June 17, 2005

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Friday, unusual day, but had things to do yesterday.
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So here we are, didn't want to skip the entirety of the week, just only give you one.
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And with all the stuff going on, it is good, very, very good, I think, to meet with you today, get two hours worth in.
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And today you're going to get to hear some portions of the debate with Bill Rutland from last week.
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That was only a week ago last night. And here we have the MP3s. I believe they're up on the site.
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I don't know if they've been linked yet, but I believe they're already up on the site. And maybe even during the course of the program, they'll be linked or something, or I'll have a link to provide on the blog or something.
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So you'll be able to grab them. But you know, some debates are best, I think, on DVD.
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And I think this would be one of them. I guess the main reason being because so much has been said about, you know, how it went and things like that only after the fact, which has been very disappointing.
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But that's just the way it is. So anyway, I want to play some segments from that.
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And then if the phones allow and phone calls and so on and so forth, we will also be looking at further evidence that every time someone in Australia, Canada, England, all of Europe, and the liberals in our own country want to pass hate crimes legislation against quote unquote hate speech and say, oh, you don't have to worry about this impinging upon your free speech rights.
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You don't have to worry about anything in regards to the preaching of the gospel.
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There is a clause for religious speech in here that it's irrelevant. We've got a teacher up in Canada.
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He expressed his opinion on homosexuality in letters. He wasn't even teaching at the time, but he he expressed his his his
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Christian view of homosexuality in letters to an editor. He has been disciplined by the school board and now the the judges doing the same thing that they did down in in Australia.
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You look at that freedom of religion thing. You say, yeah, but I judge this speech to not live up to the standard of being relevant to religion.
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And that's all. That's it. That's all you got to do. And and it's all over at that point. So it's it's a bad thing.
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And we'll see if we can get to that. All depends on the calls. But we need to start at the right place,
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I suppose. And that would be to start with. I'm going to play three sections for you.
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Well, more like two, I guess I'm going to play the there were four sections of cross examination in the regular format that we've used for years in the great debate, they would have been 15 minutes each.
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But Mr. Rutland demanded that they be cut back or he would not show up. He did that at the in April, just a few months before the debate and and, you know, decided he wanted to change the way it's been done,
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I guess, from what he's saying now. He had never bothered to even note the order of debate in previous debates.
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But anyway, so we had he had 10 minutes to ask me, then
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I had 10 minutes to ask him, then he had 10 minutes to ask me. And then this is the last section of my second 10 minute portion of cross examination of Mr.
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Rutland. And you'll see at the beginning that and this all this has happened more than once. In fact, thinking about it now, this happened in the
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Stravinskis debate. The moderator gets up and I almost lose my second cross examination period to the closing state closing statements.
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But I didn't allow that to happen. So hopefully we have the volume set properly. I think we should have tested this, but we didn't.
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But let's let's listen to the cross examination period, one of the four cross examination periods from the debate last
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Thursday night on Long Island, myself versus Bill Rutland. The subject was the Roman Catholic teaching found sections 841 and 1260 of the
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Catholic Catechism, 841 specifically saying that Muslims together with us adore the one true
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God and are a part of the plan of salvation. And then 1260, the section that quotes from Lumen Gentium and in essence says that if a man is ignorant of Christ in the church, he may still obtain salvation if he follows and seeks the truth and follows the will of God as he understands it, so on and so forth.
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So here's from last Thursday evening on Long Island, we come to the closing remarks once again.
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Oh, I'm sorry. You have your I shall not be denied.
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All right. I would like once again we had run into a point where I was
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I was becoming very confused. Your catechism, which you believe, do you believe that the writings of the
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Roman Catholic Church and the catechism in Vatican to Vatican one, the count can decrease concentration?
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Do you believe these writings clarify or confuse the Christian people as to what the gospel is?
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I believe that clarifies, I also believe it depends on which which camp you're coming from.
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Obviously, many, many non -Catholic Christians are very confused about what the
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Catholic Church believes. OK, and when the catechism says together with us, they adore the one merciful
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God. Are we talking about one God here or are we talking about more than one
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God here when it says one merciful God? Can we identify who that God is? Well, the
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Jews themselves, excuse me, the Muslims themselves identify the God as being the God of Abraham.
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We identify the God as being the God of Abraham. And as I've already stated, what the catechism is pointing out there is that we both worship the same
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God in that he is a monotheistic God who is the creator of man, who will judge man at the end of the world.
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It is not. Let me finish, please. It is not. And and I want to just just say this as clearly as I can.
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It is not saying the Muslim religion is correct. It is not saying the Muslim religion can save. All it is pointing out is that they are one of the three monotheistic religions in the world today that they adore the one true
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God. Yes. Together with us. Yes. We we adore one
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God. They adore one God. So what does together mean? Together means separately. No, sir.
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Together does not mean in corporate worship. Together means that we both acknowledge there is one
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God who is the creator of mankind who will be the judge at the end of the world. That's all. So I am misreading this.
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I am somehow misreading the language of this when it says together with us, they adore the one merciful
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God, that that means we and Muslims together adore, which is not just simply acknowledge, but adore the one merciful
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God, that for me to think that what that means is we're both worshiping God. Not that all of Islam is true, not that all of Islamic theology is true, but that we adore the one merciful
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God. I somehow misreading this text. I don't know if you're misreading it, sir.
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It certainly is being misrepresented. Let me put it that way. OK. Do you believe that the
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Bible teaches that there is an elect people? Yes, sir, I do. So could you explain why 1260 says since Christ died for all and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, are the non -elect called the same destiny as the elect?
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Well, your phraseology there starts with the basic assumption that we both mean the same thing by elect.
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Unfortunately, this is just my belief. I'm not using it as a criticism, but unfortunately, Calvinism is a very man centered theology in that it puts
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God into the context of space and time. God, when we say he is for knowledge,
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I like to say whether he has omni knowledge. That is, God is eternally present everywhere.
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God knows every choice that I'm going to make and the outcome of that. God also knows every choice, the outcome of every choice that I may have made.
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And so in the divine, eternal perspective, we can say, yes, there is such thing as an elect people.
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At the same time, we can say that man has free will to accept. God or to reject
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God. Now, how is that? How can God elect a person and man still have free will to accept or reject?
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Very simply, sir. That's the reason that he is God and we are not. So every person has the ability in and of themselves to come to Christ.
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Yes. No, sir. I did not say that. Who has the ability to come to Christ with? Are you speaking, sir?
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Well, I'm not supposed to ask the questions. I'm sorry. If you need clarification, ask away. Your question was, who has the ability to come to Christ?
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Yes. Anyone who God has called. All right. Anyone who God has called it, would you say that's also drawn?
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The word called means drawn. I would not say necessarily that the that the word called means drawn in the sense that we are incapable of resisting that call.
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So all those of the father draws will not be raised up on the last day, although the father calls will be raised up on the last day.
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Will all those who the father draws be raised up on the last day? Could you clarify your meaning? John, chapter six, verse forty four.
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Yes, sir. I know this. I know the reference I was asking you to clarify what you mean by draw. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
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OK, are there those who are drawn by the father to the son who will not be raised up on the last day? See, I'd still still
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I'm unclear. Well, I'm not unclear what you mean by the word draw. I think I know exactly what you what you mean.
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And if you mean by the word draw that that that God gives a call to the sinner, that the sinner is incapable of resisting, if God in effect hog ties the sinner and drags him into into his his presence,
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I would reject that. That's the meaning of the word draw. If you mean that God gives every sinner by grace the right to accept or reject his loving call, then
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I would say, yes, God draws. John six thirty seven says everyone whom the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me,
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I will never send away. Who does the father give to the son? First off again, you're you're making the mistake of putting
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God into a spatial time relationship. God gives the son all of those for whom heaven was created.
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All men were created for heaven, but all men will not go to heaven. Therefore, the ones that are that are that God has given to Christ are the are the people
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God elects, a people for Christ. And I don't believe that that verse is speaking of a particular person, but as but of a people.
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Verse thirty seven says everyone whom the father gives me will come to me.
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Do individuals come to Christ or do non -individuals come to Christ? Well, I don't see inanimate objects coming to Christ, so I would
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I would assume that he's speaking about individuals there. OK, so everyone whom the father gives me will do something only persons do.
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So in contrast, what you just said, verse thirty seven is about specific people, isn't it? It is it is about that class of people which
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God has given to Christ. Yes. And which action comes first, sir, the giving by the father to the son or the people coming to Christ?
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Which action comes first, the giving of I'm sorry, would you repeat your question? There are two two actions in verse thirty seven and first phrase, everyone whom the father gives me will come to me.
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That is, father gives will come to me. Which action comes first? Well, there there again, you're you're you're trying to put it in a time space relationship, which in the mind of God we simply cannot do.
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So you're so so your question really, really is is is building the straw man of what the gospel is trying to defend.
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Are you saying that the grammar of the text does not indicate clearly from Jesus viewpoint which action comes first?
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We can't know. I'm saying that what you're doing, sir, is you're isolating the text from the from from the context of the entirety of the gospel and trying to build a case on it.
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So you can't. So so you can't answer the question given the grammar of this text on the basis of your understanding of the entirety of the gospel.
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No, sir. I cannot accept your interpretation of that text according to my understanding.
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I haven't given my interpretation. I've asked a simple grammatical question. Would you agree on the grammar of the
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Greek? That the giving of the father is an action that is prior to the coming of anyone to Christ.
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Would you at least agree that on the grammar of the text, whether you want to interpret that way or not, at least at that point, that that is the case there again?
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No, I would not agree, because although you say that you are not interpreting, you are trying to squeeze that text into your interpretation of what you think it think it means.
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You're trying to can I finish my question, my answer, and you're trying to segregate that from the rest of the gospel.
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You're trying to segregate that from the fact that God calls all people, sir.
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According to the Catholic catechism, there are men who are ignorant of the gospel of Christ and his church who seek truth, do the will of God and will be saved.
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Yet Jesus said that everyone whom the father gives me will come to me.
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Could you please explain how it is that there will be people who have salvation through Christ who never came to him in this life?
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Yes, sir, I could. Infants who die in infancy. Is that what 1260 is talking about, sir?
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Is that 1261? No, sir. The question that you specifically asked me is, is that will there were the people that will there be people that come to Christ that do not specifically know
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Christ? And the answer is, you know, so that's not true. I read section 1260. Every man who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ Church, but seeks the truth.
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That's not an infant and does the will of God. It's not an infant. And unfortunately, that is where the time ended once again, over and over again during the course of debate,
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I had to to point out to Mr. Rutland that we had specific. Teaching from the
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Roman Catholic Church in the form of the catechism in a language we could agree upon. Section 1260 talks about people who seek truth, who do the will of God, it has nothing to do with infants.
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In fact, section 1261 is about infants who die in infancy. He had to keep trying to avoid that clear that clear distinction and never did accurately interact with it.
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And you can see what happened there when you tried to get a Roman Catholic apologist to deal with the text of scripture.
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Well, we can't know. The grammatical relationship of all that the father gives me will come to me, we can't we just can't know,
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I'm just trying to force God into a box by asking if we can tell and answer a question relating to the grammar of the
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Greek New Testament. And so if I want to look at Dittuson and I want to look at Hexai in John 637, that means
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I am putting God in a box and we can't know because God is transcendent. And so we can't know how a participle relates to a finite verb.
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We can't understand how a present participle would relate to a future finite verb, etc.
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Now, obviously, obviously, obviously, Roman Catholic scholars would not agree with this.
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They would they would reject what Bill Rutland said. But, you know, it's not like we can bring that up evidently or something.
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I don't know. So next, I want to play for you before I get too long here. The last few moments, let's see, the last two and a half minutes of Bill Rutland's closing statement immediately followed by mine, because I picked up on exactly what he had said and continued with it.
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And so here's here's what Bill Rutland chose to end his presentation with in defending sections 841 and 1260 of the
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Catholic catechism and the idea that non -Christians can enter into heaven. Here's here's how he did that.
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Please allow me in the time that I have left to sum up my argument. The wellspring of salvation flows from the side of Christ.
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Christ saves all men. Christ calls to all men. I'd like to end this evening with one of my favorite illustrations.
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There was once a wise man that lived in a village and the village kids would come to him and they would hide things in their hands and they would ask him what they had in their hands and he could always tell them for some reason.
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So a young man of this village decided he was going to trick the old man. And he said, what I'm going to do is
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I'm going to catch a small bird. I'm going to put it in my hands and I'm going to go to the old man. I'm going to say, old man, what do
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I have in my hands? And he's going to answer, well, son, you have a small bird in your hands. But I'm going to say, yes, old man, but is it alive or is it dead?
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And if he says it's dead, I'm going to open my hands and let it fly away. But if he says that it's alive,
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I'm going to crush it and let it fall at his feet. So he instigated his plan. He went and found a small bird.
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He brought it to this old man and he said, old man, what do I hold in my hands? And just as expected, this old man said, young man, you have a small bird in your hands.
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And he said, yes, old man, but it is. Is it alive or is it dead?
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And without hesitation, the old man said, my son, that you have heard, my friends, the truth tonight.
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I would ask you to step away from your theological presuppositions. To really consider
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God and all of his love and all of his majesty. Are you going to allow
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God to be free, to be God, to save anyone that he desires to save? Or are you going to limit him to a select few?
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My friends, that choice is up to you. My time is up. Thank you very much. And God bless you.
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Indeed, I do ask the question, are you going to allow God to be free to save whoever he chooses to save called his elect people?
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Or are you going to demand that God try to save every single person equally and make it up to the man or the woman as to whether the triune
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God will fail in his own self -glorification? I do ask that question, but I do so on the basis of scripture.
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Mr. Rutland has said that I failed to establish my position. Some of you may notice that we sit on certain sides of this.
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And for 10 years now, the person who has the responsibility of proving his point sits over there.
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And the person denying the thesis sits over here. When I debated Mitchell Pack on the priesthood, it was his job to demonstrate that the priesthood was biblical.
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And he sat over there and I sat over here. When I debated Father Pierce Stravinskas on purgatory, it was his job to substantiate the assertion that purgatory is a biblical doctrine.
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He sat over there. I sat over here. The thesis tonight was that what is found in sections 841 and 1260 of the
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Catholic Catechism, which has been read in your hearing, which specifically is not about infants, is consistent with the
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Bible, that it's apostolic teaching. That was Mr. Rutland's job to establish, not my job to establish something else.
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And so the debate is very clear, and if in point of fact the only defense is, well, you didn't prove your point when it was your job to prove yours, that indicates something about the nature of our debate this evening.
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Now, in the documents of Vatican, we tried, I tried to read the section fairly concerning about whether Muslims adore the one true
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God with us. Interestingly enough, I was told I was twisting the meaning. And yet, according to Nostra Aetate 3 from Vatican II, which
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I didn't read, I could have, but I was trying to get a direct answer on this issue, let's let the church decide.
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The church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself, merciful and all -powerful, the creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men.
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They take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable degrees, just as Abraham, to whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God.
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There's Vatican II's own interpretation of its own words, which are then quoted in the
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Catholic catechism. I wasn't twisting anything. Mr. Rutland, however, needs to realize that these words have spawned all sorts of different views, even amongst
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Roman Catholics. I guess denying solo scriptura doesn't actually create unanimity of opinion.
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Does it? It does not. We just heard it said, and then before the
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African tribes attack from outside the room there, you can hear the war drums coming. We'll need to hurry up here so you can all can get to the dance, which obviously is starting a little early this evening.
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Mr. Rutland just said Jesus did not force himself on anyone. Look at John 6.
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He let the disciples walk away. Yes, he did. But if you read
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John 6, John 6, 35, where he starts talking about the sovereignty of God and salvation, he says, you've seen me, but you are unbelievers.
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You don't believe. And the whole discussion is why they don't believe. And yet Jesus doesn't chase down unbelievers when they walk away.
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But we were just told God never forces himself on anyone. Tell Lydia that. Lydia sitting next to the river.
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Paul comes and he preaches the gospel. And what does the Bible tell us? The Lord opened her heart to respond, opened her heart.
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That's the most intimate part of the human being. And God opened her heart.
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Yes, that's what grace is. And Lydia was thankful.
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Paul, on the road to Damascus, smacked on his backside.
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No force there. Excuse me,
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Paul, may I voluntarily knock you off your horse and knock you blind? No force there.
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Paul preaches to the Jews and the Gentiles in Acts 13. Who believes this little phrase in Acts 13, 48?
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And as many as were ordained unto eternal life, believed, they believed they weren't left in their darkness.
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They didn't go on in their religion. They didn't go on their falsehoods. When Paul spoke to the
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Galatians, he said, you once worship those which are by nature, not God's. They had stopped doing that.
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Now, God doesn't leave his people in idolatry. I tried to just allow the text of Scripture to point out that in the grammar, and we speak in grammar, we use grammar, we use tenses.
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That's what the word of God's written in. And in John, chapter six, Jesus says, all the father gives me will come to me.
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It is the giving of the father that precedes the coming. Mr. Rutland's position makes the coming the basis of our being given by the father.
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He has it backwards. But we can't even get to the point where we can actually answer the question of whether we can even read the grammar of the text.
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Why? I submit to you, because Rome's authority overrides the text of the inspired word of God for the consistent
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Roman Catholic. Since Rome defines the interpretation,
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Rome defines the meaning of both Scripture and tradition, she's not under the authority of either one.
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That's sola ecclesia. And you just saw what happened when we tried to get into the text of the word of God to allow the incarnate son to explain that the ones the father gives him, he doesn't leave them in darkness.
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He draws them to Christ and he does so effectively and efficiently and without fail, because it says they all come to me.
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Why are any one of you tonight coming to Christ is because God, the father in eternity, placed his love and mercy upon you and he draws you to his son.
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And that's the only reason you do. That's why none of us can boast and we will never be able to boast in eternity itself.
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That's why. But if you can't even allow the words of Jesus to be entered into the debate because, well, we don't know, and that's a contradictory to what
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I think about the gospel and we just can't look at the grammar. How can that function to substantiate in a debate that has the thesis of demonstrating whether something is biblical or not?
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If you can't tell what the Bible says, how can you prove something's biblical? If you can't look at the very grammar of verbs and nouns and say this is this and that is that, how can you prove something's biblical?
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Jesus said. All that the father gives me will come to me.
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We've agreed no one can be saved outside of Jesus Christ. Right. OK. All that the father gives me will come to me.
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And the one who comes to me, I will never cast out. Those are personal action folks coming earlier.
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Jesus said the one coming to me will never hunger. One believing me will never thirst. That's what hunger and thirst is in John six. It's a spiritual hungering, a spiritual thirsting.
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That's why a lot of people miss John six. But this coming is a personal thing.
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And according to Section 841 of the Catholic Catechism, a Muslim. Can be a
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Muslim according to Section 1260, a
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Buddhist can be a Buddhist. And I know they're not saying because of being a Buddhist, they come. But by following what's good in their religion, by following their consciences, they can have salvation.
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I say to you, Jesus said otherwise. And that settles the issue.
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And my prayer for you is that God will give you by his spirit a desire to believe only that.
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Which is inspired and true and given by the spirit of God in the word of God.
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And that is clearly what we've seen tonight regarding the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you very much. And there you have it.
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The closing statements. Someone in channel was mentioning just how terribly frightening that audience sounds when they they chuckle.
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And if you've been following the blog, you know that it actually was said at one point that there was fear expressed for Bill Rutland's life and his safety.
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And I still just sit there going, wow. Let me tell you something. In comparison to the both, either one of the
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Fullerton debates, that was comatose, folks. Everybody who walked in there popped a valium in comparison to the
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Roman Catholics at the Fullerton debates. No two ways about it. You didn't have anybody stand up going, the
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Eucharist in this debate. You know, what I could do is scream out the
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Bible or so it just, you know, it didn't happen. And I just I don't know.
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It's not available in MP3. I understand the the DVDs are what time frame we're looking at the
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DVDs here. We're supposed we're hoping for today you were doing something about fusing things and all this stuff.
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And so the DVDs will probably be, I'm going to say early next week, early next week.
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Yeah, I've got to start taking preorders. I could start taking preorders.
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Do you think that'd be a good idea? I think it'd be a good idea. You think I should take preorder? OK, well, right after the show,
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I'm going to put in we'll put in the links for the MP3s and the CDs. I'll go ahead and add in a preorder link for the
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DVD. And as soon as as soon as this thing's ready, we'll start shipping it right away.
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Good. That's yeah, I think folks, once especially once they hear this program, they hear that and go, you know what?
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I'd like to hear the twenty five minute opening statements, the two rebuttal periods, all of the cross examination and the audience question.
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It was it was a really fun debate to watch. It really was. Frankly, like I said in the
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Tuesday show that it was I felt very gentlemanly. And until the Protestants started outside the door with the drums, you know, war drums.
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Actually, actually, you know who that was? It was the Muslims. They're the Muslims. So maybe we should have all been in fear for our lives.
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Well, my understanding was that that were the Muslims downstairs or upstairs? Downstairs.
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They were downstairs. That's what we can hear as a Jewish Jewish wedding upstairs. The Muslims were downstairs and they stuck us in between.
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Now, I have to tell you something. I haven't told you this. What I found really odd about what was going on upstairs was that earlier in the day, when
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I was getting all of our gear out of the storage room, that when we shipped it out and they started,
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I everybody has to stand aside as they are driving, literally driving a brand spanking new
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Mercedes Benz convertible red into this ballroom.
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Huh. And this is above us. This was above us. So there is a Mercedes above me.
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Yeah, but either that or on the other side, somewhere in there. So there was. But so there, you know, it's very possible that there was a wedding gift there driving in the in the door or something like that.
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I mean, this is Long Island, you know. Yeah, I it was an interesting mix of a crowd in that place.
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Yeah, I would imagine the the restrooms and somewhere really interesting when all it out the same time.
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That would have been quite interesting. All righty. Well, good. So now let's go ahead and link them up. And folks, you'll want to watch this one just because, like I said, since Bill Rutland, Art Sippo and all the
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Catholics have been making all sorts of wild and crazy accusations about trying to bushwhack
33:30
Bill Rutland. And, you know, Art Sippo said the week before Bill Rutland finally put his foot down and demanded to know what the order was.
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And that was just a bunch of pure baloney. But they won't admit it. And they've been disproven and they're dishonest.
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And that's just the way it is. You'll want to see it and be able to. I mean, the MP3s are fine. If you want to listen while you're riding your bike or jogging or driving your car or whatever, please, if you're going to drive the car, don't use the
33:56
DVD. OK, that's that's too dangerous. But anyway, you all, that'll be listed as soon as we're done with the program here.
34:05
But first, we need to take a break. And then we had a phone caller, but we don't have a phone caller anymore. And so we're going to take our break.
34:12
Come back. Maybe the phone call will be back. Who knows? We'll find out in a few moments. Be right back. Is the
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37:20
You all can listen, make your decisions for yourselves, but, you know, when people start saying that we have acted in an improper manner, that we have attempted to abuse someone,
37:32
I want to make sure that everyone understands. Mr. Rutland's travel was provided for by the
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Great Debate, and there are Roman Catholics around Long Island that help to make that a possibility as far as frequently they try to find a place for a
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Roman Catholic to speak, things like that. I normally speak for quite some time on the island.
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I didn't this year. I only spoke at one church, but his travel was provided to him.
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The issue concerning the organization of the debate was dealt with before the beginning of May.
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In fact, he left us hanging for four, five, six days. We finally had to write to him and say, look, we need an answer from you, yes or no, are you showing up or not?
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After I sent the final offer to him and said, okay, look, you're demanding more time than anyone else has ever been given.
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Here's what we're willing to do, and we waited around, waited around, finally I had to write to him again, are you going to answer, yes or no?
38:37
He answered, yes, I will be there, and this is acceptable, and that took place before the beginning of May. The debate was the 9th of June, so that was, what, five weeks, and that was all taken care of, and according to Mr.
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Rutland, it was early April when he first raised the issue.
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And the issue came from the fact, I even heard, I heard someone ask him, I heard someone ask him,
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I forget where it is, where it was in the course of things, but he said he had not even seen the debate from last year, he hadn't taken the time to look at it.
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Wanted to be involved in the series, but doesn't watch the debates in the series, and then when faced with the organization of the debates as they have been done for years, all of a sudden demands changes.
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And so we're the ones who paid for the shipping of the sound equipment, the video equipment.
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We have shipped to Mr. Rutland the videotape so that he can do with it as he wishes, he can market it, he can sell it, he didn't have to put out a dime to make that available, we do that.
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There are still Roman Catholics who have videotapes of debates I've done in the past who still will not allow them to even be distributed.
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I think a lot of folks today would love to see the first two debates
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I did with Mitch Pacwa in the largest Roman Catholic Church in the San Diego area in El Cajon in January of 1991.
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Those debates were attended by people like Scott Hahn were there,
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I think these now have historic interest to those interested in the apologetics encounters that have taken place.
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Those tapes exist, a man named Scott Butler owns them, and I would like to invite Scott Butler to make them available, and I'd like to invite
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Scott Butler to do what we do and let us make them available. I think it's only fair, but that has not happened since 1991, so we're coming up on, you know, it's been more than 14 years now that that has been the case.
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And so, Mr. Rutland was not mistreated in any way, shape, or form.
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We acted with the same level of consistency and respect for the truth that we always do in regards to these issues, because that's why we debate.
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It's sort of like the Sipo situation right now. You know, I don't want to ever debate
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Art Sipo again, simply because I find him one of the most disagreeable men I've ever met. He's mean, he's condescending, he's arrogant, he's nasty, and I have dozens and dozens of emails, not only those written to myself, but written to others, that will document his constant behavior.
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You don't even have to do that. Just read his stuff. Just read his stuff over on the Envoy website.
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He is a nasty, nasty man, and yet he'll turn around and say, you're the nasty one. He accuses everybody of doing everything he does.
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It's just an amazing thing that anyone actually listens to the man in the theological realm at all. But I would debate him if it would be worthwhile to other people.
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I honestly believe that Art Sipo would absolutely melt into a puddle under meaningful cross -examination on all sorts of issues.
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The man is not a theologian. He loves to attack me and say I have no credentials and I have no abilities.
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Okay, if that's true, then why on earth should he not demonstrate that in cross -examination?
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But he doesn't want to do that, because he knows that I have taught Greek and Hebrew on the graduate level for years.
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He knows I've been a critical consultant on a major Bible translation. He knows that the things he's said about me are untrue.
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And so he won't do it. He only wants a grudge match on a subject that not only did we debate it in Toledo in 1991.
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Was that March or April? I think it was March or April. All I know is it was warm enough there to be thundershowers, because man,
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I'm going to tell you something. Wow. That was a horrible trip.
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Absolutely horrible trip. All I remember is being in a puddle jumper from St. Louis to Toledo in the middle of a thunderstorm.
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I had never been on a rougher, more dangerous flight in my life. A 16 -year -old kid next to me woofing his cookies.
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It was not enjoyable, let me tell you something. But anyway, not only did he debate me on that in Toledo, but what was it, about two months later?
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And I'll go ahead and tell the story, because I'm not sure it's come out. I always get to the place where I'm going far earlier than Jerry Madetik says, which isn't saying a lot, but I like getting there very, very early.
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And especially when you're in a place you don't know, you leave plenty of time, you don't want to be late. And so I was there very early,
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Patrick Madrid gets there, and all of a sudden we see this video crew walking in.
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This is in this amphitheater -type building at a university campus in Toledo.
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And this video crew walks in, I look at Patrick, because we had talked about this. And I'm like, what's going on here?
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And Patrick's like, what's going on here? So he goes up and says, what are you guys doing here? He says, well, we were sent here by Scott Butler.
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Now remember, Scott Butler is the one who videotaped the first debate I ever did against Jerry Madetik on solo scriptura in Long Beach.
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And then got into an argument with Carl Keating and wouldn't give him the videos of the debate.
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And so they don't exist. And in fact, honestly, if my wife had not gone over and grabbed one of the
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CDs that were made that night, or no, tape, tape back then, good grief, when I think about it, it was 1990, tape back then, if we hadn't gotten that, we would never have even had that first debate.
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Because Scott Butler said, I'm not going to distribute it. I'm not going to let anybody have it. And so then he's the one who paid for the videotaping of the debates against PACWA.
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So if you're following the history here and we don't have any phone calls, that's why I'm taking the history here.
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The first debate was in August 1990. Madetik's Catholic answers contacted me.
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Catholic answers specifically challenged me.
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The first debates we ever did specifically were brought about by the challenge of Catholic answers.
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So whenever you hear Catholic answers talking about how I'm a debate junkie and all the rest of the stuff, they're the ones that pursued me.
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And so August 1990, solo scriptura, Long Beach. That's the ones videotaped.
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No one's ever seen the videotape because Scott Butler won't let anybody have it. Argument with Catholic answers, division amongst
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Catholics on that one. The next two debates are in December of that year in Phoenix. And to my knowledge, they were not videotaped at all.
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The one night was at Northwest Community Church on the eternal security. The second night was on the papacy at City of the
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Lord in Tempe. Scott Hahn moderated the second debate. It did not go well.
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That's the one where Hahn blew a gasket and walked out on Madetik's. And within a month, Madetik's was no longer with Catholic answers at all.
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And then the next debates were the next month, January 1991, against Mitchell Pacwa, El Cajon, California, suburb of San Diego.
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Two debates. One was on a Wednesday and one was on a, was it a Friday? And then I think the first was on a Friday and then the next was
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Wednesday. And which one came first? I think justification came first and then the mass.
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And they were well attended. They were videotaped by, as I recall,
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St. Joseph's. I know that, again, Butler was behind it because he owns it. But St. Joseph's Catholic Radio was involved as well because I remember seeing
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Terry Barber there. And Rich remembers Terry Barber because last time Rich talked to Terry Barber, Terry Barber hung up on him.
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That was because they had videotaped the Staples debate and they wouldn't give us the videotapes, even though they had said they would and we have documentation of it.
47:15
And I'm sure those videotapes have been turned, they were burned in the backyard someplace. Because, to my knowledge, they didn't make that debate available through their own ministry.
47:25
So that tells you a little something about what they think about it. But anyhow, so you've got the first five debates were all against Catholic answers or Mitch Pacquiao and three of the five were videotaped by Scott Butler, but you've never seen them because he won't make them available.
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There it is. He said back then that if we would pay half of his production costs, and we've never done that to anybody.
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You know, we learned a lot during the Barry Lynn thing. That's where we learned to do this.
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But the fact of the matter is, we feel it's more important to make the debates available to people than to worry about trying to make it, quote unquote, fair of us.
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I don't think it is fair, quote unquote, for us to bear the entire load.
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I mean, I don't know what it costs to ship the sound system and video equipment and all the rest of the stuff from Phoenix to New York, ship it back again, 14 hours worth of work putting it up, taking it down, using it, et cetera, et cetera.
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We do all that. Yeah, Richard said, I don't want to know. Yeah, I don't want to see our shipping bill for that one.
48:43
And so there you go. We do all that. I don't think that's fair.
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I honestly don't think that's fair, but we do it anyways because we want the material to be made available.
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And so we're already working on next year. I would love to have Tim Staples involved.
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He's no longer with St. Joseph Catholic Radio. Some of you say, I thought you said you'd never debate him. I said I'd never debate him as long as he was with St.
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Joseph Catholic Radio because the fact of the matter is, we can't trust
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St. Joseph Catholic Radio. We cannot trust them. Is it St. Joseph Communications? Are they?
49:19
Hmm. Okay. All right, St. Joseph Communications. Sorry, St. Joseph Catholic Radio. If you're not associated with Terry Barber and St.
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Joseph Communications, then I apologize. But the fact of the matter is, we can't trust them.
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And, yeah, we can't trust them because when they write to you and say, here is what we will do, and then you get there and they do the opposite, and then you say, here's what you wrote, and they go, we don't care, there's nothing you can do about that.
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So there have been no more debates with Tim Staples since that time. Now, he's now with Catholic Answers.
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He's now on the Catholic Answers staff, and we communicated with him, and he said, I don't think that we can, he says,
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I'm not going to be allowed to do anything for the first year I'm with Catholic Answers. Okay, that has nothing to do with next year. 2006 is past that, and so I would love to see a debate with Tim Staples.
50:13
I think Fr. Frank Pavone would be real good. I mean, you know, people keep saying, oh, you're just picking on certain people.
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Look, are you telling me that Tim Staples is not a public speaker? Go on to the Catholic Answers website. Go down to Speakers.
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You can look at each person. You can actually find out what they charge to come into your parish to speak.
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And let me tell you, they average about four times anything that I get because I don't have a set fee, and I leave that up to the churches.
50:45
And, man, I'll tell you something. I figured out, I was in Massachusetts, and I figured out what
50:51
Jimmy Akin would have gotten for being in Massachusetts the weekend I was there. He would have gotten 7 .8
50:57
times what the church was able to do for me. So these are professional speakers.
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Okay, they're out there doing this all the time. And so, Father Frank Pavone, you saw him during the
51:10
Terry Schiavo stuff, and he was in front of cameras. He's not afraid of that kind of stuff. I think that would be a great, a really, really great debate on a number of different subjects.
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We haven't done Mary now, the Marian dogmas, in quite some time. We did, okay, I'll take that back.
51:28
We did stuff with gerrymatitics back around the time of the
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Mr. X debacle up in Salt Lake City. But on Long Island, the last time we did anything regarding Mary was the very first debate in the series, which was a decade ago now.
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And that was four dogmas in one night. That wasn't the way to do it. That was too fast. And so, you know, we'd certainly be open to that.
51:57
Someone just said, White versus Hahn would be interesting also. Yes, it would be. And we have tried many, many times.
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But I've said many, many times before, Scott Hahn has nothing to gain and everything to lose by being involved in the debate.
52:13
He did a couple. He did one against a Westminster seminary prof who obviously didn't know what it was really all about and what it was supposed to be about.
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And, you know, he's just, he ain't going to do it. We'd certainly be very, very, very much open to doing that.
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But, you know, I wouldn't, you know, if you're a Roman Catholic and you're sitting there going, well, look, you know, you've done everything you can do with Mitch Packwell.
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I wouldn't mind doing some Marian dogmas. There's still some things we could do with Mitch. And I enjoy those debates because they're real debates.
52:50
They're not anything else. They're real debates and I enjoy that. But if people say, if Roman Catholics are saying, well, you know,
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Bill Rutland just doesn't have the background, the training to be able to handle the debate that he was asked to do.
53:08
Or I don't think it's fair that you would debate this person. Or this person over here just isn't a good speaker. La, la, la, la, la.
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Well, why don't you folks get involved? I think you could get farther than we could.
53:21
Don't you think? I mean, if some of these folks who have been hesitant, like Carl Keating, have been hesitant to be involved in these debates.
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And I know everybody says, Jimmy Akin. Fine, but I don't get the feeling he wants to travel. If that's going to happen, it has to happen in San Diego.
53:37
And we've offered that more than once in the past. And those, that's documented on the website.
53:42
But for the Great Debate, which we put a lot of effort in on an annual basis,
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I think if there are Roman Catholics who were joining with us and were writing and saying,
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I'd like to see you do this. I think, personally, there is a real effort on the part of certain Roman Catholics, in fact, certain
54:01
Roman Catholic apologists, to try to end the Great Debate series. They don't want to see it continue.
54:07
Even though they are given absolutely equal time, they are in a
54:13
Roman Catholic area on Long Island. I mean, Long Island, come on, folks. This is not exactly the bastion of fundamentalism, right?
54:22
We're on Long Island. Where else would you like to have this done? I mean, the only other place you'd go would be maybe New Orleans or the
54:28
Vatican. It's in a good place. You have good access to audience there.
54:37
We've done it long enough. We know how to let people know about when it is. We can get people there. We can videotape it.
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And we're the ones that provide to them a ready master tape that they can then do with what they want for no cost.
54:52
And yet it seems clear to me that there are certain Roman Catholic apologists and ministries that are doing everything they can to shut it down because they don't want to continue.
55:03
Why would that be? Why would that be? Well, I'll tell you what.
55:11
I don't have any. Let me ask you a question. If Roman Catholicism is what Roman Catholicism claims to be, or at least what old
55:18
Roman Catholicism claimed to be, you sort of wonder these days, but especially for apologetically minded
55:24
Roman Catholics, they tend to be quite conservative in their view. And so if Rome is the infallible church, then why is it that we can say to someone here, in fact, we ought to put this together, we ought to put together the great debates one through ten.
55:44
The great debates one through ten. Whole series. Package it. One thing right there. Why is it that I can hand that to someone and say, you know what?
55:54
I'm not perfect. I didn't always have the best answer. But overall, you listen to those ten debates, and is the infallibility of Rome going to be established?
56:07
Is the Roman Gospel going to be established? In those wide ranging debates on the priesthood and the papacy and the mass and justification and sola scriptura, we've covered the range.
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These people are always saying that they can't really answer Rome. We've answered, and I would give those debates to someone.
56:30
How many Roman Catholic ministries would put all ten great debates, if they had them available, if they're available to them, how many of them would make them all available?
56:45
How many? And I then ask a simple question. Why? And the answer,
56:53
I think, is glaringly obvious. It's glaringly obvious. And if you dare say, well, you know, you've all been picking and choosing, look, we've invited
57:04
Keating. At first he said yes, until he found out who he'd be against, then he said no.
57:10
We've invited Hahn. We've invited Aitken. We've had St. Genes, Matitix, Madrid, Michouda, Pacwa, now
57:21
Rutland. We've invited Ray and Armstrong and the others.
57:29
We have bent over backwards to allow the Roman Catholic side to bring its best game, to bring its
57:37
A game. And we now have a decade's worth of debates, completely fair debates.
57:48
Nobody was given more time than anybody else. And what is the overall conclusion that one can derive from those ten years' worth of debates?
57:58
Well, you just listened to the tenth year. I just thank the
58:03
Lord we've had the opportunity to do it. My goodness, what a privilege it's been. It really has been. Privileged to have you along today as well.
58:10
We will be back, Lord willing, next Tuesday morning, my time, 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time, which is 2 p .m.
58:18
Eastern Daylight Time, which also happens to be 11 a .m. Pacific Daylight Time, quit playing with your clocks, folks, but you know when we're here, we'll be here.
58:25
Hope you'll be with us then. God bless. Thanks a lot. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:35
If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
59:40
Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the
59:46
World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N .org, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.