Dave Hunt's Traditions then Lynn Interviews Spong

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. 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. Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. 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 United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Why Theology Matters in the Dave Hunt Clip

Good morning, welcome to a rescheduled edition of The Dividing Line on a Friday morning. No, the alarm guys haven't showed up yet, but we're sending out search parties for the alarm company. We need to find them.

We can't find them at the moment, and I'm not going to comment anymore on that. First off on The Dividing Line today, the illustration of why theology matters. Some of you may recall this particular comment in a famous movie.

Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead.

Mostly dead. What happens when you are confused on your biblical anthropology? What happens when you try to hold together what the Bible says about the depravity of man and man's deadness and sin? And yet you have that human tradition of autonomy that man's a little god and that he determines his own destiny and God is just basically up there in heaven observing what goes on and he's not the sovereign king ruling over his creation unlike the rather clear testimony of scripture.

But what happens when you try to put those things together? Well, you become Dave Hunt.

Dear Dave and Tom, I'm puzzled about Matthew 7 -11 regarding the depravity of man. Jesus said we are evil, but then he implies that we can do good things. That's certainly evident in verse 12. How can we who are evil do something good?

Dave, let me read Matthew 7 beginning with verse 11. This is Jesus speaking as the writer mentions. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Now let's just stop that right now and ask the question, is this text addressing the ability of man, for example, to do what is spiritually good in God's sight? Is this addressing Romans 8 and saying that man is innately capable of in and of himself becoming obedient to the law of God and doing what is right before God?

Is this text talking about Jesus' words in John 6 when he says,. Is it talking about coming to Christ? Is it talking about fulfilling the law of God and doing so with the proper attitude? Is it talking about any of those things?

No, it is using an illustration that we would, as Reformed people, identify as one being derived from the natural order and what we might call common grace. And that is that even though it recognizes that people are evil, it recognizes what Jeremiah said, that the leopard cannot change its spots.

And so there is this, not just a bent toward evil that sometimes we resist, but in fact it has to be God's restraining power that keeps us from being as evil as we could be. We see this throughout Scripture and so we would say what we have here is the fact that as God created us, God created us in such a way that we are shocked when we see mothers and fathers who abuse their children.

We consider that particularly heinous, do we not? Because that is the way God has created us. We protect our children, we want to nurture our children, and it is a sign of the utter breakdown of a society and the wrath of God upon that society.

We see women leaving children in trash cans. And women, we hear these stories, we have had this happen here in Phoenix, where women would leave their children in cars while they go in as prostitutes or go in and do drugs.

And the children would be found in the cars and if it wasn't June or July or something like that, they might still be alive but sometimes those children are found dead because it is so hot in the cars.

And here in Phoenix, children die very quickly when they are left locked within a car and they cannot extricate themselves and so we are rightly offended greatly by those things. But does any of that have to do with providing a meaningful commentary on the text that specifically address whether man has the capacity outside of the work of the Holy Spirit, the effective work of the Holy Spirit, not the tried effort of the Holy Spirit, but the effective work of the Holy Spirit in doing what is right before God and in fact, bowing the knee in lordship to Christ.

That is the question that we will discover, of course, Mr. Hunt doesn't really answer. Verse 12 as well.

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. For this is the law and the prophets. First of all, Dave, it is amazing for people today, the Episcopalians and anybody else who takes exception to the scriptures that they say, wait a minute, you are trying to tell us that we are evil?

Well, Jesus said it and we can give a lot of other verses to support that idea. It is not exactly building one's self-esteem.

So the question was, if we are evil, how can we do any good? And the Bible indicates we can. So that relates to the tea and tulip.

Now notice something about Dave and people who have met with him over the years recently have said that this is a regular experience. That is that no matter what you start talking about, he finds a way to bring it to the subject of Calvinism.

And the emphasis in the text, of course, is on the fact that man is evil. And even though he is evil, he knows how to give good gifts to his children. You don't give him a rock or a snake when he asks for bread.

Okay, that means that God has created us in such a way. How much more than does God know how to give good gifts to those who call upon him? That is where the emphasis is. Where does Dave go? Well, see, we might be evil, but we can still do good.

It is the Pelagius emphasis. Not the biblical emphasis. It is the emphasis that Pelagius would find in such a text as this. Now I wonder, how could the imagination of man's heart only be evil continually?

How can that be? There wasn't anybody who, oh yes, I guess Noah, in and of himself, not by God's grace, but Noah in and of himself, maybe that wasn't the case. Well, again, the idea that God by his spirit restrains, that God by common grace is the one who is behind any of the goodness of man, that's just, it's reprehensible to the person who has as the central aspect of their theology this concept of the autonomy of man.

In Romans chapter 3, there's none that understand, none that seek of after God. They're all going out of the way. So you can't seek God, you're totally depraved, you're dead like a corpse, and somehow God is going to have to give you some life.

It doesn't sound to me like any of those biblical phrases Mr. Hunt actually believes. I mean, does that sound like someone relating stuff that he really does believe?

Before you could even open your ears, and then he'll give you the faith to believe the gospel. But Tom, right there in that passage that this person brought before us, we seem to have a contradiction.

Because if we're totally evil, how can we do any good? You could go back to the Old Testament.

Again, I have to stop and go, so we take a text that's actually contrasting God's holiness and goodness with man's evil nature, and the fact that even though he's so evil, he knows the difference between giving a serpent and bread to his children.

And what you get is, it sounds like there's a contradiction with Calvinism there, but no, it's because man's actually not nearly as bad as they think he is, and he is capable of doing these things in of himself, and blah, blah, blah.

And you just go, wow, what a tremendous warping of one's thought comes from the constant fighting against God's truth on this issue. And people call, and we've gotten calls like this a number of different times, and they will call and they will say, what do you do with these Arminians?

They hate God's sovereignty. How can they truly be saved? And all the rest of this stuff. And I consistently differentiate between those people who are slaves to their tradition, and they don't even think about this stuff.

As soon as you mention it, you see the lights turn off, the closed for business, opening tomorrow sign goes up in the window, and there's nothing going on as far as any cognitive thought. The pastor that led them to the Lord many years ago said, watch, beware of that Calvinism stuff, and as soon as they hear anything that even smacks of it, boom, they're gone, and that.

And so they've never really gotten into it. There is a danger, however, when you have people who go on crusades, and they are so in love with their tradition, and so in love with identifying their tradition with the Word of God, which is what Dave Hunt has always done.

You question his particular interpretations of even down to eschatological issues, and this is the Word of God here, the Word of God teaches what I teach. And so when the tradition becomes equal with the Word of God, wow.

You end up seeing some tremendous imbalances result, and questions concerning the nature of original sin, and hear the depravity of man, and what that means, and man's capacities, and dancing across the line into Pelagianism, where men can do good in and of themselves.

Grace is not necessary. I mean, I know Dave Hunt's followers aren't going to like this, but there are times when Rome is more orthodox in their view of man than Dave Hunt is, because of Dave's desperation to denigrate and denounce Calvinism.

And when you start getting on that kind of a thing, and we can name some other names here, you start getting into some really dangerous areas.

A Philistine king, I think he was, Abimelech was his name, and after Abraham and Sarah, they pretend that she's his sister, and he's about to take her to be his wife, and he's warned of God in a dream.

The king, that is. Yeah, the king is. And he says to Abraham, Why would you do this evil to me? You could have brought judgment upon my household. And here are his words. I have done unto you nothing but good.

Okay, and here we have. Jesus says, You're evil, but you know how to give good gifts to your children. You can do good things. We are exhorted to do good and to pursue peace with all men.

Dave, verse 13, 14 says, Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction.

I have no idea what that has to do with anything, and sometimes I don't think that Dave Hunt knows what T .A. McMahon is talking about. Dave just sort of goes back to whatever he was talking about, as if T .A. hadn't even interjected anything there.

But Abimelech, I've done nothing but good. Is that really what is going on here? Or does Genesis chapter 20 say, Now Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, will you slay a nation, even though blameless?

Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this. So Abimelech says, I was lied to. And what I've done, I did out of ignorance.

And notice what God says. Then God said to him in the dream, this is Genesis 26, Yes, I know that in integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against me, therefore I did not let you touch her.

Why not get to that point? Because he wants to present Abimelech as having a natural capacity outside of God's grace to continually do what's right before God. And that's not what's going on here. Abimelech is kept from sinning against God by God.

Now someone might argue, well yeah, but God did that because he did that in the integrity of his heart. And so if you have integrity in your heart, then God will respond by keeping you from further sin and blah blah blah blah blah.

Now, if you're a proponent of the autonomy of the human will, I don't care what you say went first. God kept Abimelech from sinning against him. Now, you think about that for a moment. If God can keep Abimelech from sinning against him, what does that mean?

What does that mean to human autonomy and the whole concept that lies behind it? Good question. But again, you see the difference between those who would accept the full spectrum of biblical teaching about the sinfulness of man and recognize that in the words of someone who is in channel right now to utilize the terminology that he utilized, the difference between intensive depravity and extensive depravity.

That's one way of basically saying that man, while extensively depraved, that is every aspect of his being is depraved, it doesn't mean that there is an absolute intensity of depravity in every aspect of his life.

In other words, as I've said many times, total depravity does not mean that every person is as evil as they could be. They've done everything in their life that they could possibly do that was bad, and that's not the case.

God does not allow that. This entire world could not exist if that were to be the case. And no, Dave does not allow for distinctions like that. Instead, when he sees these alleged contradictions in scripture, he just simply dismisses the foundational elements, such as the entire concept of the decree of God and the sovereignty of God over against this unbiblical concept of the traditions of men regarding the autonomy of man.

Anyway, I've got other things to get to today, so let's let this one wrap up here.

In other words, we can make a choice. There are some good things that we can do. Exactly.

So all through the Bible we're commanded. So what does the scriptures teach? Well, it's the natural bent of my heart. I'm selfish. I'm going to take care of myself. So we are evil. Oh, absolutely evil.

There's nothing to do with good, no, not one.

Even though, do you remember? I didn't go back to track it down, didn't have time to this morning, but do you remember when he was at Calvary Chapel? That time he was wearing the sport coat over the Hawaiian shirt.

I think that's a pulpit cry right there. I think he's got one chapter of a picture of Dave Hunt in a sport jacket with a Hawaiian shirt at Calvary Chapel. And just make that one chapter, the fashion crime right there.

That's just all wrong. I mean, either go for the Hawaiian shirt, the shorts, and the flip flops, or leave the jacket out. But putting the two of them together, just, no, wrong. Yeah, the fashion police need to be called on that one.

But when he was there, he was speaking on Romans 3, and he did say, he went in the Old Testament, there were men who did good. And so, what does that mean? He was basically trying to say Romans 1 and Romans 3 is not as extensive as we thought it was.

This is just a general thing. And did you notice when he defined his own sinfulness? Did you notice something about it? I'm stopping here just a moment to let you think. Because I can just keep on rolling, because I know what I'm about to say, but if I don't stop to let you think about it, then that doesn't really accomplish much, does it?

Did you notice the kinds of sins he referred to? I'm not disagreeing that selfishness, putting myself first, impatience, those, yeah, they're sinful. But isn't there a much more basic level? This is where I really wonder how many people today really, really, really do believe in the doctrine of original sin.

I bet you anything that Dave Hunt would not say that the newborn child of Adam is actually repulsive to a holy God because that is a sinner and that one is born in sin. I bet you he would not say that.

And in fact, I bet you the vast majority of people would not say that. Because the vast majority of people would define sin primarily in reference to man rather than the holiness of God. They'll define things anthropocentrically rather than theocentrically and that then leads to a very anthropocentric gospel, anthropocentric concept of sin, salvation, justification, all of it can only rise as high as the foundation it's built upon will allow it to rise.

And you see the result of that.

Yet we're told to do good. Now, Tom, then we'd have to say, well, even when we seem to do good things, we do it for selfish reasons to receive the praise from men or because I don't really have a choice or I want to get reciprocated.

Somebody didn't do good to me, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Well, in part, isn't it part of the golden rule, Dave?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What did that have to do with anything? We are totally incapable of doing anything good at all because a mother will go into a burning building to sacrifice her life for her child.

That's in there.

Okay, so it's not that we can't do anything good at all, okay? If he was actually addressing total depravity, which he's trying to do, what should the argument be? The issue with Calvinism is doing that which is good in the sight of God in the sense of bowing the knee in lordship to Christ, having the autonomous capacity to will the death of the old man, not the common grace that exists in God's creative decree to where women are willing to sacrifice their lives for their children.

There's a difference between the two and he wants to wipe that difference out and say that if an unregenerate pagan woman can be, quote, good, end quote, enough to run into a burning building to save her child, that means everybody has the capacity of autonomous free will to accept or reject Christ.

Now that's really bad argumentation, but that's what we're getting and evidently that's what a lot of folks just sort of expect from Dave Hunt and that's what he delivers.

There are instances, and I think there are probably half a dozen or more, one not too long ago, where an unsaved, as far as I know, soldier throws himself on a hand grenade to save the lives of his buddies.

Now I would say that that is a great goodness, self-sacrifice. Where would you get the motive for that? So we have stories and history of men who rose to great heights of goodness and they got nothing out of it in order to benefit others.

And yet our hearts are deceitful.

Does he sound confused to you? It sounds confused to me because he's trying to play both ends of the field and it ain't working. What's the one word that just is absent from this discussion that would have to be a part of this discussion if he was actually going to be responding to Reformed theology?

Grace. Grace. But it's not there. I haven't heard it. It's just all man's capacities and man's abilities, and yeah, we're sinful and yeah, we're evil, but we can't let it go so far as to where we are so sinful and evil that we're actually dependent upon God for any of the good that we do.

He says, above all things, desperately wicked. And David says, search me, O God, try my heart. So we don't even know our own motives for doing things. But to say that I'm totally depraved, as Calvinism says, I can't even respond.

I can't even believe the gospel. Well, we only need to go to Isaiah 55, for example, where it says, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Well, wait a minute. But Psalm 14, quoted by Paul in Romans 3, says, there's none that seeketh after God.

But you can go through the Old Testament, dozens of scriptures. I sought the Lord and was found.

Now, anyone who's listened, who's read debating Calvinism, knows that Dave has had this explained to him by yours truly. He's undoubtedly had it explained in numerous letters that were written to him.

I'm fairly certain that those Calvinists who reviewed What Love Is This explained these issues to him. He has no ears to hear. He doesn't even acknowledge the response, doesn't even give evidence that he's willing to hear it.

Yes, you have in the Bible, there is none who seek after God. And then you have the psalmist who said, I sought the Lord. And what is his conclusion? Well, it must mean that some do seek. What would the logical response be?

If there are none who seek after God, but it is God who seeks after us, and God kept Abimelech from sinning against him, and God acts in grace, then why would anyone say, I sought the Lord? Because he first sought me.

We love because he first loved us. Isn't that John's exact language? In fact, there's a textual variant there. You may have memorized it, we love him because he first loved us. But actually, it's we love because he first loved us.

So there is a priority here. And why is it that man wants to make sure that it's man that has the priority? That God can only be in the position of the great responder? That God died? Well, it's real simple.

That means I'm in charge. God did what he did because I enabled him to do that. What about all the commands? Seek ye the Lord? Yes. When the Holy Spirit brings me to spiritual life, I need to have the instruction of the Lord to know what to do, and that's what that's all about.

The error is assuming that because there are commands in Scripture, that that means that every single person, including the slave to sin, is in the position to fulfill those commands. God's under no obligation to remove the slavery of sin, especially when every single person in it loves it.

Loves it. Isn't it ironic that it's the libertarians who are arguing that God should remove from us the very object of the love of our hearts for our position to be consistent? Isn't that amazing?

Well, anyways, we're almost at the end. And I found him. So it says, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him.

So it's kind of a mixed bag, Tom. We are evil, but we can. We are not totally depraved to the point that we don't recognize the difference between good and evil. And who says that? Who says that?

No one. Certainly not the Calvinist. He thinks he's refuting. Where has a Calvinist said that we don't recognize the difference between good and evil? What we say is that we love the evil. We know what we're doing is evil, but once it becomes the very essence of our nature, we love that evil.

Yeah, I can come to the point. We see this in, what was it, a couple days ago up in San Francisco. Who was it I heard talking about this? There's a private school up in San Francisco with the little kindergartners.

They are going to be functioning this year without referring. That was Laura Ingram. That's right. They're going to be functioning this year without referring to gender. So little kindergartners are not going to be little boys and little girls anymore.

They've even got a unisex bathroom. And if you want to be a little girl one day and a little boy the next day, gender fluidity. That's depraved. And yet it's become an entire world view, especially in those places where depravity is enjoined and celebrated as it is in San Francisco and in other places in the United States.

But it's still depravity. And you may love it, but it's still wrong. And it's only a long process down the road, the process described in Romans chapter 1 where he gives men over, he gives women over, gives them over, gives them over.

It's a process to get to the point where you can actually think that that which is evil is good. That starts getting you into the realm of the unpardonable sin, calling evil good and good evil and so on and so forth.

We can do good, but that's not going to save us, of course. And that's the important thing. Because once you're a sinner, you're a sinner. Once you commit a sin, you can't make up for sinning in the past by keeping the law perfectly in the future.

There is a mixture there, but it's not hopeless.

In other words... It's not hopeless, but I'm not going to talk about grace. Of course it's not hopeless, because of the grace of God. But once you've gotten rid of the grace of God as being effective because you have neutered it and made it subject to the authority of the will of man, well, then you've got a problem.

The sinner can be aroused by the gospel. And his conscience can be smitten. God has written his laws in everyone's conscience. And we can't turn to the Lord. Otherwise, what's the point? Jesus says, come unto me.

Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. How do you know that you are laboring and are heavy laden outside the work of the Holy Spirit? See the terrible things that happen when you start messing around with God's Word.

I wanted to bless you, but you would not. It didn't say that, did it?

I wanted to bless you, but you would not. No, he's talking to the Jewish leaders about their resistance to his ministry. He differentiates between those he wanted to gather. Listen to... See, Dave has been told this over and over and over again.

He doesn't care. He does not care when he mishandles the Word of God. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. He needs to be held accountable for the fact that he just doesn't care about the accuracy of his handling the Word of God.

So, obviously, God wants man to come to him, and it's not something innate within man. If it were, and God had to cause man to come, then what is this weeping over man? You wouldn't come to me.

No. Is something innate in man? What does he mean by that? The goodness, the ability is innate in man? That seems to be what he was just talking about. Well, there you go. There's Dave Hunt once again demonstrating.

And when it comes to subjects like original sin and the depravity of man and so on and so forth, he remains just as stubbornly wrong as ever. One term you can use of Dave Hunt is he is stubborn in his defense of his traditions.

You can refute him all day long, and he does not care. And I just remembered that I hadn't even been thinking about this during the program at this point, but remember, we have a note. The dividing line is listened to by the folks up at the Breein Call.

So, hi again to the folks up there. Please pass on our words to Dave and ask him to please do what he tells everybody else to do and handle the Word of God aright. Admit when you're wrong. Admit you couldn't get Spurgeon right if your life depended on it.

Admit that you cannot do exegesis and you've been proven wrong. Bow before the authority of the Word of God and do what's right, Dave, and start speaking the truth. You've still got time to make up for all these past few years of silly crusading against Reformed theology.

We're going to take our break and come back with John Shelby Spong and Barry Lynn and try to wrap that one up, too, here on The Dividing Line. We'll be right back.

Justification by Faith and the King James Only Controversy

The history of the Christian church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith. Once the core of the Reformation, the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine. In his book, The God Who Justifies, theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of, understanding of, and dedication to the great doctrine of justification and then provides an exegesis of the key scripture texts on this theme.

Justification is the heart of the gospel. In today's culture where tolerance is the new absolute, James White proclaims with passion the truth and centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith.

Dr. J. Adams says, I lost sleep over this book. I simply couldn't put it down. James White writes the way an exegetically and theologically oriented pastor appreciates. This is no book for casual reading.

There is solid meat throughout. An outstanding contribution in every sense of the words. The God Who Justifies by Dr. James White. Get your copy today at AOMN .org. Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God, James White in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith.

In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.

You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .AOMN .org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?

No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply. It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded.

Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so-called extreme Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of scripture.

The Potter's Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomin .org.

Barry Lynn, John Shelby Spong, and the Authority of Scripture

And welcome back to Dividing Line, James White with you on a Friday morning. I was just about to upload some files to the web, but we will, I guess the break ended there. So we will continue on. Caught me trying to make sure I've got redundancy in regards to keeping, especially book files available so that we don't lose them, especially when our computers walk off and go someplace else.

Anyway, I certainly hope that my computer that walked off like malfunctions immediately. That would be great. I think that would be a wonderful thing. We have for a number of weeks sort of skipped over and have not gone back to visit the interview between Barry Lynn, who of course has been an ACLU board member, head of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State organization, a well-known liberal and anti-Christian heretic, and John Shelby Spong, retired Bishop of Newark and very much in Lynn's camp as far as theology is concerned.

And so we were about halfway through that particular conversation. And again, I was attempting to emphasize the necessity to understand where these folks are coming from, to recognize that one of the biggest mistakes, I think, that people make in responding to them is that you fall into the trap of thinking that every single thing they say is wrong.

And then when you try to prove every single thing they say is wrong, they can prove that they're right about some of the things they say, and therefore they must be right about everything they say and you must be wrong about everything you say.

There is nothing wrong with recognizing the truth content of what anybody says. That doesn't mean that the entire presentation is true or that their worldview is true or that it's equal with yours or anything else.

You need to try to avoid that kind of thinking, that kind of mindset that gets us into a lot of trouble. And so we are halfway through the conversation in regards to Bishop Spong's book,.

The Sins of Scripture. We find him even stepping beyond the boundaries of his religious tradition. His religion said, you've got to obey the Sabbath. And Jesus says, no, the Sabbath was made to enrich human life.

It wasn't the other way around. His religion said that a woman taken in the act of adultery was to be stoned. And Jesus stands between these stones. Over and over again, he sort of steps outside the boundaries.

And I think the call of Jesus is a call to a new and deeper humanity where we recognize that there's no Jew and Gentile, there's no American. It's one humanity. That's where we've got to go. Ultimately, we've got to do that with the other religions.

God is not a Christian. God is not a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu. All of those are human systems which we have created to enable us to walk. We don't need to honor them, but we don't need to act as if we've captured God inside them.