Banning Natural Marriage, Convert Syndrome, and Calls

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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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. Yeah, well I guess I just don't get it, at least that's what

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Michael Patton just said on Twitter about four minutes ago. Always happens right before the program starts, really weird how that works.

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Yes, I know James White did a Dividing Line about my article. We didn't do the entire Dividing Line, we mentioned it as part of, what, three or four different topics.

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No, I am not going to respond, it would just be, quote, he did not get it, end quote, post.

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So I didn't get it. I didn't get it. I'm just not smart enough to understand what these guys are saying, so forget everything

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I said about, you know, relationship of inspiration to a knowledge of what the resurrection is and stuff like that.

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I'm just not smart enough to have anything to do with any of this stuff, so. I don't even know why you're listening to the program today, for that matter, but glad you are, and certain that other people are not.

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Yes, that's the way it is. Oh, it's the afternoon time for the Dividing Line, even though it's Tuesday, had stuff going on this morning.

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Had a lot of stuff. I've just got a lot. This is an insane week. Absolutely insane week. But we press on because they are primarily first world problems, as we like to say today.

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Certainly praying for, I don't know, the only thing we could possibly be praying for today is a miracle in the halls of the

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Supreme Court. Something tells me that the

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Prop 8 one is going to go down only in the sense that they're probably going to address the standing issue, if you've been doing any listening to the discussions, which basically means putting it off and not really deciding anything about it at all.

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They're, all of them, all nine of them, have been circling the Supreme Court, looking through the halls and in the different rooms for a big rug to sweep this under.

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Sweep that under, yeah. It would be really, really, really, really nice if justice could be done.

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But we're living in a day, I heard a report this morning that 80 % of voters 18 to 29 support the redefinition of marriage, 80%.

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Now that, when you have any group that has that level of unanimity, that group is not a thoughtful group.

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That group is being influenced by media, by movie stars, rock stars.

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It's the thing to do. There's no real cognitive thought going on there. We heard that with Bree last week,

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Bree's in that group, and that's what we heard. No cognitive thought going on at all.

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It's just, well, it's what you're supposed to do to be cool. And that's what's coming.

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Wow. We need a miracle. Really bad things like entire economic collapses and military collapses and invasions and things like that tend to cause people to start thinking again, though.

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Because you have to be really comfy and not challenged and not have to worry about where your food's coming from to not think.

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And that's sort of where the young generation is. Is they're comfy, they've got what they want, and they just sort of go with the flow and don't even think about, you know, totally redefining things might not be all that smart.

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But when you think you are really smart and, well, that's the way things go.

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So I did have, and it disappeared. Oh, that's lovely.

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I wonder if it'd be in my recently closed thing. That has saved me. Has the recently closed thing saved any of the rest of you?

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It certainly has. How come the recently closed thing is not saving me here?

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There's that one. There's that one. No, the recently closed thing did not save me on either one of these.

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That's a shame. I was going to read. I suppose I can pretend that I'm saying something meaningful.

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Did anyone else? I'm sure everyone else did. Ted Olson, polygamy.

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I had the exact words up and I don't know where it went. It just went kapoofy. Kapoofy. There we go.

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There we go. I think it's purple, which means that probably means I clicked on that link at some point in the past.

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But if you heard the report of an interesting discussion, the reason I found interesting is because the fact that it paralleled what came up in the debate with Andrew Sullivan and Doug Wilson, and that was the issue of polygamy.

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And interestingly enough, it was Justice Sotomayor who asked

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Ted Olson, the great defender of gay marriage, a quote unquote

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Republican. Anymore. That doesn't. I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter what the label is anymore.

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I have absolutely zip zero. Not a hope in any. I would never have had hope in a political party, but it's really bad these days.

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Anyways, she said, if you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?

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And then went on to, before referencing polygamy and incest among adults,

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Olson responded by saying that polygamy raises questions, quote, about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy.

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Why not one woman with multiple husbands? Issues with respect to taxes, as if gay marriage doesn't.

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Inheritance, as if gay marriage doesn't. Child custody, as if gay marriage doesn't. It is an entirely different thing.

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Now remember, Sullivan's response was it's an entirely different thing. That's these folks know.

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They know, know, know down their hearts that the arguments they're using will inevitably, without question, result in the utter redefinition of marriage.

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They know it. But they are so intent upon the short term victory.

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That they don't care. They don't care. Where have the patriots gone?

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Indeed. He says, if a state prohibits polygamy, it's prohibiting conduct.

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If it prohibits gay and lesbian citizens from getting married, it is prohibiting their exercise of a right based upon their status.

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Now examine that. Think about what that means. First of all, we're hearing a lot today about marriage equality.

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Again, those who frame the debate win the debate.

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Those who frame the debate win the debate. There is almost no one, there is no one in the chambers of the

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Supreme Court of the United States arguing for marriage equality. No one. Ted Olson is not arguing for marriage equality.

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This right here shows it. Because he is in a bigoted fashion. He is a bigot against polygamists.

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He is a bigot against folks who have intergenerational love.

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He is a bigot against people who want to marry their grandmothers or vice versa.

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He is against all that marriage freedom. Don't tell me.

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Don't tell me that he is for marriage equality.

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But it's all spin. It's all advertising.

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Because no one can be against equality. So when you realize you've got enough people who have not been taught to think critically and have been taught that thinking critically is in fact unkind.

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It's unloving. It's not what we want to be doing. If you've got enough people there, you've got it.

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Just use the terms. What I understand is why he was not challenged on that. Because, first of all, he is advocating for gay marriage.

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And yet, what is polygamy? Multiple people marrying.

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Of course. Polygamy is a man who is married to two different people at the same time.

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No, it doesn't make a difference. It is. You cannot. Why wasn't he challenged? Wait a minute.

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Polygamy is not a behavior. As you're defining gay marriage, they are two of the same thing.

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Of course they are. Of course they are. And it has been pointed out. Notice it says, if gay marriage is a right based upon their status.

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What's the status? So status means the status of being gay. How about bisexuals?

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Because the exact same ethical, moral, scientific, philosophical arguments that are used to say that homosexuality is a natural state for mankind have to admit that bisexuality is a natural state for another portion of mankind.

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And it might be a larger portion of mankind than homosexuals. And if that's a matter of hard wiring, then what you're saying, by limiting marriage to a man and a woman, a man and a man, and a woman and a woman, that a bisexual can never experience happiness.

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Because they cannot marry a man and a woman. So they can experience the full range of their hardwired, necessary accoutrements for happiness.

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So there you go. So no one is for marriage equality.

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No one is saying that you should be able to get married at 2, or at 5, or at 8.

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Or any of these things. And if they were really for marriage equality, then you'd be for marriage equality for polygamy, and incest, and...

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And why limit it to the human race? You're a speciesist.

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There are people who talk about, you are a speciesist. Why not have marriage between people and their dogs and their cats?

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Isn't it true that there are people who love their doggies and their kitties more than they do their spouse? Sadly, it is.

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So why shouldn't they be able to get married? Because if you're not actually dealing with what the nature of marriage is, and I don't think our society any longer can admit the only sources for answering those questions, then you're not really talking about marriage, are you?

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You're not really dealing with the real issues. What's going to come out in June?

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I don't know. I don't know. I guess the next case comes up tomorrow,

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I guess. I think today was Prop 8 and tomorrow is the other one, whatever it was. But the fact of the matter is, no matter what happens in June, if there is even a brief stay, a stay of the madness, it's just going to keep coming, and coming, and coming.

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And if the people who are going to make up the leadership of this nation in 30 or 40 years, well, in 20 or 30 years, are 80 percent, if the

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Bree's of the world take over, it's the end of the

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Roman Empire all over again. If Bree has children on the way or currently?

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And will she even be married when she has those children? Yeah. Well, we could be. I mean, there are kids right now in junior high, they're 10 years out from being in a position to start having that same position of influence.

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And I was really surprised at some of the things that were thrown out yesterday in the discussion that I was watching, talking about, well, look at all the protesters, because you've got so much of these professors that used to be protesters in the 60s that are now professors.

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Oh, well, they were rioting and they were protesting in the 60s, and so nothing's really changed.

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No, a lot's changed. A lot has changed. A lot has changed. It has. No two ways about it. Well, it is fascinating the mind -bending ways in which the proponents of the redefinition of marriage, the gutting of marriage, the banning.

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I like this phrase. I've been wondering. We need some new phrases here. How about the banning of natural marriage?

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The banning of natural marriage. I think that's good. That's what we're talking about. Those who want to ban natural marriage.

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The fact they will not engage the real issues is truly an amazing thing.

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Michael Patton responded to me on Twitter. We might have a live narration of a Twitter discussion here today.

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Why not? Be not dismayed. Lots of people didn't, that is, get it. Whose fault?

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The writer or reader, though lots did get it. And I just responded, trust me, I got it.

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I objected to it. Did you get it? So we'll see. We'll see.

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The fact of the matter is I did, believe it or not. In fact, we might as well mention this.

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We didn't get it set up yet, did we? The e -mail address. Probably just totally forgot about it. But we will.

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We will get an e -mail address set up. It is the year 2013. It is the year 2013.

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And why is that relevant? Because Alpha and Omega Ministries came into existence in 1983.

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1983. Do the math. Some of you might remember five years ago.

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Five years ago, we did a little thing. We set up an e -mail address. We're going to set up an e -mail address again.

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Where people could send in some notes, some testimonials, some words of thanks about what the ministry,

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Alpha and Omega Ministries, had meant to them over the years. And we're going to do that again for the 30th year.

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Now, did we manage to double the advertising budget again this year? Yeah, we did, yeah.

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And zero times two is still zero. So we're not going to be able to really do much about this.

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But I think it's good to mark three decades of God's faithfulness to us.

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I mean, we ain't much bigger than we were back then. But you look at what we've done and you look at what we've got coming up.

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In fact, in fact, I am really excited. I am very, very excited. Right now,

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I mean, we haven't purchased the tickets yet. But thanks to the assistance of a fellow by the name of Simon Brace at Southern Evangelical Seminary.

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Yes, Southern Evangelical Seminary. A lot of you have commented about how much you really enjoyed the conversation that I posted from SES.

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Between myself and Professor Howe on theology and apologetics and stuff like that.

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And I'm really glad that y 'all appreciated that. But Simon Brace was the one that when you'd hear the volume go way up, it was because I was normalizing something you could barely hear.

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That was Simon. And Simon's from South Africa. And he went to South Africa just a few weeks ago.

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He told me he was going to be leaving just a few weeks ago to South Africa. And I said, you know, I really, really would like to have the opportunity of debating

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Yusuf Ismail. Yusuf Ismail is the successor of Ahmed Didat in South Africa.

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And he says, I will speak to my contacts. We'll see what we can come up with. Well, it just so happened that I went to Dublin.

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And in talking with Adnan Rashid, he, out of the blue, I had not mentioned it, mentioned a desire to debate in South Africa.

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And I said, whoa, really? I just talked with someone from the Christian side. So, I mean, if you try from your side and he's trying from the

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Christian side, the more people you've got remotely working on something and maybe getting together, the better chance things are going to work out.

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Well, I get this email. And, I mean, the first contact email I get from these folks in South Africa is like dates and locations.

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And we've talked with Yusuf Ismail and they're all excited. And, I mean,

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I can't, there's almost no place I have traveled to where there has been this level of specificity, let's do it, let's get it done, that we've got right here.

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And we're talking about debating Yusuf Ismail in a mosque in South Africa in September.

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Yeah, that's not very far down the road. So, I'm talking about the rest of this year

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I've got teaching in Berlin and then Lord willing, and here's what

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I want to do. And here's, well, this is one of the reasons I mentioned this. First of all, when we started this ministry 30 years ago, the idea that in one year

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I would do debates at Trinity College Dublin and teach in Berlin on textual criticism and then debate in South Africa really was not on the radar screen.

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Let me tell you something, that was, no, no, didn't, no, mm -mm, mm -mm.

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I will tell a story here quickly. Memory time with Uncle Rich.

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The first time I walked into that little tiny hole in the wall of an office. Oh, is that the two -room one?

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That was the two -room one. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. And I will never forget, because this was, we'd come over Sunday night after church.

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A bunch of people would, and we'd all be crammed in there. All maybe, what, five, six, seven of us?

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Yes, and I was still cramming. And you and Mike would be in the back room trying to record a message for the phone machines.

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266 -LDS, 266 -JWS, 266 -RC. And so the rest of us had to be really, really quiet because you were trying to record.

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Yes. And you'd be in the middle of... Well, we used to do that in our apartment.

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Yes. In the second bedroom of our apartment, yes. And I just remember being in the front room listening, because you can hear it through the walls.

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They were paper thin. And listening to you guys going back and forth, trying to record this message where both of you are doing this scripted spiel.

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Yeah, yeah. About five minutes long. Right. And you'd be in the middle of it and just start cackling.

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Cackling. Oh, yeah. Which gets the rest of us in the other room cackling. And before we know it, you guys can't go anywhere because we're all laughing at this recording you're trying to do.

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But we're all fascinated. Wow, the Mormons really believe that? Oh, man, I've got to look that up.

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We had been doing that for a long time. I remember one night at our apartment over there at 325

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West Pasadena, apartment number 17 is what it was. Mike and I were trying to record, and I think

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Alan was in there. We were trying to record. It was a Mormon one, and we were mentioning

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Parley P. Pratt. And for some reason, no matter how hard he tried,

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Mike just could not get through Parley P. Pratt. I forget what it was. Wilford Woodruff.

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Wilford Woodruff. Wilford Woodruff, yes. Oh, yes. Those were the days, let me tell you something.

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People might be chuckling about that, but those phone lines led to some very interesting conversations.

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In fact, the most interesting conversation I've ever had with a Mormon, which you participated in, in the

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LDS missionary apartment where the missionaries had tricked their partners to get rid of them.

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Yes. And we were sitting on that couch. The springs were so far gone that I didn't know if I'd ever get back out of it.

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I mean, you're talking ratty, nasty thing. And the missionaries are sitting in front of us on fold -up chairs, and we answered all the one guy's questions, remember?

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And it gets quiet. Well, you, if I recall, talked about - We had been having a lot of conversations before this. Yes, you were talking about Cora and his buddies.

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I don't remember what the specifics were. Yeah, if I recall, you were talking about Cora and his buddies, and the ground opened up and swallowed them.

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Well, it got quiet. It got real quiet. And I said, well, and I'll never forget this.

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He reaches down. He's, of course, a missionary, so he's got his missionary name tag in his pocket.

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He reaches down, grabs his name badge, pulls it off, and flips it over his shoulder across the room.

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Let's just say he didn't finish his mission. Yeah, that was the last time I think we heard from him.

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Oh, no, I learned that he was sent home. Well, yeah, you learned, but, I mean, as far as being able to meet with him, et cetera, that was a game over.

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I'm sure he was told, don't you dare. But it was those phone machines that made those contacts.

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I mean, those missionaries found that fascinating. They really, really did. I just remember standing there.

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We'd come in for a work night, and you'd hear the click, click, click, and it was the phone machines kicking in.

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And we'd all gather around. How long will they listen? Yeah. And we'd be staring at this phone machine.

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And we're talking phone machines that have tapes in them. Yes, and they're going, you know, it's a five -minute -long recording, and we're like, will they hear the whole thing?

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Will they hear the whole thing? Yeah. And when they'd go all the way to the end, we'd, like, get so excited.

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And then they, especially when they would leave. Oh, they'd leave a message. Well, then they'd leave a name and address. They wanted us to send tracks.

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Or the fun part. Or some other comments. They start making comments, and James reaches over, and up comes the phone.

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Hi, how are you doing? This is James White. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember, that's what we'd do with Philip Hravoznik.

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Yeah. He was leaving messages on the Roman Catholic line. And I was like, I picked it up, and he's like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

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Or Art Sippo. That was a real interesting one. But that was more like, we are

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Legion. It was. Anyways.

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Okay, what were we talking about? Oh, yes, we were talking about the 30 years. 30 years of zaniness.

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Oh, my. 30 years of Alpha Omega Ministries. So we could not possibly have imagined going to London and Dublin and Scotland and Berlin and now

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South Africa and Sydney and Brisbane and all the things we've done.

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Could not possibly have imagined that. We will be putting up an announcement, both with that email address.

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We need to get a volunteer to sort of monitor that. And what we did five years ago is we would post a lot of those email messages.

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And it was very encouraging for me and hopefully be encouraging for other folks as well. So be thinking about that.

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If the ministry has been of assistance to you, maybe you could take some time to let us know something about that.

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And then we'll also be putting something up because South Africa is a long ways from here.

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And so I need to fly there, and I'm sure it's not going to be cheap to be able to do that. So we'll need to raise the funds for that.

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And what I want to do is I want to break the trip up.

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It's about 6 ,000 miles from here to London and about 6 ,000 miles from London to South Africa.

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So I think wisdom would be to go to London and arrange to spend a little time there.

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A couple of days to sort of acclimate to the time change and stuff like that. And I have a friend over there in London who is a

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Roman Catholic that we've been talking to about doing some debates there. And so maybe we'll have our first Roman Catholic debate in London, either on my way or on my way back.

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I would assume it would be best to do it on the way out, to be honest with you. And then once we've got that, then fly down.

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And we're talking about a series of debates, not just one debate. We're talking about a series of debates in South Africa.

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I guess the Islamic population there is growing. And so I don't know if Adnan Rashid will be able to go down there.

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Shabir Ali has been down there in the past. We will see, but it will be interesting. And we're talking about the end of September.

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So don't have a lot of time. We'll try to get those things up as quickly as possible. And exciting stuff, really exciting stuff.

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As long as we have the freedom to be able to do these things, we will definitely be seeking to do so.

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So 30 years and who knows? I don't know.

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30 years from now, I'd be 80. Something tells me. No, not really, no.

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I'm not sure I'd be doing any debates past about 65 or so. So I better get them all in here while I can.

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Can we make 200 debates? Maybe that should be my goal in life. Yeah, I remember that guy.

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He did 200 debates, something along those lines. Michael Patton says, the two follow -up posts helped a lot of people.

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Because, see, I need help because I didn't get it. They might help you understand where I am coming from.

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So he's just absolutely adamant that I have no earthly idea where he's coming from. None. I don't get it.

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I've been doing this for 30 years and I just don't get it. Well, thank you, Michael, for that vote of confidence.

28:42

Michael, I do get it. And you don't get why I reject what you're saying. But it doesn't look like there's going to be anything coming out of that.

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Anyhow, let's open up the phones. I've got other things I'm going to be covering here. But open up the phones.

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We will get the phone calls eventually. But I do need to identify myself. I have a new title.

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A new title that was given to me at a Roman Catholic get -together recently.

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Here is my being given the new title that everyone needs to be using for me now.

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Flew down to Phoenix where the sort of guru of Calvinists who hate

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Catholics is. I am the guru, the sort of guru, of the

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Calvinists who hate Catholics. Here it is again.

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Flew down to Phoenix where the sort of guru of Calvinists who hate

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Catholics is. And spent some hours with him in his office. Actually, I'm playing at 1 .2

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speed. I'm sorry about that. But I am the sort of guru of Calvinists who hate

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Catholics. That, of course, is the sonorous tones of Jason Stellman, newly -minted convert to Roman Catholicism, formerly of Calvary Chapel and of the

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Presbyterian Church in America. And according to Jason, he was going to be giving a talk on the cruciform life.

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And then Scott Hahn, a man who has been challenged to debate many, many times but will not do so,

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Scott Hahn convinced him to give his conversion story.

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And so he gave his conversion story and it was very, very, very interesting to note the differences between his first conversion story, recorded with the

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Call to Communion folks, and this version, maybe because it was a little bit shorter or maybe it was because it was in front of a group of laymen or maybe he had just been encouraged to, you know, put the bullets in the gun and let it fly.

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Or maybe what we have here, maybe what you have here are the results of what

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I call the convert syndrome. The convert syndrome. And the convert syndrome

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I have experienced many, many times. I would say a majority of Roman Catholics that I have debated were actually converts to Roman Catholicism.

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Lifelong Catholics, many of them look a little bit askance at them, but they tend to be the ones that go out and do the debates.

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And so people like Jerry Matatix and Robert Syngenis, you know, they're all converts to Roman Catholicism.

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I know a little bit about the convert syndrome and the convert syndrome affects the memory.

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The thought had crossed my mind when Jason came to speak to me that I should have recorded it.

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I did not. I did not. But the thought crossed my mind. Because I had a very strong feeling he was converting to Roman Catholicism, and the thought crossed my mind, well, what we say, will it be accurately represented or does it become just a he said, he said type of a situation?

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Now, no rational person could take what was said in my office between myself and Jason Stellman and turn around and say, this man hates

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Catholics. That is just absurd.

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Now, I mean, I understand the mindset. People have been sending me, Tiquid has been sending me,

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James Swan has been sending me some links to the Catholic Answers forums this week. And every couple weeks, or maybe every couple months at the longest,

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I come up. And right now there's a thread that was prompted by Tim Staples' little article, which

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I'm almost done with my article, demonstrating the gaping holes in the arguments of one of the foremost biblical scholars in the

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Roman Catholic Church, according to Catholic Answers, Tim Staples. I need to get that done, but I've just been having a lot going on recently.

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Anyway, a thread started there. And honestly, and I said to Jason Stellman, I sent him an email today, with that line as the topic line.

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And I said, really? Is this the convert syndrome kicking in this early? And then I said, you know, where's the trajectory of this going to go?

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Eventually, are you going to be saying that I invited you to burn the Pope in effigy in my office? I said, you know, the sad thing is, there's a lot of people in Catholic Answers, a lot of people who follow

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Scott Hahn, they would believe you if you said it. They would. They would believe it in a heartbeat.

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It doesn't matter what kind of slander is posted in the Catholic Answers forums, those people go,

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I knew it! I knew it! He eats kittens! If someone went in there, pretended to be a

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Catholic, and said, I have evidence that James White eats kittens, there would be people who would go, I knew it.

34:58

I knew it all along. I mean, is that really the folks that Jason Stelman wants to have supporting him?

35:09

He says in this, there are a couple of really interesting things. In this particular story,

35:16

I'm going to only play one section, I only had time to queue up a few things. But in the original story, you may recall that we had reason to wonder about the fact that, basically,

35:33

Jason said that he slept through church history class. He thought the early church fathers were boring, didn't really know what was going on, they didn't talk about imputation, and so he really didn't spend much, he didn't have any interest in church history.

35:50

Very, very different from people like myself, and interestingly enough, the people who oppose

35:56

Roman Catholicism are generally people who actually know the most about church history, unlike what Cardinal Newman said.

36:04

Many people just repeat that out of just pure ignorance, but yeah, that is a myth. This time around, he says that he didn't like his first encounter with the arguments against Sola Scriptura because he honored the early church, and didn't want to be like those evangelicals who were just, you know, the

36:20

Bible alone under a tree someplace type thing. How do you honor the early church if you think the writers of the early church just didn't get it?

36:29

That didn't make any sense. He didn't mention all that stuff in this talk about how he thought the early church fathers were just boring.

36:37

Somehow, that didn't appear as interesting. And then we have the transformation of the conversation that we had, where initially his argument was, in the first giving of his testimony, that I just couldn't see his paradigm.

37:00

Well, of course I could see his paradigm. I fully know what his paradigm is, and I engaged him, but I just did not allow him to limit what we were talking about to what he wanted to talk about.

37:09

I wanted to talk about the gospel as well. Now, in this one, all of a sudden, he's already made up his mind about the gospel, and he's playing the devil's advocate as a

37:18

Catholic, and he can't get anyone to answer his questions. I tried to get him to defend

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Rome's position. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. And he as much as admitted it in the first one.

37:32

So it'll be interesting. We're going to keep track of these things, Jason. And the evolution over time, you might not see it.

37:39

You might truly be so deceived that you don't see it, so we'll have to document it for you. But we're going to keep a track on these things.

37:48

But the one thing I wanted to get to, and we do have a couple calls, so I'll just play through this, and I'll play it a little bit faster.

37:53

I will play it at the 1 .2 speed so we can get through it a little bit quickly. But I... Fake Richard Dawkins on Twitter just said,

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Dear Roman Catholics, I have evidence that Dr. Oakley, 1689, eats kittens. See?

38:10

It's going to... I don't even want to take a bet on how long it is before that comes up.

38:17

But... Anyhow, let's listen to...

38:23

This is just one portion where he's talking about how he, well, from my perspective, collapsed on the gospel. And I want you to think about this.

38:30

Now, if you have the blessing of being in a solid, reformed church, where you hear the

38:38

Word of God preached regularly, you hear the whole counsel of God... You know, it's funny.

38:46

I haven't yet responded to this email. But... Remember the email that was sent to me where someone heard my preaching down in Tucson?

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And wrote to me and said, Man, that was incredible. I am not used to hearing that kind of preaching.

39:09

It was wonderful. I'm a Catholic. If you actually are used to hearing solid, reformed preaching,

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I ain't much of a preacher, but at least I'm preaching through Hebrews. I try to preach Hebrews and things like that.

39:26

You're going to find what we're about to listen to to be very strange. But let's listen to it anyways.

39:32

Here's the former pastor of Exile Presbyterian Church talking about his collapse on the gospel.

39:39

My existing paradigm, my existing Presbyterian Protestant paradigm just failed more and more.

39:46

The more data I revisited, the more my paradigm failed to explain it. And so I reached what philosophers of science call a moment of paradigm crisis, which led to a paradigm shift.

39:56

I thought, I'm coming across all of these passages in Scripture that just...

40:03

It's not that I can't explain them or that I don't believe them, but it's just awkward the way

40:08

I have to fit them in and shoehorn them in to my system. I read the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus talks about,

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The one who hears these sayings of mine and does them will be like the one who builds his house on the rock. So on the day of judgment, when the flood of judgment comes, his house stands.

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Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven, it is he who is truly my child.

40:31

I'd read Romans 2. And in Romans 2 .13, it's one of those passages that Protestants struggle with.

40:37

It's a passage where Paul says, It's not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.

40:45

I read James chapter 2, where St. James talks about, Was not our father Abraham justified by works when he offered his son

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Isaac on the altar? Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Now, I knew about these passages.

41:00

I had read these passages countless times before in my years as a Christian studying scripture. And I had an explanation for them as a

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Protestant. But it just wasn't very natural. It was very forced.

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It was torturous. It was like exegetical gymnastics to try to shoehorn these passages into my existing theology.

41:18

Okay. Now. I'm not going to repeat the material in the 24 -page chapter on James chapter 2 in The God Who Justifies.

41:30

But there is not a single text that Jason Stelman just mentioned that is in any way problematic at all.

41:40

Torturous? I mean, Romans 2? Yeah, that's the text

41:48

I recently got to discuss with N .T. Wright on the unbelievable radio broadcast. Yeah. Torturous?

41:54

I mean, not the hearers, but the doers? Is there really something all that difficult to understand there?

42:01

But while I would like to go through each one of those texts because they're wonderful texts and any meaningful,

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Reformed preacher would not hesitate for a moment to preach them in their context because they in no way, shape, or form have anything to do with priests and popes and purgatory.

42:24

What I want you to hear is what he just said there at the end. Listen to this again.

42:30

It was very forced. It was torturous. It was like exegetical gymnastics to try to shoehorn these passages into my existing theology.

42:39

This is a man who just joined a church that teaches the

42:45

Marian dogmas? Kikaritamene in Luke is the foundation for that massive house of dogma?

42:58

And you want to talk about exegetical gymnastics? Indulgences?

43:07

Thesaurus Maritorum? Satispatio? How about sacerdotal priesthood?

43:14

How about the entire concept of the papacy? And you want to talk about exegetical gymnastics?

43:23

Listen to the debate. The Catholic Answers doesn't want anybody to know even exists. The debate with Tim Staples on purgatory based upon 1

43:32

Corinthians 3. You want gymnastics? What kind of deception can cause a person to have heard the truth with such clarity and then be able to turn against it in such a way that they can actually say that the religion they now belong to, which is the king of exegetical gymnastics, is actually the opposite of that.

44:06

Absolutely amazing. If you do not love the truth, you will be caused to love a lie.

44:17

And you just heard it. I listened to that and I wonder is that the only class, the history class you were bored with, sir?

44:24

I think there was a whole lot more to it. This isn't the church history thing. That's what

44:30

I mean. I don't think church history was the only class he was bored with. I don't think so. Yeah, he was bored with church history and clearly doesn't know church history, but there is no way that in the conversations he had with people like J.

44:44

Ligon Duncan and people like that that he was not challenged on these issues and you don't go to the school that he went to and not know how to do exegesis.

44:52

No. This is, I think, this is a spiritual issue. It's a spiritual issue.

44:58

If you do not love the truth, you will be caused to love a lie.

45:04

The lesson that we all should learn from this is do not become apathetic about the gospel.

45:15

If you have heard the gospel presented with clarity, if you understand the beauty of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to you as your soul standing before God and your union with Christ so that you are in Him and that is the only reason that you have peace with God as you've been justified by faith.

45:38

If you understand those things, don't ever become apathetic about them or you might find yourself in the position of Jason Stellman.

45:49

Let him be a warning to us all. Let's try to get our phone calls in as we have only a small amount of time left.

45:58

Let's talk with Austin in Wisconsin. Hi, Austin. Hey, Dr. White.

46:04

Yes, sir. This is Austin speaking with you. What can we do for you? Well, I'm almost 18.

46:12

I'm a young 'un. I might as well make that clear. I'd just like to discuss with you,

46:19

I guess you could say it's kind of my theory. I've been reading. Have you ever read

46:25

Ken Ham? A little bit. Anything? Yeah, with answers in Genesis. He's got an interesting book,

46:33

The Lie, that I just got finished reading. Basically, how evolution and creation affects our teenagers' morality.

46:47

No question about that. Worldview impacts everything. No question about it. Yeah. As just a high school goer,

46:57

I have a friend who's gay. Homosexuality is just one thing.

47:04

I mean, pick any sin, premarital sex. You see that all around high school, too. All these moral sins, they're wrong because God says they're wrong.

47:17

That's the point. God says it's wrong in the Bible. If you doubt creation, why not doubt these other parts of the

47:28

Bible, such as marriage, such as yada, yada, yada, et cetera, et cetera. I guess there's absolutely no question about the fact that if you do not have a

47:37

Creator, then you cannot have a law. You cannot sin against that law. There's no question that we are seeing the results of that in your generation, which is now being raised by a generation that has been thoroughly indoctrinated in secularism, and the results are all around us.

47:53

And that's why I've said I think what we need to be doing is instead of just talking about letting the other side, and of course they own the media, so that's why they get to do it, but the other side gets to determine what the debate's going to be.

48:10

I want to say to young people like yourself, your birthright as a human being, creating the image of God, having transcendent meaning to life, having a reason for living, having a reason to want to live a long life, other than just avoiding death as long as possible, but the reason to sacrifice as a husband for your wife and your children, to give of yourself, the reason for all those things has been stolen from you by a secular worldview that dehumanizes you and robs you of having those beautiful things.

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That's not normally how it's put, but that's the truth. You have been robbed, it has been stolen from you by the generations that came before you.

48:55

So be free to accuse your elders of having robbed from you that which was yours by right.

49:06

I say to you be free to do so, because it would be an appropriate and proper accusation to make because it's true.

49:15

I know we're short on time, I just want to make one quick thing though. I see in my own life as I got saved as a freshman,

49:25

I'm lucky, I got saved early, but in my spiritual walk,

49:30

I don't know if you can relate to me with this, but I was on a spiritual high for like two years.

49:36

I got saved and I just went gung -ho. It was awesome. It was Holy Spirit, it wasn't me. And I've kind of noticed in the beginning of senior year that high has kind of gone away a little bit.

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It's kind of like I'm having to work and my relationship with Jesus a little bit harder. And I don't know if you know what

49:55

I'm talking about or not. Of course. It's part of the process, Austin. You can't...

50:02

The initial zeal is a wonderful thing, but the fact of the matter is the process of sanctification where you are conformed to the image of Christ requires you to have to walk through dark valleys to learn some of the true, deep things of the

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Spirit of God. You cannot sit on the mountaintop and truly learn everything there is to know about God.

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The most precious things that you will learn about God and His grace and His purpose for your life are not found on the mountaintop.

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They are found in the valley, in the darkness, in the difficulty, in the hard times.

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And when you see God's faithfulness illustrated to you over and over and over again, that becomes the solid foundation that survives and gives you that joy in all the difficulties of the life ahead of you.

50:57

So, don't feel badly about that. That is necessary.

51:05

Yeah, I just hate it when I doubt Scripture. I was able to just believe it all at the snap of a finger.

51:13

I read it, and that's God's Word, and that's what it is. But just in my biology class this year, just how evolution is just pounded, that just so goes against creation.

51:26

Not even talking millions of years, just evolution. And I want to go into the medical field myself.

51:33

I'm already accepted at college. I'm going to be a major in biology and Spanish as of now.

51:39

And, man, if I'm struggling with these biological concepts right now in high school, with my parental supervision, with my accountability with my mentors at church, and after I'm gone, what's there going to be?

51:55

What am I going to have to cling on to? I mean, I don't know.

52:01

I was a double major in Bible and biology with a minor in Greek, so very similar in my undergraduate.

52:07

I had fought the battles in high school, as you are. I had to continue to fight the battles in college.

52:13

And the reality is, shortly after I graduated, and I finished my major in biology.

52:22

And so I especially focused upon genetics. In the summer after my graduation,

52:29

I read Richard Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker. I specifically sought it out as the best representation of the neo -Darwinian micromutational evolutionary theory that I could get.

52:40

And at that time, no one was using the term intelligent design. That stuff wasn't out there.

52:47

But it was my reading of Dawkins' book and struggling with his presentation that led me to understand the fact that life is irreducibly complex, that the whole system does not allow for this kind of unguided random direction that is an absolutely necessary part of the neo -Darwinian perspective.

53:15

And it was only a few years later that with Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box and things like that that I discovered that the conclusions

53:24

I had come to as a recently graduated major in biology were being talked about in these other places, and I gained the vocabulary to be able to see that.

53:36

The reality is, the more you will learn, especially about biochemistry and the complexity of life and I use the

53:43

ATPase complex in the mitochondria as one of the most amazing examples of the purposeful, absolutely necessary intelligent design of life, then the more you will be able to see that there is only one faith that presents a god that could be the source of that type of complexity and that kind of purpose.

54:12

But it is something, Austin, that I can tell you that, but until you experience that and work through that and not in a rushed way, don't be like modern people, expect things to be done like that, be patient and over time, that foundation, it is developed, it is the work of the

54:34

Holy Spirit, but it is done in each person's life in a different way, and God does not,

54:40

Christ does not lose His sheep. So, trust in Him, and go from there. Austin, we'll be praying for you, keep listening to the program, and God bless you.

54:51

Thank you, sir. Alright, thanks for calling. God bless. Bye -bye. Alright, real quickly, let's sneak one more in before we're out of time.

54:58

Not really sure why we're bothering, but oh, hi, it's Alan in Atlanta. Hi, Alan. I told you, if I call in, you're going to make some joke about me.

55:08

Of course. It's necessary. It's genetic. I don't know that I have enough time to get into this question, but I'll try to explain it really quick.

55:18

I've been a little frustrated recently dealing with another believer who has kind of put it to me about the redefinition of marriage.

55:30

He's a Christian, he's somewhat of, in my opinion, a radical libertarian. And so what he's saying is, while he believes homosexuality is wrong, and it would be wrong for them to get married, he's saying that, per his belief for the civil law for this nation, that he would not fight if it was put to a vote anyway, the same -sex marriage.

55:57

That he thinks that they're unbelievers. Why are we trying to — this is his argument — get them to act as though they are believers?

56:06

Now, there are certain things where I would say, okay, I agree. I am not a theonomist or a reconstructionist.

56:12

I don't think that homosexual acts should be punished by law. Although, after this conversation that I've been having with him,

56:18

I'm thinking about going that way, just for the sake of consistency. But it's very aggravating, because he's saying, well, be consistent and say that homosexual acts should be punished by law if you're not going to allow them to get married, because the same issue.

56:32

He says it's the same issue. No, it isn't, and here's why. Marriage is the first institution

56:39

God ordained amongst mankind. And God did not limit marriage to faithful followers.

56:47

Now, of course, the initial marriage was Adam and Eve, but the point is that, from a biblical perspective, marriage is absolutely necessary, and to be respected by all people, whether they are drunkards or idolaters or anything else, it is a creation mandate from God, because it's how he made us.

57:13

This is how the human race is to continue. You mess with this, and you're messing with the very foundation, the natural family that God designed that produces offspring and produces the context in which a child is to be able to see what a man is to be and see what a woman is to be and see what the relation is to be, and yes, even see in a fallen world when those things fail.

57:41

That's the reality. Well, the person who says, we shouldn't care about that, doesn't seem to realize that the

57:51

Scriptures hold the nations around Israel responsible for when they broke his law, that law based upon those creation mandates.

58:01

And so, when those nations around Israel did not take care of orphans or persecuted widows and things like that,

58:11

God condemned those nations for those things. God will condemn a nation for spitting in his face and twisting his creation and destroying the ordinances that he has placed among mankind for the good of mankind.

58:25

And so, you can be a libertarian all you want, but if what you're saying is, go ahead and let a culture commit absolute suicide,

58:34

I don't care, I'm not going to get involved, I don't think you're reading your Bible very well.

58:39

And I don't think you're, I think we're placed here to be salt and light. And salt is a preservative.

58:46

We know we're going to be in a society that is decaying, we're to be a preservative, we're to be that which tries to slow that process down.

58:55

And it sounds like your friend is saying, don't be salt, don't be light. The only place that I was able to get, so to speak, was on the issue of how it affects society and parenting.

59:09

Because the issue of gay marriage, as you've often said, is just the beginning. And that is not, it is not going to end there, and if it was, it would still be a problem if it was just gay marriage, but the issue of gay marriage with parenting, it's not isolated to just two people the same sex wanting to get married, there's issues of parentage involved, part and parcel with it.

59:30

Well, not only that, we're out of time, but not only that, just remember something that Andrew Sullivan said in, well,

59:35

I don't know if you heard it, but the debate with Doug Wilson. He said, we homosexuals thank you heterosexuals for continually producing for us new homosexuals.

59:50

In other words, he recognized they're dependent upon us, it's an us -them comment on his part, and I don't even know if he realized he was making it, but we recognize we are dependent upon you to get more of us, because we can't produce us.

01:00:07

And so I obviously believe it is an abuse of children, to allow them to be put in a position where they cannot have that model of the father and the mother, you're not going to get it with two men, you're not going to get it with two women, that's the way it is.

01:00:21

Alan, thank you for the phone call, we are out of time. Covered a lot of things today, thanks for listening to The Dividing Line, Lord willing, we will be here on Thursday, to press forward,

01:00:32

I need to respond to Bassam Zawadi, get back to Zakir Hussain, we've got all sorts of stuff to be talking about.

01:00:42

So we'll be here, hopefully you'll be there as well, God bless. ... ...

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