In Studio Guest JD Hall Plus Rob Bell on Oprah

Well, good afternoon.

Welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White, and we are live today. We're a little bit early so that our in -studio guest can get plenty of sleep tonight because he's going to be busy.

Busy tomorrow night, I believe. Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night, yes. I am joined in studio by the true, actual head of the

Calvinist Cabal, J .D. Hall. Notice, J .D.

is dressed for Montana weather rather than Phoenix weather, and right now in Phoenix, it's like your

July. Just because your weather is wrong doesn't mean that my wardrobe has to change. The rest of the world is saying that our weather is oh -so -right.

People back east were sending me all these pictures of their apps, you know, minus 17 and all the rest of this stuff, and they're all just complaining that I had left the front door open all night, and it had gotten all the way down to 64 degrees in the house as a result.

So, yep, yep, that's – and you can testify we're not lying. You know, I tell you what, though.

Every time I fly somewhere, I look at how beautiful it is and everywhere, and I come home to eastern Montana, I feel bad because we don't have trees.

I miss trees, but I got to tell you what, when I flew into Phoenix, I felt better about Montana because you guys don't even have grass here.

So, at least we have grass in eastern Montana. When I grew up out here, and so the first time

I flew back east, I remember we came out of the clouds, and I see all this green stuff, and the first thought across my mind was, man, these people's irrigation bill must be huge.

How can they afford to do this? It's incredible, and yeah, that's just the way it is.

But, yeah, I know, come July, you're all going to be going, it's so hot down here, but the reality is we just have to shovel sunshine, and that's the way it is.

So, what – what, you want to get in on this, too? Just keep going. Oh, just keep going? Okay, you're going to adjust the shot here?

You don't have to be so perfect about it, you know? It's just a webcast, you know? No one really – neither

J .D. or I are really vying for having television personas and faces, anyways.

So, you're in town to do a debate.

Normally, that's what I'm doing. This time, you're doing it, and that's going to be tomorrow evening, and let me read the – let's see, 6 .30

p .m. Mountain Time, at least we didn't change your clock for you. That's right. Your time is right.

The time is right. It's the year, anyway. Well, no, actually, it's only five months, because this stupid daylight savings time thing is – they extended it.

Dr. Joel McDermott of American Vision will defend the resolution, quote – make sure this is correct – mosaic civil laws are obligatory for civil governments today, end quote.

Correct. Against you. So, what brought this – how did this all happen?

I went on a five -minute rant one time on the Pulp and Pen podcast. I didn't think about it.

It was just off the cuff. I was talking about Christian dominionism, and it was really more dominion theology I was going after, and then

Jeff Durbin over at Apology Radio took my five minutes and somehow turned that into an hour -long critique of my five minutes, and so then

I upped the ante a little bit and did a three -episode critique of theonomy, and from then, it was supposed to be a debate or conversation of some kind on Pirate Christian Radio, Fighting for the

Faith with Rose Burrell and me and Joel McDermott, and then it turned into this.

That didn't happen? Somehow. No, we decided to do it this way instead. Okay. In person, making it about – Well, having a

Lutheran in there would just completely confuse her. It would. I mean, because he'd be sitting there going, mystery!

It's all mystery! Right, and then Chris would have to turn the two -and -a -half -hour -long debate into like an eight -hour debate review complete with Monty Python sketches.

And various sound effects and things like that. Oh, yeah, definitely. We're doing it this way instead.

I think it'll be a netifying time. I hope so. I don't anticipate too many non -theonomists being at this conference.

No, I don't think so. The debate's just a part of the overall conference, and I know Sy is going to be there.

Sy Tenbrunke spoke at Reformation Montana for me last year. Great guy.

Talked to Sy last night. I don't think he's what you'd call a hardcore theonomist, but I'll let you speak for himself.

Hopefully, Sy can keep me from being pummeled on my way out with stones. I don't think you have to worry.

Yeah, I've seen Joel be very nice and gentlemanly.

He was last night. Expect to have a good time. Well, good. It's going to be interesting.

I'm not going to ask you too much about that, but obviously, to travel as far as you've traveled, it's more than just simply, well,

I went on a rant, and so now I'm defending my rant. This is more important than that. Yeah, it is.

For whatever reason, God's given me a sphere of influence, and it's a small sphere of influence, but it's a sphere of influence over part of whatever you want to call it, a reformed resurgence or whatever.

It really is my heartfelt contention that theonomy is a distraction from what we, particularly as reformed folks, ought to be doing.

I'll be bringing that up tomorrow night, how I think it is a distraction from the gospel, and it's a confusion in many different ways of law and gospel and the proper use of God's law in this covenant.

How should we do that? It's interesting because the resolution title is that Mosaic civil laws are obligatory for civil governments today, and I'm in a unique position because I'm a reformed

Baptist that holds to the 1689 as my confession, which, of course, is more or less a spitting image with a few changes to the

Westminster. It's kind of built on that pattern. Savoy Declaration has some influence, but yeah. And I think

I hold to the Westminster Confession better than my opponent does. Particularly in Article 19.

So we'll be pointing out some of those things because Chapter 4 of Article 19 says that the

Mosaic civil laws are not obligatory. So as a Baptist, I'm actually arguing with the

Westminster Confession against my theonomic opponent, who happens to be a

Presbyterian. So we'll get into these things. And I'm not totally sure what we'll get into because I'm the negative.

I'm going to be following him where he goes. We'll see where he goes. Well, let's hope it really does get into good stuff.

Let me just read that section. This is from the modern language version, but this is in the 1689. To the people of Israel, God also gave sundry judicial laws which applied as long as they remained a nation.

The principles of equity which appear in them are still valid, not because they are found in Moses' laws, but in virtue of their unchanging character.

Right, which is quite a departure from what... I mean, it's the same, I suppose, in idea, but the word obligatory is actually used, not obliging those, it says in the

Westminster, which again, I find it ironic. That's how the title of the debate was framed, whether or not it's obligatory.

And that's so I believe it says to them, speaking of the nation of Israel as a body politic, he gave them sundry judicial laws which have now expired, not obliging those any further than what the general equity of those laws may allow.

So I'm going to be arguing with the confession. Of course, there were some changes to that in regard to the government's role in enforcing, say, the first and second table of God's law.

I believe that's chapter 23 of the confession. It changed in 1788 or 89 among the

Americans because of some important things you may or may have not heard about in school called the

Constitutional Convention. There are some changes there, but so it's unique. I'm coming in from a

Baptist perspective, arguing from a reformed Baptist perspective, but it's the same as the historic and orthodox reform perspective against someone who is reformed that I think is deviated from that.

So, but he's not the first one to have done this. I mean, there have been some who wanted to try to remain confessional and others who just simply said, eh.

Yeah, there are. Rush Dunning was the first one, and he said that the Westminster Confession on this point was, quote, guilty of nonsense.

James Jordan said that it was this category scheme. He called it was erroneous. Bonson, though, tried to say, well, it does flush with the

Westminster Confession because he redefined general equity. Then he did something else that really concerned me when

I saw what he did, and that is to use in the scriptural proofs, the various references, biblical references, and to interpret those contrary to the plain reading of what was put there by the

Westminster divines. And it made me so nervous. Actually, we were redoing our constitution, church constitution, a couple of months ago.

And one of the things, it wasn't a big revision. We were just adding an amendment. But I thought, while we're in here and we have to make this a congregational matter,

I took the scriptural proofs out of our church constitution. The reason

I did that is because I don't want anyone doing to the church constitution what Bonson did to the Westminster Confession and taking our scriptural proofs, going in, applying our own interpretation, and saying what they meant by their plain spoken words is different than what others have always interpreted to be because look at the scriptural proof which they happened to use.

Not as though the scripture isn't the only infallible rule of faith and practice. It is. But I don't want someone to really isogete the scripture and then apply it backwards to the confession in terms of what was plainly spoken.

And I've heard theonomists say, can you even hold to the Westminster Confession without being a theonomist?

And I want to, my head wants to explode a little bit. How do you hold to the

Westminster Confession and be a theonomist? How do you do that? Because you really can't without,

I think, redefining terms. And I think, you know, I have no idea the personal character of Bonson.

I believe he's a man of integrity. I want to presume that. He was certainly a genius. Bonson, I think, was by far the most brilliant of theonomists to come down the line.

But he had a job to keep at a reform seminary. And I think those credentials were important to him.

You know, Bonson had to fight for two years for his ordination. His ordination council didn't want to give it to him because of these peculiar views.

So he fought for his ordination. I think he was trying to keep it. But you look at others in the theonomic movement, they have no problem distancing themselves from their own confession.

So hopefully there will be great clarity on what theonomy is.

I hope so. And that if you actually believe that the moral principles of God's law, well, you know,

I will write my law upon their hearts, etc., etc. That you have to make the distinctions. If you believe the moral principles remain valid, you'd say you're not a theonomist.

I think you said earlier, you just have a biblical worldview. Yeah. If you said, I believe God's law is important. I think the civil code has a place to play.

I think it's useful today. We can use the civil code. It serves a function. It serves a purpose within God's word.

If you say it fits within what Paul had told Timothy, that all scripture is good for proof, correction, training, and godliness.

That doesn't make you a theonomist. That makes you a Christian with a biblical worldview. What kind of Christian would say,

I don't think the civil code that was given to the commonwealth of Israel can teach us anything, can edify us.

I don't think it demonstrates to us anything to know about the character and nature of God. We'd say, well, you know,

I think you're wrong. That's not a proper view to have of either the scripture or the world. The question is, is it obligatory?

In the Baptist catechism, which my church uses, it's several hundred years old. The question is, what's the point of the Ten Commandments?

And the answer is, to teach us our duty, make clear our condemnation, and show us our need of a

Savior. Now, that's the moral law, the Decalogue of the Ten Commandments. We don't believe the civil code exists for precisely the same purpose as the moral law, neither the ceremonial code.

And they would agree with us on the ceremonial code. Most of them. Rush Duny wouldn't, but say Bonson and North, and I think

Joel. But we have the moral law. If we fail, it's showing our condemnation.

The question is, if I fail to stone, or if my culture, if my government, fails to stone a woman who claimed to be a virgin on her father's porch, she gets married, she's not.

Does that demonstrate our need for a Savior by not following that civil code the same way as not following the moral law, and lusting in our heart, or committing murder in our heart, or stealing, covening, taking

God's name in vain? And I'd have to say, there has to be a distinction. And it's a distinction that theonomists have sometimes made.

And I may have to point that out tomorrow night, but it's a distinction without difference. Bonson said that anyone who holds to a view separating the civil code from the moral law, he says, is, quote, latent antinomianism.

And I'd say, listen, the Scripture itself does that. And that's part of what the debate is about. I've been careful not to talk about this, because there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of chest thumping that can go on before a debate.

And, yeah, believe it or not. You know what? It can happen after a debate.

Yeah, yeah. And so I wanted to avoid that. I'm even hesitant to talk about it now, because, well,

I just am. And I know that those guys over there, maybe not Joel so much as some others, on that side of the aisle, have taken my silence to be a sign of insecurity or being frightened.

No, you just haven't gotten your listening devices into their offices yet. Don't talk about that.

You're going to give me away here, Southern Baptist CIA. Oh, man, let me tell you. So I'm actually releasing my pre -debate thoughts at 9 o 'clock

Friday night. So you can see what I thought going into the debate immediately after the debate. And then I'll give my,

I'm supposed to be on some podcast, I think, a whole Bible thumping wing nut. Yes, Bible thumping wing nut.

I crashed their podcast week four last. They happened to just tweet out, we're doing it right now.

And so I started listening in. They had a chat room and I went in and they're like, no, that's no, that's not him.

And then when I proved I was, they're like, flop sweat. And I'm really nervous now. And they started stuttering.

It was great. I really enjoyed doing that. Not nervous, not nervous at all. You know, I had a deacon at my church, in your church.

Yeah, yeah. He said, he said, hello. And I was on my way to start the service. I didn't see him after. And he texted me. He's like,

I found, I wound up here by accident because I Googled online. I tried to find the church that was most like ours and I went and there's

James White. And he was excited. And I thought, you know, perfect. Now they're going to be comparing me to James White.

And sure enough, I come out of church and constantly, it wasn't you that preached. I think it was Don, is that your pastor's name? And he, first he texts me.

He's like, did you know such and such verse wasn't in the Bible? And I guess it was something that was discussed in Sunday school.

I did a whole thing on Luke 22, 43 to 44. Okay. And the sweating as it were drops of blood in the garden.

So then after service, it was about how awesome it was. You know, when you're a pastor and that happens, it's like, all right,

I got it. It was good. Okay. You're like, enough. Enough. I understand. It was good.

If he had been wise, he would have texted you and said, eh, not compared to what we used to. I texted him back. I said, it's nice for you to hear good preaching for a change.

And then he texted me and said, quit being a diva. You want a Snickers. That was his exact response.

That's good. That is good. That is, that is very good. Yes, I didn't, I didn't get a chance to talk to him. Like I said,

I was on my, it was after Sunday school and we only got a certain amount of time. And I was on my way to start the service.

And Don will even tell you, he really struggled on Sunday. He said he forgot his first point. When he turned 60, you'll love this.

When he turned 60, he decided he needed a new challenge. So he stopped using notes. He had to memorize all of them. He's now 73.

And do you use notes? Yeah. Yeah, so do I. So I said to him Sunday, I said, you know what?

Most of us humans, we use notes. Don't, don't, don't, don't, you don't have to put an extra layer of, of, of stuff there.

You know, even just an outline, you know, and he's like, yeah, yeah, I'll probably, I'll probably. You know, I, I used to use notes and never a manuscript.

And then about four or five years ago, I was preaching through Romans. And I got to Romans 8,

Romans 9. And the church had not heard the doctrine before. It must have been longer than that, probably seven years ago,

I'm guessing. And so I thought, you know, every word counts. And so I thought, just for this particular sermon series, till I get through with this little bit of Romans, I'm just going to write out every word so I know

I don't say something wrong. And I've stuck with that ever since then. Really? Yeah. The only time

I've ever done anything like that at all was in my early debates, when I needed to know exactly how much time.

And I, back then, it was how much can you get into 20 minutes, basically.

And so you really had to, had to get everything right down to the, you know. I, I'm, I guess

I'm just not much of a good preacher because I can't do that. I think the congregation likes having the manuscript to look at afterward.

You know, I, I had one lady for six or seven months come up and take my notes, my manuscript off the sermon or off the pulpit.

And I thought the cleaning people were getting it while she was going up and swiping my manuscript to read it afterward.

And then I thought, well, maybe I'll just make it available. And so we do that now. Wow. And it's nice. You'll notice a lot of times on my manuscripts, when you get to kind of last 10, 15 minutes of the sermon, it'll just say manuscripts ends, manuscript ends, which means that's as far as I got.

And I'll keep preaching after that. But it keeps me from saying things that are, that I regret, first of all.

But, you know, the expression is where there's fog in the pulpit. Mist, mist in the pulpit, fog in the pew.

Yeah, there you go. And so I don't want fog in the pew. So lay it out there ahead of time.

And everybody's different. I don't think there's a right and wrong way to do it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That wouldn't work for me. I'm much more of a teacher.

I don't even have a three point outline or anything like that, or a five point or a seven point or whatever else it might be.

I don't even have an outline like that. Because I'm, I'm very textually driven. You don't do alliteration in every sermon?

No, no, not unless it's in the text. I won't be doing that. So anyway, you know, by the way, you know who, you know who is definitely watching right now?

The Twitterverse exploded as soon as you came on live. And somebody in South Georgia named

Peter Lumpkins is probably pulled over by the side of the road with his phone. Just watching, taking screenshots.

See, we told you, we told you. That's so far back in the woods in Georgia. I don't know if they have phones actually back there.

No, I kid. Huh? What? I said that, that hurt clear over here. I kid.

He's such a, you know, if I ever see him, I'm just gonna hug him. Just a big.

He's a little bit bigger than I am. So I'm not really sure that that's, that would be, that would be. No, I don't know that I'm, I'm Scottish.

And at that moment, I think Pete would become Scottish too. And Scotsmen do not hug. No, we do not hug.

Um, we have a unique relationship. And just slightly, there's a lot of folks.

There's a lot of folks are actually thinking that what's on the screen right now is, is fake because we're both in the same room at the same time.

And they were far enough away. The screen right here.

You don't have your arm anywhere near. Yeah, that may be, that may be how they explain it. But so what was the guy's name?

See, you are so good with names and I eventually forget them. What was the guy's name? Who was, um, was

Tim, was it Rogers? Rogers with a D. Okay.

Okay. Um, who was saying that, that, uh, I was hacking his computer and deleting his files.

And, and I had, you know, I was in control of you and everybody. I mean, I could never have slept.

I must, you know, just be a brain in a bottle type thing because I was in charge of all this stuff.

They actually believe it was last summer at the, uh, at the Southern Baptist convention.

Um, he was, he was on the ballot to be made a trustee at the international mission board.

I think it was. And, um, there might have been some Twitter activism in regard to that from people that may or may not be related to the pulpit pit.

And the next morning he said something about, I'm taking out the trash, uh, at the, at the convention hall,

I guess he was helping out. And he said, he was taking out some trash. I hope the guys at pulpit and pin will let me do that. That was the last tweet that he ever sent.

And after that, they went private and I haven't seen Hyde, you know, you know,

I haven't seen actually, actually what happened to that. I, I, I noticed that mine, my follow on his just went completely blank.

Yeah. Yeah. No, we did. We actually did that. We hacked his computer and changed the settings and he hasn't been able to figure out how to get it public.

It's a joke people. We don't do things like that. Good grief. Anyway. So anyhow, so you're just here for the debate and then you go back to the cold, right?

I go back. What's, what's, what's, what's the temperature when you left? I don't know. Probably eight degrees or 12.

I'm not sure. You know, in Montana, I don't even look at the weather. It's going to be cold. So dress warm. Why even bother?

Yeah. What's the point? I tell you what, this has been the warmest weather I've ever experienced in Montana. I felt it rain three times in January.

I have never felt rain in January, let alone three times, but it was warm enough to rain. So this has been, it was supposed to be like winter apocalypse this year, but it's been, it's been really nice.

Anything above zero is good. So I remember, you know, I was gutting out a deer one time and it was 37 below.

Oh my goodness. And didn't that just freeze up? I just, well, I had to go through three pocket knives because, you know, it freezes on the blade.

And I felt like Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, get inside the deer and stay warm.

That was the last time. I don't do it anymore. Like if it's not, if it's not more than 10 below,

I'm just staying home. The deer will have to kill themselves. Well, I did see,

I saw a great tweet yesterday. It showed this little deer out in the snow. And it said, if you're cold, they're cold too.

And then the next picture was a venison steak on a plate. It says, bring them inside and warm them up. There are some people that really want that.

I said on Facebook, I was thinking this in the plane on the way here. Every time I look out a plane window, it's been for years.

Every time I have the same thought, which is, I bet there's a bunch of deer down there. And then I was flying into Phoenix and I thought, it doesn't look like there's a lot of deer.

No, no, no. They'd have to eat cactuses and rattlesnakes or something. Wait, there are desert deer.

We have deer. Are they scrawny? Are they small deer? They'd have to be, right? Yeah, they're not, they're not huge. But I mean, obviously, if you go north from here.

Right. You have Flagstaff and you've got, you know, what used to be the largest

Ponderosa pine forest in the world. Until which fire was that? Well, that'd probably be

Rodeo Chetisky. Yeah, probably Rodeo Chetisky. 470 ,000 acres burned or some ridiculous thing like that.

But no, it's not all the desert, but this is the desert. And there are warm, if you think this is bad, don't go to Yuma.

Yuma makes this like a garden spot. It's stunningly beautiful here. Oh, it is. It really is. The mountains are gorgeous. I love it here.

I love it. We have coyotes. You do. And you have a Chick -fil -A in the kind of the parking lot of my hotel, which is nice.

So I was giving Squirrel a heart. Oh, man. Oh, I have one 1 .3 miles from my house now.

They've just built it. I've got one like 900 miles from my house. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I know. I know. I do recall I was there and that picture of me holding your

AR -15 sort of went viral on the internet, which I really appreciate that.

But now I have my own, so I should get you to hold mine. I still get emails on a regular basis. Some kook website posted a picture.

I think it was me and Voti with the gun this year. Right, right. And, you know, how can you, as a

Christian, own a firearm? So then I usually, if I have time to respond, because I want to respond to people, you know, it's the nice thing to do.

I usually send them a different picture of an animal that I've killed, something like that, you know, to let them know

I am reading and getting their emails. Well, speaking of firearms, anyways, one of the things

I wanted to do today, and I thought I would impugn your character by having you in here while I do it.

I promised everybody, and we've already gone through, what, half the program.

I promised everybody that I would play and sort of feel like doing this, you know, so I can see the camera over there.

But I don't know when this was. I guess it was over the weekend. Thank you. Yeah, there.

Hey. Well, anyway. And Rob Bell and his wife were on with Oprah.

Now, what could go wrong there? If there is anybody operating someone with controls, it's

Oprah and Rob Bell. I think they've merged into the same person. I think that's a possibility. Remember, it was

John Piper back when Love Wins first came out. Farewell, Rob Bell.

Farewell, Rob Bell, is what he said. And, oh, he took some serious heat for that. How dare you say something like that?

You're nasty. Well, if you want vindication of what

Rob Bell has become, you know, and I said yesterday, I said, look, folks, they go out from us because they were not truly of us.

And I preached a sermon. We need to we probably need to repost it or something.

But I preached a sermon about four years ago called The Blessing of Apostasy. And basically, it was saying, you know, you don't want the false teachers staying in the church.

You don't want them being comfortable and ruining our testimony. One of the greatest apologetic problems that I face is how easy it is for my opponents to quote somebody who is in a position of leadership in the professing church that disbelieves a cardinal doctrine of the

Christian faith. And anybody can find anybody these days that, you know, will deny anything. And so you don't want people staying.

And so it's actually a good thing when apostates go out and make their apostasy known.

The standard American feeling is, well, no, no, we just all need to stay together.

And we just just need to love one another. Well, those words are all kind words if they're all based upon sanctify them.

And I truth, I word is truth and so on and so forth. But once you've got folks very plainly don't believe what defines a

Christian, they need to go their Oprah way. And that's basically what he's done.

And so he's come up with this. He and his wife have put out a book. When I first saw when

I first saw the cover, the Zimzum of Love or something like that,

I was like, this is an onion article, right? This is this is this is it's a joke, right?

The Zimzum. Really? Honestly. But no, it's it's it's actually actually the title of the book.

And so I'm gonna play a section here. We have the the video ready to go there. All right, let's let's take a look at at this section.

And we'll we'll listen to the whole section, then go back through it. That's normally how we handle these things.

And I will I will try to control Brother Hall. I'm smashing this monitor will do no good whatsoever in regards to Rob Bell.

So you got that. OK, here we go. Marriage, gay and straight is a gift to the world because the world needs more, not less love, fidelity, commitment, devotion and sacrifice.

I think it's great that you all made a conscious choice to include gay marriage in here.

Absolutely. Yeah. Why? Because one of the oldest aches in the bones of humanity is loneliness.

And it's one of the things that goes way, way back. Loneliness is not good for the world. And so whoever you are, gay or straight, it is totally normal, natural and healthy to want somebody to go through life with.

It's it's central to our humanity. Yeah. We want someone to go on the journey with. When is the church going to get that?

We're close. I think it's evolving. Well, continue on, please.

I think it's lots of people already there. We think it's inevitable. And it's we're moments, a moment away from the church.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, because as soon as you meet someone and most of the time when people have resistance to this and I say you think we're moments away,

I think culture is already there. And the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2000 years ago as their best defense, when you have in front of you flesh and blood people who are your brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and co -workers and neighbors, and they love each other and they just want to go through life with someone.

Well, you sound really progressive to me because I've talked to pastors. We're still saying, oh, I think there are a lot of people who, as they see culture moving, their response is to dig in deeper, is to hold their ground, fight against it.

So I think that there are both things happening. There are churches that are moving forward or into that area.

And there are churches who are just almost regressing and making it more of a battle.

Yeah, this is something we haven't talked about. Okay, there we go.

Uh, I've been saying on this program for years, and I certainly have been saying of late that the tsunami of apostasy on this subject is upon us, and we are certainly seeing this.

We reviewed Grace Point Church in Tennessee, I believe.

I'm sorry? Memphis. Okay, thanks. Just a couple weeks ago, and the divine wind which blew them into this conversation.

I love those words. Someone pointed out to me that I completely missed a great opportunity.

Divine wind in Japanese was the kamikazes. They drove their planes into, boom, and that was it.

So that would have been a good comment about the divine wind. But anyway, it probably would be possible, if I put out just a little bit of effort, to every week have this week's apostasy segment on this subject,

I would imagine. And I don't think that, even though confessionally, as far as the

Baptist faith and message goes, it's not supposed to be something that can happen within Southern Baptist circles. Danny Cortez demonstrated that, you know, it can.

And I just wonder when the knocks on doors are going to start and the movement to, we don't want to be irrelevant.

Yeah, I don't even know if you can call it apostasy at this point with Rob Bell. Oh, yeah.

Because he's long apostate now. But I look at it, I almost don't even want to critique it as though it's to give the implication that he's some form of...

If you're referring to the word of God as a 2 ,000 -year -old letter dismissively, not only do you have extreme hubris and arrogance on your own part that you're smarter somehow than a 2 ,000 -year -old letter written by God, but that you refer to it in that way.

I think he's surrendered the notion of being Christian. And here's the thing, though, Dr. White, I'm fine with that.

If you're going to take the stance, just surrender your notion of being distinctively Christian.

That's fine. If a church wants to go that way, just surrender, you know, turn in your gospel on the way out.

But has he really done that? Or is he not viewed, does not overview him as just the progressive voice of Christian?

Because they're asking about the church. I don't think he's seen as a Christian leader by anyone. I think Oprah sees him as a spiritual leader.

I mean, he quotes Gandhi as much as he does Jesus these days. He's just a spiritual leader.

Well, let's look at it. I was going to stop and start. So let's look at it. Marriage, gay and straight, is a gift to the world because the world needs more, not less, love, fidelity, commitment, devotion, and sacrifice.

Immediately, you can't define marriage in this way, in any meaningful fashion.

It's certainly not in a biblical sense, not in a historical sense. It's a complete capitulation to the argumentation that has already been accepted by our culture, not because of the weight of the arguments, but simply because of the repetition of the arguments, which is a sad thing when people just give in because they've heard the same thing enough times that they either get tired of the fight or just go, oh, it must be true.

But the reason that we can't give in on this is those words on the screen, or wherever the screen went, love, fidelity, commitment, devotion, and sacrifice.

I think you lose all of them when you can no longer define marriage in a biblical sense.

That's not love. That's homosexual activity.

Orientation is narcissism. It's being loved with a mirror. It's not the love defined by scripture.

It may be very strong, but it's not biblical love. Fidelity, fidelity to what?

Fidelity assumes a standard, assumes there's something there. Commitment, again, you might say, well, they're committed to one another.

Commitment has to be for the betterment. And this is culture of death.

I mean, this cannot result in life. This diminishes life expectancy, so on and so forth. Devotion, devotion to what?

Sacrifice. All these words lose their fundamental meanings when you transport them into this new moral revolution that robs us of anything.

And yet here you have this pretty young lady, you know, reading from her book, and she's smiling, and there's guitar music in the background, and Oprah's going to come up next.

You know, it's like as a pastor, when you have someone come to you and they say, I'm in love with someone that is not my spouse, as would probably happen to just about every pastor if he's there for any period of time, you need to be able to look at her or him and say, no, you don't love them.

What do you mean? Yes, I do love them. No, God gets to define love. God is love.

True love comes from God. It's impossible to love someone in that sort of way that's not your spouse.

We have to say that what you feel has to be subjected to the Word of God. But the problem is, if you view the

Word of God as a 2 ,000 -year -old letter, then it's all about what is experiential, what

I experience. And that's going to, I think, open up a lot of ethical questions, questions I'm sure we'll get to. Can I then take your rubric or your standard of what love is and apply it to anything or anyone that I want?

Imagine the ethical problems. And they don't have answers for that. I don't think they even pretend to have answers for that.

No, no. When Michael Brown raised that exact issue with, who is the

British guy? Oh, I'm sorry. He does. Britain's Got Talent and America's Got Talent.

Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan. Thank you. When he was on Piers Morgan's program and he raised those exact questions,

Piers Morgan's in -depth, awesome refutation was, that's just stupid.

Of course, with a British accent, it sounds better than, that's just stupid. That's all he could say.

He couldn't allow the ethical weight of what was being said on the air.

So he just tries to drown it out with, that's stupid. And we'll see that as we get to Rob Bell's specific statement here.

I think it's great that you all made a conscious choice to include gay marriage in here. Absolutely.

Yeah. Why? Because one of the oldest aches in the bones of humanity is loneliness.

And it's one of the things that goes way, way back. Loneliness is not good for the world. You know, the first thing that comes to my mind is, well, sin is not good for the world.

Going to hell is not good for the individual, but he's, you know, it's like Satan who tells half -truths, right? That's true.

God looked down at man and said, it's not good that he be alone. And so God's response was to create someone with whom he is compatible.

That's how God handled that situation. He says that, I don't even know if he, or I'm certain

Oprah doesn't think about, well, how did God solve the problem of loneliness? No, no.

And of course it raises the question, if we get to define the only possible way that our quote unquote loneliness can be solved rather than having

God do that, then this raises all the ethical questions you were talking about beforehand.

What if, what if the only way my loneliness can be solved is with grandma? Or with...

It's Matthew Vine's argument, isn't it? God doesn't want me to be lonely. Exactly. Right. Well, God doesn't want you to be a sinful rebel either.

Right. That was, in fact, you, you saw sort of a semi -debate, kind of.

It was a conversation. Yes, yes. As soon as... Well, you know, we might as well talk about this.

You know, I spent that entire time doing my best to keep my opponent from running out of the room, right?

I got a call the day before the conference and I think I'm, I think

I still have him as a Facebook friend. I'm not sure, but he got a call saying, well, what's this about a debate?

And I'm like, here's the... Listen, we're going to have a debate. Well, let's make it a conversation.

And so he started getting cold feet and it was kind of insinuating he was going to back out at the last minute.

And it's like, you know, Dr. White's a very nice guy. And I think we had Squirrel or somebody get ahold of you.

And we were like, he's going to be listening to the dividing line today. Be nice. Remember that? We're like, don't scare him.

And he came and had a debate. And I got to be honest, everyone came out of that saying, first of all,

I've never seen Dr. White so nice. But you handled him in such a, such a gracious manner because he was scared out of his mind.

He wanted to leave so badly. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but I've told folks,

I've said, you know, it's amazing because we've done debates on that subject and we've addressed the issues that need to be addressed and so on and so forth.

But I knew he was not going to engage me on biblical texts. So it's like, what do you do?

It can't, it can't be done. And I think we, you know, did you see the

Danny Cortez polyamorous Trinity? Yes, I did. Yeah. Believing in a polyamorous

God. And he insinuated, well, he didn't insinuate. He said that he was intimate with Danny Cortez, the other pastor.

And we don't know what he meant by that, but it was creepy, weird. And then to, and I think

Danny, just a few days before that, if I recall, or it might have been someone else insinuating that Jesus was in a polyamorous relationship with the disciples, because, excuse me, they said, it seems to me the love was pretty flow fleeing, free flowing around, around Christ and the disciples.

The only way you can come to this conclusion is to use the text basically as toilet paper and just to throw it away.

Um, and that's what we see Rob Bell do here. If you were to, if you were to say, would you please defend this with the scripture?

No, he'd make a surfing analogy or something. And so whoever you are, gay or straight, it is totally normal, natural and healthy to want somebody to go through life with.

It's, it's central to our humanity. We want someone to go on the journey with. We do want someone to go on the journey with, but this is such a man -centeredness because I do,

I, of course, he'll never put himself in the position of having to answer this question. But like I said, what if, what if the only person you can go on the journey with is your daughter, your son, your grandmother, um, uh, someone like that.

There are people who would say that is how God made me. Um, you know, you have the, the, uh, brother, the brother and sister in Germany.

They didn't know their brother and sister until they were married, but then they found out their brother and sister and they're, they're suing just to stay in that situation because, you know, this is just the way it needs to be.

Stop keeping track of that stuff that the, the, uh, daughter with her, with her father, like last week, um, we can't keep track.

And when we said these things several years ago, you said these things, why not the father with his daughter?

Oh, come on. You're crazy. It's crazy. Now we see it happen. And, and I think, you know, there's a lot of good responses and they should always come back to the gospel.

But, uh, I, I think perhaps the best is to look at them and say, you know, you are a bigot apparently, because I mean, you're not for marriage equality.

Do you not believe someone should be able to marry whoever they want? What's wrong with you?

Well, I don't mean relatives. Why not? Because the arguments that you've presented, you're apologetic would allow for that entirely.

Oh, totally. And don't appeal to the Bible because it's a 2000 year old letter. It worked. Yeah. We're about to get the 2000 year old letter here.

The church is going to get that. We're close. Now see, notice, here's why we do need to look at this because she's saying the church and he's saying we, so he's still identifying himself with the church.

And we're not talking about Islam here. We're not talking about, uh, we're talking about the Christian church.

And unfortunately, these folks are still seen as well. And what's the answer to her question or question has a answer.

When is the church going to see this or get this? And the answer is when we put down the Bible. Yep. That's when.

Yep. And that's exactly his counsel. I think it's evolving. I think it's lots of people already there.

We think it's inevitable. And it's, we're moments, a moment away from the church. Absolutely. Yeah. Because as soon as you meet someone and most of the time when people have resistance to this, and I say that you think we're moments away,

I think culture is already there. Okay. And the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2000 years ago is their best defense when.

Okay. Obviously that is what everyone heard and appropriately heard.

Um, evidently, uh, the church should follow culture. Um, the culture has more insight on these issues than, than the church does.

So evidently psychological resources and things like that are more relevant than scriptural resources.

Um, but the way he even said will even be more irrelevant.

There was, there was some anger. There was some nastiness in that voice.

He left the church. He knows he did. I've heard him say this in other interviews, he left his church.

Um, and with that, he left his church and he did that. Uh, I think it was also for Oprah where he talked about, uh, what's your perfect Sunday.

And he's like, go to the beach and go surfing. Um, I don't even think he's in attendance at any,

I mean, I don't even think he's at a synagogue of Satan. I don't think he's even involved in any form of hate disputes of religion.

Right. Um, so I think that's the issue. And the other, the other thing that might be overlooked here is he's assuming that to agree with culture and to be like culture is to be relevant to culture.

And I would just have to disagree from a purely logical standpoint. If you're not providing any form of alternative, shedding any light, being any different, being set apart into God, why are you relevant to culture?

No, you're not needed by culture. You don't provide an alternative. That's not relevancy. No, but the first day in this man's life, and I don't know all about his history.

Uh, but the first day in this man's life, when he came to the conclusion that the word of God could be dismissed as secondary, it was no longer truly

God speaking. Uh, you know, the apostasy took place over time, but that was the step that put him on that path, which there was, doesn't seem to have been any.

And here you, here, you hear it so, so boldly. And so, so brazenly, uh, 2000 year old letters, uh, talk about, talk about really speaking your heart.

There you go. If you think about, um, Matthew Vines recently came out as a universalist.

I don't know if you had heard that, but he had denied hell. Um, I didn't hear that. Yeah, I think we have a mutual friend that told me this and linked it.

And I, I didn't, uh, I wasn't, I wasn't reading the article. I'm just totally not in shock.

I'd say that's been within the last two weeks that Matthew Vines. Yeah. Indicated that he, he doesn't believe in hell.

And, and, and here we have Rob Bell who first said he didn't believe in hell.

Uh, and now he's affirming those two things go together in a sense that, uh, a, there's no punishment of God.

Why would there not be a punishment of God? It's because there's really nothing that deserves punishment. What deserves punishment?

According to these people, it's not just a denial of homosexuality is sin. What it is in its essence is denying the concept of sin altogether.

If that's not sinful, which is used as, uh, Paul's example of human depravity in Romans one, what is sinful?

And I think that's why we as Christians can't capitulate on the topic. I mean, first of all, we can't, because we've got the word of God.

We can't, we can't change it. Um, but also understand that those who will bend on this issue issue will bend on absolutely every other single issue.

Absolutely everything. Uh, when Matthew Vines book came out, Southern seminary released a response book that same day, an ebook.

And one of the very appropriate things that was pointed out was this is an issue of scriptural sufficiency, because if you buy

Matthew Vines argument, you have no basis for any meaningful discussion any longer upon the role of women in the church.

Of course, as it's rightly pointed out, uh, those who have capitulated on those biblical standards have no leg to stand on in fighting against homosexuality at all.

But, um, it is a scriptural sufficiency issue. And very clearly Vines is depending, depending upon a form of scholarship coming from James Brownson, uh, that really does undercut the sufficiency of scripture.

And I think that's one of the reasons he's come up with is why I just don't think James White is nice enough to debate, uh, meme, uh, because they want you to capitulate on that foundational issue.

Once they've got you capitulated on that, the rest of it's easy. Yeah. No, we've traded, uh, academic debates and Christianity for coffee at the coffee shop.

Oh yeah. You were supposed to have coffee and, you know, or breaking bread, quote unquote, um, and, uh, building bridges and building conversation.

That's, that's, that's how you prove your niceness these days. Yeah. Well, there's, there's Rob. Let's, let's let him finish up his statement here.

I have in front of you, flesh and blood people who are your brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and coworkers and neighbors, and they love each other and they just want to go through life with someone.

Okay. There you go. That, that to me, again, we've, we've talked about this so many times in this program, but there's the fundamental issue.

His ultimate authority is his flawed, fallible analysis of someone in front of him that he says, love each other.

He doesn't know what's in their heart. He doesn't can't see down the road or anything like that, but they love each other and they just want to be together.

So once you meet these people, then Romans one and first Corinthians six and first Timothy one, uh, and Matthew chapter 19, et cetera, et cetera, simply become 2000 year old letters because now you've got something more, more important, uh, more divine.

Evidently. Yeah. It becomes your God very evidently. Yeah. It's your authority. It's your God. People, you know, that's his ultimate authority.

There's no question about it is if once you meet them, that's just all there is to it. Well, you sound really progressive to me because I've talked to pastors who are still saying, uh, you know what?

When you sound progressive to Oprah, you have arrived. Okay. I mean, you, you have been shot out of the cannon of orthodoxy, uh, into, into the netherworld.

When, when, when Oprah says you sound progressive to me. Wow. There are a lot of people who, as they see culture moving, their response is to dig in deeper is to like hold their ground, fight against it.

Um, so I think that there are both things happening. Yeah. There are churches that are moving forward or into that area.

And there are churches who are just almost regressing and making it more of a battle.

Yeah. So, uh, so according to Rob Bell's wife, poor lady, um, it is regression.

If you stand on the word of God and listen to what the word of God has to say, and you are moving forward and evolving and progressing, uh, if you're, uh, substituting your personal experiences for, for the word of God, there, there, there.

Yep. Um, there's nothing surprising here. I realize that, but it's surprised what does surprise me is how many people continue to give weight to people like Rob Bell simply because they once stood behind a pulpit.

Well, he says it's a very natural reaction to dig in. It's not. And any pastor that's had to, or any

Christian in general that's had to stand against this issue will tell you it's not natural to dig in, uh, in the onslaught of this coming cultural wave, affirming what

God detests. It would be the easiest thing in the world. It'd be the most natural thing in the world to let go and be carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine.

It is not the easy thing to dig in. It is the incredibly hard thing and say,

I'm going to stay on the word of God and Rob Bell can tell me something different, or Oprah can tell me something different. I'm going to stand firm in what

God has spoken. Um, their notion that, I mean, listen, I don't want to say

I would want to change what God has said, but it would be the easiest thing in the world to say, fine,

I'm going to go along with culture because we realize that in the short term history book, we're going to be the bad guys.

I think history longterm, especially the history that will be written by God almighty, uh, we will be judged well in the short term, uh, you know, we'll be painted like 1960 segregationist or whoever were the bad guys.

Um, I would really like to avoid that. I can't, I can't not on this issue.

And, uh, of course he's talking about digging in as in opposing the proper movement and evolution, but there's another phrase, another meaning of dig in.

And that's what we have to do. We have to know why we believe these things. It's not enough just to quote a few verses.

Uh, we've, I've said over and over again, when it comes to this issue, we have to understand the positive presentation of scripture on the nature of marriage,

God's sovereignty over human sexuality, his purpose in that. And yeah, I know a Pope came up with it, but it's an accurate description of the difference between the culture of life and the culture of death because homosexuality is part and parcel of the culture of death.

It does not bring up, bring about life. It cannot create new life. Uh, it, it lowers life expectancy of people involved in that lifestyle.

Uh, it is, it is so narcissistically self -centered that it is the very essence of the culture of death and God does not bless it.

He has never blessed a union between two men. He will never bless the union between two women or three or four or whatever.

Um, it, that, that, that if you want, you know, this culture does not, however, any longer even think that it's necessary to seek

God's blessing for anything. And you want, you want, you want a dangerous situation for a nation, uh, be in a situation where you're in that once had tremendous light and blessing where in the memories of the now fading generation, they know that, uh, on D day, the president is calling for prayer.

President is saying, we need God's blessing in this situation, et cetera, et cetera. It would never happen to them.

Couldn't happen to them. Uh, when there's been that much light and that much blessing and you have that much rebellion, um,

God will not be mocked. It's just, it's just the reality.

And unfortunately, if we're called to be salt and light and a prophetic voice in the context of that kind of situation, well, that's what we're called to be.

And we have to be prepared to do it. We, we are not growing up and ministering in the time frame that my grandparents did.

Uh, things have changed. And, uh, unfortunately one thing that's very often said it's true is, uh, the

Christian church is, is often way behind the curve as far as responding because we tend to do so very, very, very slowly.

Well, well, and we're behind the curve in responding to people like Rob Bell.

And that's what, you know, discernment is about when Piper said farewell, Rob Bell, could that not have been said three years before?

Um, I, I absolutely think it could have been, and people were saying it. We have got to stop waiting until someone is full blown apostate before we say,

I think there might be something wrong here. Oh, but that's very unloving. It's very unloving. That's what we've been told.

So tomorrow night, 6 .30 PM, um, Arizona Community Church, 9325

South Railroad. Now, uh, this is a sponsored event, so you, uh, you get to, uh, register to, to be there, but, uh, 6 .30

PM, uh, Theonomy debate, uh, J .D. Hall versus Joel McDermott. Joel McDermott is taking the positive on the thesis, the resolution, quote, mosaic civil laws are obligatory for civil governments today, end quote.

And how long is that supposed to last? How long? I think like two hours and 45 minutes, something like that. That's pretty decent time.

Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, that's, there are going to be some people that will completely lose track of what's going on after about, maybe, maybe, but you know, theonomists are a, uh, yeah, they're an eager bunch.

So I think they'll be paying attention. Oh, I think they will be. They're vigilant. Excellent. Thanks for being in studio today,

J .D. Now everyone has all the video evidence they want of the, the great Calvinist cabal.

They've, they've got it there and we just, we just covered that Rod Bell stuff to cover. That's, that's, that's good to get out in the open.

Yeah, it's good to get it out in the open. We'll be back again, Lord willing, on Tuesday here on The Dividing Line.

Maybe we'll have some comments as to what we've heard about. Who knows? Uh, you know, I, I'm confident though that you're going to get out of the building safe.

I am, I am very confident of that. Trust me. All right. Thanks for being here, folks. We'll see you next time.