Open Call Day

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

The Dividing Line is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries, Calvary Press Publishers, the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and Bethany House Publishers. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now by dialing 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Open Phones, AOL Instant Messages, and the Day’s Topics

And welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White and yes, we're actually in studio today. It is not snowing. There is no traffic going by right next to me. We are here live back in Phoenix. We survived our week of ministry in Mesa and up in Salt Lake City and we're here live today.

And that's why we would like to hear from you at 508 -0960, 508 -0960. Two unusual things about the program today. First of all, I thought it was really cool a few weeks ago when the new Drive Time talk show host came on the air.

Marty Minto said that you can get hold of him by AOL while he's sitting here in the studio. I thought that was sort of cool. So guess what? You can do that today too. Yes, indeedy folks. If you are one of those cyber dudes and you have access to America Online, which I realize is not a real ISP.

It's not a real internet service provider. It's for people who need big, colorful buttons to push and stuff like that to figure out what you're doing. I realize that. And I have to admit, I do have an AOL account.

Part of that is, oh, I can't say part of that so that my wife can use the computer because that would really get me into a lot of trouble. But part of that, the main reason for that, everybody in the control room is going, where are you going to be sleeping tonight, son?

Part of the reason, honestly, the reason I've kept my AOL account is that I went and put my AOL address in the back of the first number of books I did. And they're still being published. They're still being printed.

The King James Only Controversy, the Roman Catholic Controversy, all have my AOL address orthopodeo, O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O. So I need to keep the AOL account because I do get a lot of mail from various and sundry people through that particular address.

I do have a real ISP, uswest .net, in fact, that works very well. But I do have AOL. And if you would like to instant message me, you have AOL as well. With a question or a comment, do so at orthopodeo, that's O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O.

My little old faithful trusty laptop is sitting here right next to me. I did remember to turn the sound down, however, so you don't hear that very annoying little ring whenever you get an instant message.

And we can, some folks don't like to call into a radio station. That's just all there is to it. Some folks, they have questions, they'd like to make comments, but they don't want to do it on the air. Well, here's sort of the backdoor.

O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O. AOL is the place and instant message me and we'll discuss what questions you have. Otherwise, it's 508 -0960 or 1 -800-TALK -960 if you are, I'm sorry, 1 -888-TALK -960.

Hey, it says toll free number one way or the other. 1 -888-TALK -960 outside of the Phoenix dialing area. And who knows where that is anymore, because I don't know where that is. I don't think US West knows where that is.

Who knows what dialing codes or zones that includes, but hey, we'll work with it one way or the other. And today is somewhat of an open phones day. That is, as long as I know something about what you're going to be asking about, you're free to ask about it.

We have a program and I'm on the program fairly regularly. Last time I was on, I think it actually was November of 97, called the Bible Answer Man Show and Hank Hanegraaff is the Bible Answer Man and we're not going to use the phrase Bible Answer Man because there's a lot of questions you could ask me about a lot of different groups and I wouldn't know even who you were talking about.

I mean, you call Hank Hanegraaff up and you can ask him about all these word faith teachers. He knows all their names. He's got a lot of stuff sitting there. I, clueless, don't know. In fact, I turned on, I'm getting into a lot of trouble here, I'm getting into a lot of trouble today, but I turned on the channel between 20 and 22 last night.

I never say what the channel is, but it's between 20 and 22 in the UHF band, not on cable, in case you're wondering. And I wanted to watch it for a while because I had made some comments about this network in an article that I had just finished for the CRI Journal.

And this particular network begins with the word Trinity and yet they have a number of people on their network who don't believe in the Trinity. People like T .D. Jakes who is a modalist and they've had Roy Blizzard on there who also has problems with the doctrine of the Trinity, so on and so forth.

So I had made some comments about some of these individuals and the fact that the head of that network has said that the Trinity and exactly how the Trinity works is an issue that is up for debate, one of those debatable subjects.

And one of the suggestions I made in the article was they maybe might want to change the name of their network. But be that as it may, I turned it on last night, just maybe to see if I could catch some of these people that I had been reading about, I had read comments that they had made, so on and so forth.

And the entire time it was on, all I saw was singing and a telethon going on and they had up in the corner the number of operators available and the number of operators that were free and you were supposed to be calling in and making your pledges.

And that's all that was on. The whole time, and I had it on until I just got tired of the bluegrass country Christian music and eventually gave up and turned something else on. But that's all that they were talking about when I was listening and I sort of wondered because there was one point where they stopped singing and they started talking about some of the places where they're beaming their signal and they said they're really big up in Alaska and in Russia.

And I just had to wonder, what would an Eastern Orthodox or a Russian Orthodox person think of quote unquote American Christianity, if this is all they ever saw of it?

Hmm.

That was not an overly impressive thought. It wasn't very encouraging, but that's probably where they're getting their ideas of what evangelicals are in the United States. But be that as it may, that was something that I experienced last night and I noticed they're on the web as well.

And it just absolutely amazes me sometimes what's going on in our country in regards to discernment. There's people on there, the WordFaith teachers on there. You could ask me about them, I don't know anything about them.

I do not claim to be an expert about Buddhism or Hinduism. In fact, I'd probably confuse various and sundry elements of both. If you have questions on the subjects that we have covered and that we at Alpha Omega Ministries deal with, specifically areas we've covered since we started this program, Sola Scriptura, the whole issue of Roman Catholicism, Mary, the issue of the sacraments, the Mass is an issue that I'm dealing with right now in preparation for a debate on Long Island on May 6th against Robert St. Genes, a Roman Catholic apologist.

Issues in regards to Roman Catholicism, issues in regards to Mormonism, we discussed that of course in Salt Lake City, Mormon beliefs, things like that. The Jehovah's Witnesses, doctrinal subjects such as the deity of Christ, the Trinity.

We spent quite some time talking about the doctrine of salvation. We had a few callers discussing eternal security. Issues in regards to the Bible, its transmission, its translation. We had the debate with Dr. Holland recently that focused upon those particular issues.

Those topics, church history, what the early church taught, believed, Bible translations, those are the areas that you are more than welcome to give us a call at 508 -0960, 508 -0960 or 1 -888-TALK960.

With your question, your comment, we would like to hear from you and to get you involved in the program today, or you can instant message me if you know what that is at AOL. My screen name is orthopodeo.

Everyone always wonders, why did you choose that screen name? I don't know. When you first sign on to a thing like that, you're sitting there at this screen going, well, make up your screen name, and you always end up with some goofy name with a big long number at the end you'll never remember.

But I came up with that one because it's a Greek verb used in Galatians 2, where Paul says that Peter was not walking straight in accordance with the truth of the gospel. To walk straight in accordance with a rule, to walk firmly and straightly, that's what orthopodeo means in the Greek language.

And so I figured that's probably a safe bet that no one else has that screen name. And so that's why I chose it. Orthopodeo, O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O. If you're on AOL, feel free to drop me an instant message.

Not just an email, I suppose I could read that too, but an instant message would be the best way to do it, and we'll be glad to take a look at your comments and get them on the air. Maybe that's a way you'd like to comment or ask a question without necessarily picking up the phone and getting on the air.

But today's your opportunity. You have questions. You have comments. 508 -0960, 1 -888-TALK -960 if you're outside the Phoenix dialing area. I have had some people ask some questions. In fact, probably at least once a week I get an email from someone who has read some of the material that I've written on Roman Catholicism, whether it be the Roman Catholic controversy or Mary Another Redeemer, they listen to the debates we have on the web.

And by the way, Stephen Luker, who runs StraightGate .com, I got to meet Stephen. In fact, Rich, we've got pictures coming. We took plenty of pictures with me and Stephen. There's a man with a heart as big as all outdoors.

And Stephen told me when we met in Chicago that he had just uploaded, I think it was, I forget how many megs of real audio files to StraightGate .com, which is where our real audio files are stored. And that included the seven-hour debate, and that was a two-parter, with Jerry Matytix on the subject of the papacy.

And I visited StraightGate just last night, and I was just looking at all the debates that are there, the radio programs that are there. This radio program is archived there as well. And just a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff there.

So people who access that information, they hear what we have to say about Roman Catholicism, things like that. They frequently will drop me a little note and say, so you've written the King James Only controversy, you've written the Roman Catholic controversy, you've written on Mormonism, the Forgotten Trinity Deals Law with Jehovah's Witnesses.

When are you going to write the Eastern Orthodox controversy? I just go, oh my. And it's coming up more now, for the obvious reason that what's going on in Yugoslavia is causing people to think about this particular subject.

The Serbs are Orthodox, the ethnic Albanians are Muslims. And so this whole religious issue is being thrown up. Right now, as I understand, there's some discussion. We had Easter last weekend, but on the Orthodox calendar it is this weekend.

And so therefore we have a different situation going on there as far as the calendars and things like that go. And so that has come out in the news and a lot of people are really confused about what Orthodoxy is, what the issues are with Orthodoxy, whether there is a, you know, a lot of folks just figure they're Roman Catholics without a Pope.

But that's not the case. There are other differences that exist between them, and some of those differences are very significant, but there's still some real problems with Orthodoxy. There's some real issues in regards to the Gospel, and there's major difficulty in communicating with these folks.

It's a language issue. It is due to the fact that Orthodoxy quite simply thinks differently than most of us do here in the West. You can't ask the questions of Orthodoxy that you can ask of Roman Catholicism or any evangelical denomination.

You can't just go to a systematic theology and find out that such and such a group believes such and such. It just doesn't work that way with Orthodoxy. And hence it becomes extremely difficult to explain that to folks, and the dialogue that takes place just doesn't happen.

The Trinity, TBN, and Doctrinal Discernment

Well, I'm getting messaged here, but it's not through AOL, it's through AODave. And over on my screen here, someone forgot to turn on the screen, so I saw you guys smiling in there, so I snuck over and turned on the screen there, and someone didn't appreciate what I said about the channel between 20 and 22.

Says, I don't know what I'm talking about, and I confess I don't watch it very often, and every time that I do, I'm absolutely amazed at what I'm hearing. I suppose I should expand upon the comments that I made.

Specifically, the problem that I have with the Trinity Broadcasting Network is the lack of doctrinal content of what appears on it. That is, someone like a T .D. Jakes, who is a modalist, whose own website presents a doctrine of the Trinity that is an ancient heresy of the Church.

TBN has no problem in allowing people like that on. I quoted specifically in my article a conversation between Paul Crouch and Benny Hinn, where Paul Crouch specifically indicated that issues of the persons and the Godhead and things like that are debatable issues.

That's where he was asking Benny about his nine persons in the Trinity teaching, that yes, Benny Hinn did abandon it, but why in the world anyone would ever put it out in the first place is what continues to amaze me.

The problem is quite simply a doctrinal issue, and for a lot of folks today, that's irrelevant. I suppose if what really floats your boat is clapping and foot stomping and music, and you don't care about doctrine or teaching, then big deal.

But if worship involves a true knowledge of the object of our worship, then it would seem to follow that we should be extremely concerned about false teachings concerning who God is. And oneness theology, modalism, the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, is extremely important.

It's just as much of a heresy as a denial of the deity of Christ. It's just as much of a heresy as a denial of monotheism. And even though it sounds closer, it isn't any closer than those other errors.

And so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about in regards to who's who and who has what program on at what time. That's for sure. I don't watch it. But the simple fact of the matter is, there is some real problems in regards to the balance of the teaching and the theology of the people that are very frequently the main characters.

And that continues to concern me, and I think it should concern anyone who is concerned about God's truth. Disagree or agree, that's up to you. You can contact me. You can instant message me at orthopodeo, O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O, there at AOL.

You can give us a call at 508 -0960 -1888, TALK960. You know, I'm going to be debating Dr. Robert Sabin. Some of you have possibly seen Dr. Sabin and Nathaniel Irshon on the John Ankerberg show. They debated the late Walter Martin and Cal Beisner on the Ankerberg show in, I believe, 1985.

And at that particular time, there was, I've forgotten how many programs they did, maybe three or four programs at least, where they discussed the teaching of oneness theology. And it's rather intriguing.

And I'm going off the top of my head here. On May 12th, I will be debating Hamza Abdul Malik, who is a Muslim apologist. And the thesis of the debate is, does the New Testament teach the deity of Christ?

And Mr. Malik's viewpoint is that the New Testament does not teach the deity of Christ. The New Testament is consistent with the Koran in denying the deity of Christ. And I've been watching a videotape of Mr. Malik debating this issue, and then I'll turn over and I'll read the debate with Irshon and Sabin versus Martin and Beisner on the Ankerberg show, and the exact same issues come up.

Except in this situation, the oneness people are saying, Jesus is God Almighty, Jesus is deity, but from the one perspective, Jesus is both the Father and the Son. The Son is indwelt by the Father. The Son is the flesh, and the Father is the deity that dwells within Him, so that when Jesus prays to the Father, that's His human side praying to His divine side.

There is no eternal Son. There is no second person of the Trinity. There's only one person of the Trinity who is, as it's normally put, Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Spirit in regeneration or in emanation.

That's the normal way that you will find that this is discussed. And yet, the primary issues I'm going to have to deal with in both debates are pretty much the same thing. Even though one side is saying Jesus isn't God, and the other side is saying Jesus is God, the fundamental errors they're both making partake of the same nature.

And that's because both misunderstand the doctrine of the Trinity. Both try to make God unitarian, and there's a vast difference between being a monotheist, believing there's one true God, and being a unitarian, that is, believing that the being of God is shared by only one person.

Very big difference there. Both sides assume that if you believe God is one, that means you believe that He is one person. And that doesn't follow. But the same issues are going to come up in just, they're only two days separated from one another.

One's the 12th, one's the 15th. They're on Long Island doing these debates in May. And yet, even though one's denying the deity of Christ, the other would affirm it, pretty much the same issues are going to be debated in both.

It's going to be a very, very interesting time while we're there on Long Island. And I hope you'll be praying for us as we engage in that work. There'll be three debates while we're on Long Island, and that's not including at least 15 different speaking opportunities.

Beyond that, in fact, I don't know if I'm the first, but very early on, on my trip to Long Island, I will be delivering a two-part lecture on the Trinity at a worldwide Church of God. And a lot of folks are, as soon as you say it, they go, excuse me?

You're doing what? At a worldwide Church of God, if you have listened to the Bible Answer Man show, you know that the General Secretary of that denomination has been on a number of times. And it is probably the only time in my recollection that I can think of a group that was distinctly cultic, has shed its cultic background, and adopted Orthodox Christian beliefs, and has moved the right direction.

I've seen a whole lot of groups that were once Orthodox go the other way, but you almost never see it go the direction that it's gone with the worldwide Church of God. And so I will have the opportunity, I think it's around the 31st of April, I should have brought my schedule with me.

Around the 31st of April, 1st of May, around in there, to be delivering a series of lectures on the biblical doctrine of the Trinity at a worldwide Church of God. I never thought back in the 80s, when I was studying the worldwide Church of God and Armstrongism and all of his very interesting teachings and beliefs, that I would be sitting in a their guest what the doctrine of the Trinity is for them.

Because they want to know, they want to believe, they want to understand. And that is truly a wonderful opportunity. 508 -0960 -1888, TALK960 is the phone number. If you would like to ask a question, have any comments concerning any of the things that we've discussed, whether it be Church history, whether it be the transmission and translation of the Bible, Mormonism.

We made a number of comments last week as we were up in Salt Lake City about the LDS faith and about the Mormons with whom we were speaking. And if you were listening last week, I will just simply tell you that for some reason, and sometimes this happens, some trips are different than others, for some reason the rest of the day I continued to have the same kind of conversations that I had had up to that point.

And you may recall that I mentioned that I encountered a lot of folks, a lot of folks who had very, very dull ears in Salt Lake City. That is no hunger for the Word of God, no hunger to obey it, an almost cavalier attitude about what the Scriptures said.

The one man that I talked with him concerning Jehovah's command that he alone is to be worshipped. Honestly, it was no better than, well, so. That was basically the level of the responses that I was getting from individuals up there.

And that continued pretty much through the afternoon. Now, other people weren't having the same situation, so I guess that just meant that the Lord decided to have me talk to all the hard cases, I guess we might say, while we were up there.

And that left the other folks to talk to the good folks. I don't know. I don't know. But it was a difficult thing to see that because I recognize there's nothing that I can do by what words I say, by what actions I take, to melt that heart.

You just simply, it doesn't matter what facts you have, it doesn't matter what arguments you have. It takes the Spirit of God to place within a person's heart a hunger and a desire for God's Word and a willingness to be obedient to God's Word.

You simply cannot in any way, shape, or form create that in a fake fashion. I suppose that there probably are emotional hot buttons that I could push and certain things that I could do. I'm not willing to do that.

I'm not willing to use those types of cheap techniques, in essence, to get around those things. So it just keeps reminding me of the necessity of the Holy Spirit opening a person's heart to understand His truth.

And that's true with anybody. That's true whether you're dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, whether you're dealing with a situation where you're talking to a Roman Catholic who is very strong in his faith, very committed, for example, to Mary as the bodily assumed Queen of Heaven.

Whoever it might be, you cannot simply by your words change that person's heart. The Holy Spirit of God must be active in that situation. We are absolutely positively dependent upon His work in that way.

508 -0960, 508 -0960. I know there's someone out there because my wife called and she did hear what I had to say. And of all the times to be listening, you know, of all the times to be listening, 1 -888-TALK -960, 1 -888-TALK -960.

If you're outside the Phoenix dialing area, it is nice to know that someone out there is indeed listening. And even if it came around that perspective. Give us a ring. Let us know what you'd like to discuss.

Maybe you just have some program suggestions for the future. Maybe you would like to see some dialogues and debates like we have had in the past, but with other groups. I can let you know whether it's a possibility or not.

Maybe some of you have some in's with some folks that I don't have in regards to arranging something. For example, we have had a suggestion that one interesting area of discussion that would be interesting for folks would be paedo-baptism.

And not paedo-baptism in the Roman Catholic sense or even in the Lutheran sense, but the debate between Baptists and Presbyterians on paedo-baptism, specifically the concept that infant baptism is the sign of the covenant.

There have been some who have suggested that that would be an interesting subject to discuss and to debate. And I can think of a few folks who might be willing to take up that particular invitation. Most of them are my friends, though, and I don't want to necessarily ruin our friendship.

So I'm not really sure how to work that out. 1 -888-TALK -960 -5080960. We have one call on the line. And if you are on AOL, I am too right now waiting for your instant message at orthopodeo, O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O.

I hope no one else has a screen name very close to that because it's easy to misspell it and you might be instant messaging someone you don't want to instant message. O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O is the screen name.

And if you'd like to drop me a note there, I'd be glad to respond to it on the air. We're going to take a break and be back with your calls right after this. And welcome back. We are taking your phone calls today at 5080960 or 1 -888-TALK -960.

Your questions, your comments, your concerns. Hey, we almost had one complaint. I'm certain that there are folks who in some way, shape, or form disagree with something I've said. It's almost frightening to think that someone wouldn't over the past number of months and all the things that we have discussed.

And we are making available through the wonder of technology. You can contact us at orthopodeo, O-R-T-H-O-P-O-D-E-O through AOL. If you'd like to drop an instant message to me, I don't care if it says, Hi, how are you doing?

I'd like to make sure this thing works, actually. Just make sure that my connection is right here and I'm set up properly. I could just see, I get a flood of emails later on saying, Yeah, I tried and you weren't responding or something.

That's probably not the way it is. Well, anyways, let's go to Dennis in Phoenix. Hello, Dennis.

Mr. White, how dare you insult the Trash and Blasphemy Network?

I didn't say that. Now, I did not say anything even close to that. And I want to just make sure everyone understands that I don't live anywhere near Dennis. And, well, I've heard that phraseology used, but I didn't use it.

And I am not responsible for what the callers may say. So, anyways, you know, your topic, your subject up there on the screen doesn't say that.

It says something else.

Well, you know, I can make Dave type everything I want to say.

Oh, okay.

What can we talk to you about Eastern Orthodoxy?

Well, I'm a little concerned because on another show, and not you, okay?

Yes.

I heard a Reformed person whom I respect greatly use the phrase, Are through me, because on that same show, at least concerning a particular Eastern Orthodox guy, one of the other hosts, and he at one point said to the person, You know, you're an infusionist from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet.

Right.

What's the deal? Are they infusionists or not?

Boy, I wish I knew. I get the feeling that, yes, there is that type of a concept. But this is the problem that I have. And, thankfully, there's a pastor friend of mine, Larry Carino on Long Island, who has taken up some of the challenge, thankfully, of studying these things and helping us to understand the Orthodox mindset, because it is a task unto itself.

Asking that question and using terms like infusionist, the idea of an infusion of grace rather than the imputation of righteousness and things like that, unfortunately, it assumes a vocabulary in common that we don't have.

And, certainly, with some Eastern Orthodox folks, for example, Frankie Schaefer, Francis Schaefer's son, has become a very strong advocate of Orthodoxy, though, interestingly enough, almost every single lifelong Orthodox person I dialogue with doesn't like Frankie Schaefer.

Strangest experience I've had. Every time I say, well, I've looked at some of Schaefer's stuff, oh, well, he's not really Orthodox. And it's like, okay. But except for those types of folks. He wasn't talking about him, was he?

No, no. Although I've heard kind of, kind of getting evangelicals to think, yes, I'll become an Orthodox.

Yeah, that's true. Here in the United States, he's doing that. But a lot of the folks who are Orthodox who grew up that way maybe came to the United States from another area. Well, there's a lot of bickering between the various Orthodox groups.

I mean, I couldn't even begin to provide a meaningful list of all the different subcategories of Orthodox there are. All I know is they don't like each other very much. And for them, differences merely in liturgy and whether you say one prayer before or after something else is as important to them as incredible doctrinal differences are for us.

I mean, the stuff you mentioned about TBN. We might say, well, I have a real problem with their allowing non-Trinitarians or anti-Trinitarians a platform. We'd find that extremely important. A lot of Orthodox folks would find differences in liturgy just as important.

And that actually explains something. Because when I've tried to ask Orthodox folks exactly what they believe and why they believe it, so on and so forth, frequently the answer I get is, look, you're asking the wrong questions.

And if you want to know what we believe, look at the liturgy. Look at the prayers. Look at how we worship. That's where our doctrine is. And it is that type of a situation that I think befuddles most of us who are trying to interact with the claims of Orthodoxy.

They talk much of tradition. And I think they violate Sola Scriptura. In fact, Frankie Schaeffer's newspaper has attacked Sola Scriptura in a rather extensive fashion, but not in the same way that Roman Catholics do.

Because, again, they're not coming from a Western mindset. And the entire worldview that the Orthodox person, at least the truly Orthodox person, has, that whole worldview is so very different that it's extremely difficult to nail things down.

Sometimes, and I'm sure that the frustration is mutual, but sometimes I feel like I'm trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. There's just no substance there to grab onto and to hold it in place. And so people say, well, you're going to write a book in response to Eastern Orthodoxy.

A, I don't think I'm nearly experienced or trained enough to do so. And B, I don't know what I would write. Because when you ask a question like, well, what do they believe about the Gospel? I'm not exactly sure how to define that.

Not only because it's such a wide movement, hence you get a lot of different answers. But we can't put it into the same categories and language that we use here in the West, because they just don't use the same vocabulary and the same thought processes.

And it can be extremely frustrating to a person who, A, isn't aware of that. And then, B, even if you are aware of that and you still want to get through and you still want to dialogue, it can take quite some time.

I've talked with Eastern Orthodox folks who seemed, as far as I could tell, to hold the Scriptures as their highest source of authority. And even though they still spoke highly of tradition, they tested tradition by Scripture.

Who believed in the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ, so on and so forth. But at the same time, I've talked to other Orthodox folks who were so into the concept of the Incarnation and a doctrine called Theosis or Divinization, that the idea of the cross and things like that almost seemed secondary in their thinking.

So, it would be very difficult to address that subject. Finding specific dogmatic answers just really isn't an easy thing. And so, I've written a book called, Is the Moor My Brother? I'm not sure how to answer the question, is the Orthodox person...

Wait, is the Orthodox my brother?

Yes, is the Orthodox my brother? Well, I think in that situation I'd have to say, well, I would certainly like to hope so, but I've got some major problems here. Mainly because I can't get direct, clear answers to a lot of the questions that I would like to ask of many of these individuals.

And I can't get answers that partake of the, well, even of biblical language. I think that is one of the major problems, is that tradition has become so fundamentally a part of their entire theology, that they can't break out of it.

They cannot step back any longer and examine in any meaningful fashion tradition. And that tradition is primarily found in their liturgy, it's primarily found in the way they worship, in their prayers and things like that.

But that has become so authoritative that for most of them that I've talked to, they could not step back and even give consideration to the idea that, well, okay, so we've believed this since, say, the 8th century.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that whoever was around the 8th century had it right. We have to have the ability to go, you know, maybe what we've believed from the 8th to the 20th century was a little bit off and needs to be corrected.

Because the scriptures say such and so. From their perspective, you can't really do that. And hence, you do have that layer of tradition that ends up standing between the individual and the scriptures.

And that becomes a real problem.

So do they have any kind of creedal statement? Or could you break down their prayers and worship liturgy in terms of words and get at some kind of fix?

There are books that attempt to do that, and they are primarily analyses of the prayers, of the sacraments, of the entire liturgy itself that tries to create some sort of a system out of that. But again, it's extremely difficult.

It becomes very subjective at times. And there are the differences. We standing outside see, quote-unquote, orthodoxy. Those standing inside see a very fractured system that is held together by the liturgy and held together by a common tradition.

But there's various interpretations of that tradition. And so it is very, very difficult. At least in Western thought, you can go and you can pick up a catechism. You can go and pick up a systematic theology.

It may be three volumes long, but at least you can go look at it and say, okay, here's a concrete statement. We believe X in opposition to Y, Z, A, B, and C. But that's much more difficult to do as far as encountering orthodoxy and dealing with their perspective.