Discussion about Mormonism

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00:05

I want to bring you back in. I want to ask you one burning question. You're a biologist. I have two biologists here.

00:11

I have a burning question that has been asked recently. I'm wondering if you can help out with. I know that this can't be answered by Supreme Court justices.

00:21

What is a woman? Oh, you do not want me to go down this road because sex determination and development.

00:30

I mean, Dr. Jensen is probably more familiar with developmental biology than I am. But that's a really complicated question, especially when you consider the complexities of human biology.

00:41

Look, I actually do. I talk in class about sex determination, chromosomal determinants, hormonal determinants, genetic determinants.

00:48

What determines sex? See, there's no answer to that question that I could answer in the time that we have tonight.

00:58

Really? It is a really complicated question. It is a really complicated question.

01:03

So it's not a question of chromosome X versus Y? 100 percent no.

01:10

You can ask me the question 12 different ways if you want, but you're going to get the same answer each time. I don't think it's all that complex.

01:17

I would answer it very simply. A woman is what God, who created the women, defines it as.

01:23

God created her. He gets to give the definition. So it's a woman is what God calls a woman. This is

01:31

Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries.

01:45

We are live? Let's see. Let's bring

01:50

Drew in and find out for sure. Drew, are we actually live? I think we are. And I hope everything is working properly now.

01:59

You know, we should really record about half an hour before the show starts so everyone could see the chaos that we just went through.

02:08

We're actually very happy to be speaking to one another after about 30 minutes of technical problems on both our sides.

02:18

It can't just happen to one of us. It's got to happen to both. Both. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I am

02:23

Andrew Rappaport. I'm joined by Drew Von Nida. That's correct.

02:29

I know. I got it right. I usually try. You know, you did say it right. Yeah. I know. I usually do it wrong on purpose.

02:35

So, all right. First off, let's see. We got some shout outs coming from the room here, those in the chat.

02:42

We got our blessings from Brother John in Canada, eh? He also said that I am listening.

02:52

Well, I think he meant to say listening. He said I'm listing, but I think he meant listening to Andrew preaching at Harvest Bible Fest, a fellowship five days ago.

03:02

Good teaching. I taught on Isaiah, Isaiah 6, and what defines success in ministry.

03:09

That was enjoyable. Also, we got, let's see, we have

03:16

Jason Cave saying blessings from Georgia. That's some country down south, right?

03:23

You would know about that, right, Drew? Yep. It's probably the greatest state in the union.

03:30

I mean, I don't want to brag or anything, but we do have this team called the Georgia Bulldogs.

03:36

Yeah, I know nothing about that. National champs. Well, back -to -back national champs. And then we also have the

03:42

Atlanta Braves. They're killing it right now. Eight all -stars. I mean, the entire infield of the all -star game was the

03:50

Atlanta Braves. I mean, Georgia's just killing it right now. Well, I know nothing about that.

03:58

See, even Jason says amen and amen. Yeah, right.

04:03

Sure. Okay. Well, D is welcoming. She's saying blessings from the

04:09

People's Republic of California. Here's a fellow

04:16

Pennsylvanian, whatever we'd call ourselves. But Bible Care and Share Fellowship is saying smash the like button.

04:22

Why does everyone say smash? And he's got it in all caps, so he's yelling at us. Now, why do you smash?

04:27

He's yelling at us to smash a like button. I don't know about that. Just saying. It's the excitement. It's the excitement.

04:33

All right. And we got someone that is backstage, backstage already. Could be a fun discussion.

04:39

We may not get to Calvinism, but Jackson Washburn is saying blessings from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

04:48

Happy to join as a Mormon and follower of Christ. So we may have to get to that before we get to the anti -Calvinism video, which, by the way, so let's explain what the video is.

05:05

This was sent to me. I had a video that was sent to me. I downloaded it so I can't remember the

05:12

YouTube channel I got it from right now. Sorry. I downloaded it so we wouldn't have connection issues playing it.

05:18

That's what I try to do. So this was an hour and a half video. If we get to playing it, we'll play it at one and a half speed to kind of speed it up.

05:26

Drew and I plan on cutting this up. We're going to do two hour shows. We're not going to go long, but we do plan to do this maybe over a couple of weeks because, well, there's a lot of really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really bad arguments made in this.

05:43

And this was sent by a listener that wanted to get our opinion on this because someone sent it to him.

05:53

And we said, I want to play the whole thing in context so that people can't accuse us of chopping it up.

06:01

I did go to the YouTube channel and ask the person when I downloaded it, if he'd be willing to come on and talk with us about this video.

06:09

I didn't hear boo. And that was months ago. So what's the channel that you got it from?

06:17

You're afraid you're going to ask that. Let's see. Well, I want to check out their other stuff too, just to see if it's all bad.

06:24

I mean, this, this video was really, really, really bad. So I just want to see how, how bad the other stuff is really, really, really, really, really, really bad.

06:33

Right. I would assume, but I, you know, we shouldn't go assuming things.

06:40

Well, I'm trying to look who sent it. I did find a chairlift on air for air force one with Biden on it, but I don't think that's what he was.

06:49

Okay. So this is this is from the forest and the trees.

07:03

And I think I I'm guessing it's up. They have a podcast too. So forced and the trees is the

07:10

YouTube channel. And the episode we were looking at was Romans nine, just don't think about it with Greg Boyd.

07:20

That's actually a really fitting title, because I think that's exactly what they weren't doing thinking about it.

07:26

Right. I'm just saying, but we're going to have to hold off on that because instead of jumping to that, we usually do the first hour would be our topic, the second hour questions.

07:38

But since we, this is one we plan to do for a while. And I actually asked Jack's Jackson, I think is what it is, but we're going to find out in a moment because he, as I told him, he trolls my, my wall because my wall is mostly public.

07:54

He is Mormon. So let me correct that because I know that they've changed that.

08:00

You know, someone has a dream and it changes overnight, but their church, Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, which was something that just changed recently, that they're not speak to be called, not to take the name

08:11

Mormon anymore. We'll see if that's offensive to him or if not in a moment. But we've gone back and forth and I posted some things, made comments.

08:20

And I basically said that since he comes on my wall and people think he's a

08:25

Christian and he's not that I would just, every time he comes on, point out the fact that he's worshiping a false religion.

08:33

And I challenged him to come on and let's have the discussion and therefore kudos to him because very few want to do that.

08:45

Very few. In fact, I should, I was meant to start off with the fact that this past weekend, we're out with Hearts for the

08:51

Lost in Indianapolis, Indiana and doing a evangelism training with those guys.

08:57

Great, great time. But Drew, I don't know if you saw the pictures. Did you see who I was having discussions with?

09:04

I didn't. Oh, well, I did have some discussions with Jehovah Witnesses, which surprised me because one of the guys told me he wants to have a discussion.

09:12

He wants to evangelize Jehovah Witnesses. And I say, they usually only give me about four minutes because once they know you actually know the

09:18

Bible, they go, okay, we're not here to argue. We're just here to answer questions. And I usually go, but that's what

09:24

I'm doing, asking questions. And so, yeah. So they actually, we had,

09:31

I had a conversation with one gentleman for over 45 minutes. Then we went to a different stand and one of the other guys had a conversation for over 45 minutes.

09:40

So it was great, but then that's right.

09:47

The black Hebrew Israelites, you know, those fake Israelites that think they're Israel when they're really not.

09:53

And so we met one guy by himself. He had a, well, remember when you were a kid and you went to Burger King and they gave you that King's crown?

10:03

Yeah. Yeah. That's basically what he had on his head. A little plastic crown. And he said that he was

10:09

Jesus and he never sinned. He cannot sin. Except for telling lies.

10:17

Except for, yeah. I said, you know, did you know that arrogance is a sin? Because you got a lot of it. It wasn't out there, sir.

10:24

He was judging people. And it was an interesting conversation until I mentioned

10:30

I'm a Levite and oh, the racism came out. But then we had the whole group.

10:36

Then we had the group mentality. We had a whole bunch of them. And, you know, it's amazing because I was having a good conversation with one guy.

10:42

I wanted to test out a new argument. Now, your regular listeners here, you know that they make a case out of the last verse of Deuteronomy 28, because it has the word ship in it.

10:53

And it talks about people going to Egypt, Israelites going to Egypt by ship and selling themselves as slaves, selling themselves where they have no buyer.

11:03

And they take the word ship literal. Everything else is figurative. Egypt means slavery. It doesn't mean Egypt. Selling themselves without a buyer means redemption.

11:12

So it's everything is not literal except for one word ship. And in my devotions,

11:18

I noticed in Jeremiah 44, it talks about Israelites going because of the

11:24

Assyrian invasion, going to where? Egypt.

11:30

And I wanted to see how they would respond to that. So I was having a good conversation with one guy.

11:36

And once I brought that out and he was not ready for it, and they were kind of not trying to figure out who he was.

11:44

Why would they go by a ship? And I pulled out the map in the back of my friend's Bible. And I said, look, it's a straight line.

11:52

What's the fastest way between two points? A straight line. If you're in a rush to get somewhere,

11:58

I said, have you been to Israel? Have you walked around there? It's all mountainous and rocky. You're not walking quickly.

12:04

If you're in a rush, that's the fastest way. He's like, it makes no sense to me. I said, well, that's okay. It makes more sense to everyone else in the world.

12:11

And so, so the reality is that he was replaced with the real, like, obviously the big guy had the big guns.

12:19

And so that guy just started talking over me using the mic as, you know, hey, he's got the mic. I know how that works.

12:25

And so I challenged him to come on and he didn't come on. I didn't. I knew he wouldn't.

12:32

Because once I mentioned I was a real Israelite, a Levite, he just went nuts with the racism.

12:38

But Jackson— I'm surprised he didn't reach out to Osh. Oh, yeah.

12:45

Yeah. Tell me about this Edomite. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

12:52

So I should put this up. You're talking about ball teams and not that I know. I know they're at least from Philly, but here,

12:59

Bible Care and Share Fellowship says go Phillies to your thing earlier. Is he a

13:04

Bryce Harper fan? Oh, I have no idea. But he and I are.

13:10

So I'm back in town and we're, I should, he and I should get together. So contact me. We got to get together for, well,

13:17

I'm not supposed to drink coffee anymore, but we'll get together for something. All right. So before we get, I see you starred this one.

13:24

How's Dr. Svester doing these days? Traveling, like all over the place. Yeah.

13:29

Is how he's doing. I look at his Facebook and he's in a different place almost every day.

13:35

You know, look, for folks that I think most people know, he sold his practice. He's still working.

13:41

He works like two days a week. Unlike the rest of us that usually have a two -day weekend and work five days. He's got a five -day weekend and works two days.

13:49

So, it's rough, it's rough, but he is like traveling all over the place, like mad.

13:57

So, all right, let me bring Jackson in and let's have a discussion on Mormonism.

14:02

And then if we get time, if not, we'll pick up this video next week, this anti -Calvinist video, which totally means we're just saying for the record, this wasn't clickbait to get you to click on a video.

14:14

But we do have some backstage and we do want to try to get to people answering people's questions and that.

14:20

So, welcome Jackson. How are you? Good. How are you? Thanks so much,

14:25

Andrew. Did I pronounce your name right? Yes. Yes. Jackson. Okay. Because it's

14:30

J -A -X -O -N, right? Yes. Yeah. That kind of reveals my

14:35

Mormon background a bit because that spelling took off the year I was born in the state of Utah.

14:42

Okay. So, you learn something new every day. So, I didn't know that.

14:50

So, good. So, let's start. First off, I'm glad you came in because as I said earlier, quite frankly, a lot of people aren't up to the challenge to having discussions.

15:03

I don't think I'm that scary. Drew might be. He's got all those -

15:09

I can be pretty intimidating. Yeah. I think it's the cap turned backwards.

15:17

That must be it. Yeah. It gives me street cred. I think that he probably has like a

15:23

John Calvin bobblehead, I bet, back there. Martin Luther. Oh, okay. It's close.

15:31

I knew you had a bobblehead somewhere. I just remembered. It was a Christmas gift from my wife.

15:38

It's one year. As a joke? No, it was a real gift.

15:44

I was surprised. I was like, oh, this is great. I can put it on my desk because she was trying to get me desk accessories.

15:51

So, she got me that and it doesn't even sit on my desk. It sits on a bookshelf right in front of my collection of Martin Luther.

16:00

Okay. Some heretics are really coming into chat now. Look at this guy, Chris Hough.

16:07

Go Braves. That's going to be heretical right there. Well, I'm for the Braves. Is that your co -host on Matter of Theology there,

16:15

Drew? Just saying. Honestly, I don't know, man. I don't know. There hasn't been an episode of Matter of Theology in, well, a long time.

16:23

I think he's a personal trainer now. Is that? Yeah, well, he's got some catching up to do with Dwayne there, who is just a master there.

16:37

So, Jackson, did you grow up in Mormonism? Let me first correct.

16:44

Do you find the term Mormon to be offensive? Let me ask that. No, not at all. Okay, good. Because saying the

16:52

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints is a mouthful to be saying that over and over again all night. So if I could just go with Mormon or LDS and you're not offended?

17:00

Yeah, yeah. No, that's totally fine. Within the faith, it is true that Latter -day

17:05

Saint would probably be more normative nowadays and preferred, but I certainly don't take offense when folks use the traditional reference.

17:16

Yeah, I made this reference and not everyone follows what goes on in Mormonism. So let me just clarify that the current president, who has always been against the term

17:27

Mormon, actually. No, actually, I'm going to pause. Jackson, what kind of mic are you using,

17:34

Dino? Oh, I'm just using my standard laptop mic. I don't know that I could put in like earbuds, if that might help.

17:43

That might help, because when you're not talking, it's acting. It was acting just like yours was earlier,

17:49

Drew, where it's just you were getting a hissing noise. Yeah, I mean, even now,

17:56

I think there's still some feedback. And so I'm still just muting myself. Okay.

18:04

All right. So, and Jackson, what we might need to do is when you're not talking, maybe just mute too.

18:13

Yeah. Let's see. I'm connecting my AirPods right now. If your AirPods work, then that'll be good.

18:20

So the current president, he's always had an issue with the term Mormon. So this isn't a new thing for him.

18:28

It was something where now that he's president, he gets to make the rules of profit, I should say.

18:35

He decided, he said that this was from God, that we shouldn't use that term anymore.

18:42

So it changed overnight. I mean, Mormonism .org became, I think it's cometochrist .org

18:51

is the new website for Mormonism, I believe.

18:56

Jackson is muted. So he's trying to get that connected. When he unmutes, we'll verify that.

19:05

There we go. Is that better? Yes, much better. Perfect. Thanks so much. Yeah. So, you guys have the one president and I'm drawing a complete blank on the current, not president, prophet's name.

19:24

Yeah. Prophet or president would be appropriate. Russell M. Nelson. Okay. That's it.

19:29

All right. Sorry. So yeah. So he is, and basically the way that works is, you know, he had come out and said, oh,

19:39

I know that the name has to change. So Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

19:44

I don't know. Would that, did that name change? Yeah. That's now the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

19:52

Okay. So just drop the Mormonism. The website, mormon .org became,

19:58

I think it's. It's what is it? JesusChrist .org. Is that right?

20:04

Yeah. Let me check real quick. Okay. Well, now I don't feel so bad that I didn't have it memorized.

20:11

That's good. All right.

20:18

And we already have our first question for you. Well, it's the, yeah. So it would be churchofjesuschrist .org.

20:25

And there's like a separate, I think there's a separate come unto Christ or something like that.

20:31

Yeah. Okay. So, so here's the, here's the first question for you. And this, this actually will start off some discussion.

20:39

And let me ask, actually ask you, Jackson, do you have anything you came in to discuss? I should ask you that. Well, no, not in particular.

20:47

You know, I, I know you made the invitation for me to come have a chat. And so I just, you know, typing on social media, you can lose a lot of nuance and, and efficacy and communication, you know?

20:58

So I always prefer, you know, face -to -face or virtual dialogue, you know, through this kind of medium.

21:07

Absolutely. Because I, I'm often misunderstood because I hate typing. Yeah. Oh, I feel you.

21:14

Yeah. So Dee asks this question, and I think this would be a good one to start off. So she wants to know, would you refer to yourself as a

21:21

Christian? And this was exactly our discussion that we had. So it's, it's almost like Dee was following us, maybe.

21:26

I don't know. But, so would you consider yourself to be a Christian? Well, if you don't mind,

21:34

I know you asked me just a moment ago if, if I was raised Mormon, and, and if I could just give like a very quick background and then get to this question.

21:45

Yeah. So I, I was raised in a Latter -day Saint family in Arizona. When I was 12, my mom converted out of the faith.

21:54

My parents stayed married and she became an evangelical Christian. And so through my teenage and high school years,

21:59

I attended a non -denominational local Christian church. My siblings and I would switch off churches every week.

22:08

But as the oldest sibling, and I quickly realized that I'm kind of a nerd about religion, I would double up on church every

22:14

Sunday. And so, you know, that's something that's really sparked my interest in religion broadly.

22:21

A lot of interfaith work that I've done. And, you know, I felt that relative to other peers within my faith community, you know,

22:31

I've had certain forms of exposure or experience in multiple faith communities.

22:37

So that, that's just a little bit about my background. And then as to, as to this question, would

22:46

I refer to myself as Christian? I'd certainly be comfortable with that label. Typically, if someone asks me, you know, like how, how

22:53

I would identify religiously, I would say Latter -day Saint or Mormon qualifying, if needed, that, that I would also consider myself a

23:04

Christian. So yeah. Okay. And, and so let's, let's give some folks, because I'm, I don't want to take for granted that, that everybody listening is familiar with the

23:18

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or its teachings. So with that, because it's, it's, it's something where we, we need to give some background.

23:28

I just, I don't want to just jump into a discussion without, and not have the audience follow along with us. So let me, let me let you actually do this, since you're the one that's, that's

23:39

Mormon. Could you provide kind of, you know, Joseph Smith, who's the founder, right?

23:45

Joseph Smith's account of why he, he, why

23:50

Mormonism, why he felt the other religions weren't right. You know, basically the, you know, the whole, you know, the appearances with, with the gold plates, things like that.

24:02

Yeah. And, and I certainly want to be respectful of your, your own time and intent for, for this episode tonight.

24:09

I know that the, the Mormon segment wasn't necessarily scheduled. So, you know, I'll try to keep things brief and, and maybe

24:15

I could return for a more extended conversation in the future. It could just be that Drew and I both know the video and, and, you know, the headache is, is bad enough.

24:27

I watched it a few months, like a month or so ago. I sent it to Drew like a few weeks ago and we both watched it again today, just so we'd be fresh.

24:36

And it's just painful. Yeah. Yeah. I still have a headache. So maybe, maybe it's just, we were trying to avoid it.

24:46

I don't know. But I did say that we would, I did tell someone we would cover it and we should, but we don't have to.

24:52

Yeah. Yeah. To, to answer your question, Mormonism as a religious movement begun, began in the context of 19th century

25:03

America within the, the, particularly the burned over district of upstate New York.

25:09

And so. Define that for folks, because maybe not everyone knows. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the burned over district essentially got its moniker due to the extensive revivalism during the second great awakening that kind of characterized the, the region.

25:28

A lot of religious excitement as Joseph Smith characterized it. And so you had various camp meetings, revivalist efforts and denominational,

25:39

I don't want to say disputes, but like contestations on maybe doctrinal or theological grounds.

25:50

And so yeah, various denominations, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, others definitely spent time in the region and the region outside of Mormonism was kind of the origin for, for several other

26:06

American religious movements as well. So anyways, they say it was burned over by the spirit basically.

26:14

And that's how it got its name. And, and just someone's Kathy saying, Oh yes, Charles Finney.

26:20

So, so we have to recognize this was, you know, the works of Charles Finney that was going on back then a quote unquote revival.

26:28

And I say that way because folks who, who study Finney, when you look at what

26:33

Finney believed, we would say he probably wasn't saved, taught moralism and had, had a huge impact.

26:41

I mean, he was a very, from what we know, a very dynamic speaker, very engaging, but he taught moralism.

26:52

Well, he was a Pelagian. Well, when, when, when you say Pelagian, he, he was one who did not believe in original sin.

26:59

He did not believe that a man was born in a sin nature.

27:06

And he believed that man could choose in and apart of themselves, choose

27:11

God because his nature was good. And so, Hey, we got a two, two things that I see here real quick before Jackson continues.

27:23

One, we've set a record, by the way, drew the earliest call for a, my pillow commercial minutes.

27:31

We're going to need a, my pillar tonight with, with all the headaches, LOL. So, so why don't we just get that, you know, we'll mention that right off the bat since, you know, we, we probably the only audience

27:45

I know where people request commercials, but if you are going to have a headache maybe you should order yourself a, my pillow right now and, and get ready for the heck.

27:55

By the way, I will say that we had someone that came in a couple of weeks ago and ordered a, my pillow. And he went to mypillow .com

28:02

order himself his very first, my pillow and try to use the promo code SFE for striving for eternity.

28:10

And somehow something happened. He said it actually switched to daily wire. So folks, if you're ordering from my pillow and you're, you put it in the promo code

28:20

SFE to get your discounts and show your support here. Let me know if it changes on you.

28:26

If that's happening to more people, I do want to know about that because we did verify. Yes, it actually did change.

28:33

And it did go to my pillow with that, with that. So but they have some great discounts there.

28:39

I think they're still running their slippers at $25. So really good to, I, I am wearing those slippers right now.

28:47

Actually, I was in Indianapolis with the guy who bought his first, my pillow. And I said, I got mine right there.

28:53

It's in my bag. And he was like, you really do travel with it. Yes, I do. So, so there, so the other thing that I saw pretty early, let me find that.

29:03

Where was that one? Oh, here we go. We have our, our first, this is becoming a thing of how fast someone from the

29:08

Philippines says good morning. But now here, I know who this is, but she's, she's not going by her real name here.

29:15

So I'll just say it's, it's years worthwhile. But she says, good morning from, from this part of the globe, the

29:22

Philippines. Hello, Pastor Andrew, which I will be back there in April to the

29:27

Philippines. And we're setting up, Justin Peters and I will be doing some talks on the charismatic movement.

29:34

And I do think we have a debate we're working on, so that'll be good. And I will hopefully be seeing some gold friends.

29:43

Well, they're not old, but, but the person years worth, years worthwhile.

29:49

I'm not going to give her a name since she didn't, unless she wants to. But I do happen to know,

29:55

I think she's got an addition to the family, if I remember seeing that. So there you go.

30:00

I'll be able to maybe see some, a larger family next time. So with that, so we're talking about Finney with the, the

30:08

Burnover District. Charles Finney was someone who, you know, we just got to realize,

30:14

I would argue led many people to hell. I mean, he, he had a false gospel message.

30:21

He wasn't preaching about coming to Christ as much as teaching moralism.

30:28

And so that was very prevalent in the area where Joseph Smith was. So Jackson that was, was talking about that area.

30:35

So we just have to, we have to put everything in its cultural context as well. So this is what was being discussed.

30:42

So, so continue Jackson. Yeah. So like, like, like we established, that was kind of the, the religious milieu of Joseph's time and upon his family's moving to upstate

30:56

New York, Joseph finds himself at the center of these controversies. Now within his own family, there was a degree of religious variation with the different parents, for instance, feeling inclined towards different Christian groups, his mother, for instance, being more partial to Presbyterianism, which was kind of more synonymous with reformed or, or Calvinist theology, you could say.

31:30

Joseph spent time in Methodist circles. His father was partial to perhaps like universalism or, or the seeker type label.

31:44

And so definitely Joseph felt this degree of, you know, maybe uncertainty or, or religious tension, both the cold, you know, contextually and, and within his own family household.

31:58

And there's, you know, historical evidence that supports that he, you know, was bothered by this, that he wanted to figure out these theological questions and concerns that he had primarily, and, and kind of perhaps most originally over the state of his own soul over, you know, whether or not he could obtain forgiveness.

32:25

And if so, how, and if so, within which group, within which theological context.

32:32

So he's wrestling with a lot of these things. And eventually as a teenager around the age of 14 or 15 years old, goes into, according to his own narrative, goes into a nearby grove of trees after being moved by the

32:51

Bible to petition God and prayer for further guidance. And it was in that context that Smith claimed to have experienced a miraculous theophany, wherein he saw and envisioned

33:07

God and received a forgiveness of his sins.

33:15

And the particular significance of this event kind of developed as Joseph got older.

33:25

Later in probably the most popular account of the first vision experience, as it was called,

33:32

Joseph also takes the event to signify that none of the religious groups within his context were totally correct.

33:44

And that in fact, a total restoration of the gospel message was necessary.

33:51

So that was kind of the formative event that kind of launched his own prophetic ministry, you could say, his prophetic career.

34:01

Okay. So some questions that are coming in for you, and I know that there's some that are going to be kind of, so John, I'm just going to,

34:11

I'm saving your question for later, just because it's going to be, it's just stay on track with some things.

34:17

But Dee's asking this question, why should I believe Joseph Smith's revelation and not Muhammad's?

34:22

Now, I'm just going to say it is interesting, Jackson, I don't know if you've looked at the two, but there's a lot of similarities between the account with Muhammad and Joseph Smith, both going away, one in a cave, one in the woods, an open area, both saying they're receiving a message from an angel, both questioning that, being convinced of it.

34:48

So there's a lot of similarities, but why should someone believe Joseph Smith's revelation over Muhammad?

34:55

Oh, well, you know, I would just invite that individual to really study both

35:08

Mormonism and Islam, and really sincerely try to come to their conclusions on this topic.

35:16

I would consider Muhammad to be an inspired individual, within the context of Mormon theology,

35:24

Muhammad would be viewed as, not necessarily as a prophet in the same sense, in the same formal theological sense that individuals like Russell Nelson or Joseph Smith would be understood as, but certainly one that received inspiration from God, produced degrees of moral refinement or progression for his own context.

35:53

And so, I certainly don't want to dismiss offhand Muhammad's experiences as best as we can understand them historically.

36:04

So I have a question about that, with what you said, because you said you believe

36:10

Muhammad to be an inspired individual. Does that mean that the Qur 'an also could be viewed as sacred scripture alongside the

36:21

Book of Mormon? Yeah, so certainly within the Latter -day Saint canon, the

36:26

Qur 'an wouldn't be present, but I don't think it's contrary to Mormon theology to view the

36:36

Qur 'an, the Bhagavad Gita, various other sacred texts as containing various degrees of inspiration.

36:44

And given that Mormonism wouldn't, I guess, couple divine inspiration with a sense of inerrancy or an infallibility, it's not necessarily a mutually exclusive sentiment from my end.

37:02

Okay, let me ask with that, Drew. I know you had something else, but, because I also had something from earlier, you know,

37:11

I mean, that was different. I never heard someone saying that, a Mormon saying that Muhammad is inspired.

37:19

Yeah, I mean, there's a formal statement from 1978 from the first presidency of the

37:25

LDS Church specifically naming Muhammad as among the moral kind of exemplars or, you know, as an inspired individual alongside, like,

37:36

Confucius, the various Greek philosophers and others who have benefited humanity in various ways.

37:43

Okay, so what I want to do, and let me just, for my audience, say that, folks, when you speak to someone of different religious backgrounds, specifically when you're speaking of, like,

37:53

Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Catholics, you need to make sure where you define terms, okay?

38:01

Because, and that's what I'm going to ask, Jackson, I'm going to ask you, and so I can tell my question now so you have time to think of a good, you know, to think of the answer, but I want to get your definition on what it means to be inspired.

38:14

Because I think, and what you said leads me to believe you understand that we're using it two different ways.

38:19

Mm -hmm. And so, folks, it's always good, though, to make sure that you are speaking on the same definitional terms.

38:29

Don't just take the word inspired and suddenly think that Jackson might be meaning what we would mean by it.

38:37

And as I said, his own words reveal that he understands the distinction there, which is good.

38:43

It's not, what that says is he's not trying to come in here and be deceptive with using language that, without providing definition, he's recognizing differences, which is a good thing.

38:57

So, because I think, Drew, you're me a thing when he said that. Your eyes went up as well.

39:05

And so, Jackson, what would be your understanding then of when you're saying

39:10

Muhammad is inspired, what's your understanding of what it means then? Yeah, sure.

39:16

Broadly speaking, I would understand inspiration, specifically divine inspiration, to kind of convey this sense of perhaps teachings, messages, et cetera, that assist one in drawing closer to the divine, communicate forms of divine truth, and otherwise benefit individuals and perhaps society at large through,

39:47

I don't know, let's say moral teachings or theological concepts.

39:54

Yeah. So, I think inspiration can be a pretty broad category within specifically the

40:02

Mormon tradition that can capture both something that might strike closer to a sense of general grace or common grace,

40:12

I should say, and also perhaps the express words of deity as communicated through particular individuals.

40:22

So, folks, and Jackson, part of this show is always teach apologetics, so we always speak to the audience as well.

40:30

So, folks, sometimes you may hear someone say that song was inspired.

40:36

Now, they don't mean it's coming from God. When we speak of inspired, 2 Timothy 3 .16,

40:42

we would say all scripture is inspired. The word there that Paul creates, a new

40:48

Greek word, as far as we could tell, we don't see any evidence that that word was used prior to that, is

40:54

God -breathed. The anumos is the idea that God is speaking it,

41:01

He's breathing it out. That's what we mean when we use the term inspired.

41:06

So, we're going to, as Christians, we use that specifically to the scriptures, the writing of scripture.

41:14

And so, again, we want to make sure we're not assuming

41:19

Jackson is saying that he's saying that Muhammad is providing divine scripture.

41:26

There is a distinction he's making. He said that in the sense if you heard him and if you didn't, go back and listen.

41:32

But he mentioned not in the sense of being infallible without error. We would say that about the scriptures.

41:38

They're infallible without error in their original writings. Yeah, and just to clarify,

41:44

I wouldn't, as a Latter -day Saint, view any scripture as expressly inerrant or infallible, whether the

41:52

Book of Mormon or various other texts unique to the Latter -day Saint tradition. Really?

41:57

Even in their original writings? Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. So, how can you rely on it then?

42:05

Yeah. I think with respect to reliance,

42:13

I don't personally feel the need to have something be inerrant or infallible to rely upon it.

42:21

There are various other resources that I certainly, similarly, wouldn't view as inerrant or infallible, and yet I use them to guide and inform my everyday life.

42:35

This could range from different forms of scholarship to literature.

42:42

And while I wouldn't necessarily perhaps view them as inspired in the same sense that I might with a text

42:49

I would accept as a scripture, I think all of us see through a glass darkly, and we, within our own subjectivity, are kind of beholden to an inherent epistemic humility in the sense that we are reliant on various phenomena like our cognitive functions, our emotions, our bodily experiences, acquired knowledge, to make sense of the world around us, right?

43:27

And so, while I wouldn't necessarily posit that the scriptures are inerrant or infallible,

43:35

I still find them—I I found them to be beneficial with respect to guiding my own life, and within my own experience, drawing me closer to what

43:49

I understand to be God. Okay, so let me ask, do you believe the scriptures?

43:55

And I'm using that, folks, in a broad sense because when, as believers in Christ, we would refer to the 66 books of the

44:05

Bible, Old New Testament, but for Jackson that's going to include the Bible, it's going to include the

44:13

Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants when he speaks of scripture.

44:18

So, I'm using that general term knowing we have two different definitions in that. So, in your view, were the scriptures written by God?

44:29

No, not in the sense—certainly not in the physical sense. You know,

44:34

I would be comfortable saying that they were inspired, divinely inspired, but the primary medium of producing, transmitting, translating, and preserving scriptures,

44:49

I would see as within the human domain. But do you believe any—well, let me ask this, out of the four that you hold to, do you believe any of them were written by God?

45:04

No. Not even the Bible? Not in the sense that God is the author of the

45:14

Bible in the same way that I would consider—oh, I don't know, let's see, was it

45:21

Steinbeck that did Grapes of Wrath? I'm probably stretching for—I didn't come prepared for literary references.

45:30

No, I would consider God to have used humans, that humans and God, when it comes to the production of scripture,

45:45

I would view them as kind of co -creators, as engaged in a kind of cooperative process where God is perhaps imparting revelation, humans are receiving that revelation, making sense of that within themselves, and then tasked with communicating that within their own cultural, linguistic, and religious milieu.

46:05

And so, I mean, let me ask, when we see, for example, let's start with this one.

46:14

This is 2 Timothy 3 .16, and this is where we get the word inspired from, and it says, all scripture, all of it, okay, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

46:41

Now, I realize you'd read out of King James and it would be a little different there. Oh, that's okay, I have my new revised standard version.

46:49

Okay, I'd almost prefer King James. And yet you don't use your

46:58

Joseph Smith translation? Oh, I do, it's among the ones that I consult at times if I'm interested.

47:07

So, the word that I brought up here for inspiration, it's a word that Paul seems to invent, a compound word from God and the word breathed, speaking the way we speak, right?

47:19

When we speak, we're breathing out the words. You're actually, and this is the idea of it, you're hearing my words because it's making vibrations in the air, and so that's what you're hearing.

47:36

So, Paul seems to be indicating that the word of God, the scriptures, we call it the word of God, right, because it is actually the word of God.

47:47

It seems he's indicating it is God -breathed. Do you agree with that or disagree with that?

47:53

I wouldn't personally be uncomfortable with this passage, and I think it's interesting that you point out that previously this word didn't exist, it was dependent on Paul to kind of put this compound word together to convey perhaps this sense of what he's trying to communicate.

48:13

So, I think this actually helps to capture this act of accommodation, that God has to speak, presuming that God is speaking through human language that is accessible and understandable, and that he's reliant on humans to help facilitate this process.

48:38

But is this a process of God or a process of man, in your mind?

48:44

I would consider it cooperative, that both are involved. Okay, well,

48:50

I mean, yes, this is a doctrine known as superintending that God works through the human authors.

48:55

Yeah, or like divine accommodation, right? Yeah. But the thing would be is that we would say that God works through them, so God gets all the credit, and therefore it is

49:06

God's word, right? God is writing it, he's just doing it through humans, because that's what, let me just, if you don't mind turning 2

49:14

Peter 1 .19, I'll give you a chance to turn there, but this is what 2

49:21

Peter 1 .19 to 21 says, and it says, So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

49:45

But know this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by the act of human will, but men moved by the

50:05

Holy Spirit spoke of God. So this is clearly saying that the scriptures are written by God.

50:13

Yes, a human may be the element doing it, but they were moved by the Holy Spirit to write what they wrote, therefore that would be

50:21

God's word, not necessarily the human word, even though God used them and they had their own choice in the words they chose, their own personalities come out, but it's still

50:32

God's word. Would you agree or disagree with that? I think this is probably a better passage to illustrate the point that you're making.

50:42

I would agree that this passage in particular would communicate that it's probably not referring to the,

50:51

I don't know, the scriptural interpretation of just the average individual, let's say, but more the prophet who's receiving that revelatory message.

51:05

So I think this would definitely reflect that theological paradigm from the author of 2nd

51:10

Peter. Okay, and let me turn to one other passage then, and it's in Titus.

51:17

So we're agreeing that God wrote this, that God wrote the scriptures. Well, yeah, or at least certainly the author of 2nd

51:25

Peter had that theological outlook. Yeah, correct, correct. And Paul would have that outlook in writing of 2nd

51:35

Timothy, but Paul says this to Titus in Titus 1 -2, and yeah, this is one of the things

51:42

I love about scripture. Sometimes you just get these off -handed comments. I'm putting off -handed in quotes here, right, air quotes, but it's an off -handed comment, but it says a lot.

51:54

He says, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.

52:02

Do you believe what Paul's saying there, that God cannot lie? So I would consider a lie to be a conscious, immoral deception, and I think this becomes tricky when we interrogate the scriptural canon, and just for here,

52:24

I'll refer to the Bible, because I think that this is actually a point that various biblical authors would disagree on with respect to whether or not, if, for instance, you take lie to mean deception,

52:39

I think there are indeed passages, perhaps, for instance, in the Old Testament, where God would be depicted as employing or operating through various forms of deception.

52:52

So I think this one is tricky. I certainly wouldn't personally view

52:59

God as a liar, but I think within the scriptural record, it's a topic worth interrogating.

53:08

Just, personally, I'm inclined to see various viewpoints on this from within the scriptural canon.

53:16

So, okay, let me ask you again, because I'm not sure if I got a clear answer. Yeah, sorry. You're trying to be precise, which is good.

53:23

I'm not making it, it's not critical against, but so, do you believe

53:30

God can lie, was the question, but I guess, first, you kind of define lying as including deception, which it would be.

53:41

So are you believing that God could lie? I think, if I can share an anecdote, maybe that would help illustrate my point.

53:56

I referenced my own mother earlier, who converted out of Mormonism and became an evangelical.

54:04

And my hope is that you follow her. I'm just, for the record. Yeah, well, she's probably more a secular

54:12

Buddhist now, but at least then, I was attending church weekly with her.

54:20

But yeah, her own experience, just to share a little bit, she had intense wrestles with her

54:29

Mormon beliefs and faith. She was raised in a Latter -day

54:34

Saint background in Utah for her whole life, classic big Mormon family.

54:39

I have more cousins than I know what to do with. But yeah, this was a serious spiritual wrestle for her, as it probably is for many individuals that experience transitions of faith.

54:53

And she ultimately found herself in a place where she felt like, in order to resolve this internal turmoil she was feeling, she was going to go to the

55:08

Latter -day Saint temple one last time, which, for audience members that might not be familiar with it,

55:14

LDS temples are distinct from chapels or meeting houses where regular Sunday worship would take place.

55:20

The temples are exclusive to individuals within the faith who qualify based on certain, being able to attest to certain affirmations of orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

55:41

And so for many Latter -day Saints, the temple is the most sacred place you could probably spend your time.

55:47

It's a place to commune with God, to participate in sacred rituals. And so my mom did this, and going into it, she prayed, she fasted, and she figured, if I'm going to get an answer, if I'm going to get clarity on this, it's going to be in this sacred place.

56:02

Well, it was while she was in the celestial room, which is considered kind of the most sacred part of the

56:09

Latter -day Saint temple, that she actually felt that God communicated to her that it was okay for her to leave the

56:17

Mormon faith, that he would still be with her, that this was her path, and that her relationship to God, that she could follow

56:29

Christ essentially outside of the Latter -day Saint faith. And so this is a story that she had shared with me since a young age, and I've had to grapple with that.

56:43

I think for many Latter -day Saints, this kind of context would raise the question, was she deceived by the devil inside the celestial room of the temple?

56:54

Did she receive a false revelation? Was this just a matter of her own maybe confirmation bias or just her own thoughts, or was this a legitimate revelation?

57:09

And frankly, I would fall on the line that she did receive a legitimate instruction from God to transition out of the faith.

57:23

And so I guess what I'm communicating here is that for me, this question of deception, for instance, and this kind of dovetails as well with the comments

57:35

I made about Muhammad or others before, I believe that God can work through various belief systems and various worldviews for the individual benefit of his children.

57:54

And so in my mom's case, while that may have entailed truth claims that I wouldn't necessarily share myself,

58:02

I can still affirm that that was part of God's path for her. So I know that was a little long -winded, but this is just to illustrate that in the sense of deception,

58:15

I tend to take an approach to inspiration that is a bit more nuanced or expansive than simply predicating whether or not

58:27

God is being deceptive on if certain truth claims are being affirmed in the process.

58:34

So that's why earlier I tried to clarify a sense of immoral deception from God's end that I would see as more malicious or contrary to the benefit of the individual.

58:47

Do you believe that God is omniscient? And what I mean by that is that He knows all things—the past, present, future, real, imaginary, possible.

58:58

Like if you went down the street, He would know what would happen if you made a right versus a left. So does

59:03

God know all things? Yeah, I would probably reject—I don't consider myself a classical theist, and so often with these traditional categories of omnipotence, omniscience, etc.,

59:17

I tend to have qualifications or reservations. So here I would lean maybe more towards an open theistic worldview or outlook on God's foreknowledge, where personally

59:31

I would consider God to be more akin to a master chess player who is always in control of the game, can win the game, but doesn't necessarily know every move that might be made in advance, even as he can account for those moves or on our end, individual agency.

59:52

So, Drew, that dovetails right into the video that was given us. I was thinking, yeah. Oh, oh, interesting.

59:58

Yeah, I don't even know—I know you guys mentioned it's like an anti -Calvinist video, but yeah,

01:00:05

I don't know anything beyond that. But it actually argues for open theism as well. Oh, oh, interesting.

01:00:12

So yeah, because when you argue against the Bible, you end up going that way. When you're trying to justify man's free will over God's nature, you end up doubting

01:00:25

God's nature. Yeah, and just to be very clear for your audience as well, one way in which

01:00:31

Mormon theology would diverge from more traditional Christianity, historic

01:00:36

Christianity, or as part of that, let's say, like a classical theistic model of God is that Latter -day

01:00:44

Saints view God as embodied, and that kind of embodiment necessarily has implications or limitations of God's nature or power.

01:00:57

And we can get into more discussions about maybe Mormon ontology and stuff like that, but yeah, that kind of limited nature of God is a key difference between the different traditions.

01:01:13

So the question—I mean, I was asking these questions because I wanted to build up to the question of, if you believe that God could lie—actually, before I get to it,

01:01:26

I want to— Sure. So you think God could lie.

01:01:32

Do you believe lying is wrong? Yeah, well, like, as I stated previously, you know,

01:01:39

I would generally say lying is wrong. I would condition it on circumstance and context.

01:01:48

There are some cases where I would view deception as justified. Military uses deception to win war.

01:01:56

I understand what that is. Sure. But the, you know, lying is the purposeful deception, you know, for one's pride, for one's own gain, right?

01:02:09

It's not for military battle. Yeah, and in that sense, I don't believe

01:02:15

God can lie. I don't believe that God is capable of an immoral instance of lying, let's say.

01:02:22

So, I mean, I'm asking these questions because what I want to do is work through, right, where we started with, is the

01:02:30

Scriptures, inspired by the Christian understanding of it, being without error.

01:02:38

And so we say inerrant, if you heard that word used earlier, folks, it means without error, infallible, without fault, without there being anything wrong with it.

01:02:50

So the idea in that— Does infallible also kind of strike a sense of maybe, like, trustworthiness as well?

01:02:58

Yeah. So it doesn't—the idea of it is the idea that in the original writings, they were without error, without fault, so they could be trusted.

01:03:11

But the reason we would hold to that—the same reason I would say lying is wrong is because we ground it in the nature of God.

01:03:20

God's not a liar, therefore lying is wrong. So when we say, is the Scripture written by God, is it

01:03:26

God's word, is it infallible, is it inerrant? Yes, because God is without error.

01:03:33

God cannot lie. He is all -knowing. And if He knows everything and He cannot lie, then when

01:03:42

He speaks, it has to, by definition, be without error, because He knows everything to know whether something would be a lie.

01:03:51

So it's not that He got it wrong. It's not like, you know, if I misspeak, but I don't know that I'm misspeaking.

01:03:58

You know, if I was to say that, Drew has hair under that cap of his. Well, you know,

01:04:04

I could say that knowing the answer is no, but you may not know that thinking the answer is yes and misspeak, right?

01:04:10

That's not a lie. But if God knows everything, He knows that Drew has very, very short hair under there, so short that you can't see it.

01:04:21

Very short, it looks bald, yeah. It's kind of like my beard. I have a beard. It's just so short that you can't see it, because I cut it off each day.

01:04:29

I just cut it shorter than the two of you. But the difference there is if God knows everything and cannot lie, then when

01:04:37

He speaks, when He writes something through people, it has to be inerrant and without error.

01:04:43

Does that at least make sense to you? Yeah, yeah. No, I understand that. Okay. So that's why when we say that it's inerrant, if it's written by God, it has to be.

01:04:57

Inerrant and without error. So can I ask a clarifying question?

01:05:04

Well, you just did ask a question, but you want to ask another one? Yeah. Well, this one can be clarifying.

01:05:11

Yeah. So this sense that if God's nature has certain qualities, then perhaps the...

01:05:18

Oh, like in the case of the scripture, that the scripture necessarily conveys these same qualities, or because it's grounded in a certain sense in God's nature, that it's going to have certain necessary characteristics about it, which would be in alignment with God's own qualities.

01:05:52

Would you agree that that same kind of, I guess, logic or directionality wouldn't necessarily...

01:06:01

How would you understand, for instance, creation within that kind of argument?

01:06:07

If creation perhaps is viewed as flawed in ways, or corrupted, or etc.,

01:06:18

and if God is the ultimate source behind creation, why does creation not convey these same characteristics in a like manner?

01:06:30

Good question. I would say God didn't create creation with a flaw.

01:06:37

Yeah, right. Yeah, that it would be perfect. It was created very good. Sidebar question.

01:06:48

Do you believe that as man is,

01:06:57

God once was, and as God is, man may become? May become?

01:07:03

Yeah, that couplet is from the fourth Latter -day Saint prophet,

01:07:09

Lorenzo Snow, and it is something that I think encapsulates the ontological relationship that I would view between humanity and divinity within a

01:07:22

Mormon worldview. Okay. The reason I ask that is because you did... I went to Genesis 3, which is to answer creation, and the reason

01:07:31

I ask that is because that is the first place that we see the idea that man could be, or at least think that they could become like God.

01:07:41

Do you know who first says that? At least within the text of Genesis, that's what the serpent presents to Eve.

01:07:52

Yeah. So that, I would argue, and I'm not trying to be offensive, but...

01:07:59

Oh, no, no, no. No risk of offending me. I would argue that couplet we first see is satanic, right?

01:08:10

It's in Genesis 3, because this is where the creation was very good, but then Genesis chapter 3, now the serpent, who's more crafty than any other beast of the field, which the

01:08:20

Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, indeed, has God said, you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?

01:08:28

And the woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden, we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden,

01:08:37

God said, you shall not eat from it or touch it, or you'll die. And the serpent said to the woman, you will surely not die, for God knows that the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, known good from evil.

01:08:52

Now, a couple of things in this passage I always like to point out. One, everyone blames

01:08:57

Eve, by the way, for adding to the Word of God, okay? Because what

01:09:03

Adam was told is do not eat of it. He was not told not to touch it. And people say, see

01:09:10

Eve added to the Word of God. Well, I will challenge you to find out where Eve got that information from.

01:09:17

Because we don't know if she added to it or Adam added to it. Because quite frankly, I kind of think that it might've been this way.

01:09:24

God said, don't eat of this. And he turns to Eve and said, because remember, Eve wasn't around at the time. And he says,

01:09:30

Eve, don't eat of it, don't even touch it. And she might've thought that was actually from God. That's a possibility.

01:09:37

So we can't be dogmatic that Eve did it. But the other thing that's interesting with this, by the way, folks, is how many trees in the garden could they eat of?

01:09:48

Well, Eve gets it right. What were you going to say, Drew? I was going to say all. All but one.

01:09:54

Which is what Eve says. She says, from the fruit of the trees of the garden, we may eat. But from the fruit of the tree in the middle of it, we can't.

01:10:03

So all but one. But how does Satan say it? Because there's one that we can't partake of.

01:10:08

He goes, so you can't have any. That's a common thing, by the way, folks, that we still see employed today.

01:10:15

You know, if somehow someone's, you know, someone has a better education and someone then another person, it's somehow that's wrong to the person who didn't have a better education.

01:10:27

They should be allowed to go to college, even if they're not equipped for it. Because somehow you're neglecting.

01:10:32

I'm using that as a it's a kind of one example. But you see, you see it in the church, where if the

01:10:37

Bible says that a woman can't be in a leadership role, it's like, well, a woman can't do anything. No, that's not what we're saying at all.

01:10:45

It's not what the Bible is saying at all. Yeah, I should be allowed to go to Harvard, even though I probably couldn't pass. Well, you know, if you're the right color and the right background, they would let you in whether you could pass or not.

01:11:01

But then once you rack up some bills, they'll say, oh, we still got to pay those, even though you dropped out and you have no way of paying it.

01:11:08

Don't worry. OK, so all that to say that I think in the fall when

01:11:15

Adam and Eve chose to disobey and specifically Adam chose to disobey, that's when the curse of creation we see and we see it affects, according to Romans eight, we see that it affects the entire of creation.

01:11:34

So we have, Jackson, we got a number of questions that mounted up. We got a very active chat room for you tonight.

01:11:42

Oh, I can only imagine. I can't see any of the comments right now, but I can imagine it's lively.

01:11:47

Yeah, it is, which is good because people want to get questions answered.

01:11:54

And try and Melissa, but more reparations.

01:12:02

Hey, OK, listen, listen, Melissa, I am 100 percent on board of reparations.

01:12:09

OK, so let me just get for the record. I totally believe that the party that supported slavery, the party that was the party of the

01:12:21

KKK, the party that was against civil liberties and the party that still believes that blacks are too stupid to be able to get anywhere in life without their help.

01:12:33

I think the Democrat Party should pay reparations and the the

01:12:39

Republicans who fought for the freedom, who died in war to to fight for the freedom of blacks.

01:12:48

I think they should be thanked. But that's just so. So if we're going to do reparations, I say we do it that way.

01:12:54

And, you know, it gets it gets really awkward because they found out that Obama is descended from slave owners.

01:13:02

Yeah, yeah. Well, OK, we're going to get off target. OK, no, certainly a lot of slave owners sexually assaulted their slaves.

01:13:12

Right. You know, so there's all kinds of people that can claim ancestry along those lines. Well, there's

01:13:18

I mean, not just that, but I mean, and still getting off topic, but they're also just black slave owners, too. There were 200 alone in the state of South Carolina.

01:13:27

Well, yeah, no, it was a it was a very vibrant economic system of the time.

01:13:33

The very first slave was owned by a black person in America. And we have to remember that was it was blacks who did the kidnapping of other blacks in the interior of Africa and brought them out to the coastlands where the whites picked them up.

01:13:48

So to say this was, I mean, historically to blame just whites for the slave trade just isn't accurate.

01:13:57

So, by the way, Facebook user Facebook use very comments a lot. Facebook user doesn't go to ApologeticsLive .com

01:14:05

where they could get their name shown. But they said, this is good stuff. Exclamation point. I'm Jason Cave.

01:14:12

One of our members here says, praying for this young man, just so you know, you're being prayed for. Hey, I appreciate it.

01:14:19

All right. So I want to correct some things, too. That's go back to some things.

01:14:26

Chris. Chris, in Christ, says Muhammad is no and that's an all caps, no moral example.

01:14:32

I'm going to disagree with this a bit. OK. And I hope this doesn't offend

01:14:39

Chris. But the reason I say this is because, actually, Muhammad in the early years, when you look at him, he actually argued very much against what

01:14:49

Islam teaches today. I took a university course on Islamic history.

01:14:55

Very interesting to see. You know, Muhammad was one who argued for peace, not war.

01:15:00

He argued for one man and one woman until his his wife, who he was a slave, by the way, who is owned by a merchant.

01:15:11

And she ended up marrying him. And he was he they were the only they didn't have anyone else.

01:15:18

He wasn't married to anyone else until she died. And then he started having multiple wives. But when he was starting out his his religion, it really wasn't.

01:15:28

It was they were people who were who were protectors for merchants. But when they had a lot of mouths to feed, it ended up shifting to where they became the pirates.

01:15:39

And so early on, he actually was someone that would have we would have looked up to him, not from a

01:15:46

Christian values, but to say that he was a role model of the time early on.

01:15:53

So, you know, just we want to be fair with it later on. Yes. I mean, having very young wives taking his son's wife, by the way, most people don't know that he he decided that his that God spoke to him and he is to marry his son's wife.

01:16:09

And they go that's where they got to change where because it was an adopted son. And so suddenly that's not that was an incest when he he wanted to marry her.

01:16:17

So so there is that bond servant for Jesus said, didn't the

01:16:23

Quran say that man's seed comes from his chest or something like that? The small of his back, actually.

01:16:31

OK, so some questions that we had for you. And I'm trying to look for the one that asked what we're speaking of scripture.

01:16:41

And I'm going to look for it. But the question here is, he asked it. There we go. Jackson, what is your ultimate authority?

01:16:48

So if if you're believing that the scriptures could be with error and and therefore, if they're with error, we couldn't trust them if they're if they're fallible or with error, what becomes your ultimate authority?

01:17:03

Yeah, of course, there's various authorities that I might appeal to in the different judgment calls that I make in the course of my life across different contexts.

01:17:17

And in an ultimate sense, I would probably contest the idea that an ultimate authority in a in a strictly objective sense is is possible for individuals such as ourselves who are kind of inherently by our nature.

01:17:36

We cannot transcend or escape our inherent subjectivities that, you know, we can regard different sources as an ultimate authority.

01:17:50

But, you know, there's there's something interesting about the the subjectivity behind that.

01:17:57

So for me, you know, I would view

01:18:02

God as the primary source of authority in my life across different domains.

01:18:10

But, you know, contrary to what might be espoused from within your worldview, you know,

01:18:21

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself able to objectively verify an objective standard, if that makes sense, right?

01:18:32

I can subjectively assume and rely on different standards that I consider to be more or less trustworthy.

01:18:43

But this idea that, you know, I can totally transcend the bounds of my own subjectivity to even verify a truly objective ultimate standard is, you know, well,

01:18:57

I guess I should ask, you know, I understand you espouse a reformed worldview. Would you also identify as a presuppositionalist with respect to epistemology?

01:19:08

Well, let me let me say no to the first and yes to the second. So. Oh, oh, so you're not. Oh, I'm sorry.

01:19:14

That was an assumption on my part. It depends on your definition of reformed. So I Calvinist.

01:19:21

Again, it's the terms. So, yeah, OK. There's no, no, no,

01:19:27

I certainly understand. But yeah, no, I would be a presuppositionalist. So but it sounds it sounds like you're what you're saying is and help me make sure

01:19:37

I'm clear. It sounds like you're saying you are your ultimate authority, right? Because you're saying you have to be convinced of something.

01:19:45

Well, I would say that, like I in order to even have this discussion, in order to even contemplate and consider these these notions,

01:19:53

I am at the mercy of my own cognitive functions, my own embodied experience.

01:19:59

And so there's certain inherent limitations in that, both with respect to experience perspective.

01:20:07

Yeah, you know, I think in a certain sense that we have to recognize that the starting position is our own subjectivity to even get to the place that we are trying to speak about.

01:20:20

So you said when we were talking about authority, you said that you ultimately hold to God as your ultimate authority or view him as your ultimate authority.

01:20:32

But how do you how do you know where God speaks and how can you trust that, whether it's from scripture or do you hear him audibly?

01:20:44

Do you see visions? How do you know that you can trust whatever you're trusting, right?

01:20:52

How do you know it's God? Yeah, and I think this is where the epistemic humility comes in with respect to, you know, how how.

01:21:06

Yeah. Sorry, let me gather my thoughts.

01:21:14

Yeah, so with respect to epistemic humility, I said earlier that that we see through a glass darkly.

01:21:21

Right. And so for me, this this reliance or trust isn't coming from a place of absolute or objective certainty.

01:21:29

It's coming from more of a place of trust in the sense that there's a there's a certain assumptions, there are certain hopes, there are certain desires or beliefs involved.

01:21:43

Right. And that's largely how I would view the the the notion of faith.

01:21:50

Faith is being, you know, belief in things that, you know, I might not be able to see, but that I hope are true.

01:21:58

And so I would say that, you know, and I would hold this to be true for virtually, you know, all of humanity, every individual.

01:22:07

We have no choice but to go based off the best or maybe not best, but, you know, the information that we gather subjectively that we make sense of, you know, on an individual level.

01:22:21

And that all of us, in order to, you know, whether it's walking across the street or, you know, affirming certain truth claims, you know,

01:22:30

I think the the phenomena is is the same. But but have you ever been wrong?

01:22:36

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And so that's the other part of the epistemic. You know that. So how do you know you're not wrong?

01:22:43

Because you mentioned you mentioned the presuppositional. So so my position is God can't be wrong.

01:22:50

So so my ultimate authority is God and his word. Right. That's something that's outside of myself.

01:22:59

It's objective. So so let me there's a couple of questions here. I know we have about half an hour left.

01:23:06

Can I just add to what you were saying, Andrew, right there? Yeah, because because we hold to scripture as inerrant and infallible and authoritative as the word of God, meaning

01:23:18

God literally breathed out because we hold to that. We don't just have a blind hope in things that we can't see.

01:23:26

We actually live as though God is not a liar, according to the promises that he has made and the things that he has said.

01:23:33

So so so our our authority and our standard and what we know comes from the fact that that we get it from scripture, that God is not a liar.

01:23:48

So let me ask this because we got about half hour. So I want to try to wrap up folks, folks in the chat.

01:23:56

I'm going to ask this of those that are watching in the chat. Um, do you do you guys want

01:24:02

Jackson to come back and further this discussion? Give me a why for yes, an end for no.

01:24:08

I want to see because I think this is a good conversation to have. Yeah, I'm I'm I really appreciate the space that both of you have provided for the discussion.

01:24:17

I found this enriching and informative. So yeah, I really appreciate the engagement. Yeah, so so few because we're going to run out of time.

01:24:25

I know there's 13 questions that I still have. I wish there was a way I could copy and paste them so that I would be able to send like send them to you and and also just so we could have them pop up again.

01:24:39

But yeah, I should be able to access the chats later. You're taking a picture of them. Is that what you do?

01:24:44

Yeah, I was going to say a screenshot. That's kind of a literal screenshot. Well, yeah, yeah.

01:24:49

Well, that's what I was going to try and do is get a screenshot of the questions we don't have. And yes, we're seeing some some, you know, a bunch of yeses.

01:24:58

We have here. I would love for Jackson to come back. Yes. Good conversation. A bunch of a bunch of yeses.

01:25:05

So we'll have to set that up. But let me let me get to some ones I want to make sure we get to for sure. This was asked early on.

01:25:12

And Kathy Deming asks, how do LDS define the gospel?

01:25:18

And I'm going to put this with another question. Someone else asked the question, what happens when he dies?

01:25:25

So the first question is, we may have a different definition of what the word gospel means.

01:25:32

So what I'd like to do is, Jackson, if you could define what you mean by or what you think we mean by gospel, what would be the gospel message of the

01:25:42

LDS? And then what happens after you die? Um, okay.

01:25:50

Well, so you want me to provide a description of what

01:25:58

I would understand your beliefs about the gospel to me? No, no, no. Sorry. So I'll provide that after.

01:26:03

But what is your understanding of the gospel? Yeah. And then and then really followed up with that is what what do you think is going to happen after you die?

01:26:13

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, uh, sorry,

01:26:19

I'm, I'm waiting for a there we go. Yeah.

01:26:25

So website. Yeah. Well, there's, there's a particular

01:26:31

Joseph Smith quote that I think might be instructive here, where he's asked, what are the fundamental principles of your religion?

01:26:39

And he answered, the fundamental principles of our religion is that is the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, that he died, was buried and rose again the third day and ascended up to heaven.

01:26:52

And all other things are only appendages to these which pertain to our religion. You know, if I was to give my elevator pitch for what

01:27:01

I understand the gospel to be, it would be that, uh, um, uh, humans are, are, uh, separated from God, uh, through both sin and through, uh, death and that through, uh, uh, the, the good news of Christ, uh, that he, uh, is the divine son of God that he lived and, uh, uh, was crucified, uh, suffered for our sins, uh, um, and allow us to, uh, overcome both spiritual and physical death, uh, via the atonement, him suffering for our sins, him taking upon, uh, uh, those, those sins, uh, on our behalf, uh, but then the resurrection, uh, allowing us to, uh, like him, uh, uh, be resurrected ourselves, uh, that we can, uh, be reunited with God, um, in, uh, in a kind of a perfect, uh, communion, uh, that's, uh, essentially what

01:27:56

I would consider the gospel message, uh, to be, um, and, and just, I guess, to, to add to that, that God has provided the, the means, uh, through, uh, inspired teachings through, uh, uh, revealed, um, uh, that he's revealed these things to, to, uh, chosen individuals that, that I would view as, uh, prophets, um, uh, and, uh, the second question is what

01:28:23

I would believe, where am I going after I die? Um, uh, I, I believe that, uh, the, the vast, vast majority of humanity will, uh, return to God, um, and that, uh, humans, um, uh, rather than, uh, a model where, uh, let's say upon final judgment that, uh, a significant portion of God's children are eternally relegated to either, uh, damnation in hell, uh, which involves, uh, forms of, uh, individual suffering for eternity, uh, or, or heaven to be reunited with God.

01:29:01

Uh, I, I believe that, uh, uh, humans can progress eternally, that we can, uh, uh, continue to, uh, be, uh, refined and sanctified and, and have, uh, the ability to turn to and accept the gospel of Christ, uh, in order to fully commune with God.

01:29:19

Um, and so for myself, uh, you know, I, I, I certainly wouldn't claim, uh, uh, an absolute knowledge of where I'm going, but it's, it's my, uh, express belief and my hope, uh, that, uh,

01:29:30

I will, uh, return to God's presence and that I, I will be able to, uh, uh, participate in that kind of, uh, uh, perfect, uh, communion, uh, that, um, uh, sacred, intimate, uh, closeness.

01:29:44

Along those, those lines, um, of, of those questions, which

01:29:51

Jesus, because the Jesus of LDS, the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus of, uh,

01:29:58

Islam, the Jesus of Jehovah's witnesses, uh, they're all different. Yeah. So who, so, so who is

01:30:05

Jesus and then how do we come to know him? Yeah. Um, so for me, the way

01:30:12

I would answer this is that, uh, uh, historically when we're speaking about Jesus of Nazareth as, as best we can, uh, understand him through the, the documentary record, um, that, uh, uh, you know, this question can be approached historically or, uh, uh, also theologically.

01:30:29

Um, and there will be there, I, I, uh, anticipate, uh, uh, differences there, uh, in the sense that, um, uh, as a result of having a larger canon, uh, and, uh, additional revelations and texts, uh, concerning Jesus that there's inevitably going to be, uh, some elements to my

01:30:49

Latter -day Saint, uh, Christology that, uh, aren't strictly, uh, to be found within the

01:30:54

New Testament. Uh, for me, that's not an issue, uh, just because, um, I, I anticipate that within my given, uh, outlook on, on scripture, um, and even within the scriptural canon, uh,

01:31:07

I, I wouldn't necessarily view all the prophets as having the same, uh, eschatological worldview, for instance, or, or, uh, theological understanding of God.

01:31:18

So, um, that's to say that, you know, my understanding of Jesus is informed through my

01:31:23

Latter -day Saint faith and through my own, uh, studies. Um, uh, and so that's, that's kind of the operative, um, uh, model that I base these, these comments on, um, and, and the one that I, that I take to be, to be true.

01:31:38

As you noted, you know, there's, uh, going to be, uh, at times rather staunch differences, uh, between different worldviews, whether it's evangelical

01:31:47

Christianity or, or Islam or, uh, the Jehovah's Witnesses or, or others. Right.

01:31:52

Um, yeah. True. You can say something. Well, I was just gonna, the, how do we, how do we come to know

01:32:01

Christ? Because given your, what you said about the gospel, but how do we come to know him?

01:32:10

Yeah. Um, uh, and, and I certainly don't believe that only Latter -day Saints, uh, can possess knowledge of, or, or have a relationship, a significant, meaningful, uh, saving relationship with Christ.

01:32:24

Um, uh, uh, you know, I, I turn to the New Testament as well as other scriptures, uh, to, uh, inform my understanding of, of who

01:32:32

Jesus is and, and what, what his gospel message is. Um, and, and so with that in mind, uh, um, uh,

01:32:40

I mean, yeah, sorry. Well, what I, what I meant to say really was, how do, how do we receive salvation?

01:32:47

How do we come to salvation? Yeah. Um, so, um, yeah, from within my worldview, it would, uh, uh, salvation, um, is, um, uh,

01:33:00

I, I have a universalist view of salvation. Um, uh, and, and this, this is probably a larger discussion than we have time for, um, but, uh, uh, the term salvation, uh, even within the

01:33:13

Latter -day Saint worldview can be used, uh, in different ways. So it, you know, it's contextually, uh, um, uh, kind of, uh, significant, um, or, or, or defined.

01:33:25

Um, so in a certain sense, I believe, uh, everyone will be saved, uh, that everyone will return to God, they will be judged, they will be resurrected, and that, uh, this, this, uh, salvation is, uh, universally available through, uh,

01:33:39

Christ's sacrifice and through His, uh, His grace, which is a free gift to all. Um, now also within the

01:33:45

Latter -day Saint tradition, uh, we, we have this concept of exaltation, which, uh, to the couplet that Andrew shared, uh, earlier, uh, as man is,

01:33:54

God once was, as man is, as God is, man may become, uh, this idea that we can become like God, that we can, uh, become ontologically refined, uh, uh, to, uh, take on God's, uh, characteristics in nature, uh, with the caveat that we don't, uh, supplant

01:34:12

God, we don't lose that kind of relational, uh, uh, uh, quality with God. Um, that, uh, exaltation, uh, as this, uh, this, uh, theological belief is, is called, is, uh, uh, sometimes used synonymously with the term, uh, salvation.

01:34:28

So, um, within the LDS tradition, uh, exaltation would be contingent on our, uh, receiving, uh, saving ordinances, uh, such as baptism, uh, confirmation by the

01:34:40

Holy Ghost, um, uh, the, the various ordinances that are available in Latter -day Saint temples, uh, um, which can also be a conversation for another time, uh, as well as, um, uh, accepting the, the fullness of the gospel of Christ.

01:34:57

Um, yeah. So from, from as a universalist, right, let's say

01:35:02

I don't need exaltation because I'm humble, right? I don't need exaltation, but humility, by the way, but in order to be saved, right?

01:35:12

I, from, as a, from a universalist perspective, I don't need to do anything. So in that instance, why should

01:35:19

I, why should I, why would anyone need to convert to Mormonism or what's even the point of going on mission if, if there's, if you hold to a universalist perspective, if everyone's going to be saved?

01:35:33

Yeah. Um, so, uh, in, in this sense of, uh, uh, eternal progression, as I think

01:35:39

I mentioned earlier, uh, becoming like God and, and progressing as individuals on a, on an ontological, uh, moral, um, uh, in the sense of our, our sanctification, um, that, that this progression, um, uh, relates to our, our respective relational closeness with God, uh, the, the degree of communion that we experience with God.

01:36:03

Um, and so, uh, you know, it, it totally can be the case. And, and I believe that this, this development is contingent on our own agency, you know, what, what we, uh, wish, what we accept, uh, what we believe, uh, what we repent of, um, uh, that, um, you know, by, you know, choosing to, uh, uh, accept

01:36:26

Christ's grace, uh, or not, um, uh, or, or accept the, the, the, the message of the

01:36:34

Gospel in its totality, uh, that we can continue to grow as individuals and thereby grow closer to God.

01:36:40

Um, so, you know, in a certain sense, um, uh, I, I think Mormonism, uh, on a soteriological level, uh, or with respect to its view of salvation, um, it's, uh, it's very generous.

01:36:52

Um, it, it's one where, uh, you know, for instance, Christians, uh, Christians of other, uh, worldviews and affiliations, um, um,

01:37:01

Latter -day Saints believe that, uh, um, you, um, presumably will be in heaven, um, uh, and, uh, will be able to have a relationship with God.

01:37:11

Um, you know, anyone? Well, well, Latter -day Saints, uh, would reject a concept of hell, uh, as would be held within, uh, maybe traditional

01:37:20

Christianity. Uh, there's this sense of, uh, separation from God, which, uh, is also contingent on our own choices, uh, those that, uh, expressly deny

01:37:29

God and, and, uh, um, uh, reject the, the Gospel, reject the Atonement, um, and, and I should say, um, while having a full knowledge of those things being true, uh, which, uh, to my understanding, uh, would be near impossible to, uh, kind of meet that standard within this life, within our own, uh, limited understanding, um, but that, uh, we can separate ourselves from God, uh, just as, uh,

01:37:56

Satan and, and, uh, others, uh, Satan's, uh, angels, uh, have, have as well.

01:38:02

Uh, so, so we don't have a view of, uh, hell in the same way. Yeah. I'm just trying, I want to get a couple quick questions in before I, I explain what the

01:38:11

Gospel is within Christianity, but, uh, do you believe that God is omnipresent, that He's everywhere present? Well, you know, this is something

01:38:19

I think, uh, that, uh, maybe the LDS tradition might wrestle with in unique ways that, uh, within a classical, uh, theistic model, um, maybe, maybe, uh, those same challenges aren't present.

01:38:33

Uh, as I said earlier, God is embodied within the Latter -day Saint tradition. Uh, God has a, has a physical body, uh, as we do, a material body and exists as part of the material universe.

01:38:45

Um, and so because of this, in that sense, God is, is, uh, uh, physically limited, um, but, uh, within the tradition, uh, through the, the

01:38:57

Holy Spirit and through God's, influence through God's, uh, ability to, uh, commune with us, that, uh, um, that, uh, that, that a strictly physical interaction isn't necessary for that to take place.

01:39:11

So it's, it's kind of a both and, um, you know, with, with some qualifications. So, um, and, and, and what

01:39:18

I want to do is, because I know we got to wrap up. Yeah. We'll, we'll have you back, Jackson. We'll, we'll actually plan a session so we can have further discussion, uh, and maybe dig into specific topics.

01:39:29

I know there's a bunch of questions. Uh, I would say there are passages where, uh, we see

01:39:35

God's, it speaks as if God has a human body, which is where people say, well, see, he must've been a human.

01:39:43

However, it also talks in Psalms about God having feathers and wings, and therefore is he a chicken?

01:39:50

Um, you know, because we don't have those. So, uh, but, but let, let me,

01:39:56

I mean, you provided a really good, uh, example here for us, because one of the things that I say on, on, on this show and people who are following, uh,

01:40:09

I talk about the fact there's only two religions in the world. Uh, there's divine religion and manmade religion.

01:40:15

And we want to be able to objectively examine every religion to be able to see, is it, is it manmade or is it divine?

01:40:24

And I think there is a way of, of doing that. Um, I think that, you know, when we think about human beings, we want to exalt ourselves.

01:40:34

And so what do we do when we exalt ourselves? We talk about our choices. We talk about, um, thing we, we avoid things we don't like, like hell.

01:40:44

So we're going to soften things like that. We're not going to talk about God's wrath. We're not going to talk about sin.

01:40:50

We're going to make everything look pretty and rosy. And, and ultimately what we're going to do is praise our, our own efforts, our own works, the things we do.

01:40:59

And so when I take that and start examining every religion, you know, as you had said, it's, it's about your choices, the choices that you make, and it's the things you do that will determine where you're going to go.

01:41:18

But then, then you're softening the idea of hell, the idea of God's justice and his wrath.

01:41:24

And so I would, I would end up saying that when we look at what the gospel is for Christians, and this is where we see the distinction there is in the

01:41:34

Bible, it doesn't talk about what people can do. We can't do anything because we're already, we'd be criminals in his sight because we already break his law.

01:41:43

God is infinitely just. And when I say that, I know when we had been

01:41:50

Zion on a couple of weeks ago, uh, the Orthodox Jewish person, he absolutely freaked out when

01:41:56

I said that he's not much different than Adolf Hitler. But when we compare that, you know, the same thing with, with you,

01:42:03

Jackson, let's say you and I were, we're in New York and we're going to swim across to the UK. Okay.

01:42:09

I'm not such a good swimmer. I get about a mile and I drowned. You're a really good swimmer.

01:42:15

You go about two miles before you drowned. But if we look at the map between the

01:42:20

New York and the UK, that extra mile you swam is inconceivable.

01:42:26

In fact, you can't even tell the difference between there and the starting point because it's such a small distance.

01:42:32

And God's infinitely Holy and infinitely just. And, and therefore when we break his law, it has an infinite consequence, not because of the, the, because we, who the lie itself or the, the act of stealing, it's who we offend.

01:42:52

It's because God's infinitely Holy. So when we have a very, very high view of God, we're going to have a very low view of man, but man -made religions have a very high view of man and in turn end up having a low view of God.

01:43:07

And I would say in your case, Mormonism, they, they lower God to be like man to having been a man and not being perfect.

01:43:16

Therefore he couldn't have been the creator because he couldn't have created everything because he would have had to be a creation.

01:43:26

And, and so you have, you know, this regression where you're trying to always go back to who, who made God, who made

01:43:31

God. Well, Isaiah 44, 24 says, tells us that Yahweh alone created everything.

01:43:40

He didn't have help. So he had to have been the first, the uncaused cause.

01:43:47

And so it's, that's where we would have a difference in the God of Mormonism and the

01:43:53

God of the Bible. And what I would see is that Mormonism would be much like any other man -made religion.

01:44:02

And you and I talked, right? I'm not shocking you by saying, I think it's a man -made religion. And you're not shocking me if you're going to say that you think

01:44:10

Christianity, according to Joseph Smith, we never really got there, but that all religions were false according to Joseph Smith and, and the gospel needs to be restored through him.

01:44:23

And so what I would say is that, you know, Mormonism would teach that it's, it's by our choices, by our good works, our good nature, by choosing him, by being a child of God, which

01:44:35

John 1, 12 would contradict because we're not all children of God. It's only those who believe in that the right to be called a child of God.

01:44:43

So not everyone is a child of God. And even when we say child of God, I think there's a difference in what we mean by child of God, whether we're actual offspring or not, things like that.

01:44:52

But that aside, what we see is that biblical Christianity is something that says that we're saved by what

01:45:02

God does by grace and not of works. In fact, at the, they don't have the

01:45:09

Mormon miracle pageant anymore, but they used to mock that idea of what the

01:45:14

Bible teaches that you're saved by grace and not of works. And the reality is that is what the

01:45:22

Bible says, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, Titus 3, 5. It's, it's not of works that we could do because we can't do any good works.

01:45:31

God does the work at the cross. Colossians says that all of our sin, all the transgressions were paid at the cross.

01:45:41

So it can't be what we do that earns us forgiveness because it was paid 2000 years ago.

01:45:48

And so the difference between what you believe and what, what I believe, I'm going to say literally is the difference between eternal life or eternal death, heaven or hell.

01:45:59

And you may not want to believe in a hell. I get it, but I don't want to see you go there.

01:46:05

And, and that's why I don't, you know, I want to make sure you, you, you actually engage with the biblical gospel message, which is that God became a man to, to suffer the death that we owe, that we could be forgiven.

01:46:24

Biblical Christianity is the only religion where you can have a God that is both just and merciful.

01:46:30

I don't know if you've ever thought about this, Jackson, but justice and mercy are mutually exclusive.

01:46:37

You can't have justice and mercy because the example I always give is if the, if the law said that if I slap you in the face, you have to slap me back with equal force.

01:46:49

Well, you can show justice and slap me with equal force, or you could show mercy and not slap me at all.

01:46:55

But if you slap me half as hard, it's not justice and it's not mercy because you didn't pay the full debt, the full punishment of what's owed, and you didn't let it go.

01:47:07

It's, it actually becomes neither. And that's what every manmade religion has is a God who's not just and not merciful, but God paid the full weight of sin because he's an eternal being.

01:47:19

He can pay an eternal fine. So he pays the full weight of it. And now because it's paid, the justice was served.

01:47:28

He can now offer forgiveness because he himself paid it. He can now offer mercy. That's unique within Christianity.

01:47:37

The other thing unique within Christianity is in biblical Christianity is that it's the only religion that teaches that it's not by our works, but God's work that we can get in a right state with God.

01:47:50

And that's why, because it's not based on works, that every manmade religion is a system of morality, doing good and not doing bad, where Christianity, it's not a religion of do, it's a

01:48:04

Jesus Christ, the one who's fully God, fully man. So it's about a person, not a teaching.

01:48:12

And therefore what you see is that Christianity becomes different than any, every other world religion based on those things.

01:48:20

And we can, we can compare every world religion and just look and say, do they add human effort? Do they, do they raise man up and man's choices versus saying to get back to where we started when we talked about scripture, do

01:48:33

I make a choice to believe in God? Well, yes, but it's not my choice alone. According to Philippians 1 29,

01:48:41

God gave me that belief. So God works through me. So at the very choices that I choose to, to make are exactly as God intended them to be.

01:48:53

And that's my plea for you, Jackson. And as we saw earlier, people are praying for you. The reality is that I care for your soul.

01:49:02

I care where you spend eternity. Okay. And so to me, the most important message to you is that you turn from trusting yourself as a good person or trusting your good works or trusting your choices and trust what

01:49:16

Jesus did on the cross is the only means of getting right with him because we're not in a right state with him and we need to get right with him.

01:49:25

And that's what the good news, the gospel message within the Bible is that we need to turn from self to God.

01:49:34

And I will admit, I mean, Mormonism, it sounds good because it's,

01:49:41

Hey, you get to have eternity with your family. You get to be God, you get your own planet, you get to populate it.

01:49:48

And that sounds great, but is it true? Because the thing Jackson is, if it's not true, and this is the thing for you to think about it, if it's not true, all those good works, you do all those good choices.

01:50:03

They land you in the eternal Lake of fire. Right. And because it's like,

01:50:09

Hey God, look at what I did when God says, yeah, he did everything that can be done. And so I don't want that for you.

01:50:16

And that's why, I do want you to come back. And when you come back, I'll make the same plea. I'll be pleading with you then as well, that you turn from trusting yourself and trust

01:50:25

Christ. Okay. So any last thing, comments you want to make, we are going to try to shut down and where I do have some.

01:50:37

Yeah. I certainly, you covered a lot of different points and certainly the nature of these discussions as well as on my end, is that it can feel like we cover more ground than we can even adequately discuss in the space of a week.

01:50:56

But certainly on these points, I would love to come back. I would love to dive in a little deeper, offer some clarifications, offer some, maybe pushback or because I think you brought up a lot of really rich topics.

01:51:12

And I definitely want to affirm that, I believe your sincerity,

01:51:19

I believe your genuineness of care for my wellbeing. I actually really appreciate it.

01:51:26

And as I described with my own background, this is,

01:51:33

I have been considering and wrestling with and thinking through these differences, the respective worldviews we've been discussing and have spent a lot of time in probably what you would consider biblical

01:51:53

Christian spaces for worship, for small group

01:52:00

Bible study, for summer camps, things like that. So I can give you my assurance that I'll continue to take this seriously, as seriously as I can and to continue contemplating on it.

01:52:15

And yeah, I just appreciate how generous both of you have been with your time tonight.

01:52:22

I know I kind of slid in here and things went in a different direction than maybe was originally advertised, but I hope it was enriching for everyone.

01:52:33

And I appreciate, I think it's just so vital when, because we live in a very diverse world, right?

01:52:40

A lot of different beliefs, a lot of different moral views, theological views, ethical views, political views.

01:52:47

It's being able to sit with someone and civilly, respectfully, dialogue, exchange ideas.

01:52:59

And I think that's to our collective benefit when we lean into that. So for anyone listening,

01:53:06

I think this is important work or something to strive for in your engagements with others.

01:53:16

So I appreciate both of you for the respect and civility that I felt tonight. Yeah. Well, we appreciate it.

01:53:22

I'm going to give some comments from some of the listeners as well. Let me just close out the show with several comments.

01:53:28

One, Jackson, contact me just info at strivingforeternity .com, info at strivingforeternity .com.

01:53:36

We'll set up a time to meet, to do a show. So we did not get to this anti -Calvinistic video.

01:53:44

We were going to do it in several episodes, but next week, Drew can do it all on his own.

01:53:50

So he has the headache and I don't have it at all. Oh, thanks. I will be in Washington, DC.

01:53:58

So anyone that's in DC, you can contact us and we could try to do a meetup.

01:54:04

I will be traveling around doing, I will be doing a tour at the Museum of the Bible. I love to do that.

01:54:10

If anyone wants to do those, you can, you can contact us at strivingforeternity .org

01:54:16

or just info at strivingforeternity .com. And the, what we do there is

01:54:23

I go through the museum. I start, I spend a lot of the time in the, in the area where we talk about the manuscripts and things like that.

01:54:33

I'm going to, I'm just going to, Jackson, I'm just going to put you backstage for a bit, just so we don't have the, the hissing.

01:54:38

You don't have to leave. And we could talk after the show's over if you want. But I won't be here next week.

01:54:44

So it'll be another one where Drew, maybe Drew and Darren will pick up this video and, and, you know, go through it.

01:54:52

Darren needs a good headache. Yeah. On top of what he already has. Yeah, exactly.

01:54:58

Exactly. So the 20th, I will not be here. The 27th, however, we're going to be joined by none other than Mr.

01:55:08

Jim Osmond. And we're going to be talking about the idea of God speaking to us.

01:55:16

Does, you know, hearing the voice of God. Yeah, I do have a shout out or a need.

01:55:24

We have someone that contacted the ministry. Their church is playing Bethel and Hillsong music, and he is trying to get some information.

01:55:33

I know that several of the listeners have in the past done research on Bethel and Hillsong and elevation and have a lot of information, some written down that could be shared.

01:55:46

If anyone has that, could you email it to info at striving for eternity dot com?

01:55:53

OK, info at striving for eternity dot com. Let us have have that so we could share that with him.

01:56:00

His elders said they don't want to put the study in. But if someone has information, they're willing to read that.

01:56:07

Just give them the American Gospel documentary. Well, they're going to want it to be specific.

01:56:14

So some of the comments we got from folks here is that was the wrong.

01:56:21

So this one was a Bible care and share fellowship said great episode. D said nothing in my hands

01:56:29

I bring, but only my to the cross I cling. Some of these drew you put these up here. So I just I love that.

01:56:36

That line. And as you were going through the gospel, of course, so eloquently, and it showed up just at the perfect time and I had to I had to start.

01:56:46

All right. And then Kathy says, Amen. Good show. Very helpful. Praying for Jackson.

01:56:52

He was very respectful. He was. And it's a breath of fresh air to have someone come on the show and just have a great dialogue.

01:57:03

Right. No, no. I mean, look, what do we usually see? You know, the big problem is we we see people who misrepresent the the the opposing views that we didn't have that tonight.

01:57:17

You saw Jackson understands where we are. He knows where we're talking to differences.

01:57:23

I think that that's I think that that's really helpful when we when we have these kind of discussions is we know we disagree.

01:57:32

Right. And let's discuss that. You know, let's we would each think that the gospel message the other has is wrong.

01:57:42

That's fine. But let's discuss it and do it civilly. So so I do hope that Jackson will come back.

01:57:49

So I do we do have to make sure we get this video because I did promise our listener that we would get to it.

01:57:55

And so you may pick it up next week if you want to. Drew, if you want to chop it up, I guess you could.

01:58:02

I'm going to have to because there's just just I mean, like you like I was texting you about it just in the first five minutes, you could probably do five different episodes.

01:58:12

I know. I know they're getting there's so much there. So I'm sorry. On YouTube, I'm definitely going to have to rename this episode because I don't want people to think we did a bait and switch.

01:58:23

But this show, folks, the purpose of this show is to teach apologetics. I mean, if you found this helpful, please share it with others so that so there's no but it's about you coming in and getting your questions answered.

01:58:35

I mean, last week was an absolutely amazing show. One of my favorites when

01:58:40

Joe came in, really just not with so much a question, but we were able to help and hopefully find a really good church for her.

01:58:48

That's not too far. So she did because she sent she emailed in the both of us.

01:58:56

And if Joe, if you're listening, I apologize for not emailing back.

01:59:01

Just super busy. But I saw that you did see that you did send emails.

01:59:07

And so I'm going to try to read those. Yeah, yeah, I got to those. I was not feeling well after the show.

01:59:16

And I'm going to I'm going to get to some of that as well, to explain that in a moment. But so yeah, so so the 20th, we'll have that.

01:59:24

So so then maybe if you guys don't, if you chop up that video and talk about it, great.

01:59:30

If not, August, we'll, we'll either do that or have Jackson back on. And so so yeah, the purpose of the show is really to teach apologetics, teach how it's how at least we think it's done right.

01:59:44

OK, you look at tonight. We had someone who we would disagree with.

01:59:50

He would disagree with us. There was no shouting, no name calling. Well, actually,

01:59:56

OK, between Drew and I, there was some name calling. But other than that, there was no bad feelings.

02:00:01

There was no you know, what people what we end up seeing from folks that often when they think of disagreement.

02:00:11

And that's what we want to do here. We want to teach apologetics how to do it. You can watch it like in a case like tonight.

02:00:18

Watch. And sometimes you even see why I'll say, OK, here's why I'm asking this question, because I want you to learn.

02:00:23

But it's about you getting questions answered. You get stuck on the streets. You don't have an answer. Come in. Join us.

02:00:29

We want to give preference to the people unless we have a guest. If we have a guest, we would give them the hour.

02:00:35

But whenever we have what we we want to try to to make sure that we get them.

02:00:41

I see Ravi is now back. People have been asking for Ravi. Is Ravi going to come in? Come in. We've been waiting for Ravi came in very late last time.

02:00:48

He's got to come in at eight so we can have and Ravi email us info at striving fraternity dot com so we can actually just set a time.

02:00:55

It'd be better so we can spend more time with your your questions, because this is what we do. We try to set up a topic that Drew and I are going to kick around and we may not get to it if people come in and we have good discussions.

02:01:07

Right. And so we do have to get to the video at some point. Maybe Drew will do it next week.

02:01:14

And so I trust you'll do well with it. We'll have Jim on afterwards the following week.

02:01:21

And so a question a lot of folks have been been puzzling with and asking with me.

02:01:27

So after the show, so I went out to California a few weeks ago, about three weeks now, something occurred while I was out there.

02:01:37

Many of you know, I've been struggling with blood pressure issues. And the reality is, is that at some point while I was in California, I started to have double vision kind of unexpectedly.

02:01:51

I ended up just being in a point where I figured it was blood pressure.

02:01:57

I was getting lightheaded. I went and got some potassium because I know when I'm traveling and I've been traveling pretty much nonstop from the beginning of this year straight through.

02:02:08

I've been doing a lot of travel this year. And so when I'm traveling, I don't eat right. I have a lot more sodium, a lot less potassium that causes high blood pressure.

02:02:17

So I went and got some potassium pills. I felt a lot better. The double vision started coming and going.

02:02:25

And I thought it might've been getting better before I left for Indianapolis. And you guys remember last week

02:02:30

I was in a hotel room. I was leaving for Indianapolis to work with Hearts for the

02:02:36

Lost. We did an evangelism training together and an outreach together. It was a great time. Really highly recommend

02:02:43

Hearts for the Lost. If you guys want someone to come to your church and do a free evangelism training, they'll come on their own dime.

02:02:52

So it's something that we did the first time doing a joint effort together. And I think we're going to continue really well.

02:02:59

I think we're going to continue doing more of those. So if you want both Striving Fraternity and Hearts for the

02:03:04

Lost, we could do that at your church. You can contact us. Just email us at info at strivingfraternity .com.

02:03:11

And so what ended up happening was, I'm really not sure, but with the extra travel,

02:03:21

I was thinking it was blood pressure, but my vision got much worse.

02:03:27

It has now been constant with double vision. I did see a doctor today who thinks it may not be anything very serious, but still

02:03:40

I have to go to a cardiologist next week and then be praying if you could.

02:03:46

I'm trying to get the MRI, which is the most important thing to get because it is to determine whether I have a brain aneurysm and could die at any moment.

02:03:55

So the MRI would reveal that. And the earliest right now they can schedule is

02:04:01

August 8th. And so I'm really trying to get in earlier and make sure that I can get in earlier and get that known.

02:04:13

But they think it is an issue with a genetic thing that I may have that just happened to kick in.

02:04:22

And so that's what you see me wearing glasses. It affected my eyesight, where typically, I mean, I was in the eye doctor.

02:04:29

They said I have 20 -20 vision. And yet I can't see the monitor so well at times.

02:04:35

It seems that when I'm getting stressed, working too much, I can't see.

02:04:41

But when I'm relaxed in the eye doctor's chair, I can see you just fine. I don't know.

02:04:48

But I'm doing better, I think. I'm dropping weight, which is bringing that blood pressure.

02:04:54

It actually has been pretty good. Pretty good meaning I've been in the 130s over 80s.

02:05:01

Sometimes I get 140 over 90. But I've been pretty good.

02:05:09

And so trying to eat right, do some running, which I've been too busy this week and haven't been able to get runs in, have been in the sauna.

02:05:18

I have a sauna now in my home. Well, I had a cheap one in my home, Drew. I think you know that, right?

02:05:25

You see, I have this little box that just my head and hands stick out. It cost me like $145.

02:05:31

Now you have to buy it for like $200. It keeps going up. But it was a little portable one and great if you're in certain environments where you can use it.

02:05:41

But it wasn't good long term. And my health care, actually,

02:05:46

I was able to make an argument that this is good for health because it reduces chance of heart attacks, cardiovascular disease, depression,

02:05:56

Alzheimer's by over 60 % if you use it regularly. And so that's what I'm doing.

02:06:01

It also is great for recovery on my running. But I'll tell you,

02:06:07

I go in there, my eyes just within a few minutes start feeling better. The double vision goes away.

02:06:14

And so it's that and running. And so the doctor says, yeah, it makes sense because your body's heating up and you're getting, you know, it works with nerves, which is some of the issue and it helps with the muscles.

02:06:28

So all that to say that I'm doing what I can. One of the things that I did do is put a pause on the

02:06:36

Rap Report podcast for a little while till September. Then I'll start that one up again.

02:06:42

But that's just giving me one less thing to prepare. There's a lot of prep for that. This show is a little bit less prep because we really, you know, as when

02:06:51

Jackson comes in, can't plan on that. Then we spend the whole time having that discussion. There's nothing to plan. So we usually kind of, there's a lot less work on this one.

02:07:01

And we do know that you guys like to watch regularly. And so therefore we try to do that.

02:07:07

And with the help of Drew, who helps out when I can't be here or when, you know, from having some difficulties that's helpful.

02:07:16

So we're going to continue this one, this podcast, even though it's longer, but it actually takes a little less effort and less prep.

02:07:25

Usually it's here. We're going to talk about this topic. Okay, let's do it. And then just throw it out there.

02:07:32

So it is a lot easier because there's almost no prep. There's very little planning in this one.

02:07:39

I mean, yeah, we had to watch the videos, but we watched that video, but that video, I mean, we weren't,

02:07:45

I wasn't taking notes on it. You know, I don't think I'd need to, to correct some of the wrong definitions they have of Calvinism, which is really what that video comes down to.

02:07:53

It's a wrong definition of Calvinism and they're fighting a straw man. So, so yeah.

02:08:00

So folks, I appreciate all the prayers. It really, it means a lot, especially for the folks who've been contacting the ministry and, and just to let me know you're, you're praying for me.

02:08:12

I can tell you that I appreciate it. When my bride sees those emails, she, she appreciates it.

02:08:18

And so I, all I could say is thank you. I'm humbled that so many people, you know, would care, would, would have an interest in, in taking that extra step of, of reaching out because I, I realized that that's just a little bit extra effort.

02:08:37

And so I, I appreciate it. And so you know, it, it, it's a thing where I just wanted to thank you as an audience to, to say that I really, it, it, it does mean a lot to me when

02:08:53

I, I'm, I'm hearing that and getting that. So, so, and, and let me just end with the fact that I did want to mention,

02:09:05

I don't know what's going on in New Zealand lately, but Drew, I don't know if you, if you know that um, we were, for some reason, we were in the top 100 of all podcasts in the

02:09:22

Christianity genre for New Zealand. And when we, yeah,

02:09:28

I'm like, what in the world is going on there all of a sudden? And in the broader category of religion and spirituality, we were in, uh, let's see, what was it?

02:09:38

I think one, one 70 something. Uh, so I don't know what's going on there in New Zealand, but those listening in New Zealand, Hey, thanks.

02:09:48

Um, and who do we have to beat to, to move up the ranks, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what it is.

02:09:55

It's sharing this. I mean, that's really what it comes down to folks. The more you share this with others and the more, because it, because what it is, is it's really based on the number of people that are following it that hit the subscribe button or the follow button to, to, to get the downloads.

02:10:09

That's the thing. So if, if you're sharing it with more people, more people are going to, to, to do that.

02:10:17

And, and it helps us, uh, and it really helped what we're, it's not so much helping us as much as what we hope is helping the body of Christ.

02:10:25

So if, if this is helpful, if you've learned things, please share it. So with that, um, you know,

02:10:32

I think that, uh, episode 201 is in the can.

02:10:38

201. So I did 205. So I started episode two.

02:10:45

Oh, wait, you said 205. Yeah. I think I have wrong. Let me just, I'll double check. Hold on. Hold on. 205.

02:10:51

Yeah. I did miss you. Okay. This 200.

02:10:58

That's awesome. Yeah. Nope. But now, now the joy is taken away, but, but I get to do the podcast with you.

02:11:06

That's what matters. Yeah. Um, okay.

02:11:11

So D D is saying that strivatory beat Ray comfort in living waters. Wow. Well, no, because the number that living gave was the number of in the world

02:11:22

I gave just in one country. Um, yeah, yeah.

02:11:29

It was, it was, it was just that all of a sudden I saw a spike last week in, in new Zealand. It was like all of a sudden, like, wow, we never had that, but all of a sudden we jumped in there.

02:11:38

So a lot, like what that means is a lot of people were following it in new Zealand rate comforts, home country.

02:11:43

So I guess, yeah, we beat them out in their home country. That would be neat. That would be awesome.

02:11:50

I'll have to call Ray and tell him, Hey, I think we're beating you in your own country, mate. And he would probably say, so you think that makes you a good person?

02:12:01

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're picture this scene where we're going to close with this.

02:12:07

I know we went a little long to close with this. We're at dinner now, drew, where do you think we went after evangelism with the guys from hearts for loss?

02:12:15

What type of food do you think we went for? Probably went for some fried chicken. Y 'all, y 'all probably went for sushi.

02:12:22

You and Brian, we went for sushi because, because Brian took me to a place once and they had fresh wasabi and he didn't know what that was.

02:12:30

And I introduced him to fresh wasabi and he was like, Oh no, fresh wasabi is different.

02:12:36

See the wasabi that most people get that they think of as wasabi is really horseradish with some green paste because wasabi is really expensive.

02:12:45

So if you have a restaurant that has fresh wasabi, it means they have good fish. Okay. But the fresh wasabi brings out the flavor of the meat and it just, it really enhances it.

02:12:57

And it's, so it can, it can be hot, but you know but not super hot.

02:13:03

And so it's more like a, like a bean and sauce. It's not a paste. So very different.

02:13:11

And so, uh, yeah, we went, so we, that was in Indianapolis and we went to that place, uh, had a lot of fun.

02:13:19

So one of the things we did was we, around the table, uh, one of the guys,

02:13:25

Jimmy De Los Santos decided to play our spiritual transition game over fresh wasabi.

02:13:31

And we went around the table, everybody transitioning from fresh wasabi to the gospel. And so, uh, that started the discussion.

02:13:41

We had a great time doing that and transitioning from fresh wasabi to the gospel.

02:13:46

Wow. This is hot. You know what else is hot? Hell, you don't want to go there. Somebody's, someone did have that one.

02:13:53

Yes. Yes. Uh, it was fun to see the different views. So, uh, it, it was a good time.

02:14:00

We appreciated it. And, uh, so to episode 205 in the can, we will see you next week or drew.

02:14:06

We'll see you next week. And until then strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.