his discussion at the end of the debate just what he thought about this gay rights question and he of course has a fairly conservative biblical view of it but he did end with something that came to my mind when

01:10:13

I thought about this evening he said he does not believe that God creates abominations and neither do

01:10:25

I and I'm glad frankly that I am here tonight rather than having a gay person here tonight because I think some of what we've already heard with all due respect borders on the hateful and certainly borders on it closely enough that it would be an embarrassment to many gay people to be here and hear their authenticity their

01:10:56

Christianity questioned in a way that we have heard it questioned already and we're only part way through the evening thank you so many things so little time in a debate such as this it was just indicated that I was in some way shape or form undercutting my own position in regards to sufficiency of scripture by referring to the meaning of words as they were used in extra biblical documents this is a part of simply studying the lexical backgrounds of words and the meanings of words it is not an undercutting of sola scriptura the sufficiency of scripture to function as a sole infallible rule of faith of the church in any way shape or form and to say that opens the way for new revelation of the spirit and an open canon as Mr.

01:12:02

Lynn has presented it is obviously an error of logic we were told to put so much weight on the words of Paul is an astonishing error

01:12:11

I would say the astonishing error is Mr. Lynn's misinterpretation of Paul Colossians 1 tells us that we have been transferred into the kingdom of his son we do live in the last days it has been the last days ever since then the days of the ministry of the spirit

01:12:29

I never ever once said as I think most of you understand that a person who does not have a family could not be a

01:12:35

Christian I never said that what I was talking about of course what I was talking about of course you're taking my time what

01:12:43

I was talking about of course was the fact that Jesus in talking about the creation said that male and female together come together then the male or the female leaves father and mother this is the natural creative decree of God I never made the insinuation that Mr.

01:13:01

Lynn has said that I did now Mr. Lynn has said that he feels it's astonishing that you could believe that someone is an inauthentic

01:13:09

Christian the only logical way to understand that statement is we can't tell who a Christian is if you cannot say that a person is an inauthentic

01:13:18

Christian then what you're saying is we don't know who a Christian is as long as you say you're a Christian you're a Christian it doesn't matter what you believe you can believe

01:13:25

Jesus is a totem pole and you're a Christian just say the word Jesus and you're a Christian is that authentic Christianity is that what the

01:13:32

Bible reveals to us certainly not the apostles were greatly concerned about false

01:13:37

Christ and false messiahs how would they even have a concern about such a thing if in point of fact the revelation of God is not clear enough for us to know what

01:13:47

Christ is who Christ is and what a Christian is what his follower is we have been told that for example if we eat shellfish or mixed fabric or things like that or we have lust in the heart and we're told that there's all sorts of things in the holiness code not in the section we're looking at and if anyone cannot tell the difference between those issues that were specifically about the

01:14:09

Jewish people in their clothing and the fact that the New Testament writers take these prohibitions and apply them in the

01:14:16

New Testament and that what we're talking about in Leviticus this was not touched on but in Leviticus it is said that the

01:14:23

Canaanites are being driven out for committing these things it obviously isn't just the

01:14:28

Jewish purity code the Canaanites were not driven out for eating shellfish that is a misinterpretation of the text and ignoring of the context of the passages that we are looking at we are told that the original intent of Scripture is next to impossible to determine using the

01:14:47

Constitution as an example and then saying we're talking about texts that are two thousand years old folks that is really the only way that revisionist interpreters can get around the historical testimony of the

01:14:59

Christian people throughout the history of the Church and of the Jewish people before that is to simply say we just can't know we just don't know we don't know what arsenikoites means yes certainly they're in the

01:15:12

Septuagint and Leviticus 20 and Leviticus 18 those two terms appear and it talks about men lying with men but we just don't know what that means because I can point to 15 translations

01:15:22

I would like to ask Rev. Lynn if you can point to 15 translations can you substantiate the translation

01:15:30

I mean there's lots of folks running around translating Bibles that's no big deal I don't exactly think referring to the

01:15:35

New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses means I should accept their renderings give us some substantiation on a grammatical level of why arsenikoites does not mean what it transparently means substantiate those things

01:15:49

I'm not claiming to be the only one in point of fact I would say that the vast majority of linguistic scholars do not agree that it's unclear as to what it means but agree that the translation is in fact clear we were told that Jesus himself undercut the sufficiency of Scripture to function as the final court of arbitration in this matter because he sent the

01:16:12

Holy Spirit and I wonder when we look at John 14 and 16 are we actually being told that what this means is that there is no

01:16:21

Scripture to which we can refer that while the Old Testament saints had a body of revelation to which they could refer and in fact the

01:16:27

Lord Jesus bounded upon his own hearers assumed it was knowable to everybody and used that somehow for his church there was going to be an unknowable open canon and in point of fact people were going to receive new revelation all the time and this new revelation may or may not be consistent with the erroneous

01:16:47

Paul or his other erroneous apostles is that what we are to understand

01:16:52

John 14 and 16 is saying or is the historical interpretation that has been offered by Christians down through the centuries of this passage and that is that the

01:17:01

Holy Spirit leads us into all truth not through giving us new revelation but in understanding the revelation

01:17:06

God has given to us with finality and clarity in scripture is in point of fact the way we should understand the passage when we go back to looking at Sodom and Gomorrah isn't it interesting that we haven't heard anything about Ezekiel chapter 18 verses 49 through 50

01:17:24

Ezekiel chapter 18 does list inhospitability as one of the sins of that particular city state but interestingly enough even in some of the books that I have right there such as Daniel Heminiak's work they only quote

01:17:39

Ezekiel 18 49 they forget to quote Ezekiel 18 50 which specifically tells us that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah involved that which is

01:17:47

Toeva the abomination and it was well known in Ezekiel's day exactly what that referred to Sodom and Gomorrah were not laid waste because only the men of the city

01:18:00

I wonder why there weren't any women outside that door that night have you ever thought about that why is it only the men of the city who came to find out who these strangers were bring them out so we may yada them

01:18:11

Adam yada'd Eve and she had a son finally it was just stated and I think this is where we need to focus it was just stated oh there's you're hateful if you say what you're saying my friends the most hateful thing that a person who has by God's grace been given his truth could ever ever do to anyone is to withhold that truth from them when it means their very eternal soul we live in a society of pure subjectivism we live in a society that says if you dare say that you know what is right or wrong especially in the area of religion you're a backwards hating person who we need to recognize the liberal position for what it is it's a denial of God's ability to tell his own creatures how they're to live their lives in a way that will bring them into proper relationship with him and bring them greatest joy and fulfillment that's what it is

01:19:31

God can't tell us and you're hateful if you say he does my friends it is incumbent upon you it is incumbent upon authentic Christians in this society in a way that few generations of Christians have been called upon in the past to think with clarity to think with a

01:19:58

Christ mind to think in accordance with a Christian world view to recognize that when you are attacked when you are said to be hateful for speaking

01:20:09

God's truth you need to be able to see past the rhetoric and see what's actually being said to recognize the underlying assumptions that there is no clear revelation from God no one can really know and who are you to bring

01:20:27

God's word to people the Lord Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery what go and what sin no more how unloving no how loving of him to say it my friends the word is clear focus upon what the word says focus upon the thesis of the debate is homosexuality compatible with authentic Christianity if authentic Christianity is defined by what

01:21:03

God has revealed in his word in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ the scriptures cannot be broken then the thesis of this debate has been established thank you very much each debater will get to cross examine the other for 15 minutes the rules of the cross examination are pretty straightforward the only person who can ask a question is the person who has the floor as the cross examiner the person who responds is not to respond by asking questions but simply to respond by answering the questions my job is if things get off track to remind the debaters of that but I'm sure we won't have any problem again we'll follow the same order

01:22:04

Reverend Lynn will ask Dr. White's questions for the first 15 minutes and then we'll reverse it and then we'll continue we'll set our clocks

01:22:22

Dr. White let's go back to this shelf of questions are you saying that no one by the way was necessarily comparing

01:22:38

I least of all would necessarily compare eating shellfish to murder for example but are you saying that Jesus said it was alright to eat shellfish that he was silent on the question and therefore he might or might not be able to eat oysters how do you decide which parts of the holiness codes are relevant to authentic Christians today how do you figure that out oh actually interestingly enough in response to that specific question

01:23:11

Lord Jesus did in the gospel of Mark specifically declare all meats to be clean off the top of my head

01:23:18

I can't give you the reference but he did make that exact statement so he did in regards to the dietary laws and historically individuals have been have presented the idea that that which is fulfilled in the person of Christ and in the sacrifice of Christ the sacrificial laws the laws in regards to those things accompanying the tabernacle and Jewish worship are fulfilled in Christ and the moral laws are continued on because of their continued use by the apostles of the

01:23:49

Lord Jesus Christ I wasn't aware that oysters were meats but maybe they are what are the other acts that deserve the death penalty aside and first of all let me clarify your intent here is the are sexual acts between men and men and women and women worthy of the death penalty or the status of being attracted to men if you're a man or a woman if you're a woman which is it that is that sin that deserves the criminal punishment of death are you referring only

01:24:23

Leviticus or do you want to go pan -canonical through Romans no I just want to know today I want to know if a person who is gay and celibate and or a person who is gay and engaged in intercourse with the same gender person worthy of the death penalty today okay in response to that question since you said you wanted to go for us today and hence

01:24:46

I'm going to utilize not just Leviticus which specifically focused upon the sex act but also the book of Romans which specifically makes reference to the desires of individuals it says they burned in their desires toward one another etc etc in each one of those situations the death penalty as you would use it is somewhat different between the two in Leviticus it is that which is undertaken by the state itself in the nation of Israel in the book of Romans it is spiritual separation from God and the penalty of death there is really

01:25:22

I would say the more severe one because it has eternal consequences very clearly attached to would you or wouldn't you believe it would be a wise thing for the state of New York to declare that intercourse between people of the same gender it should be punishable by death

01:25:41

I don't want the state of New York to be doing anything actually I'm a little scared about the state of New York these days but in answer to your question if you're asking do

01:25:53

I believe that we should set up a theocracy and reestablish the Old Testament situation like that I'm not looking for that type of theocracy what

01:26:02

I'm saying is that in the book of Romans which I believe to be the standard for us today which was your original question the issue of the death there is spiritual death which then becomes the very foundation of what the gospel proclamation is of salvation and how we can have spiritual life okay but when did that change when did it change when did

01:26:23

Paul say really we're talking about spiritual death here we are not talking about an actual death penalty we are not talking about the stoning which by the way for adulterers was continued as a practice although Jesus condemned it but where did this change come

01:26:40

I'm not sure I need to ask a clarification of the question Jesus condemned the

01:26:46

Old Testament law of stoning no he well actually he did suggest that people who were without sin should be the first to cast the stone against the adulterers my point is when did this change so that Paul said listen guys we are not really talking about the death penalty now we're just talking about spiritual death when did that happen well actually it's very clear in Romans chapter 13 that Paul does believe the state carries the sword for the punishment of evil yes it does and therefore

01:27:14

Paul would not have any problem with a state that would punish evil doers and base that upon the scriptures absolutely but that's not what he was talking but that's a different context sir than Romans chapter one and it's a false dichotomy to say sir that he somehow had to say well something has changed no it just seems to me that well let me put it this way apparently something's changed between Paul's understanding of the role of the state and yours because you don't want this state and presumably even your home state of Arizona to impose the death penalty on people who are gay is that a question or is that a statement if the question is do

01:27:48

I want the state to do that the problem is in the old testament it was godly judges who were responsible to God and who could legislate on the basis of scripture who were entrusted with doing that thing

01:28:00

I can guarantee you one thing that's not what's going on in our government today even John Ashcroft could he impose the death penalty on someone he's a godly man he tells us well you know

01:28:11

I wish I wish people like John Ashcroft had more freedom to do what they could do but unfortunately there are people like yourself who oppose him you just are not answering the question if people like John Ashcroft made the laws would you support the death penalty for gay people and it's a simple question sir and I have already answered that question in pointing out to you that the people of Israel were the ones to whom the charge was given to give the death penalty on that basis within that context and I have pointed out to you that for Christians which was your original question that for Christians the normative teaching is that it brings spiritual death and that that can be counteracted by the gospel of Jesus Christ okay well all right well let's think with a

01:28:54

Christ mind on this one what do you make of Jesus's failure to comment on the obvious homosexual relationship between the centurion and his slave in Matthew chapter 8 verses 5 to 13 and Luke chapter 1 verse 10 it's clearly

01:29:09

I reject the assertion that there is an obvious homosexual relationship there and secondly

01:29:15

I don't believe that Jesus quote unquote failed to do anything because it assumes facts not in evidence and secondly

01:29:22

Jesus's statements are very clear in his affirmation of the entirety of the law which

01:29:27

I would say is an ipso facto affirmation of the entirety of that including the ban on homosexuality well the centurion did have a slave am

01:29:35

I right about that uh huh and he didn't comment on that on the slavery issue but I thought we'd leave that alone for a moment but you do know that the general relationship between men and young we know this is a young boy slave was generally of a sexual nature uh not amongst godly men it was not no was the centurion a godly man since he had faith yes but he still had slaves yes and he still engaged why do you think then he was so interested in bringing the slave to Jesus because he because he had a deep concern about this person's life and continuing which does not have to be sexual to continue him in sexual slavery

01:30:17

I think but maybe not is that a question no I just was a comment ok why do you accuse me and others of pure subjectivism when

01:30:28

I tried to distinguish at the very beginning of this conversation about things that were obviously wicked things including prostitution lustful sexual activities heterosexual and homosexual cultic ritual sexual activity of any kind those are clearly sin those are not in the list as I understand and interpret the list in Corinthians those are not those are clearly wicked they are sins other activities are unnatural in the sense that they are rare but why would you say since I have conceded a long list of sins that I'm totally subjective actually what

01:31:05

I said was there is total subjectivity either I mentioned in two areas either in the works of revisionists in their use of scholarly data or I was referring to liberalism in general in its assertion of its world view and its assertion of moral absolutes

01:31:20

I don't know exactly what you're referring to because you first said first Corinthians and then you used the term unnatural which is from Romans so I'm not sure which of those two lists you're talking about well prostitution is wicked we agree with that that's sinful do we agree with that do we agree with that we agree with that because God has revealed that it violates

01:31:44

His created purpose for male and female and that union that is there is becoming one flesh that's

01:31:50

Paul's entire discussion in first Corinthians is that when you join yourself to the body of the prostitute you are making yourself one flesh but then isn't it unfair when

01:31:59

I have just criticized that as do most of those scholars I can't I'm not sure that all of them do but I think almost all of them also criticize this kind of inappropriate sexual misconduct including acts like adultery and prostitution

01:32:17

I mean those scholars are not subjectivists they are simply trying to interpret the passages these controversial passages that you and I have been talking about and reach different conclusions it seems to me that what you're asking me is is it unfair to point out when scholars are subjective in one area and then inconsistently objective in an area that is not of concern to them

01:32:39

I think it is fair to point out when scholars of whatever field they are studying will say that there is objective sin in one area but then going over to another area will engage in subjective either choosing what data to look at or not to look at like Boswell does with church fathers and linguistic issues or whatever it might be

01:33:01

I think it is very fair to point out when they are in any area in which they are writing and addressing especially when it is the subject of our debate yes although again let me ask it this way you assume that something nefarious is going on here with all of those scholars and with my interpretation of some of their work and my own sense of what it is to be an authentic Christian but it is not subjectivism to say that some things are clearly sin by the

01:33:33

Bible's own terms and in our opinion the words relating to other activities do not constitute sin as I said

01:33:43

Paul clearly is not in favor of homosexuality yet he doesn't say it is the same sin as murdering your parents different languages different structures to the passages

01:33:53

I think it matters you apparently don't but why is that subjectivism there were four or five actual assertions there first of all

01:34:03

I did not identify any difference that we have had over the meaning of arson paraphuson the meanings of the terms in the

01:34:11

Old Testament as subjectivism I have indicated but we have not even gotten into certain areas where the foundational scholars that the others draw from have engaged in that in their research secondly

01:34:23

I think it is an inconsistent thing to say that I have said to you that our differences of opinion on these subjects involve one side being merely objective and you being subjective

01:34:35

I did not say that I have instead invited you to present to us a foundational scholarly defense of your assertions regarding the nature of these terms okay you did use the phrase pure subjectivism to describe me and liberal theologians so I think it was a fair question to ask you is that a question that I could comment on yes well my response to that is

01:34:59

I did it in a particular context especially the context of this idea of yours of an open canon and this whole concept of your final closing statement in your rebuttal where you said that this is an act of hatred and I was pointing out that the only way that you can substantiate that kind of assertion is to engage in a subjective world view that would not allow for the idea that there is an objective truth and that to speak it is actually an act of love even if it is an act of oh okay well

01:35:25

I'm not going to make a comment you can ask if you care about that was

01:35:31

Jesus unnatural because he chose not to do the very things which you would describe as the natural chain of events and that is leaving your parents finding a woman and I do think you said have children but let's forget the children for the moment was he not engaged fundamentally in an unnatural relationship the only context which

01:35:56

I can take your question is the use of the term unnatural in Romans chapter one is that the context of your question yes it is rare and outside the norms of the culture that's how

01:36:07

I defined it not how you defined it I understand that and I reject that definition I do not believe that it is consistent either with Paul's worldview or his teaching as a whole of course

01:36:16

I think we disagree that you can determine a consistent teaching on Paul I believe that you can I don't believe that you do but I do not believe that paraphusis means unnatural in the sense of unexpected

01:36:25

I believe that Paul understood that God as creator which is the context defines what is natural and unnatural in his created world which is a context and therefore he is identifying these acts as unnatural as being against God's creative decree living celibately in the way that Jesus did for ministry is not against God's creative decree male and male sex female and female sex is alright well we're almost out of time so why don't

01:36:57

I stop for the moment and I'd like to pursue this in the next period of questioning too thank you thank you a moment to reset thank you

01:37:14

Reverend Lynn I was going to start by asking you if you believe the Bible to be the sufficient rule of rule of faith but you indicated in your opening statements

01:37:24

I did I interpret you correctly to say that you do not believe that the Bible can function as the sole infallible rule of faith the church

01:37:31

I clearly believe that there is continuing revelation of God to man to woman to all of us and that therefore the canon as we know it cannot be either literally interpreted or sufficient to the

01:37:47

Christian life of this millennium do you believe that the revelations that do you receive revelations from the

01:37:55

Holy Spirit yes do you believe that your revelations are equal with what Paul says in Romans 1

01:38:00

I have no idea if they're psychologically equal I only know that they change my life as they change the life of other people and indeed on these very issues because if you were talking to me 30 years ago

01:38:15

I would be in total agreement with everything you said and everything that I know that you have said on other controversial topics within the church including abortion but it is through prayer through study through personal experience of the other of other people that I believe my heart has been changed and that I have to declare to be authentic I have to declare it authentic whether it's the same as Paul's I am unable to answer that question is there such a thing as an inauthentic spiritual experience well it can be inauthentically

01:38:52

Christian that is to say that I believe that there are people who have spiritual experiences who claim contact with the dead they believe it to be spiritual

01:39:03

I don't think it's authentic Christian spiritual experience but I think it is fair for them to call it spiritual which is not

01:39:15

Christian by what standard sir would you judge any spiritual experience well I mean one has to see

01:39:21

I believe that one has to be honest with not only the criticisms that you would levy against people who say sin is not sin and go and engage in it but I think we have to give more credit to the individual practicing

01:39:34

Christian and I believe that that if someone says through prayerful communion with Jesus Christ with God through Jesus Christ I have changed my mind

01:39:47

I have changed my heart it is very difficult for me to sit as an outsider in Arizona or Washington D .C.

01:39:54

or anywhere else and dare to say their experience of God is inauthentic particularly when they describe it within the context of a fundamental respect for scripture even though they may say as I do scripture is not sufficient for the task of full understanding because among other things because some of what

01:40:19

Jesus says when he talks about the Holy Spirit clearly implies that some of the teachings to come he doesn't say come at the time the canon is established he doesn't know this is coming he says some things are too heavy for you to bear and I think it is extraordinarily difficult to get through these texts get past these texts and still be able to look at a person who claims to be an authentic Christian and say

01:40:45

I am willing to accept the authenticity of your experience it's very difficult for many of us two things from your comments that you just made was

01:40:53

Paul being unloving and unkind when he wrote the letter to the churches in Galatia and then anathematized those who had what would in comparison between you and I be a minor theological difference with them can you be more specific he said that they were to be accursed by God because they added one thing to the gospel that is he said they needed to have faith in Jesus and be circumcised

01:41:18

I believe that that would clearly pass as an extravagant statement a statement that in fact is not even in keeping with his own comments about the need not to create impediments between Christians but ways to find ways to circumvent those issues like circumcision so in reality your personal experience of the

01:41:46

Holy Spirit would be more authentic than Paul's comments to them because they were inconsistent well it's you know

01:41:52

I'm not suggesting I've always been consistent please I mean I would never claim that level of perfection

01:42:01

I'm just saying that it is I think a reasonable thing to suggest that Paul was making too much in that letter to the

01:42:10

Galatians about things that in fact did not matter very much so in that letter when he says that he is defying the truth of the gospel do you believe there is a truth of the gospel that we can know with certainty

01:42:28

I just don't think that the way we can know it is always the same I don't believe that we can simply read the scripture or one reading of the

01:42:38

Hebrew one reading of the Greek scripture and say of course we're all going to come to the same conclusion

01:42:45

I think it is just as authentic to reach different authentic conclusions even if we don't agree on a meaning of every word in the

01:42:54

Bible this is the extraordinary thing about the difference that I have and it's unexpected

01:42:59

I don't know what I expected here tonight but I didn't expect this and I think that it is quite possible to have to read scripture to take that scripture seriously to understand it in different ways and not be written out of the community of authentic Christians by other

01:43:19

Christians that's not right doesn't that follow sir that we then would be proclaiming different gospels no absolutely not because the fundamental good news is that Jesus Christ came the son of God died for our sins and took upon the sins of the world unto himself and brought us to salvation that's the essential gospel may

01:43:43

I ask how you know that I know that from from scripture and personal revelation I mean there's no there's no question about that I see now you said earlier that you said

01:43:54

Jesus did not know that a the canon was going to be closed did you not make that statement of course he didn't know he didn't even know there would be a canon so was was did he was

01:44:06

Jesus well you can ask me that question during your period was Jesus divine yes

01:44:13

Jesus was divine but he didn't know that there was going to be a canon of scripture well there's certainly no evidence that he did and he didn't know that there would be television either that does not make him less divine so it really doesn't please please when when you say that Jesus is divine are you saying that he was sent by God or do you hold the historic position of what

01:44:37

I think most people would hold to is authentic Christianity that he was the incarnation of the son of God the second person of the

01:44:44

Trinity I believe he's the second person of the Trinity okay and he rose from the dead on the third day yes okay and yet he didn't know that there was going to to be a well

01:44:53

I didn't know future events I we all I can say is he did not discuss it okay he did not discuss much of it there's a serious question what did he

01:45:04

I wonder I wonder what he meant when he said do not cast your pearls before swine he may not even have realized that there was time time for Gentiles to hear the gospel message because he was speaking to Jews okay now going to the specific issue of the debate this evening is it your position that there is no possibility that arsenic or arsenic used in the plural form means a person who engages in sexual intercourse one male with another male no

01:45:46

I don't think it's impossible that that is true I think it is unlikely that that is true because to the extent that it that you go back to its roots it does mean male penetrator it does not have an object it only has a subject it is a male who is penetrating we don't know penetrating whom or what

01:46:09

I just think it's an impossible resolution because the word does not exist outside of Paul's writings it contemporaneously outside of Paul's own writings and on what basis do you assert what you just said that it means a male penetrating with no object well because there is because the word the to the extent that the word means means something and the only way we know that is to take the roots the best

01:46:37

I can come up with is that it refers to male and it to the act of penetration it does not talk about the object do you are you familiar with the

01:46:47

Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament yeah but not as familiar as you are okay are you familiar with the fact that in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 the

01:46:59

Greek Septuagint utilizes both arsenos and the koitao the the idea of lying with male with male both those words that are put together into arsenokoitae are used in the

01:47:14

Greek Septuagint are you familiar with that I can't say I am no let's say for the sake of argument that those terms are there would it not would you agree with me that the

01:47:24

Apostle Paul each time he quoted the Old Testament he quoted the Greek Septuagint translation are you familiar with that well

01:47:33

I mean no I I don't believe that we can know that for certain when

01:47:40

Paul was citing an Old Testament passage to people who lived in Ephesus who would not know Hebrew would it not be logical for us to assume that he would translate he would cite a translation that they would be familiar with yes absolutely okay if in point of fact the

01:47:55

Apostle Paul was intimately familiar with the Greek Septuagint does it not seem to you to be extremely significant that the two words that he puts together are found specifically in the same context in the two prohibitions of plain homosexual activity in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 that assumes that the

01:48:15

Greek translation of the Hebrew is accurate and I do not believe that we know that I know that you clearly believe it and I know that 98 % of the audience believes it but I don't believe that all scholars believe it and I certainly do not believe it well

01:48:30

I'm I'm confused I wasn't asking about the accuracy of the translation what I was asking about is if Paul utilized the

01:48:39

Greek Septuagint as his if his citations in his letters can all be found in the

01:48:47

Greek Septuagint then does it not follow that since both of those words appear in the

01:48:52

Greek Septuagint that this would be the source from which Paul is deriving the word and that therefore its meaning would be determined by Paul's understanding of Leviticus 18 and 20

01:49:06

I think that there's a certain logic to that and there's a certain fallacy to that because we you assume and you continue to go back to this issue of what he understood the

01:49:16

Hebrew to be and what my argument is that we don't know that that is the only way in which he could have constructed that word you are making pole vaulting to conclusions that I think are not illogical they are not completely without merit

01:49:35

I've never argued that but I think that they are not the only interpretation to be given for the construction of that word and its use in the

01:49:46

Christian New Testament Can you suggest another understanding of the since you just said

01:49:52

Hebrew I'm not sure that you meant that are you referring to Ars Iniquitae? No Okay, so could you suggest another meaning for the phrases in Hebrew used in Leviticus in 18 that say if a male lies with a male it is an abomination could you suggest another meaning other than one that indicates and implicates homosexuality

01:50:14

No, but I think that the question of what it means obviously you know in Israel it was terribly important to procreate

01:50:24

I think we would agree with that and again we are talking about a culture here a culture two millennia different from the one we're in here where it did make a difference many of the cleanliness codes made a great deal of sense in Israel they do not make sense necessarily in 21st century

01:50:47

America that is not to say they were wrong for their time but it is to suggest that they are not the last word for our time

01:50:56

I've never said in fact I think I said three times at least I am not suggesting that Paul was attracted to the idea of men laying with men or that he did not think that it was unnatural it's simply that it is in a different category in my understanding of the construction of his list of things to which he objected that there is a difference between that which is wicked and sinful and that which is purely unnatural that is odd not not in the mainstream wrong headed since we're about out of time

01:51:39

I'd like to pick up with Romans 1 and then we can get a chance in reverse Reverend Lind Alright how what do you think of these relationships which some people make a great deal of more than I would tonight between say

01:52:06

Jonathan and David whose second Samuel first wait a minute first chapter verse 26 your love to me was wonderful and then later better than the love of a woman

01:52:20

I mean there's no necessary sexual connotation to any of that language but do you not find it curious that this relationship is described in these highly charged nearly erotic tones no sir

01:52:41

I don't especially because the fact that David in the 119th Psalm since we're talking about him is a person who exalts

01:52:48

God's word he would have known the testimonies of the law in regards to Leviticus 18 and 20 and therefore the one who is described as a man after God's own heart would not have been one who would have engaged in such activity when he did engage in sinful sexual activity

01:53:03

God brought that to his attention in the most forceful means through the ministry of the prophet

01:53:10

Nathan as you may recall but I just wondered because indeed when that precisely for that reason when there was error there was clear punishment when there was sin there was clear punishment

01:53:22

I'm just suggesting that this rather commonplace activity particularly among people who spent a great deal of time fighting together on the same side it was not uncommon for there to be homosexual relationships and I just wondered why this extraordinary language is used if it was if it could not connote a relationship of love between man and man whether it's consummated or not

01:53:53

I don't know well two things there I believe that not only can love exist between man and man but it must we are to love the brethren and I also believe that God gives us individuals in our lives that we love in a very special way that are very close to us but to assume that because there are individuals who are very close to us and whom we love and for whom we would do anything that that then means that the individual such as David who is a man after God's own heart would then go against God's law and go beyond what is wholesome and right into what is not

01:54:27

I think is a very great unwarranted leap yeah but see the predicate is that it's going against God's his understanding of God's law if God if he understood

01:54:35

God's law to be what I understand God's law to be then it wouldn't be going against God's law so you you jump again to the conclusion without any evidence of the connection where in the

01:54:46

Bible where in anything any extra biblical literature that you consider important is any male to male relationship described like this one between David and Jonathan well two things facts not in evidence you said there's absolutely no evidence of the position that I've taken and yet in the cross examination we just had

01:55:08

I asked you for linguistic a linguistic reading of the text it was different than what

01:55:13

I gave you and you said I can't give you one you gave me different interpretation but you didn't give me another thing so if it's facts not in evidence

01:55:19

A and B I don't understand your question are you asking where in the Bible is any higher wording used of David and Jonathan of a relationship between people of the same gender

01:55:32

I mean just where is it I mean you would think if this were commonplace experiences you describe it somebody else would have had that relationship well

01:55:43

I think John obviously had a very close and intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that obviously does not make that situation one where there is a any type of homo erotic situation that's not the same language

01:55:56

I simply I answer your question by saying there doesn't need to be multiple examples of a close relationship between male and male that somehow has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to homosexuality well

01:56:10

I mean all I was suggesting was it was certainly a unique language and that it's not found anywhere else why is it so important to you to come to a debate like this you said that you're coming here for the purpose of sending forth obviously most of the people in this audience to talk to gay people to remind them that the danger of continuing to live as they live is literally one of worse than a death penalty in a physical sense it is it is death it is the worst kind of is that why you're so obsessed with this

01:56:47

I'm not obsessed with anything sir in reality the scriptures say in Romans chapter 3 that the revelation that God has given of what sin is is so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become responsible or accountable before God it is my firm belief sir and I do all of these debates no matter what the subject is as you may know

01:57:10

I'm debating purgatory a week from tonight I couldn't hardly have a different subject no no there seems to be less interest in purgatory also but the reason that I will engage in that one in reality is the same reason in which

01:57:23

I engage in this one and that is if there is not a clear revelation of what sin is mouths can never be stopped and if a person still clings their self -righteousness they will never hear the gospel of grace do you have debates on the subjects of hypocrisy slavery and not caring for the poor

01:57:46

I've never met anyone who would defend those things as being Christian we should call the White House you've never debated a someone who's who you know there's a very radical position about wealth in the

01:58:04

Bible it is not a good thing it is not an impossible thing to acquire but it is certainly not viewed as a good thing have you ever discussed wealth the extraordinary disparity between rich and poor in America or around the world in any one of these debates or do you only talk about issues like abortion which isn't even mentioned in the

01:58:22

Bible and gays which are mentioned in four or five places at most in the Bible a number of things because there are a number of statements made there a no

01:58:32

I've never had a debate on the fact that it is the scriptures position that God is the one who gives us all things good to enjoy and it's

01:58:40

God who makes men to differ and so if a person is wealthy or if a person is not wealthy they can look to God for that and they are to be content in that and B facts not in evidence in fact contradictory the

01:58:51

Bible does refer to abortion X is chapter 21 and if you'd like to debate that subject

01:58:56

I'd like to give you an open challenge to do so right now I probably won't accept it but the point of the matter is it just seems that you have an interestingly myopic view of what is sin that's really my point

01:59:09

I mean okay please do not tell me that there is no are you telling us that there is no one who would argue that a position that says it is easy for wealthy people to enter the kingdom of heaven no it's difficult

01:59:29

I have A if they were out there let's put it this way I have been very clear in condemning the teaching within evangelicalism that says that God is a magic genie in heaven and all we have to do is say a certain prayer found in first chronicles some place or name it and claim it and poof oh everything is going to be given to us

01:59:52

I have debated those people I'm not in a formal setting to say walk around the world seven times and claim that it's yours so I have been consistent at that point well okay and that's important but it's just not quite as important but you made it you made a statement though sir you said my myopic definition of sin and I if I can answer that assertion

02:00:11

I would say to you it is not a myopic definition of sin it is a biblical definition of sin

02:00:17

I eschew I eschew any self -authority to define sin you eschew any self -authority to you you have claimed that you have an authoritative reading of holy scripture on this one sin you've been talking about it for an hour and a half

02:00:35

I now you said well maybe I'm right you can tell you're right there is a huge no you are there is a huge category error and logic error that you just made sir okay you just transferred my assertion that God has revealed in his word with sufficient clarity that we can know it with my saying

02:00:53

I do not claim that I can define in of myself the issue of sin

02:00:59

I eschew any personal ability to do so I look only to the word of God and I am to be correctable corrected by what is in it now it's it's interesting

02:01:09

I I mean I think that is not an adequate response because you you do claim authority over all the authorities including those in those books who you've just discussed as revisionist and subjective or subpartial and subjective you claim on higher knowledge than any of the people who wrote any of those books sir to to answer your question it seems you're saying that no one can possibly contradict what they're saying without claiming a higher knowledge

02:01:38

I am simply saying I don't believe that in a factual debate in a scholarly debate going back and forth that they would be able to maintain their position that doesn't give me a quote -unquote higher knowledge what it means is

02:01:50

I identify in their work biases and errors that result in their conviction and I being unworthy all right who decides they're unworthy well

02:02:00

I think right with the fact that what we're doing right now allows these individuals to hear you and I go back and forth and allow them to make that that's great and if there is perchance one person who believes you to be wrong by what right and authority do you claim them to have an inauthentic understanding of scripture or of God God I'm more interested in that assertion again what you're asking me is is can you have a definition that says this is

02:02:30

Christianity and this is not and if your fundamental question of me sir is do you believe that there is a authentic definition of Christianity that is not merely subjectively oriented

02:02:41

I say to you yes sir all right there is okay fine have you ever met pastor

02:02:47

Fred Phelps no you know who he is yes I do okay pastor Fred Phelps goes to the funerals of persons who were died of AIDS whom he knows or thinks he knows we're gay and carries signs around that say things like God hates fags and I wondered if you've ever confronted him

02:03:06

I have no contact with him at all well I mean is he right or is he wrong does

02:03:13

God hate fags well sir it's an amazing question that you'd ask well

02:03:18

I just was curious because you've never confronted him and he's in the newspapers and radio and television and you are an authority and I just wondered if you'd confronted him with what

02:03:27

I hope is an obvious untruth you do not even believe it it would be very nice it would be very very nice if I had nearly the ability to confront people and to contact people that you just gave to me those of you those who know me and know how small my ministry is are undoubtedly very pleased that you think that I would have such a such a tremendous capacity to do so but sir if that man were to walk into this room

02:03:54

I would tell him exactly what I think of his approach

02:04:00

I would point out to him that you do not adorn the truth with an attitude of hatred now

02:04:08

I haven't now I'm sorry sir that I haven't had the opportunity of contacting that man or confronting that man or whatever it might be

02:04:15

I'm actually just an elder in a little church and I teach in a seminary and I'm not in Kansas no and I don't have that opportunity but if I ever do

02:04:24

I'll not only say that to him but I'll give him your regards as well no please don't please don't give him my regards and of course

02:04:32

I realize you live in Arizona but I also realize there is mail in Arizona there is mail you can get his address no but there are

02:04:42

I think the reason I bring this up is because I think that what you have said tonight is so dangerously close to running into the same mindset that leads

02:04:53

Pastor Phelps to withhold his truth I mean he believes him I've talked to him he believes that he is absolutely right that when he quotes these same passages and he then draws his signs and goes to those funerals

02:05:07

I think he's using the same text that you're using tonight and it's such an extraordinarily thin line for people and I wonder if that troubles you at all is your question that people misuse

02:05:21

God's truth I just wondered if it troubled you and I that he would use the same passages that I would yeah that he uses and he reaches this extraordinary conclusion not only of in terms of what he believes but of what he does about his beliefs well sir if you're asking me if I agree with what he does

02:05:42

I've already said that I do not secondly if you're asking that I should not honestly exegete the text of scripture or quote these texts just because someone like him may use hatred in quoting them

02:05:54

I see absolutely positive connection between the two unless you're suggesting that we shouldn't talk about these things because people might become inflamed by them no

02:06:04

I just I just would wish that you would be more sensitive to the fact that other people who have both the experience of a different interpretation of scripture and or a different personal revelation of the word of God have reached a different conclusion pastor

02:06:20

Phelps says he knows the truth and there is only one truth use it so that you can said there's only one truth

02:06:27

I now I'm not linking you to him but I am suggesting that if you if you ignore the possibility that anyone else could reach a different conclusion you are dangerously close to where pastor

02:06:40

Phelps ends up I think you are linking the two and I would simply point out to you that the purpose of debate sir is to find out whether those interpretations are valid not simply to find out whether people have different interpretations that's already a fact that is in evidence we all know there are different interpretations the fact is are those interpretations valid that's the issue on that note we will switch back our clocks for the last

02:07:06

I'm sorry for the last cross -examination thank you thank you very much

02:07:14

Reverend Lynn in Froman's chapter one you had indicated in your interpretation and I guess this is good to go directly into that you said that unnaturally is not necessarily evil that these actions are simply unexpected so is it your perspective that in Paul's words in Romans chapter one that he is simply saying that the homosexual both lesbian and male homosexual activities of verses 26 and 27 that these are simply unexpected actions there are two lists in Romans there are two lists one is

02:07:56

I believe a list that is in the category of unnatural that is to say rare occurrences and others are wicked sins which he puts in a different category

02:08:08

I read the context of that letter and that passage as containing two different kinds of lists of what he sees as wrong one is wrong because it is unnaturally rare the other is wrong because it is wicked and sinful okay in verse 26

02:08:31

Paul says for this reason God gave them over to degrading passions could you explain from the text what for this reason means how does it connected with what came before well because he's talking about them as I he's talking to about idolaters and he said those who commit this sin this wickedness of idolatry are do two things number one they or they can do two things they can one do things that are outside of the norms of the society they are outside the culture or they can also by virtue of their idolatry commit wickedness and sin they can do either one they can fall into either or both so in verse when it says in verse 24 therefore

02:09:19

God gave them over and in verse 26 for this reason God gave them over using the exact same Greek verb paradidomi and you're saying that it's a different them in verse 24 as in verse 26 no it's the same well it actually is a different them because some are described as those who are performing that which is uncommon place and often by the way unclean unclean and then there are others that are that are wicked you did there are two lists in that passage that we're talking about so even though he uses the exact same

02:09:55

Greek words you are insisting that the text tells us yeah that there is a complete disjunction between the two and it was intended if he if he wanted there to be a single list and every every act that was wrong was in the same list there would be no need for two lists there would be one list these are the things that have happened because of this idolatry he does not do that he specifically has two lists and I would suggest again if people go back read the read the text and see if you think it's a reason for that difference what is a degrading passion sir what is a degrading passion for this reason

02:10:33

God them over to degrade gave them over to degrading passion well I think any any lustful sexual activity of any kind is included in as a degrading passion are those sinful degrading passions not necessarily no so you can have you can degrade someone in your passion but that's not necessarily sinful you know

02:10:59

I could I just see the text that we don't maybe we could add a few sentences here because I do want to do this verse 26 sir that's the small print edition this is very very very strange it's in the same it says for God gave them over to degrading passion

02:11:27

I think I think that that is that's pathetic I think that is the

02:11:32

I believe I believe that it is very hard to read this I must admit it says for even their women exchanged yeah yeah no

02:11:43

I I believe that that is in in the in the category as I reread is in the category of those unnatural acts which are not the same as as being filled with wickedness greed evil full of envy murder strife deceit all of those greed malice gossip slanders haters of God insulin arrogant so degrading passions are not sins they're not in the same category or he would have put them in the same list

02:12:10

I mean again I just ask you to look at the structure you can decide that that Dr. White is correct about it

02:12:16

I believe that there are two distinct events that can occur in the life of the adulterer of the idolatry and that is one to engage in these passions these unclean acts and secondly to engage in the sins the list of which

02:12:32

I've just read are all possible sins listed in 28 to 32 well and one would hope not because then there would be acts that are occurring today for example that would not be considered sinful because they aren't mentioned there so using heroin for example so Paul did not say that these are the only sins no no he didn't but he certainly but I think the structure makes it absolutely clear

02:12:58

I mean I don't know how many times to say this but that he let he has two distinct lists one is a greater sin one is wickedness and evil and sin and the other is falling away as an idolater into unclean practices so they are different and of course he didn't mention every sin because as as we mentioned earlier it is impossible to project into the future particularly since Paul thought he was living in the end of time he is not living two thousand years into the end of time he believed that the kingdom of God was breaking into human history during his time there is no question about that he was simply wrong about it sir well do you believe that Paul wrote the book of Colossians I believe he wrote a great deal of it

02:13:47

I think it is possible to examine Colossians and others of his letters but I am not a

02:13:55

Bible scholar so when he said we were transferred into the kingdom of his son are you saying he was an error at that point

02:14:00

I don't even know what the question is okay alright let's go back to Romans chapter one you say that verses 26 through 27 are this is not sinful it is a different list but you have admitted that not all sins are listed in 28 to 31 so when it says at the end of 27 men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error why would a penalty be would fall upon these indecent acts to be punished for if they are just morally neutral I didn't say they were morally neutral I never said that I said they were clearly wrongs in his mind and of course there are plenty of things because he is not just talking about male to male sex he is talking about other what he would describe as perversions including sex with animals that could create highly unhealthy circumstances of course he would list them as having penalties of consequences he does not use the same formulation of penalty in the second list does he well that is a question

02:15:03

I suppose so it is your perspective that when he says receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error that wasn't because they were sinning because they were engaged in what he considered under Jewish custom to be unclean acts and he agreed that they were unclean where does he bring in this concept of what you just said concerning the

02:15:27

Jews in the text no because I think the text the phrase paraphusen talks he frequently uses the same language to describe the nature of things some things

02:15:47

Jews are Jews he talks about men with short hair remember the passage I cannot quote it precisely where he talks about the unnatural nature of men to wear long hair that is the same language the same characterization that he is using here so when in verse 25 he specifically talks about the creator and the creature that would not provide the immediate context instead of discussion of hair over in 1

02:16:13

Corinthians would no absolutely not it is the same word it is a difference a differentiation with which he clearly does not approve okay so that is all it is so when in verses 26 through 27 he refers to degrading passions in deeds and penalty of their error this is just simply violations of Jewish purity law well is it just no because he also

02:16:38

I think he believes them to be wrong that is to say unsavory but it is certainly not the same as the list that includes envy and murder that followed in 1

02:16:50

Corinthians chapter 6 Paul specifically said that such were some of you but you were washed and is it your position that we just simply cannot have any idea what

02:17:09

Paul meant by the list when he says do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor feminine or homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God do we know is it just those two terms effeminate and homosexual we don't know or do we know what a covetous person is or a thief is we certainly know more about the those words than we do about what it is to what you translate as effeminate and homosexual because there is an enormous universe of dispute about those words so you throw them out there and then you say that that is what it means because you do believe that that is what it means

02:17:53

I understand that fully my whole argument at the beginning of this evening has been that other people do understand and translate those very words that they have different meaning

02:18:04

I am just asking you to consider the authenticity of people who do call themselves

02:18:11

Christians and who do live a style of life whether it's chosen or not chosen a wonderful psychological debate we should somebody should have sometime but that what you have done is once again used your scholarly interpretation of two words and I am here to tell you again there are at least fifteen other translations for those very words and fifteen other versions of the bible they can all be wrong you can be right

02:18:42

I just don't believe you are right sir how long has this universe of confusion about the meaning of arson equites existed well almost no one wrote about it until twenty five years ago so for the last twenty five years there have been pro homosexual writers who say that the issue is under the control of under concern but for two thousand years

02:19:04

Christians somehow managed to get along with the translation where they just didn't care no a lot of gay

02:19:10

Christians just gave up being Christians because they assumed that their pastors were right in telling them exactly what you are telling them tonight that they can literally they cannot be true to themselves and still be

02:19:21

Christians and they believed it and they left the churches and for that you may be happy they are very sad and now that a whole new generation of scholarship is coming forward that churches are not rethink to take the very hard words that may come to us through the

02:19:36

Holy Spirit and listen to the words and listen to the authenticity of what these people are saying and you repudiate and many of you repudiate it you have to think about it you have to think about it you can laugh about it too of course you can laugh about it so when when sir when when

02:19:55

I challenge these writers and demonstrate that John Boswell for example who is the foundation of all these others well no

02:20:04

Boswell and Bailey their works are their works when when Christian scholars have demonstrated that he makes statements

02:20:13

John Chrysostom never mentioned this word and yet we point out that he did and original uses once we point out that he used it many times and when he never discusses the background of arson equities what makes that kind of scholarship authentic and that we somehow should grant it some kind of equal status when it has been repudiated have you read any of the reputations of these of course and you've done it you've done an admirable job of it tonight

02:20:42

I'm giving you credit what have you read sir I'd just be interested in knowing of these I mean I can't pick out the names of the of the articles and scholarly journals that criticize and I'm aware that there's an enormous debate why do you presume that you were the person who has the correct answer

02:20:57

I've been trying to ask this all I'm sorry that was a violation I don't know I don't know you were asking me a question

02:21:02

Mike no I think you I violated it I asked you a question I'm just trying to figure out why it is that you assume that you are correct all right let's just go ahead and move on okay we're going to move now sorry we're going to move now to the final stage of our debates the two 10 minutes concluding remarks

02:21:26

Reverend Lynch you'll take the first 10 minutes and I always get dr. White or Dr. be the last word, so to speak.

02:21:36

Would you like to go up there, or what do we do? What do we have to do? I have no instructions. I think you could do them from here, or you could go up to the top.

02:21:42

I would like to go up there, obviously. All right, well, I'll go up there, too, just for the sake of parallelism.

02:21:59

Well, I won't take up to 10 minutes, because I think it's somewhat of a fruitless enterprise. I believe that those of you who are here tonight, who believe that Dr.

02:22:08

White has the only interpretation, will continue to live with that view, act accordingly, and you may well, you will find out, as we all will, if it,

02:22:18

A, if it matters, and B, how much it matters at some time in the future, and we'll all learn that, and I mean that sincerely.

02:22:27

I do wish, though, that I didn't get a sense that there was, in so many of your hearts, something beyond just a difference of scriptural opinion about this matter.

02:22:41

I wish that you didn't. I wish that I thought that you merely believed that I was a person who did not, and I am not a

02:22:49

Bible scholar. I did not go to graduate school in Bible studies. I went on to other things.

02:22:57

That doesn't mean I'm not an ignorant of these texts, but I wish that I merely thought that you think

02:23:03

I lost a debate tonight, but I don't believe that. I think that you feel better about yourselves and about your feelings about condemning gay people because you were here today.

02:23:17

Oh, my goodness. Because I see the reactions and the laughter, and it's all very clever and funny, but it's not clever and funny to the people who are living an authentic Christian life, who you have dared to call inauthentic by your actions tonight.

02:23:35

What? Thank you. Yeah, and I believe, as I said at the beginning, that there are multiple sins, and pride is one of them, and I'll admit that I have pride in my heart sometimes that makes me a sinner too, but of course,

02:23:51

I've said from the beginning that I do honestly believe that we are all sinners, but I think that what has happened tonight is an example of why we don't turn to the people who are most in need, start where they are, listen to where they're coming from, and accept the authenticity of their life and their religious commitment, and to dare to suggest to anyone that they are living an inauthentic life, or that their communication with God is inauthentic because it is inconsistent with one scholar's scriptural interpretation is to commit an act of hubris which is so great that you must,

02:24:30

I seriously would suggest that you join me in praying about what tonight meant because I have some anger in my heart.

02:24:40

You probably can see it. It's there, and it's real, but I am angry also at the notion that we would sit in judgment on one small area of biblical interpretation, an issue not even discussed by Jesus Christ, not even discussed, and we would build a demonic representation of people who by choice or by creation, creation are gay men, lesbians, bisexual, and transgendered people.

02:25:19

If you write them out of your church, if you write them out of the kingdom of God, you have greater authority and power certainly than I do, and one of us is right, and one of us is obviously wrong.

02:25:34

Thank you. I would be a poor minister of the gospel if I did not point out that my opponent this evening has opened the canon of scripture, corrected the apostle

02:26:08

Paul, and dismissed his letter to the Galatians as going over the top, and yet has said that it is hubris, pride, and arrogance to speak the truth concerning God's revelation of what is sin so that the gospel can be heard.

02:26:27

We, this evening, have heard many things, and I hope that you have been challenged to think through the claim that, well, we're dealing here only with a small area of biblical interpretation.

02:26:41

What man is, the relationship of man and woman, God's decree as to how we are to live our lives is a small area of biblical interpretation, something

02:26:56

Jesus never addressed. Of course, most of those things in Leviticus 18 and 20 he didn't address, which includes bestiality, incest.

02:27:09

Does that mean they're unimportant, or does that just simply mean he didn't need to because it was such an obvious given?

02:27:17

There is a movement in our land today, no one can deny that it exists, to legalize pedophilia.

02:27:28

The arguments, biblically, that are put forward and socially are identical.

02:27:36

I'm born this way, this is a loving relationship, no one's being hurt, and the

02:27:41

Bible doesn't condemn it. Where do we draw the line? Are we really going to say that authentic Christianity is so incapable of defining itself that we cannot even address the nature of man and how he lives?

02:28:05

We were just accused of condemning gay people. Did Jesus condemn adulterers when he said, go and sin no more?

02:28:20

Did Paul condemn thieves when he said, such were some of you?

02:28:28

What does it mean to condemn when we preach the word of God that says there is such a thing as sin and that is why

02:28:38

Jesus Christ died upon a cross? Are we condemning?

02:28:46

How dare you call someone's Christianity inauthentic? I guess at least there's a consistency in saying the

02:28:56

Apostle Paul was wrong to condemn the Judaizers as inauthentic, and there was something wrong,

02:29:04

I guess, in John calling people who call themselves Christians Antichrists in 1

02:29:10

John. I guess Peter was really wrong to call false teachers who claimed to be

02:29:16

Christians dogs. Jude was wrong too. But you see, for a lot of folks, the only way we can know authentic Christianity is because we have a revelation from God called the word of God, and it just happens to be that Paul and Jude and Peter and John were apostles of the

02:29:39

Lord Jesus Christ used by him to record his revelation. That's the standard for authentic Christianity, and therefore, if you don't follow in their footsteps, you have absolutely no right to call yourself an authentic Christian anything.

02:29:55

I would suggest to you that Mr. Lynn has no basis upon which to define authentic Christianity that is not merely subjective.

02:30:03

He says, oh, I study the scriptures, but I receive revelation. The canon's open.

02:30:11

What's the standard upon which to judge Mr. Lynn's revelations? Your revelations, anyone's revelations.

02:30:19

There is no standard. Those revelations become the standard by which the scriptures are then read, and there is no authentic Christianity.

02:30:27

And hence, seemingly, the idea is to win the debate by making it impossible to define authentic Christianity.

02:30:35

The opening statement included some very, not very subtle actually, attempts to undermine any authority in regards to the scriptures by talking about canon issues,

02:30:46

Bible translation issues. Fundamentally, that's what it does come down to.

02:30:55

I really don't think it's a matter of me versus all these scholars. It's not.

02:31:02

The meaning of arsenikoitae is clear, and I think we can all see that Paul didn't all of a sudden take a massive detour between verses 25 and 28 of Romans chapter one to address

02:31:15

Jewish purity issues. The condemnation of the

02:31:21

New Testament is clear. The condemnation of the Old Testament is clear. Why should it matter to any of us?

02:31:29

Because of what the gospel demands. A person who continues to cling to sin is not a person who is ready to hear about a savior from sin.

02:31:51

As long as excuses continue to be made for our sin, whatever it is, you may say, well,

02:32:01

I'm born with these propensities. Well, some of us are born with propensities toward arrogance, pride, insolence, rebellion.

02:32:12

We don't glory in them and turn them into a lifestyle. We're all born into this world.

02:32:21

We are all imperfect people. We all have propensities, but that doesn't change the definition of sin.

02:32:28

And a person who continues to make any kind of argument before the bar of God saying, well,

02:32:35

I think that what I do here is okay, and I'll admit that, okay, I'm angry sometimes and I shouldn't be, and maybe

02:32:42

I stole some stuff and I shouldn't have, but you know, that one area, I'm not gonna agree with you, God, that it's wrong.

02:32:48

I'm gonna hold on to that. The scriptures are clear.

02:32:55

The person who does not, as Paul describes it, become accountable before God in totality, stands before God.

02:33:05

The Greek term that Paul uses in Romans chapter three is so expressive. It's used of the convicted criminal who stands before the judge with head down, no more excuses, no more defenses, no more wagging of the tongue.

02:33:20

That is the person who now understands the need of a perfect savior.

02:33:28

That's why this is important. It's not some small area of biblical interpretation.

02:33:35

What we're hearing this evening is we can't even know what the gospel is.

02:33:42

We can't know what sin is. If we love

02:33:50

God's truth, and that's why Paul wrote Galatians, by the way, that's why he went over the top.

02:33:57

Because he says twice in chapter two, he talks about the truth of the gospel.

02:34:04

And there is a truth of the gospel. We can know it. And that's why we do debates like this.

02:34:13

That's why Paul wrote that letter, because he loved God, and he loved the gospel enough to recognize that the power of God and the salvation is what?

02:34:24

The gospel of Jesus Christ. The most hateful thing that we can ever do, knowing what the gospel is, is to allow it to be compromised.

02:34:35

It's not hateful what we've done here this evening. It's not hateful what has been said here this evening. I would like to suggest to you that in regards to loving

02:34:44

God, I would ask the question, is it showing proper love and regard for God to say that he has not clearly revealed himself in his son,

02:34:56

Jesus Christ, and in his word? Scriptures are clear.

02:35:05

The issues are plain. Not a one of us in here has the right to arrogantly speak to any person who is caught up in any sin, because we've all experienced that power of sin in our lives.

02:35:22

That means that as we go from this place, it is with a spirit that says, with Paul, I am the chief of sinners.

02:35:34

If we have that attitude, then we can take the truth, not compromise it, and stand as salt and light in this nation, and may

02:35:43

God bless us as we do it. Thank you very much. I want to thank each and every one of you for coming tonight.

02:36:06

I want to thank you. I'm sorry the elders of this church do not want us to have the questions tonight because they want the building to be empty by 1030.

02:36:18

It's a lot of rules with the presbytery that I can't get into, but we can't have the questions from the audience tonight, and I apologize for that.

02:36:26

But I want to thank you all for coming, and I also urge you to come next

02:36:32

Thursday to hear the debate on purgatory, because the very atonement that Jesus Christ provided will be discussed.