David Ould

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. And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a

Thursday afternoon. The last day of January. Christmas is right around the corner, it's amazing.

That's how fast time goes now. I cannot believe the first month of the new year is already past.

How did that happen? I do not know. But anyway, welcome to the program.

We are starting early today because British people speak more slowly than the rest of us.

And so then when you throw in an Aussie accent, it really gets messy. He's not even on.

Why don't you have him on? Oh, now he's on? Okay, good. That's not cruel. It's an absolutely accurate observation.

Because you yourself have admitted to me that even your family back in the mother country.

That's right. Have noted that you have become somewhat of a genetic abnormality.

That wasn't an admission, that was me sharing with you some of my deepest, darkest pain.

You've become an Aussie Brit. An Aussie Brit. Which means you're really not at home anywhere because...

I am once more a stranger in a strange land. Is that what we said last time? Very much so, yes. See, and I didn't put him on because I thought you were going to politely introduce him first.

I know, no. Why would you expect that? It's the second time he's been on. Remember what I did with John Samson the second time he was on?

First time, I'm nice and gentle. Oh, last time was nice. No, not really, but that's okay.

I mean, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how I'm ever going to get back down under. Because I've got a

Roman Catholic guy down there who wants to debate me. And I just listened to a debate with a fellow.

He debated Samuel. Yes, Samuel Green. Yes, his name was

Uthman something. And I forgot

I was going to write to Abdullah and say, could you please get me his address? And maybe if Abdullah listens to this, because I need to send him the

Forgotten Trinity because he really needs the Forgotten Trinity. Well, most of them don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity. Well, this is true.

But I'm going to play this next week. So you're going to be traveling. You probably won't get a chance to hear it unless you grab it. Oh, I listen devotedly, even when traveling.

Okay, well, if you do, I'm going to play an exchange between Samuel and he on whether God can die.

And I don't understand why our brothers struggle with this with Muslims.

I mean, he was correct. Samuel was correct to say, well, death doesn't mean nonexistence.

But emphasizing the nature of the hypostatic union and what really happens and the fact we don't believe that's unconsciousness and so on and so forth,

I don't know why we struggle with that. It should be a positive thing that we're – anyways, that's neither here nor there.

Now, for the four or five people who do not remember the last time that you were with us,

Reverend Old – why is it old and not old? I have no idea. I think because if you add – it's

O -U -L -D. And think about it. If you add an M to it, it would be mold. So it's old.

That's just how my father – I think it's just a British thing. It's another extra U. Quite possibly.

Quite possibly. Look, it's an O. Throw in a U. I think the word is superfluous. It is completely superfluous, even though, as I have admitted, generally when there's a fundamental difference between American English and British English.

Sorry, between American English and English. I knew you were going to say that. I stopped there to let you go ahead and say that.

Generally, generally, the small number of people on the small island say it more briefly than we do.

To let for rent. Queue up. Get in line. Yes. It's always a little bit shorter over there.

But I've heard studies saying that actually we're the ones that are continuing most of the older ways, and it's the

Brits that have done most of the evolving and the crushing of the language. Crushing of the language?

Crushing of the language, yes. You made evolution into something bad. Yes. Well, there is a sense. There's a sense of which it is.

But anyways, you are touring our great country. We are. I'm not sure why we allow people in so easily.

Because we spend money. Okay. All right. I'll let that fly. And you got to visit

Mormonville. We've had an incredible time. I'm actually just finished the position I've been at in Australia after five years.

I finished with the Anglican Church I work with. And my wife and I had a little pipe dream halfway through last year. We said, well, how about we just go and do a big road trip in the

United States? Because we love this country. And we've kind of not seen anywhere near as much of it as we want to see.

Now, what did you see last time? So we hopped through. We came here to Phoenix where we've got family. And then we rushed through.

Well, if you can call Chandler Phoenix. Well, yeah. It's in the desert metropolis, as I understand you call this.

And then we jumped in a plane and got out in New York and spent some time with a friend

I was with in seminary who's now in Connecticut. And then from there we went on into Europe. We did a quick round -the -world trip.

So this time we're extending our round -the -world trip. We're making a three -month round -the -world trip. Three months?

Three months. And we're spending two months of it in your beautiful country. We arrived in San Francisco just over two weeks ago.

Spent five or six days there. And then we drove up into the Sierra Nevada and spent some time just on the east of California.

Then we drove over into Utah. I was just telling you earlier about just some stunning views. That view when you break into the

Utah salt flats is just unbelievable. You know, lunch at the Bonneville race course on the flats.

And then into Salt Lake City where we were hosted by the superb Bill and Tammy McKeever of Mormonism Research Ministry.

And got to meet Sandra Tanner and all that kind of stuff. And saw Salt Lake City and the temple and all that kind of stuff.

From the outside, of course, because I don't have fancy underpants. And I can't get in.

Fancy underpants. Fancy underpants. Notice he said that. I would have said he does not possess a valid temple recommend.

But anyways. In other words. And then we drove south, Bryce Canyon. And then on the east side of the canyon and up to see the canyon, the

Grand Canyon that is. Again, some more stunning views. And here we are in Phoenix, land of the cactus.

Oh, yes. Yes, land of the cactus, which at least is pretty here right now. It's what? Seventy degrees?

It's balmy compared to, with an L, compared to the weather we had further north. And then we're driving on east, a bit on Route 66, cutting down to friends in Dallas.

We'll do some deep south. We're going to go to Florida where the mouse with the big ears reigns. That'll be fun. Mouse with the big ear reigns.

Now Darth Vader reigns there too. Is that true? That'll be a lot of fun. And the kids might have a good time as well.

Oh, they will. And then we're going to drive slowly up the eastern seaboard, Savannah, Georgia, up further north, go by D .C. And we're going to end up in Boston and drop our hire car off in Boston just over two months after we picked it up in San Francisco.

Our hire car. Rental car. Hired car. Hired car. Hired car. Hire car. Don't worry.

See, this is why I've been going to Europe. I'm learning this language. I've got to say something here because in the U .S., a hired car has a chauffeur.

That's true. That's true. That would be me. That's true. That's how you do it. And then you're hopping the pond and getting to go back.

That's right. So then two weeks with my parents in the north of England. And how long are you in the south? In the south of the states, it'll be about another two, three weeks at least.

Now this would really be cool if he could pick up a little bit of southern accent to go with the

Aussie stuff and he gets back and they won't even let him out. Completely messed up. They will not even let him out. That's right. Then two weeks with my parents.

Five days with my best man who's Spanish, lives near Madrid. And then ten days with my wife's family and our friends in Singapore.

And then we will get back home to Sydney just over three months after we left. Wow. And then what are you going to do?

Well, I'm still waiting to hear for a position in Sydney. I can't actually tell you where because it's that kind of thing.

And if that falls through, as it may do, who knows? God is sovereign and good. It's a great combination.

We'll look for what else there is. Well, goodness gracious sakes, I cannot imagine.

I could not be gone for three months. Really? No. No way. No, no, no, no. I could not do that.

I could. I fall apart after about... At the times I've gone down there, I'm getting toward the end of my shelf life by the time

I get home. Oh, yeah. I'm just not that kind of a traveler. No way. I love it. I love the novelty of it.

And I've been driving all of this. Not that I won't let my wife drive. Well, I kind of won't because I just love driving.

And this incredible scenery around me. And I understand that may change when I have to hike through some of Texas.

Let me say, once you leave Albuquerque and you start heading for Texas, you're going to skip the real pretty sightseeing part.

Yeah, there's... No, no. I've driven it and it's not overly exciting. But here's the thing. I'll be able to say

I went to Albuquerque. That's right. That's on your way to Albuquerque. That's right. Which is over 5 ,000 feet elevation.

So there's... Back up again. Get up there. Go through Santa Fe. They're at 7 ,000 feet. There's some beautiful stuff over there, too.

But anyways. Okay. I just got to ask. Now, did you hear the news about who is debating

Richard Dawkins? I didn't. Tell me. Rowan Williams. No. Well, they had a conversation last year, didn't they?

They had a... Sometime this week, I think. Again. Yes. And so when Justin Brierley...

In fact, I just saw a tweet from Justin. When Justin tweeted that, my response to him was, Well, that's interesting.

But who's going to represent Christianity? You might think that.

I couldn't possibly comment. No, you could not possibly comment. I should say, last time, he had a conversation with Richard Dawkins in Canterbury Cathedral.

And Rowan Williams actually did quite well. Really? Well, yeah. I think more because you don't have to work hard to do well against Richard Dawkins.

That's true. He knows next to nothing about those things he claims to criticize. That's true. And it's easy to pretty well rip him apart.

And the thing about Rowan Williams is he presents us just very nice and pleasant and cuddly. And so it's just hard to...

And pagan, as well. Well, again, others may have to comment upon that.

I won't ask you any further questions on those subjects. Thank you. Obviously, uncomfortable. But obviously, a lot of what we hear around here,

I'm afraid that people hear that you're an Anglican. That's right. And they'll wonder why we're not debating.

Indeed. Because Anglican and Episcopalian means the same thing.

Essentially the same thing. That's right. So the Episcopalian Church of the United States of America is what used to be the

Anglican province in the United States. What is it now? Well, it remains an

Anglican province in the United States, along with the Anglican Church of Canada. But there is also now the Anglican Church in North America, which consists of parishes and whole diocese, which have disaffiliated from the

Episcopal Church and formed up their own body and are essentially just carrying on with gospel ministry.

And they've left the Episcopal Church behind. And every so often a big parish or even a big diocese will leave.

And the most recent to leave, and there's a bit of a story around it we can chat about if you like, is South Carolina.

The diocese of South Carolina in the last few months disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church of the

United States of America. But they were very cunning about how they did it. The diocesan representatives were at the general convention and protested a number of things that happened there.

And you don't even have to guess anymore the sort of things that the general convention of the Episcopal Church are voting for.

They then went home to South Carolina. And the South Carolina synod itself made a decision that if their bishop, a guy called

Lawrence, were to be disciplined in any way by the national church, that the diocese would use that as a prompt to disaffiliate from the

Episcopal Church. Well, of course, what happened? The Episcopal Church disciplined

Martin Lawrence. They said it was outrageous that he should have let the diocesan synod take a vote like that.

Although, of course, he essentially has no control of it. He's simply the chair of the synod in that sense. And so it all kind of just went in automatically.

What the diocese of South Carolina have done very well is to avoid the fighting over assets and so forth.

That's what I was wondering. How does that work when you've got a centralized church government possessing the...

Well, the argument from the Episcopal Church themselves is that it's a hierarchical organization and essentially the central body rules everything.

Dioceses like South Carolina, however, existed long before the Episcopal Church existed. It used to be a diocese of the

Church of England in the United States of America or the colonies. As they may once more be.

And so their argument, rightly so, is we voted to affiliate, we can vote to disaffiliate. Now, there are no rules in the

Episcopal Church for disaffiliation of a diocese. No one contemplated that we would get to this position. But there you are.

The law as well, I'm told, in South Carolina is slightly different. And so there's a better chance. They also issued some quick claim deeds to all the parishes, which gave them control over their own assets.

But what's most cunning that they did, and we're cheering them for doing this, is they went to the courts preemptively.

They went to the court preemptively and they put effectively a trademark. They held title over lots of names like the

Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, all those kinds of names.

So that when the Episcopal Church, the centralized body, tried to do what they've done in other dioceses, which is to set up like a faux diocese of people loyal to the mothership, they now can't use that name.

Loyal to the mothership. Loyal to the mothership. They now can't use that name. They have, of course. They had one last Saturday and used the

Episcopal Church in South Carolina. They found a particular combination of terms that wasn't covered.

But I think we may see that going before a court very, very soon. So we're cheering them on.

Who's we? We. So those of us who are in what we call the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, which is a global body put together by Orthodox, by which

I mean right thinking, not Eastern Orthodox. It's very confusing, isn't it? Who would be an

Anglican? Put together by Orthodox Anglicans around the world. They're cheering on and the

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans continues to grow and have people affiliate to it all over the world, not least in the

Church of England itself. Yeah, Church of England. Church of England. Boy, I go over there and things aren't well in the motherland.

Haven't been well for a while. No. Haven't been well for a while. The Church of England is essentially a little microcosm of the whole

Anglican Communion. It contains all those different strands of theological thought that you have in the

Anglican Communion as a whole, which means that you have some outright theological liberalism running amok. And of course, that kind of takes over a lot of the institutions because Evangelicals have never been good at doing politics.

Well, at least not in the Church of England because we just do it in a very British way, don't we? But Evangelicals have kind of said, let's just get on with the work in the parishes and evangelizing people and so on.

And the liberals have basically run amok. I almost, I think I did mention to you once, but when you're in channel, you tend to be there and then just sort of disappear and then come back later and things like that.

But I listened to an unbelievable radio broadcast. Who was it that he had on?

Oh, man. Anyways, he had a Church of England guy on. And this guy, just the quintessential kindly little old

British man. Oh, marvelous. I mean, if you just had a picture, he must have been wearing a waistcoat. Yes. And one of those puffy ties.

Puffy tie. A cravat. Yeah, a cravat and a waistcoat and a little hat and a cane.

I mean, just straight out of the 1930s.

What's that thing, that PBS program that's taken off? Oh, Downton Abbey. Downton Abbey. Oh, my goodness. That's 1920s.

Everybody's watching this. Insanity. But anyway, that's just what you...

And he seems such a nice man. But they were talking about... What were they talking?

They were talking about whether the exclusive nature of the gospels.

And here's this guy that just sounds like he could be your grandfather. But whenever anything would come up, like the deity of Christ, whether Jesus rose from the dead.

Right. All this stuff. They were like, oh, you don't have to believe that anymore.

And when I tell people that they come up to me, oh, it's so wonderful. I'm so glad I don't have to believe those things anymore because the world thinks that stuff is so foolish.

And I'm just sitting here going, ah. But it's said with such a kind demeanor.

That's right. And yet, all I can hear behind it is the hiss of Satan, for crying out loud. But you can't say that in certain very kind contexts.

No, you can't. And British people will generally be far more polite about how they express their disagreement as well.

But there is some firm expression going on in the Church of England. What's been really interesting recently, of course, we're struggling with the issue of human sexuality like the other

Anglican provinces. What's been really interesting recently is that two prominent, one very prominent, and one rising evangelical ministers in the

Church of England have both come out as suffering with homosexual attraction.

And yet saying very clearly they understand that that is not God's good intent for their lives. And so they're battling away at being single.

I thought I saw something. Yeah. So the first guy was a chap called Vaughan Roberts, who is the rector of St. Ebbs in Oxford, a huge church amongst the students in Oxford University.

Vaughan Roberts is well respected across conservative evangelicals in the Church of England. And he he

I like the word came out because we want to subvert this language, don't we? He basically came out for Jesus and said,

I am weak, but his grace is sufficient for me. And I'm coming public on this issue because we want to say there is a better way than just affirming these desires.

We want to say that the Christian life is actually one of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will sustain us until that last day when he returns again.

And so he did that. And then a while ago, a guy called Sam Albury, who is ministering in the south of England and has written a number of great books.

In fact, his book on the resurrection and another one on the ascension, I believe, are great books. He came out and did the same thing.

He said, I have homosexual desires. I don't want them, but there they are. But the

Lord Jesus Christ is master over my life and and in obedience to him. And by the power of the spirit, I will continue to live a chaste life and I will encourage others to do the same.

And if coming out in this manner helps others to do that. So that's a bit of a turf war going on there.

And over the big thing, of course, is that we have a new archbishop of Canterbury. Yes, yes. Justin Welby, who is well, opinions are mixed now.

He is more classically evangelical, certainly than Rowan Williams ever could be said to be.

He has come out of the Holy Trinity Brompton stable. So where the Alpha course has come from.

And when you hear him speak, he certainly espouses speaks of the gospel in terms that you and I would recognize and affirm.

But and there's a big but he is well known as an expert in what people will call reconciliation.

And so actually in his previous career in the oil industry and then in a position at Coventry Cathedral, he was is well recognized for having done great work in reconciliation, bringing warring parties together.

However, there is a great fear now amongst some that he will pursue a particular brand of reconciliation in the

Anglican communion that will not take seriously enough. The the sin, let's call it that the sin and the heresy of those in the

Episcopal Church and elsewhere who oppose the gospel, not least by advocating immoral lifestyles, but elsewhere.

And already we're seeing signs of that, that fracturing starting to happen, even sadly within the ACNA, the

Anglican Church of North America. So very recently there was on the web, the website

I write for stand firm in faith dot com stand firm. We've raised this issue recently because we decided it's just best to be friends with nobody by upsetting them all.

But we've raised this issue recently. The rector of a parish in Virginia, a parish, which quite a few years ago seceded from the

Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia, and they formed their own little group over the issue of human sexuality.

He has now started basically chumming up with the new bishop in Virginia, and they have gone together to a reconciliation meeting at HDB again,

Holy Trinity Brompton in London. And Justin Welby has affirmed that action. And so what you've actually got is just a terrible.

It actually pains me to talk about it. That sad situation where the chief pastor of a church who disaffiliated over human sexuality from their denomination is now chumming up and affirming the ministry of a bishop who in the same diocese, who holds the same position over which they previously split.

And we're now starting to talk to them again about brothers with whom we disagree over a big issue, but not big enough for us to divide.

And so, you know, I mean, that's just what do you do? What do you do? No one's going to like you if you speak up about that thing.

And so some of my blogging colleagues at Stan firm have taken some hits over that. We may have been possibly intemperate in the way that we said some things, but temperate.

But the issue the issue is, is a lie. I wouldn't even know what that means. The issue is alive and well. And so the battle is now on,

I think, just to we can never be pure as a church. But let's just let's just be really clear about what we split over in the first place and how we are meant to deal with false teachers.

There's more battles yet to come, and it remains to be seen how Justin Welby, the new archbishop of Canterbury, will will will do with that.

And so we will continue to pray for him as we ought to. And, yeah, I, I must confess it would be difficult.

Now, I know you do apologetics. Yeah. You've debated some atheists and stuff like that. Yeah. It would be hard for me.

I would not do well in your circles. Yeah, I wouldn't do well in your circles. I couldn't.

I do not have the restraint. I mean,

Turretin fan, just you didn't see this because I think someone's taking a look, by the way, the channel. I would love to have.

Yeah, well, I've got one here. Great. Turretin fan changes topic to yes, the stream is as air filled as Anglicanism.

We are both both problems. Ouch. Hey, I want to say to Turretin fan and I love him dearly.

I want to say, listen, we own the evangelicals, own the title deeds of the Anglican Communion.

When you look at the thirty nine articles and the Book of Common Prayer, they are thoroughly reformed documents.

We do, however, have squatters in the house. I was I was going to I was about to say, but when you can have bishops who don't know who

J .C. Ryle or when he lived. OK, that's right. You know, yeah, that's a good way of describing it is having squatters in the house.

But yeah, for me, the one of the things that's really helped, you know, one of the things that's important for me about a church that I'm going to be a part of.

And it's not easy to have me a part of any church, actually. But there really has to be consistency. I mean,

I can go to a Reformed Baptist church almost any place and, you know, walk in and fill the pulpit.

And there's not to be much of an issue. Yeah. But there you just go. What is it? Four hundred and fifty kilometers, something like that north to Brisbane.

Yeah. And it's going to be a whole different world up there. Not even that far. But I won't say where I was.

I won't say where. In fact, those who know me. No, I won't say it. No, I won't say it.

OK. Let me just say to those who know me very well. Not very far at all. Look, it's a big issue.

And of course, it was it's the Episcopal Church in the United States is much further gone, of course, than than any other province in the communion.

Why? Look, I think because the seminaries went early and when the seminaries go, then you produce clergy pastors who are liberal as well.

The American seminaries are farther than English. The American Episcopal seminaries are farther gone. Really?

Oh, certainly, certainly. And that's where it's gone. It has been a long debate in the

Church of England. So in a conference, even in 1967, I think the Kiel Conference, Lloyd Jones, Martin Lloyd Jones, a famous Baptist, Baptist, Baptist preacher.

Martin Lloyd Jones. Yes. Was he Baptist? Anyway, good. Independent, nonconformist. Independent congregation.

Nonconformist. Let's call it that. He challenged the Anglicans of the time, so men like Packer and Stott with great evangelical pedigree.

He challenged them over this issue. I mean, he issued the call come out from amongst them to Corinthians six.

And they decided they wanted to pursue the the policy of engagement within the denomination for the reasons that I've said, that the denomination officially itself is still reformed.

Officially, officially, officially. And yet there's a great book by a guy called

Ian Murray. I got a guy called Ian, a reformed Baptist. No. Excellent.

Well, Ian Murray's evangelicalism divided is probably the best record of that debate, not least in the

Church of England itself. And he demonstrates how possibly the evangelicals failed in that attempt.

But there they are now. And they're taking more of a stand. There's what we call the Anglican mission in England. The Anglican mission in England.

And they're taking a stand over issues. And we've yet to see the the worst scrum that there may be as it gets worse.

I think the problems will come. No one over here knows what a scrum is. OK. Mosh pit. OK. OK.

All right. That that only communicated to people under 30. So you've now fight. I thank you very much.

All right. A bit of a some fisticuffs, some fisticuffs. That's right. Probably the the the line in the sand in England, as it will be for us in Australia as well, where I'm ministering, will be when the national church legislates for something that is blatantly immoral.

That is why, of course, evangelicals have been prepared to watch women ordained as priests.

And they were prepared to accept with certain caveats women as bishops. But they will hold the line on sexual immorality because on the first the scripture.

I think you and I think it's pretty clear what the role of women in the church should be and all the many wonderful things that women can do.

And many places they can teach, of course, but just not in the in the mixed congregation. But the scriptures never say, if you don't get that right, people go to hell.

But on the areas of human sexuality, the scriptures are really, really clear. This is what you used to be.

But now and people who pursue it end up end up in damnation. So when the church then legislates that, that you will find there'll be there'll be a real stink.

But other places are going strong. So where I am in Sydney, I mean, it's it's great. It's incredible as an Anglican.

Let me say as an Anglican to look around and know that pretty much everywhere you send someone, they'll go to a great reform church.

Yeah, I mean, I've I've mentioned many times the honor that has been mine to get a chance to lecture a couple of times at more college and things like that.

And it's but it's it's for most folks outside of that area. And I was at an

Anglican church up in Anchorage and they were struggling so much with what was going on there.

And this was a number of years ago. So I think there's be a whole lot more options for them now than there was even at that time.

Certainly. So I know that they're out there, but what we hear in the news, what we read in the reports and stuff like that is just you're just like, wow, the media, like the media, like the like the conflict stories.

And, you know, I mean, you know, this ministry anyway, it's it's just the faithful people getting on with with the work that you never hear about.

And yet they are doing it. So one guy I'm going to visit, one of my fellow writers in Stanford, his name is Matt Kennedy, and he was in the

Diocese of Central New York again, wanted to leave the diocese, ended up losing, ended up losing their building and his rectory and everything.

And that was the story in the media. What you don't hear now is that they're in a new building and they're doing far more ministry than they ever were before.

The church has grown massively and because that doesn't make the news. Turgeon fan changed the topic to what the stream still has hope, like Anglicanism.

There you go. Well, and then and then JPC and Channel said, and I don't know who

JPC is. That's a new nick to me. Sydney Anglicans are so atypical for even Australia. What do you what do you think?

Well, yeah, and it's in the sense that reformed Christians are atypical anywhere, I think.

Yes, certainly even in Australia, they're atypical. But, you know, evangelicals all around Australia look to the

Sydney Anglicans as a model, not as the great white hope or anything, but, you know, as a model of where at least people are trying to have a go at getting it right.

And, you know, that's that's a group that's producing great material. So, for example,

Matthias Media, give a shout out to them. I write some stuff for one of their websites. Matthias Media, who are based in Sydney and now have a site in America.

And they have some just some great material that's being produced from this from this this melting pot.

And yeah, so atypical, yes. But then Christians, we were talking about this earlier. Christians always are atypical.

Sydney Anglicans, where the portions are orthodox, but small. Hey, well, yes. Yeah, we can talk about portion sizes if you want to.

Picked up any weight so far? Yeah. Oh, yes. And it costs so much less.

Yes. So I'm picking up more for less. Yes. Yes. It's easier to get doesn't feel good, though. No, it's easier to get fat here.

Yeah, it really is. And I was in the car. It doesn't. Oh, my word. That's right. That's right. You got to get out and run around the car about 20 times each stop.

Well, my car's big enough to be quite winded by the time you get around that thing.

Oh, it's about it. I would be. Well, is there is there anything else you'd like to tell us about about, you know, try to convince us, because I think we still have a few skeptics in the audience, possibly that that's your

Anglicanism. Yeah. Well, I want to say Anglicanism is probably the first major denomination to to go wholeheartedly with the

Reformation. And it had the advantage of being a second generation movement.

So the Anglicans in the Church of England, good men in Church of England, watched what happened on the continent with Luther and with others and waited patiently till Henry VIII died.

Because, believe it or not, Protestant Anglicanism did not start with Henry VIII. Henry VIII's fight was with the pope over power in the nation.

But he remained to his death staunchly Catholic in the sense that we would we would think of it. When Henry died, his son,

Edward, came to the throne at about eight years, eight or nine years of age. He was a hemophiliac, but Protestant.

And the men around him, so Thomas Cranmer, who I take my nick and channel from Archbishop Canterbury, a man called

Somerset, who was Lord Chancellor, I think, at the time, and others worked incredibly hard to not just promulgate, but to legislate the reformed faith.

They pushed out two prayer books, the first prayer book, 1549, the first prayer book in the common language. And a brilliant piece of work, not perfect.

And Busser and Calvin corresponded with Cranmer. And then he rolled out the 1552, which is just brilliant.

So if you read the 1552 prayer book, of which the 1662, which is commonly now known as the classic book on common prayers, it's a thoroughly reformed document.

And so it was a top down, legislated from the top. Of course, when Mary came in when

Edward died, there were five years of persecution. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.

And then under Elizabeth, there was a settlement where essentially the prayer book was reinstated and the doctrines reinstated.

She was gentler about how she went about it. The via media. Yeah, but her via media, of course, was a via media between the

Puritans and the other reformers. Funny. As soon as you said that, up on the screen comes

Turrett's event. Shall we discuss the ejection of the Puritans? Well, you know, it's really interesting because now people in Sydney and the streams that I come from will look to the

Puritans as people from whom they draw a lot of their heritage from.

So is that their revenge? Of the Puritans? Yes. Revenge of the Puritans. You know that film's not going to sell well, don't you?

Turrett's a fan to watch it, but I'm not sure it's even worth it. That's right. So, look, I want to go, if you think that the

Anglican community today is hokey, then one, if you're an American, then probably part of that is just the blindness of, how do

I say it? Yes, the myopic nature of some Americans who cannot see beyond their own shores, that actually the

Anglican community around the world is healthy and well. In Africa, it is growing tremendously.

Back in Singapore, where my wife is from and we love dearly, the new bishop, like the old one, firmly off the docks.

All across Southeast Asia, that's going on. People who love the Lord Jesus Christ and love the gospel going strong.

So the central aspects of some of the control may have been taken by the liberals, but the heart of it is well and strong.

And if you're sceptical about us, I would say, do some research on actually what we officially believe and then get on your knees and pray for us, because we covet your prayers.

And the funny thing is, I went down there, I was so overdressed the first night

I spoke there. In Sydney? Oh my goodness. It's very informal, isn't it? I was expecting vestments, and I was the only one wearing anything close to a vestment.

It's called a tie. It's called a tie, that's right. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, we're very informal. That's just the nature of Sydney.

It's anti -authoritarian. Oh yeah. This is a gem I'll share with your listeners. It has been since the first fleet arrived.

The first fleet, of course, remember, was made up mostly of convicts who were given the choice.

Because they were sent to Australia because, for some reason, Georgia in the continental United States was no longer available for the

British government to send prisoners to some small ruckus that happened over there.

And so they sent them to Australia, and actually this coming Sunday is the 225th anniversary of the first ever

Christian service to be held on the mainland of Australia, where the chaplain, funded not by the government, but by evangelicals, the same evangelical stable from which men like Simeon and Wilberforce and so forth came from.

They funded a chaplain to go with the first fleet, and Johnson got off the boat and preached from the

Psalms, how shall I repay the Lord for all his kindness to us. And we have the records, and a guy

I know in Sydney has been doing a bit of research on Johnson, and he's got the records, all the direct entries of people from that day of what happened and how it happened, and Johnson got out and preached that sermon this coming

Sunday, 225 years ago. So if all these folks were from the homeland, what happened to the language?

What happened to the language here? It's just so unique.

I was having to explain to someone, because they're just not old enough to remember, who

Crocodile Dundee was. Yes. They had never even seen it, which is sort of sad.

That's not a knife. That's exactly what I, that's not a knife. That's a knife. That's a knife.

Mate. Mate. What is all that? I mean, that's... No idea. I have no idea.

I couldn't tell you, but that's like the Bushman. So these are hardened, wisened guys. Think the Frontier West.

Oh, yeah. That kind of approach. But just everything more deadly. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Anything that's poisonous here is ten times worse. Ten times worse there. And smaller, and more, and more.

It looks innocuous, but it'll get you. I don't know what Earthen Fan's trying to do here. What's he doing? I've got to...

He's changing the channel. No, no, no. You just did the, that's not a knife. That's not, yeah. You call that a confession of faith?

Is he giving the Westminster? Is he putting the Westminster up? That must be what he's doing. Oh, I see. Oh, that's incredible.

Hey, look, 39 articles is more than enough, isn't it? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The London Bapst Confession of Faith is almost the exact same length as the

Westminster Confession. Yeah, it took you more than 150 years more to actually get there. Well, you know, it takes a while to get perfection, so.

Anyways, so I mentioned to you before you came here, and you said, I want to crack at that soon.

Oh, yeah. I was a bit self -indulgent about that. Yeah, you were, but I'm not going to say anything about that. But I had some plans for today's program, and we have about 45 minutes or so, a little bit more than that, to be able to get to it.

And the funny thing is, well, it's not funny, but I had seen this video. I'm going to play the video. And then when was it that Al Mohler mentioned this?

Sometime, this was posted January 23rd. So sometime over the last week,

Al Mohler referred to a Slawn .com article by Mary Elizabeth Williams, who evidently is fairly well -known as a liberal writer, titled,

So What If Abortion Ends Life? And I discovered that the two are basically presenting the exact same,

I guess I would call it, utilitarian perspective of worldview in life.

And it's different than your normal stuff. And so I want to, how long is this?

It's two minutes and 46 seconds. Let's go ahead and listen. I've never seen this man before, I will confess.

The only time I ever watch MSNBC is when I'm trying to put a different number into the remote and, you know, sometimes it messes up, you know, and you end up with instead of 286, it gets just 86 or something.

That's the only time that I see MSNBC. So I apologize if I mispronounce the man's name.

It looks like Ture is the name. I've never, I'm sorry, T -O -U -R -E with an accent.

So we're assuming it's Ture. Okay. Anyways, he gave a little talk at the end of his program or somebody's program.

I don't know. And it's titled, when Breitbart posted it, it says

MSNBC anchor thanks God for abortion. You know it's going to be good, don't you?

Oh, yeah. Oh, my word. Yeah. And so I just, I want to play this and then we'll go back through it.

And I, well, well, here it is. When I was in a committed relationship with a woman who

I knew was just not the one. She also did get out. And then she got pregnant. And I was terrified.

I've always known the importance of family and building kids into strong adults. And I know I would not be who

I am if not for growing up under the watchful eye of two people who loved me and loved each other. And I were not going to be able to form a lasting family.

She decided it was best to have an abortion and days later she did. We did. And in some ways that choice saved my life.

I was not then smart enough or man enough to build a family or raise a child. And I only would have contributed to making a mess of three lives.

Years after that I met another woman, married her, and after we decided to get pregnant I went to her doctor's appointments with joy.

It was a thrill to watch that boy grow inside her. As we watched him move around on 3D sonograms,

I saw how human they are at that stage. And my lifelong belief in abortion rights was, let's say, jostled.

It was life colliding with belief system. I had to rethink my position. But in the end I remained committed to being pro -choice because I cannot imagine arguing against a woman's right to control her body and thus her life.

I believe in, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, a woman's autonomy to determine her life.

An unsolvable medical debate about when exactly life begins. But I find something undeniably misogynist about the impulse to deny a woman's dominion over her own body and limit her ability to shape her life and impose another sense of morality on her.

Family building is at the heart of nation building and taking away the ability to choose means the ability to build lasting families is challenged.

Richard Florida finds the higher a state's abortion rate, the lower. No abortion is legal. Ever since Roe was passed, the right has been working not just to overturn it, but also to constrain it.

Today was the 40th annual March for Life in D .C. In 87 % of counties there are no abortion providers and in several states it's nearly impossible to get an abortion.

In over the past two years, 130 laws have been enacted restricting abortion rights and curbing the number of abortion providers.

I want abortion to be legal, safe and rare. But restricting and drives many women to self -administered abortions that endanger their lives and their reproductive future.

In a nation where 40 % of children are born to unwed mothers, we are hurting our nation by making family planning harder.

I thank God and country that when I fell into a bad situation, abortion was there to save me and keep me on a path toward building a strong family

I have now. And I pray that safety net remains in place. People have children when they're prepared.

Families and the stronger adults and a stronger America. And now a man... Well, I apologize.

I had to try to record that. Instead of being able to download the file,

I had to actually use a program that I purchased just to record that.

And unfortunately, there are obviously a few hiccups there where things got cut out, but... I think we got the gist. I think we got the gist.

We definitely got the gist. And so let me tie into that this article and then we'll go back through what is said.

This is on salon .com from the 23rd of January. She starts off talking about the diabolically clever move of the anti -choice lobby of co -opting the word life.

And then she talks about the fact that pro -choice people have a real problem with dealing with this and dealing with the issue of what life is.

And she says, as Roe v. Wade enters its fifth decade, we find ourselves at one of the most schizo moments in our national relationship with reproductive choice.

In the past year, we've endured the highest number of abortion restrictions ever, yet support for abortion rights is at an all -time high, with 7 in 10

Americans in favor of letting Roe v. Wade stand. Which, by the way, is extremely... That particular study, quote -unquote study, poll, was...

This is just leftist propaganda, but anyways. Thus, a stunning 10 % increase from just a decade ago.

In the midst of this unique moment, Planned Parenthood has taken the bold step of refraining the vernacular and moving away from the easy and easily divisive words life and choice.

Instead, as a new promotional film acknowledges, it's not a black and white issue. There's a certain irony in that statement, isn't there?

It is, given the number of black abortions in the United States. It's a move whose time is long overdue. It's important because when we don't look at the complexities of reproduction, we give far too much semantic power to those who try to control it.

And we play into the sneaky, dirty tricks of the anti -choice lobby when we on the pro -choice side squirm so uncomfortably at the ways in which they've repeatedly appropriated the concept of life.

Here is the complicated reality in which we live. All life is not equal.

There it is. That's a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death -panel -loving, kill -your -grandma -and -your -precious -baby stormtroopers.

I actually like that description. It's nice, isn't it? It is. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides.

She's the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non -autonomous entity inside of her.

Period. Then one single word. Always. When we on the pro -choice side get cagey about the life question, it makes us illogically contradictory.

Well, I'm glad someone's admitting this. I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of scraping out a bunch of cells.

And then a few years later, we're exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly describe in terms of the baby and this kid.

I know women. They were just lucky to be able to still have children at that time. I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages.

Why can't we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it's pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn't the same?

Fetuses aren't selective like that. They don't qualify as human life only if they're intended to be born.

She's right. Of course she's right. This is the galling thing about this. This is the frightening thing about this.

It's terrifying, isn't it? It's terrifying because one of my primary arguments for years, since the 1980s, has been simply to demonstrate logically the humanity of the unborn child.

Absolutely. Assuming... And they've both espoused it. So Ture in his article as well says, you know,

I saw the ultrasound and I wavered. There it is. As we all did when we saw, you know, or the equivalent,

I don't know, a while ago when you had your children, but I can remember. We had ultrasounds even with my kids.

You'll know the same joy, moving on. You'll know that same joy that I had of seeing even just the peanut for the first time.

Just amazing. I've still got it on my phone when we had the peanut of little Clementine. There's a little...

But the problem is, now we're dealing... Al Mohler has said, and I'm going to finish reading this, but Al Mohler has said it correctly.

One of the reasons that more and more people are actually pro -life in the United States is because this is a generation that's grown up seeing their brothers and sisters' ultrasounds on the refrigerator.

But the point is here that that no longer is the argument. Exactly. That's the problem.

Okay. When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn't involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand.

First trimester abortion versus second trimester versus the late term. Dancing around the issue, trying to decide if there's a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person.

Are you human only when you're born? Only when you're viable outside the womb? Are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?

And of course, we need to recognize that these very same questions then go to the end of life as well.

Yes. Indeed. And we're seeing... What we're seeing is that the culture of death comes from both directions.

Absolutely. Constricting things in the middle and... What was that movie? Ryan's Run? Is that what it's called?

Logan's Run. Logan's Run. Why do I keep saying Ryan? No idea. But Logan's Run really did...

It's amazing. Those really campy 1970s movies were actually saying something.

They saw it coming. They saw it coming. Brave New World. When we're so... We're so intimidated by the wingnuts.

Hello, that's me. Me too. I'll stick my hand up on that one. Oh, yes, wingnut. We get spooked out of having these conversations.

We let the arch -conservatives browbeat us with the concept of life using their scare tactics on women and pushing for indefensible violations like forced ultrasounds.

Ooh, ooh. That's terrible. Why? Because when they waive the not even accurate notion that abortion stops a beating heart, they think they're going to trick us into some damning admission.

They believe that if we call a fetus a life, they can go down the road of making abortion murder. I think that's what concerns the hell out of those of us who support unrestricted reproductive freedom.

See, it's... Unrestricted, yes. And it's not actually the freedom to reproduce, is it? No, it isn't. No, it isn't.

But we make choices about life all the time in our country. We make them about men and women in other nations. We make them about prisoners in our penal system.

We make them about patients with terminal illnesses and accident victims. See? See? There's the other end. We still have passionate debates about the justification of our actions as a society, but we don't have to do it while being bullied around by the vague idea that if you're saying we're talking about human life, then the jig is up rights -wise.

It seems absurd to suggest that the only thing that makes us fully human is the short ride out of some lady's birth canal.

That some lady? Oh, ouch. Whatever happened to motherhood? Anyways, that distinction may apply neatly legally, but philosophically, surely we can do better.

Wow. Huh. Instead, we let right -wingers perpetuate the sentimental fiction that no one with a heart, and certainly no one who's experienced the wondrous miracle of family life, can possibly resist tiny fingers and tiny toes growing inside a woman's body.

We give a platform to the notion that, as Christina Locke opined in a recent New York Times op -ed, motherhood has slyly changed us.

We went from basking in the rights that feminism had afforded to us to silently pledging never to exercise them.

Nice mommies don't talk about abortion. Don't they? The majority of women who have abortions, and one in three

American women will, are already mothers. I think that's a little bit high, but it could be. It would be sad if it was the case.

And I can say anecdotally that I'm a mom who loved the lies she incubated from the moment she did something on those sticks, and is also now well over 40 and in an experimental drug trial.

If by some random fluke I learned today I was pregnant, you bet your bleep I'd have an abortion. I'd have the world's greatest abortion all capitalized.

Wow. You're trying to roll. I mean, the world's greatest abortion. Yes, the world's, in all capitals.

Wow. Well, my belief, now here's the last paragraph. My belief that life begins at conception is mine to cling to.

There's a little post -modernism there, don't you think? Just a tad bit. And if you believe that it begins at birth, or somewhere around the second trimester, or when the kid finally goes to college, that's a conversation we can have, one that I hope would be respectful and emphatic and fearless.

We can't have it if those of us who believe that human life exists in utero are afraid we're somehow going to flub it for the cause.

In an op -ed on Why I'm Pro -Choice in the Michigan Daily this week, Emma Menier said quite perfectly that some argue that abortion takes lives, but I know that abortion saves lives, too.

She understands that it saves lives, not just in the most medically literal way, but in the roads that women who have choice then get to go down, in the possibilities for them and for their families.

And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time, even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life.

And here are the last four words, my friends. A life worth sacrificing.

A life worth sacrificing. I don't even know where to begin, but to just point out right at the end there, what is she saying?

What does it mean? Interestingly enough, it's almost like they planned this.

To Ray, what was the terminology used? It saved my life. It saved my life, he said. It saved my life. And here, she understands that it saves lives, not just in the most medically literal way.

And we all know that the number of abortions that are actually performed for that reason are minuscule in comparison to the 99 % that have nothing to do with saving a woman's life at all.

But here's the real issue. But in the roads that women who have choice then get to go down, in the possibilities for them and for their families.

And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time, even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life, a life worth sacrificing.

What they're saying is, once you make it past a certain age, now you have the right to life.

Once you make it past a certain stage in development, I guess. Now, of course, Peter Singer is going to look at this and go, well, why isn't that two years old?

And that argument was actually, that question was actually raised also in Australia by some researchers as well.

They asked it, I think, to press the point more than anything else. But they said, come on, in the same style, let's be consistent in our argument.

Why is this one moment of cut off where we do it? It's shocking, isn't it?

I mean, if autonomy is the issue. And that's what it is, isn't it? So it's actually, this is a helpful piece, isn't it?

I mean that in the sense that it helps us get inside what the actual, she's right, it's a philosophy. And the philosophy here is that actualization of choice is the great good.

It's the cinema. It's the everything. And so, you know, in one sense, that is the world that we live in around here.

I have been staggered, especially in this country, even in the two and a bit short weeks that we've driven. The choice available to me is profound.

We live in a culture that in every sense says that there ought to be no restriction upon my choice.

If I want it, I can have it. It comes from a very good thing. You know, we're saying to young boys and girls, you can do it.

You know, grasp hold of your dream, get it there. But there it is, driven all the way to its full conclusion, the actualization of choice.

And there's a refreshing honesty, isn't there, about saying, she goes, it is life. So that's great. They've given up that fight, at least these two have.

It is life, but it has a different value. And the value is defined by me.

By me. By me. And that life, with respect to my actualization of choice.

And it's a choice that is completely based not upon a commitment to nation, a commitment to a society, a commitment to a people, a commitment to even a family.

It's my personal happiness. And that becomes the defining issue.

So much so that Ture can speak about the joy with which he has one child. And rejoice and thank

God. Thank God. It's very interesting, isn't it, the language that he uses. And yet of the previous pregnancy that was aborted, he calls that a bad situation.

The one that he fell into. Really? Mate, I'm a dad. You didn't fall in.

Don't even go there. What are you talking about? For the children, please go and talk to your mom and dad to explain what

I've just been talking about. That was one of the things in both of these. I'm sorry you would think it's a given, but it has to be pointed out.

Obviously, the act of choice of fulfilling my sexual lust is absolutely the highest.

It's unquestionable for these people. Absolutely. He doesn't even show the slightest hint of shame to admit that he was having sex with a woman that he knew he was never going to marry.

And that's why he couldn't marry. That's right. It's a wider thing. In an article I wrote recently for the briefing of Mathias Meader, I call it the commodification of children.

Where children now just become another commodity like anything else. Which is why people will shack up together and they'll divorce the physical act.

I'll be careful how I say it. They'll divorce the physical act from the raising of children and so forth. So he says,

I wasn't ready. It would be bad for me. So there's the articulation of his own autonomy again.

But I wasn't ready. Well, buddy, you were. You were. Because you did the thing that makes you very ready for being a father.

And we're actually seeing this commodification is expressing itself in different places as well, isn't it?

So actually there's an overlap here with the whole gay marriage argument as well. So think this one through, James. I think it follows through.

So here we're seeing people espouse the right to abort really in terms of I don't want the children.

Gay couples are pushing for the right to adopt on the basis that I want the children.

So actually the key issue is not the children. And what's best for them. In both cases,

I think you and I would argue that's bad for them. And I think there's enough. Well, in terms of death, clearly, and in terms of the regular study,

I think has been very good at showing on the other issue as well. But that's not the issue anymore. The issue is simply, again, the actualization of choice.

When a child is wanted by a gay couple or otherwise. Then it can be granted life.

These are heterosexual couples saying, I want this child. That is what gives the child the value. The choice of those parents.

When the child is not wanted, that is what dispenses the value of the life. And we ought to be grateful for the clarity that this op -ed and this written article actually give us here.

Because it moves us one step forward to clarity. It's a horrific thing to see us articulated so clearly.

But the clarity should help us in our discussion. I think about the self -centeredness that is in both of these examples.

And the thing is, their focus is only on the one child. The one abortion. I was immediately taken back to the thought that my great -grandmother died six days after my grandfather was born.

Had they had the choices in 1907 that these people had, you realize how many people would not be walking the earth today?

There's 55 million that aren't walking the earth today. Exactly. But when we think about those individual 55 million, we don't think about the fact that there's millions more that would have come from them.

And the entire family lines just cut off. That's right. So it's shocking, isn't it?

And the response to that they're going to say is, it saved a life. So actually look again. Here now is the new contradiction.

Look now how life is being defined. Because when Toure says it saved my life and when she says it saves my life, what they're actually talking about is, you know.

My standard of living. My standard of living. It's my standard of living. That is the argument. Because it's about, again, the actualization of choice.

If I have another kid, no one does a cost -benefit analysis on having children. A life worth sacrificing so that I can have a retina display iPad.

I mean that's literally what is being said. So Mark Driscoll, who I know people have mixed views on.

One of the things he has said that's very, very helpful is, you know people's gods when you see what they will sacrifice for that god.

And so here you have the expression of. A life worth sacrificing. What is the god here? It is my actualization of choice.

Me able to do what I want to do. What I want to do. What is being sacrificed? Well, the guy in even life itself.

And that indicates to us, doesn't it friends? How, how, just how warped we have got that I must be able to do what

I want to do. At some point we can actually talk about one life that was sacrificed. I hope. Well, yeah.

Because that's the answer here, isn't it? Well, it is. There's only one answer. It is. There's no question about that. But I just.

I am so concerned that I don't see. I see this mindset being expressed.

And I didn't, I didn't hear any kind of outrage expressed by these things.

I mean, Al Mohler pointed us to the salon .com thing. But the media, this can be expressed in the media.

I mean, there is such a fundamental shift in ethical and moral thinking.

Yeah. In Western culture. And yet it's happening in the complete ignorance of the vast majority of people whom it is affecting most.

I think that's really important. So most of us are just not stopping and thinking about the philosophical climate, the sea in which we're swimming, the river against which we're amused.

And you know what amusement is. Yeah. Musing is to think amuse is the alpha privative. So it's the negation.

We don't think about this stuff. We are so distracted. You know, I've mentioned this before and I'm not saying this as a criticism, but I've mentioned before.

I've noticed especially, you know, even with my kids and my kids are now in there. Well, my youngest is will turn 25 next year.

She's 24. So, I mean, the younger generation always has these nerves.

And I'm pointing to the earbuds that I need to hear that to hear you, to hear rich, to hear colors, things like that.

But they live with them. The idea of silent meditation and contemplation, not just in a necessarily religious perspective.

Yeah. But there's always something to keep you from hearing those voices of conscience and thought is always something going on.

Just time to stop and reflect. And just to be challenged to do so. It's I don't people just they read this.

And I am so concerned that I see young people that could listen to this guy and go, yeah, that sounds good.

And they don't even don't even think about what the ramifications would be. And it concerns me greatly, especially the fact that he can sit there and look into the camera and say,

I was involved in adultery and I am not repentant of it.

In fact. He presents it as if it's just a natural part of life.

And that no one the way it's presented is like and no one should judge me about that.

Absolutely. It's just no. I mean, that's I am willing to. You and I would remember a time, at least in our youth, when someone in a public position would have at least had the integrity to resign.

Or at least shown some shame. Even it was mock. Exactly.

Even if it was they at least would have recognized it would be expected that they're going to go.

Yeah. I shouldn't have done that. I know. I'm sorry. There's no there's no apology.

It's a massive shift. We were talking earlier about apologetics. I want to say to our listeners, this is the point where you've got to start working hard.

And it's not enough to respond to this and go, it's wrong because life is life. That's true.

And let's never stop saying that. But we need to be working hard at working out these very things that we're talking about.

What is the philosophical issue that's lying behind here? What is the basic worldview that is expressing itself in this in this way?

And so when we're having discussions with people about abortion. Here, let's start doing that.

That's just saying just stop for a minute and think about what's being expressed. In some senses, this is not about abortion.

It's about something quite deeper. It's about it's about a whole philosophy of how what life is all about and how

I express myself and what it means to be human. These two people are saying what it means to be human is the maximization of my choices so that I have the maximum utility of choice.

So if I want that apple, that fruit, I can just take it from the tree. And that's what's going on here.

And we need to help people see that so they can think through the issues properly, because otherwise we're going to be having a discussion.

That's almost want to say too simplistic. Do you understand me correctly on that? Not that saying life is life.

We ought not to murder children. This is too simplistic. I mean, that's true. And certainly we want to affirm it, but we want to be helping people.

That's how we equip people to have these discussions properly. Because we need to we need to get into this. Well, you know, this raises the issue that I have talked about many times.

And that is I wish there was some device we could install at the back of the church or when our our parishioners come in.

People come in to worship it. It strips the worldly way of thinking the world's way of thought out of them and gives them a

Christian worldview. I would love to design such a electronic device, but it does not exist.

Electronic device doesn't exist. But, you know, I had a great, a fantastic sermon last

Sunday. First Peter 1, 13 to 16, a preacher up in by the name of Brian, I think his name is

Brad, up in Utah. And Peter says, you know, sober minded, think about things the right way.

And, of course, he's already told you how to think about things the right way. He set out for you for a number of verses, just the great hope that the

Christian have. So as Christians, we want to be going. You know what? You want actualization of choice. Peter reminds me

I have in heaven prepared for me a hope secured for me, secured by the resurrection of the

Lord Jesus Christ, which nothing can take away from me. So do you know what I mean? Like, well, there's actualization of choice.

Well, the thing is, for Christians, the actualization of our choice is to abandon our choice.

Indeed. In death, literally, to take up the cross and deny oneself.

This worldview is fulfill my desires and my lusts.

And the message of the Christian life and the Christian person is. Deny oneself. Deny oneself.

Die with Christ and live a life of of of a servant of Jesus Christ to where my heart's desires are changed and made in conformity with what his desires for me would be.

Here you've got a worldview where my heart's desires define what everyone else should be, including willingness to sacrifice life, sacrifice to fulfill my own desires.

It is the absolute negation of the Christian worldview. And yet there I the thing that frightens me is

I know many people attending evangelical churches that could listen to that. And while they might not like what he said and they might be able to pick up on the always shouldn't have had sex before marriage part.

The fundamental worldview clash would be lost upon them because that's not a part of what they're really thinking about in the first place.

Indeed. So we just need to keep speaking to people clearly about these things and helping them to see it, I think.

Well, I know when I speak, you and I are both preachers, pastors of one form or another. And yeah, we we do this, don't we?

We're trying to equip our. I actually wear more formal clothes than you do. Quite possible. We we we we try to equip our people.

We do to think these things through and to see what's going on. But ours isn't the most popular preaching style out there.

We don't make people feel good enough. No, no, that is the problem. We're not in that sort of quick sugar hit kind of goodness.

And you know that that's you. You know that a church that has been built upon the idea of trying to not goad people in, but, you know, sort of like trying to get that stray cat to come in with a treat here and a little treat here and a little treat there.

Once that cat gets in, they can bolt out of there really fast. And they're annoyed because what you brought them in on isn't what you end up selling.

Exactly. And yet, is that not the paradigm that is predominant, at least in evangelicalism in the

United States? It's a lack of confidence in the scriptures, isn't it? And the Lord Jesus Christ. Massively so.

But the result is you've got people who think they are

Christians and maybe by God's grace they are, but they are functionally pagans in the way that they think.

Because they've not been, even when they read the Bible, if you have not had it presented to you with clarity that this is the

Christian worldview, you as a believer are called to deny yourself and take up the cross. I mean,

I know entire swaths of evangelicals in the United States. You're heading down toward Texas. A lot of people down there that have the idea, that's just for super -Christians.

That's not obligatory for an everyday Christian. That's just for super -Christians.

And I just go, how are they supposed to, in a meaningful fashion, engage this kind of thinking?

And I see, for example, another, how this interrelates, you mentioned yourself,

I see so many people who were raised in Christian churches, who when they have a child, quote -unquote, comes out, all of a sudden everything they thought they believed changes.

And they go flying off into some form of wild -eyed liberalism because, well, fundamentally the scriptures and the scriptural worldview really wasn't their ultimate authority.

It was their experience. Their experience in Texas was everybody else is a

Baptist. Why can't I be? That's okay. Now that's changed. And all of a sudden everything changes in the process.

That's not the same as saying that parents of a kid that come out have to be all harsh and legalistic about it.

But you're right. And again, if you haven't, but if no one's actually given you,

I'm so grateful that when I became a Christian, I actually became a Christian in the United States. I won't mention the church

I went to. They loved me, but they didn't teach me now in reflection very, very well. But when I went back to the UK, I was dragged along to solid evangelical churches in my last year as a student.

Dragged along. Dragged along, literally kicking and screaming. And my experience was that for the first three weeks I was gripped and repulsed.

I was gripped because for the first time I saw the Bible being taught in an intellectually credible way.

There was no doubt that the man in front of me, Bill James was his name. He's a good, good guy, a manual evangelical church in Leamington in England.

I had the privilege of writing to him last year and thanking him for this. There was no doubt that what he was doing was presenting to me what the

Bible was actually saying. So that part of my brain that longs to be engaged properly and well was hooked.

And yet, of course, because he was teaching the Bible well, it was like I was the only man in the room. And he spoke to me and my life had to change and I almost ran.

And literally the second week had to drag me back. Almost had to drag me back. I am so glad that they did.

Because I went from there to All Souls Langham Place in London. Loved those people. And that's when I heard preaching.

And I don't mean that Bill James couldn't preach. He was a fine preacher. But I just heard preaching that I saw the profound effect it had upon me and upon other people around me.

And I just went, that's the game I want to be in. And at the time I was training to be a chartered accountant. You were training to be a what?

A chartered accountant. A CPA. So the dichotomy was rather stark. But here's the thing. In those early years,

I was surrounded by people who lived the authority of the Bible.

And then particularly as I began to preach myself and did some one day a week working at All Souls. The people who went through my sermon text before I preached them.

I remember one guy, one man I loved dearly. He's now at Christ Church Forward. His name is Paul Williams. I was preaching on Matthew 10 or 11 where Jesus is speaking about the conflict.

Paul Belal Williams. No. Speaking about the conflict that a Christian comes across.

And Paul, I remember Paul read my text and he went, that's a really nice sermon. It's just not what Jesus said. And then he said something really profound to me.

He said, David, do you trust Jesus? And do you trust

God's word that actually it is sufficient? It's one of those crystallizing moments where I kind of had anyway, but he just summed it up really, really well for me.

And then you actually suddenly go, do you know what? Yes, God has given us sufficiency in his word and Jesus is enough.

And actually, if he is the son of God, if he's divine and the Lord and the rule of the universe and the

Christ, then actually, do you know what? Following him is worth it. And since what we said before, since there is such a glorious thing awaiting for me one day when the

Lord Jesus Christ returns and makes everything new and who, you know, no mind has, no mind has seen.

No, I know. No, I has conceived. I got the wrong way around, but you know what I'm saying? We can live for him and we can just take the hacks.

And, you know, as Peter writes, it's actually a joy, isn't it? It is. What Peter actually says, it says, if they mock you for being, you know, a troublemaker, it's your own fault.

They give you a hard time because you bear the name of Jesus. He says, well, think about that for a minute.

Consider it all joy. What a badge to have. Yes, yes. But we're not teaching people that. Most definitely.

Well, you know, we only got a few minutes left. By the way, Micah in Channel was making fun of how you said a chartered account.

Chartered account. Chartered account. I didn't even know what it was you said. We had to slow you down there to figure out what it was. Yeah. But there was something else.

I should give a little shout out to Micah. We spent a beautiful night with him and his wife, my whole family, and they were very kind to us.

They gave us dinner. We watched a movie, and I knocked his plastic baseball well into the neighbor's yard. Okay.

All right. Well, yes, I've had some good times with Micah. Great guy. I forget this place we went to the last time

I was up there, but it had really weird things on the wall. We were making comments about the idols on the walls. I forget where it was, but it was somewhere in Mill Valley, as I recall.

But anyways, going back to Trey, I was struck by his statement that once he married, you know, oh,

I decided it was time to marry. I stopped jacking up with women. Once he married and we decided to get pregnant, it's funny how the woman is autonomous over her body, but we got pregnant.

Yeah. The inconsistencies. And we had an abortion, he actually said. He did say we had an abortion, yes. He talks about seeing those sonograms, and of course, you know, we've all seen them.

Obviously, I have a six -week -old granddaughter now, and so I got to see the 3D thing where they've done the, where they do, you know, you can actually see the face.

I love that. It's just incredible. That they did not have. Yeah. Back when

Josh and Summer were born, that's for sure. They had nothing for me when I was born, and my mom didn't even know she was having twins.

Really? Big shout -out to my brother, the clone. Yeah. Sending the clones?

So yeah, so she had the first, and then they said there's another one on the way, and I think her words then were unrepeatable.

Wow. Sorry I distracted you. That would be somewhat of a surprise. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? No, I, well, my wife's an identical twin, so, but they knew that that was the case, and she was only like two -some -odd pounds when she was born.

Which, in those days, which I need to say was only about 29 years ago. 29. 28, 29.

Yeah, 28, 29 years ago. It was pretty unusual for them to survive, but anyways.

Sorry, sonograms. Now you've completely. Sorry. Sonograms, yeah. I was just actualizing my choices. You're exercising your choice to completely throw me off course there, but he talks about his beliefs were shaken, and yet the reasoning that he uses to say why he has not changed his perspective has nothing to do with the ontological reality of the humanity of that child at all.

It, you know, it was said back in the 80s, if the womb was transparent, we wouldn't have abortion.

Well, I'm starting to wonder about that. I understood what it meant back then, and I saw people, but what these folks are saying, both of them are saying.

Wouldn't make a difference. Is, you know what? My economic and personal well -being, and the two are very closely connected, because look, if your worldview is

I am the random result of impersonal forces, Adams bang against each other, as Doug Wilson likes to say.

If that's all I am, then I better grab the gusto now.

And I, if I don't, you know, look, it's last two nights have been rough around our house.

Clementine is a nocturnal being. Okay. And we've been trying to get her on a schedule, and we're all not quite as well rested as otherwise.

And my wife works. She has to get up like 3 .15 in the morning. Ouch. And so when you've got, you know, crying grandbaby and stuff like that, let's just say that right now the short -term benefits are not all that great.

I can understand that. Okay. I mean, you've got the washer and dryer are going constantly.

Constantly. Even in peak hour. Oh, my goodness. Whoever knew such a small thing could produce so much dirt.

I take the trash out. I take the diaper pail out, and I go, there is no way that little body produced this amount of weight.

It's incredible. So on the short run, you go, oh, no way. You would never do it.

Exactly. But if you are, if that's all of life is just these 70 years, then who cares about future generations?

Who cares about your nation? Who cares about your culture? Actually, who cares about the pregnancy that you do want? What do you mean?

Well, here's the thing. If that's all we are, just this random collection of atoms and so forth, if there is, as Dawkins, for example, would say, no meaning, no good, no bad, he actually,

Ture doesn't have the right to speak passionately about either the abortion or the life that he chose.

Each is, does realism matter? And if his child grows up and at the age of 10 is knocked over by a car.

Right. So what? Under that philosophy. Right. Exactly. Now, of course, that then he won't deal with, so he's got another philosophy, isn't it, which is his life is about his choices, but he's got no basis for that.

That's just plain selfishness speaking, really, isn't it? It's all it is. It's just sin. It's just me, me, me, me.

You always want to go, who's the child here we're talking about? Exactly right. If you want an example of an adult man in a suit exemplifying a

Greek participle, look at that video.

The Greek participle is katakanton, suppressing. Yeah. Suppressing.

Romans chapter one. He saw he is created in the image of God, and he saw on that screen the humanity of that child, and he knows what he did before.

Killed a human child. But you suppress it, and you thank

God for your suppression. Because suppression of the knowledge of God doesn't have to be in some pagan religion or in atheism.

We all see Dawkins suppressing it. I mean, Dawkins is a fundamentalist atheist. But there are other ways to do it, and here is a man thanking

God. It's awful, isn't it? It's awful. It is an amazing example of how far we can go to fulfill

Romans chapter one. So, James, we ought to then say, shouldn't we, that there is only one answer, and it's the only person who actually chose to sacrifice himself.

So we're talking today about the weak being sacrificed. Christians of all people should be people who are defending the weak, who never spend the weak for their own benefit.

And yet we want to be pointing, don't we, at people towards the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's got to be where we finish, hasn't it?

Well, I wish more non -believers heard this program, but the vast majority of our audience is going, preach it, brother.

But once in a while they will refer folks to it. Let's do it. Let's say very clearly, what you've heard today is two people articulating that somebody else can be sacrificed for their benefit.

It is the opposite of the Christian message, which is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who of anybody in the world to have value inherent in himself is the one.

No one came near him. He chose, unlike any other king there has been, he chose to sacrifice himself freely for the benefit of others.

Ironically, for the benefit, we pray, God willing, of even these two people that we've been speaking about today.

And he offers grace and forgiveness to everybody, particularly if you're here listening today and you've had an abortion or been involved in one in some way.

And as you hear these things, it's possible, because these are difficult subjects, aren't they? And they cut right to the heart.

It's possible you might be feeling a bit condemned and judged. You need to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

He died and he gave himself as a sacrifice to take the penalty, even for that worst of sins.

I say worst of sins because it's a terrible thing to take someone's life in that way. And also that he then models to Christians the right way to live, which is what we alluded to earlier, a life of self -sacrifice.

So he looks to the needs of others and calls us to do that as well.

And so we ought to do it as well, Christians. So I want to say Christians, we ought to live that way. And then there are a whole bunch of people to whose needs we need to look, and that is these unborn children and many of the women who are bearing them, who we need to be looking after because they are walking around in a world which tells them they must actualize their choices.

And if they go to the Planned Parenthood website or in Australia, they go to, I think, Mary Stopes or wherever it is.

And in the UK, they go to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. And the one thing they don't advise you on is how to have a pregnancy, for goodness sake.

All the stuff on the websites shown to them will be about the actualization of their choices. It will say, imagine where you'll be in five years' time with this child.

Imagine where you'd be without it. And of course, we've said cost -benefit doesn't work with children. You go, well, without it, right, until I'm in a position.

Well, the Lord Jesus Christ shows us a better way. And we ought to be loving these women, loving the children by speaking up about it, and friends, living it out ourselves.

If you're convinced of one thing today, it's that you must live a life of service. It's no good as it is speaking about these things and then going out and being selfish.

No, yeah, it's one thing to recognize someone saying, you know, a life worth sacrificing in service of the fulfillment of my desires, and then we live our lives just simply fulfilling our desires too.

It sort of dulls the impact of the observation and the preaching. And of course, we will serve these unborn children, and we'll serve the

Lord Jesus Christ himself, who gave breath to every life that ever has existed, and their heartbeat, and the little flicker of electricity in their neurons, even before the heartbeat, right?

We'll serve him by speaking out on this issue time and time again. Some folks on the channel seemingly think that...

Anglicans aren't so bad, right? Actually, I haven't heard that anywhere. Algo seems to feel that you did a good job.

Well, you know, the more I've looked at this, I became passionate about this issue years ago when my wife

Jackie did a course in crisis pregnancy counseling, and I realized the immense pressure some of these women are under.

Some just go at it brazenly, but many women having abortions are faced with the very same issues we've been speaking today, this philosophical climate that does it in that way, and we want to love them and care for them, just as the

Lord Jesus... You can't imagine Jesus treating one of these women any other way, either, can you? No, you can't. There's my

Anglican music. Turretin fans said, no one said Anglicans are all bad. All bad.

There's a couple of good ones. And Algo's saying, sing. So we're going to get you out of here before you have to...

Sorry, Algo, I just don't have time for Reverend Old to sing Jerusalem for you right now.

We'll have to do that the next time you get back. And did those feet... I'm sorry? And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's mountains green?

The answer, my friends, none. We'd better get out of here before this gets really weird. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you next week. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads

Let this moment slip away We must contend for the faith above us fought for We need a new

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