November 23, 2004

Opening Remarks and the Day’s Schedule

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 morning, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is Tuesday, the 23rd of November. The year has disappeared. Once September hit, it was like those video shots you see of the first really bad ice storm back east.

And, you know, I sort of wonder how folks end up right where they end up with the video cameras to catch the car as it tries to stop. And it just, right on by, into a tree or into another car. You know, you wonder if the guy holding the video camera doesn't, like, work for an insurance company or something.

And what are all those buckets behind the guy? How did that happen? That bridge normally doesn't freeze up. Well, anyway, the days have flown.

He got out of his own car after it did the same thing. He took his camera and said, this looks like it could be cool.

I might be able to make enough money selling these videos to pay for the repairs. That doesn't happen much out here. The only time we run into each other that way is either in the first five minutes of our twice yearly rainstorm or during a dust storm.

That's when you just can't see what's in front of you. And we had a couple of really big ones in dust storms out on I -10 this year. I mean, like 35 cars piling up and trucks, and it's ugly. Anyway, what does that have to do with this?

I do not know, but all I know is we're coming up on Thanksgiving. Oh, hey, you know, we didn't talk about this, but no one's going to be listening to us on Thanksgiving. You know, it's going to be like death out there.

And besides that, four o 'clock on Thanksgiving Day is going to be only two hours away from popping a 24-pound turkey out of my oven. And it's going to smell so good that I'm not going to want to be over here.

So I'm sort of figuring this is the only one for this week. What do you think? Unless you want to pre-record something. Oh, that's always exciting. I love pre-recorded shows. We could play sections from the debate, get people to, you know, something like that.

Well, you could have fun with that, too. Oh, yeah, but I've always avoided doing that. Well, not always, but I've pretty much avoided doing that. I mean, there are some times when the debate was, you know, really badly one-sided, you know.

But I don't know that I would do it with that. But anyways, we'll think about it, and we'll put something on the blog and warn folks about that. So anyway, Rich has to work, but you get off. Yes, play the debate.

All the cheap people haven't bought it yet are going, play the debate. We can record it for free. But anyway, then we can all pirate the debate. See? See? There's old Kev over there in California. I'm not going to say anything more about Kev because that's not nice.

Anyway, before we go back to, well, first of all, 877 -753 -3341. We haven't taken a phone call since before the cruise. So I'm starting to wonder a little bit about this, okay? So 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

Certainly something has happened since the week before the cruise that someone wishes to comment on. I've said something. Last week, all the programs we did, I was playing stuff and doing the catch everybody up routine and stuff like that.

Well, the other thing is I've seen that there's been a lot of commentary on the debate itself in the chat room. Yes, well, there has been.

Get some phone calls on. There you go. 877 -753 -3341. I mean, I have the Staples thing. I have it queued up and ready to go. And then I also have, I tracked down with like 14 seconds before the program started, I tracked down the other MP3 I was looking for with the fellow commenting on John 6.

I'd really rather do that one in bits and pieces than just play the whole thing. So I've got that available. So there's plenty to do. But still, I would sort of assume that there would be some questions concerning, especially now that the MP3s are out.

People are listening to MP3s. There's been some interesting reviews posted as well in various places. I have gotten the distinct feeling that there are certain people who either write for or make comments on certain blogs who are very, very disappointed in the debate.

And they're disappointed because they expected me to be a complete and total jerk or something. And they expected blood to be running on the floor and all the rest of this stuff. And I just get the feeling that if they would just be really honest themselves, they would have to say, well, that did sort of clarify the issues and certainly could tell by the end of the debate what the two sides were about.

And which scripture passages they feel are determinative. And so if a debate is supposed to allow me to do my own study and to have a better understanding of the issue and clarify things, then I guess that's what it did.

And you can just sort of tell. So that's interesting. The first call requires that I have cable, which I do not. But we'll allow the caller to go with that. But anyway, as you line up on the phone lines, we have one person so far.

As you line up the phone lines, let me just mention, some of you probably don't realize how important, at least in my thinking, the current blog article is on our that's interesting. I just saw a comment posted by Wonky and Channel.

And who said that? I had not seen that one. I didn't know I had been reduced to stuttering and speechlessness. That's interesting. I wonder who maybe they edited the MP3 and threw in some clips from someplace.

But anyway, I did want to mention it's going to be really hard to do this when he answers my question, which takes some of you may they don't hear what I say. Oh, I've never even heard of him. They don't hear what I say for about 30 seconds after I say it.

And then when it takes time to type back, there's going to be like a 45-second delay. And so sometimes when I'll ask for information and then 45 seconds later, oh, okay, that's what it is, that's why.

So that's for those of you who are unaware of the cyber situation. I'm going to try to ignore that issue right now and just mention for a couple moments the current blog article in regards to Richard Mao, Fuller Seminary, and the situation and the Mormon tabernacle in Salt Lake City.

For those of you who have not been keeping up on it, there was a rather historic it was not the first time it has happened. Dwight Moody preached in the tabernacle twice. I didn't know that until of late.

And it wasn't completely unusual. I mean, Brigham Young, if you go to off the top of my head, as I recall, it's Journal of Discourses volume 16, page 46. There is a discussion there where Brigham Young invites, tells the Latter-day Saints they should invite others to speak from their pulpits and that Mormonism is so true that the truthfulness of Mormonism will be demonstrated through that kind of experience.

And that's obviously not what modern Mormonism has done. But that's neither here nor there. But it's not the first time this has happened. But for a long time, there has been no kind of communication like this to where Ravi Zacharias had an opportunity to speak, Richard Mao spoke, Greg Johnson spoke.

And from all I have heard, Ravi Zacharias used his time to speak the truth that he did not make any references to Mormonism in such a way as to confuse people. He spoke of the one true God and of the work of salvation.

From everything I've heard, he used his time in a meaningful fashion. So no one has heard me criticizing Ravi Zacharias. I have gotten the URL to where we can now order the CD of the presentation, but I haven't gotten around to doing that as of yet.

But I have not criticized him either for speaking or for what he said. What has caused the greatest discussion, as I've mentioned in previous Dividing Lines, was what was said by Greg Johnson, especially by Richard Mao.

Now Richard Mao was not the president of Fuller when I was there. I graduated in 89, and he became president later on. So I do not know the man. He came from Calvin College. He calls himself a Calvinist, says he's Reformed.

Fuller Seminary was way off to my left when I was there, and it has left the left since then. It continues to go way out there. Some people know that the professor who told Mel White that he was a homosexual Christian was a Fuller prof, and there's just all sorts of whacked out leftist stuff that goes on in various places.

There's a few conservatives too, but generally it's way, way, way, way, way out there. My first encounter with Mao, interestingly enough, would have been around... I don't remember the specific date. I didn't bother to go into the internet and track this down because various Mormons have noted this.

But Mao went on an AOL chat. Remember when they used to do things like that? I don't know if they still do anymore, but I don't pay attention to it. But he went on an AOL chat, one of these scheduled chats, where you could ask questions.

And he was talking about Mormonism. Now, to my knowledge, Mao's never done missions work in Utah or anything like that, but he had started doing these conversations with people in Salt Lake City. And so I asked a question.

I got online, I asked a question, because all the questions were completely missing the point. The point with Mormonism is you start at what defines a religion. And Christians are monotheists. We believe there is one true and eternal God who created all things.

If you don't understand that it is part and parcel of Mormon teaching from Joseph Smith to the current prophet that God is an exalted man from another planet, that he cannot create anything, creatio ex nihilo, he cannot say, let there be light and there is light.

He only organizes pre-existing matter. He has not eternally been God. He is not the only God. There are universes, not just a universe. There are billions of other gods, etc., etc. If you don't understand that about Mormonism, then you don't understand Mormonism.

Now, are there some Mormon scholars on the bleeding edge of the left of Mormon scholarship who are trying to reformulate this polytheistic religion in terms used by historic Christians? They talk about omniscience, or omnipresence, and things like that.

Yes, they are. But even at that point, the use of the terminology requires it to be completely redefined. Meaning that what you really have going on in those situations is people like Stephen Robbins saying that God is omniscient in this universe.

That is, the universe populated by mortals who are, of course, his offspring. But he is not omniscient about these other universes. It has nothing to do with historic Christian belief on these things, but we are using the same terminology.

Well, it is really easy for someone who doesn't have a lot of interaction with the wide spectrum of Mormonism, doesn't have a lot of interaction with the irregular believing Mormons, hasn't read their stuff for years, hasn't taken the time to read a marvelous work in Wonder, Articles of Faith, and Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie, and all the rest of that stuff, it's real easy to meet quote-unquote other scholars, colleagues at BYU, and just assume that all is well.

We know what happened, how wide the divide came out. We can see what happens when an otherwise good scholar in New Testament, generally anyways, tries his hat at apologetics. There is this attitude in the academy that apologetics is not an area of study that requires meaningful scholarship.

It's just something that anybody, as long as you are a scholar of anything, you can just walk into the apologetic field and talk to a few folks and all will be well. You will know everything there is to know.

And that's exactly what has happened here. Going back to the AOL chat, I asked the question about monotheism. Isn't the real issue with Mormonism monotheism? And remember, you know what his answer was?

Some of you may have looked into this, but probably not many of you. His answer was, well, we're really not sure that the Bible teaches monotheism. It looks like the early Israelites were actually henotheists, and they had polytheistic bent, and blah, blah, blah.

And the Mormons were just like, oh yeah, he slammed white. Oh, it's great. See, the real scholars say that we don't know if there's more to one God or not. And liberals don't do well in apologetics. It doesn't mix real well.

And so that was my first encounter. And I was like, oh, great, wonderful. So I was not overly surprised when I started hearing over the years that Richard Mao was involved in these conversations, that Greg Vettels, now Greg Johnson, organizes up in Salt Lake.

And these groups get together with Stephen Robinson and Robert Millet and so on and so forth, and they all get together and chat and have coffee and do the scholarly thing. And so anyway, that's somewhat of the background.

And so the current article on the blog, I hope you'll take the time to read it, because really, honestly, things have not been going well for the Mormons of late. And what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is things would be going well for the Mormons if, in point of fact, there was a consistent testimony to the Mormon people of the gospel.

And that's what I consider something going well for a people. But look at what has happened over the past number of years. You've had certain people who, to create their own persona and their own reputation, have been willing to sell their souls to farms and become popular by shooting in the head everybody who's ministered to the Mormons before them, and hence get the approbation of Mormon scholarship through just ripping on other people.

And you've got, then, on the extreme other end, the wide-eyed, screaming, yelling, hate-filled, King James-only, fundamentalist Baptists who stand out there waving temple garments and screaming, It shouldn't be Mormon!

It should be moron! Which, of course, has ended all meaningful proclamation of the gospel outside of the general conference and has given them a siege mentality. And, of course, they're always going to just assume that everybody out there is like these people.

And now we've got a situation where you've got people standing in front of the Mormon leadership, apologizing, not being specific, but saying, We, using the royal we, we have lied about you. We have tried to speak to you without asking you what you believe.

Well, Dr. Mao, that is not true. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you're guilty of it. Maybe there are some other folks who are guilty of it. But please, sir, do not libel and slander those of us who have bent over backwards to share with the Mormon people and to do so fairly and accurately.

One of the things that really bugs me about this is, Look, my two books on Mormonism are not even in print anymore. You know one of the main reasons? I refuse to sensationalize. If I'm going to address, I mean, look at Is the Mormon My Brother.

That's not an easy read. Why? Because I had to be accurate. I took 76 pages to lay out what Mormons believe about God and put each of the statements within four categories depending upon their level of authority within the Mormon system.

So I bend over backwards to demonstrate the consistency of this teaching and it's from the beginning of Mormonism to the present time. You bend over backwards. Those books aren't Prayer of Jabez books.

So they just, you know, I refuse to do the Godmakers 2 stuff that certain people get into and all the conspiracy theories and slamming on the Mormon leadership and accusing them of this, that, and the other kind of sinful behavior in private and all that.

Don't do that. And so here I am seeking to bend over backwards as the Tanners have done, as Bill McKeever has done. You try to be as accurate as you possibly can be and here comes somebody who has no experience whatsoever, has never stood outside the temple in Salt Lake City, whose full exposure to Mormonism is coffee clutches with liberal BYU professors and this person dares to stand before the Mormon leaders in the tabernacle and accuse us of having lied about the Mormons?

Excuse me, but you have no idea what you're talking about. And that's why I use terms like ignorance and hubris. What an amazing illustration of the attitude of the Academy. This is the attitude I saw in 1998 at the Evangelical Theological Society's meeting in Orlando, Florida.

That's why I've never gone back. I could not believe the willingness of the Academy, not only to be just completely self-absorbed, but to just shred those who have ministered and sacrificed to minister accurately the gospel to people in these contexts.

Oh, well, you know, they need the guidance of the Academy. The arrogance was just beyond stifling. It just made me ill. It was extremely disconcerting. And so here, it's been a bad period of time for the Mormons, because now, I mean, talk about handing to those who would seek to keep the gospel from Mormons the greatest gift they could ever ask.

You see, we're constantly in the struggle of trying to get Mormons to deal with the issues. Let's deal with the book of Abraham. Let's deal with what the Bible says about the nature of God. Let's deal with these issues.

And so what happens is these Mormons will go to their apologists, and their apologists primarily seek to not interact with the fullness of the presentations being made. They seek to undercut the credibility of the people who are saying it.

They go ad hominem. And so talk about being handed the best ad hominem attack on the planet. Here's the president of Fuller Seminary saying that what we've said all along is true. Well, it doesn't happen to be true, but that's not going to be heard much up there in Salt Lake.

So it's been a bad time for the Mormons. You know, I'm not saying that Richard Mao means to do that. He did it out of abject ignorance. Ignorance joined with the attitude of the academy that says, If you're an expert in one area, that means you're an expert in all.

I've seen it so many times, and it is so distressing and so sad that I really do hope you will take the time to read the entire article. Because it's not your normal blog article. I mean, there's a fair amount of material in there.

But I hope you'll take the time to read it. So with that, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341. Let's go to our first phone caller, and let's talk with Tim. Hi, Tim. Hi there.

How are you doing, sir? Good, thanks. I don't know if you had a chance to catch Rick Warren on Larry King last night.

Well, that would require cable, something that I do not have. So no, I did not see it. Good call.

You can't get the transcript online. He put something in on it. Okay. He said, I'm a savior.

Well, you know, that's a wonderfully postmodern kind of statement that you can defend by saying things like, well, you know, all religions say that we should follow the golden rule and their version thereof.

And all religions say that we should honor marriage. And actually, that's not true. But in general, you can make that kind of a statement. Generally, I have found that people who rely upon that kind of argumentation are trying to avoid offending the postmodernist who struggles with the idea that there has been a revelation of objective truth.

And hence, you know, we look at Mormonism, use that as an example. Do the Mormons teach true things? Of course they do. They teach you should stay married, now anyways, to one woman. That hasn't always been the case.

But you should stay married and you should avoid premarital sex. And all those things are quite true in that you should, you know, not beat up on your neighbor and you shouldn't jump into stands and beat fans up.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's another issue. And all those things would be true. And so on that level, you can say, yeah, but, of course, my immediate response to that is, and so you learned that from the Mormons?

You learned those truths from Buddhism? Of course not. What do you have to learn from these religions if, in point of fact, what they're saying that is true is already a part of the Christian revelation?

Why didn't you learn that from your own Christianity? What's trying to be avoided, of course, is to make the blunt statement that outside of what God has done in Jesus Christ, God does not honor any of those religions.

In fact, those practitioners of those religions are dishonoring God. They are refusing to believe his own testimony about his own son. And that is the issue. But they're afraid to say that. And so my response at that point would be to say, that's not how you approach the issue of truth and of the centrality of the Christian faith.

What we need to do is to emphasize, look, we are not saying we created the Christian faith. We are not saying this is our creation and our creation is the only way to go. We are saying the Christian faith has been revealed by God in the person of Jesus Christ and that we have to believe what God has said he's done in Christ.

And to question him is to, in fact, reject his own truthfulness. That's what we need to be doing. We don't need to be trying to make people like us by, in essence, compromising the uniqueness of the revelation of God in Christ Jesus.

That doesn't accomplish anything. So whether or not it's right, you believe it's the wrong approach.

Well, what I'm saying is you could technically defend it, but I don't see any reason to do it. I don't see any reason whatsoever to take that, to even make the statement, because it's not addressing, you know, I don't know what the question was that was being asked.

I guess it was completely irrelevant. He just kind of came up with it.

Yeah. Generally, when I hear that, I just immediately go, no, no. We don't want to be giving people the idea that this is a fashion show and we just think that Christianity has the best fashions. That's post-modernism, and you're hearing that phrase more and more because more and more Christians are starting to go, well, you know what?

If post-modernism is the way to go, then we're just going to have to go that direction ourselves and we're going to have to embrace that. In fact, I don't know if I can pull it up here quickly enough, but there was an advertisement that was sent out just yesterday from a book distributor that we've discussed in the past on my blog, and someone was quoting it, in fact, in Channel.

Maybe if they could re-quote it, I could see it. But it basically said the Reformation's over. We need to, in essence, get over it. Here it is. This is an advertisement for the next Reformation, Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Post-Modernity, by Karl Rashke.

And part of the statement, the statement from the, everybody knows what I'm talking about, Discerning Reader says, It is time to put the Reformation behind us, along with its warring children, fundamentalism, liberalism, and the many flavors of evangelical Christianity that have done more to dogmatize, politicize, and commercialize the gospel than truly manifested saving power for post-modern times.

Serious Christians need a fresh start. Here is an essential point of departure. So here is a defense of embracing a post-modern perspective on the issue of the Christian faith, and we're being told, hey, this is the direction to go.

That's going to be part of the next battle, I really do believe, for the Church today, is the entire issue of truth. And it's not that that's new, it's just that it keeps getting repackaged, and it takes on new terminology, and the people who are pushing it adopt new terminology and hide behind that new terminology and deflect criticisms of their position by using this new terminology, which then requires the production of new defenses of the truth that deal with that, and so the apologetic task goes on from generation to generation.

A Mormonism, Monotheism, and the Fuller Seminary Controversy

Okay, thanks. All right, thanks for calling, Tim. All right. All right, God bless. 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, and as far as I can tell, only Tim has taken the time this morning to pick up his phone and to participate in the program today.

What do you mean? I have to drink my protein shake, we have to do that. Why is there, what has happened to breaks? Why do I no longer get them?

Well, are you impressed with how quickly the DVDs, the CDs, the MP3s went up? What does that have to do with my break? Well, it's because I've been doing that, and I haven't had a chance to make some new spots.

Of course, we could advertise, if you'd like, the conference and the debate. Ah, never mind.

Ah, what was that? All righty then. Ice up here, good stuff. All right. All right, well, I just had my break. Actually, I should hand this to you and rinse that baby out. Anyway, no, so, well, I thought, what happened, like, to the PRBC spot or to stuff like that?

Oh, we do have that. If you'd like to listen to that spot real quick, we could do that spot.

Ah, you know what? Now it would be sort of no longer really relevant, huh? Clicking down to the spot. We really don't need to do that.

I think we've had our break now. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a break, all right. Yep, that was a break. Oh, here, hang on just a second here. Oh, well, we've got 10 seconds.

No, we really don't need to do that. Okay, all right. Now, in 10 years to the dividing line will be brought to you by Insure. Ah, no, no. It's better to depend. Yeah, that's true. We should get ahold of Isopure.

Let them know that I just drank an Isopure protein shake during our break. On the air. Actually, it was only half of one. I'd gotten the first half down before the program started. But I was just a little bit concerned about slamming the whole thing right before the program, if you know what I mean.

This microphone is very, very close to me. So I just didn't want to do that. That's the strawberry Isopure. It's very good. Good. 40 grams of protein because it just worked out. I mean, as you probably know, I just ran in here right from the gym.

It was great, which is probably why I'm talking so fast so we can move on from there. We don't even have any crank calls.

Well, just so you feel better about maybe taking a break and not taking a break, here's the reintroducing. You see, we're back.

There's the reintro. That's not right. I'm sorry. That's not right. You know, I have to tell you something. You did miss, I think, the best Steve Camp concert we ever had. I'm sorry to tell you that. Oh, wow.

Steve's concert Saturday afternoon. We were at sea, and it was the last thing, and it was really, really good. Awesome. It was great. Anyway, well, thanks for that thing there. Yeah. Okay. I'm getting yelled at by Texans, which is a scary thing because, well, you know, you just got to give Texans some credit.

They generally do not shoot each other on deer hunts, as happened yesterday. Was that Wisconsin? I think it was Wisconsin. That was sad. That boy needs to visit the electric chair or something. Man, that was horrible.

Anyway, well, for those who aren't calling, the number is 877 -753 -3341. So let's go ahead and get back to the tape of a convert story. We started playing this last week. This is from 1995. Tim Staples is identifying.

He is interviewing a lady who converted to Roman Catholicism from, well, she said from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but I'm not sure if we've gotten to the section yet where she happened to mention in passing she was actually at a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church.

Now, excuse me, but how does that work? You're not really a good Orthodox Presbyterian. In fact, let me check here. Yeah, we have an Orthodox Presbyterian elder in channel right now, and so I'd like to ask our Orthodox Presbyterian elder in channel, would you consider a church member who is actually attending a Lutheran church, rather than your church, to be a good Orthodox Presbyterian?

And I will give you his answer if he happens to be listening. Then again, he may not be listening because, you know, he just may not be. I certainly wouldn't, and so maybe that section will come up here.

I'm trying to remember exactly what we covered last week. But the last thing we covered was Tim's in-depth discussion of the friend of his who became a Calvinist and lost 40 pounds. Our Orthodox Presbyterian church elder has said, um, nope.

That's the official response of the OPC. Um, nope. His friend became a Calvinist and lost 40 pounds and went to the doctor, and it was all because he had become a Calvinist. But as a Calvinist, he thought he was going to hell.

And so I'm just sort of like, wow, okay, that's a fascinating story. So we pick up right after that. So Mr. Super-Duper-Person-on-the-other-side-of-the-wall-I-need-to-play-sounds-now.

And here comes the sound. But I think that that's just a funny story, and thank God he got out of that misunderstanding. But I think that's an important point that you bring up because we have to understand that what we believe about God is crucial to our relationship with God, obviously.

And doctrine, false doctrine, kills. False doctrine, as St. Paul says, makes shipwreck of some people's faith.

So, you know, I appreciate, I agree. I completely agree with Mr. Staples' point, of course, from my perspective. It is his false doctrine that kills, it enslaves. But at least the one thing about folks like Tim Staples is you can disagree with them, and they're not going to pull the postmodern, well, that's your view, but my view's this, and our views are all equal, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and all the rest of that stuff.

Everybody on the channel is now discussing the Calvinist diet, and I'm wondering who's going to copyright that one first.

These issues that we talk about between Protestant and Catholic are crucial for eternal salvation. And here you were, a young child. You were trying to do the best you could with the theology you were given, and yet this theology led you to a hatred of God.

Now, of course, as I mentioned last week very briefly, anyone from an Orthodox Presbyterian church perspective who is led to hate God by recognition of the biblical doctrine of his sovereignty, his providence, his creatorship, our total depravity, his freedom, what is that person from our perspective?

Is this person a good Orthodox Presbyterian, or is this person in need of regeneration? Yes, indeed, but that doesn't end up being discussed. I want to try to get to the call today, because the first caller was actually really good, and it was sort of funny to hear Staples backtracking and backpedaling, but let's move on here.

I, in defense of the Calvinist here, would say, well, that's just Annie's problem. If that sort of understanding of God leads her to hatred of God, how do you respond to that?

Well, I think that most Calvinists who are born and raised into the church, I don't believe that most of them really have looked at it. They just get the few verses they need to back up their five points.

Wow! When I heard that one, I was like, man, I think back over all of my dialogues with Roman Catholics and their minimal interaction with the biblical text, and then I think of some of my Orthodox Presbyterian friends, I think of some of the pulpits I have preached from in Orthodox Presbyterian churches, and the in-depth exegesis, and I just go, come on, please!

There is no way that the scriptures are being addressed in the way they are addressed in your standard OPC in any Roman Catholic parish on the planet. Give me a break. That is absolutely outrageous.

But what I see is that there are a lot of kids who I grew up with in our youth group and in our camps and the things we used to do, that have left. They have either gone to some other church or they have gone to nothing at all.

It is really sad. Granted, that is a sign of the times, but I believe that the Calvinist doesn't really realize what they do, and I don't think that they have looked at ultimately God is the author of evil in Calvinism.

Well, here we go into the standard stuff, of course. The kind of objections, and I am just like, wait a minute. I don't know what her experience was. I just happen to know people like Bill Shishko and Jason up in Salt Lake and the guys in the channel who are OPC, and some of the OPC guys who have come to my debates and things like that.

And yeah, we have got disagreements. We lock horns on the baptism issue, but we stand shoulder to shoulder in witnessing to the Mormons and the Roman Catholics and in defense of Sola Scriptura, and I really, really appreciate these guys.

And I have been in their churches, and I have talked with their people, and I am sitting here listening to someone going, we never thought about these things. What do you mean we never thought about these?

One of the biggest criticisms I hear being thrown at the OPC, or similar to arguments being thrown at Reformed Baptists, is you all spend too much time on doctrine and talking about the decrees. So which one is it?

Which of the arguments is actually the case here? I don't know. Is it possible that this young lady had questions about the Odyssey that she didn't get answers to? Well, I suppose so, but I certainly know that the answers to such issues are readily available if you want to find them.

But please don't forget to put these two things together. Here you have someone saying, we never thought about these things, but I hated God. I haven't found the people in any Reformed congregation that were honest enough to say they hated God to be the ones who were overly serious about theology to begin with, right?

I mean, if you hate God, why in the world are you going to be getting into this stuff to begin with? That I can't begin to understand anyhow.

Right, and that's devastating, of course, to any notion of God. Perhaps we could get into a little bit of doctrine, Annie. And I would also like to emphasize, I think, in our short time together, that you have a tremendous story.