Current Developments

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. Well, it's coming at us fast and furious, folks, I tell you. I fired up the

DL Materials bookmark folder and we'll never get to all of it, that's for sure.

I do want to make a programming note, however, if you wish to join with us on Thursday at our regular afternoon time,

I will be joined by the infamous, famous, unknown, there are many words we could use,

Turret and Fan on Thursday. And we are going to be responding to a question on the

Logos and Muse blog, logosandmuse .com,

the January 15th entry by Scott Alt, questions for a

Reformed apologist, and both he and I were specifically noted in this particular entry, it says, and that brings me to what

I really wanted to talk about, which is Turret and Fan's claim in his debate with Catholic apologist William Albrecht that sola scriptura is what we do to the

Bible once we have the Bible. And Dr. White, in a 1997 debate with Jerry Medetich's claim, likewise, that sola scriptura is a doctrine that speaks to the normative condition of the

Church, not to times of inscripturation. Well, that seems rather obvious, but Mr.

Alt has a problem with that and he put a picture of me in the thing. So we're going to respond to that on Thursday.

If you would like to join us at that time, we will be addressing that particular issue.

First and foremost, I guess we need to get to the cultural issues of the day.

There are many, and they continue to touch directly upon our views of Scripture, which ironically is what that article is about that we're going to be responding to on Thursday.

Some people might think, oh, you're talking about cultural stuff, stuff that's relevant to me, and then on Thursday you're going to be doing theoretical stuff.

No, they actually go together, because interestingly enough, this morning I was having a little bit of back and forth with a

Roman Catholic in the UK who speaks on issues of pro -life and homosexuality and marriage and things like that.

And I was thinking to myself, it would be wonderful if he and I could be on the same page in responding to our culture on these topics.

But we're not. We're not. And we're not because of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and because of our belief that Scripture is perspicuous and it is sufficient in and of itself and that it must be what we go to.

And that really is what Steve Chalk has stopped believing in the United Kingdom.

News broke this morning about Steve Chalk calling the church in the

UK to a gay accepting perspective and so on and so forth.

We'll look at that, have that up on the screen as well. But the point is that I wasn't surprised that Steve Chalk did what

Steve Chalk did. I told Justin Brierley, by the way, that, hey, it looks like right now, this isn't written in stone yet, we're working on it, but it looks like might be doing a real quick run that direction in February.

Not a long one, not two weeks, not massive and all the rest of this stuff, trying to arrange something.

And it's a little bit challenging when you're dealing primarily with students at university. Students at university sort of just live in the next 24 hours.

The idea of having to make airline reservations and things like that just isn't really normally a part of their experience.

And so it's really difficult to do things in the short term. But looking like we're going to Dublin, hopefully for a debate in February at Trinity College, I hope,

I hope, I hope. But if I'm in Dublin and I had the opportunity to pop over to London briefly, then

I would love to do an unbelievable program with Steve Chalk or something like that on the issue of homosexuality.

And Abdullah Al -Andalusi had just written to me yesterday, hey, if you're coming to London in February, and I had written back, so it doesn't look like I will be.

But hey, if that happens, do the program during the day, something with Abdullah that evening maybe, make it quick, take a quick swing by Inverness on the way back and do it in less than a week, maybe less than four or five days even.

That might be one way of doing it. Anyways, we'll see what happens. But I was not surprised this morning when

I saw that information about Steve Chalk, because my introduction to Steve Chalk was years ago when he likened substitutionary atonement to child abuse.

So now he might say, well, I was likening certain kinds of certain views of substitutionary atonement to child abuse.

OK, that's fine. The point was, when

I read his materials, it did not strike me that there was someone here who had a firm grasp of the ultimate concept of scriptural authority.

And so I'm not surprised when anybody who has compromised the ultimate view, when anyone has a compromised view of scripture, the highest view of scriptural authority,

I am not surprised when they collapse on issues of cultural pressure and things like that.

I'm not surprised at all. That doesn't surprise me in the least. Which brings us back to what happened, and I didn't get a chance to comment on, last week, and that is the

Pastor Louis Giglio, Imbroglio, as Albert Martin, Albert Moller put it, the

Giglio Imbroglio, the public inauguration of a new moral McCarthyism, was the article on January 10th that Dr.

Moller posted. By the way, calling someone Al Martin is actually a compliment, when you think about it,

I never heard anyone preach like Al Martin. But anyhow, I was somewhat, well, first of all, part of me, part of me wants to say it's about time you all said this, because I've been saying this for a long time.

But part of me is also surprised. There were some very strong statements made by some pretty well -known individuals over at the end of last week and over the weekend in regards to the disinvitation of Pastor Louis Giglio from Atlanta in regards to giving the benediction of President Obama's second inaugural ceremony.

Let me first just mention, when I first heard about this, before the disinvitation,

I was one of those folks, and I am one of those folks, that just goes, why would you do that? Why would anyone who's an evangelical?

Why did Rick Warren do it last time? I believe that offering prayer is an act of worship, and I believe that if you're going to offer prayer at the inauguration of the

President of the United States, you need to be free to say whatever you need to say in prayer. In other words, you need to be free to represent the gospel of Jesus Christ and to present the gospel of Jesus Christ in prayer, because it's an act of worship and worship has to be free in the sight of God.

You can't have constrictions, not from a Christian perspective, not how I can see it in any other way. And so given what

President Obama has done in taking absolutely anti -Christian stances, just in -your -face anti -Christian stances on moral issues, the profanation of marriage, promotion of homosexuality, the murder of unborn children, these things are just right out there.

They're part and parcel of the man's worldview and the promotion of his regime.

How can you stand there and pray and not go, oh, God, forgive us for the murder of abortion?

Because you're standing right there. I mean, it's the 5 ,000 ton elephant sitting in on the

Capitol, top of the Capitol Rotunda, you know, and if you skip all that stuff, what you're saying is it doesn't really matter.

We all just need to get along. Can't we all just get along? Well, no, we can't. We can't.

We berate the German Christians who allowed

Hitler to do the things he did in the 30s. We berate them. We look at them and go, oh, those people, they were silent and they didn't talk about all this stuff.

And then we sit around going, well, we better not say anything, and we go, where's the consistency here?

And so I was sitting here going, why would anybody do this? I mean, there are plenty of liberals who don't believe the

Bible and they don't believe what it teaches about marriage and don't believe what it teaches about sexuality and don't believe what it teaches about life.

And there's lots of people who call themselves Christians that are actually high priests of the culture of death that would be happy to play religion during the inauguration, wouldn't they?

So I was like, OK, but I didn't know anything about the guy. I didn't. I guess he does a good thing.

I guess there's this passion stuff that they do. And I guess he's raised a lot of awareness of the world's sex trafficking stuff.

And that's wonderful. That's great. Doesn't mean that you engage in an act of worship in the inauguration of someone who has shown himself to be absolutely opposed to all everything that's good and godly.

It just doesn't make any sense to me. But then we were shocked.

We were shocked. I wasn't. But people were shocked. When someone dug into, how did they do this?

Did they just scan titles, you know, going back, what was it, 15, 20 years and found a sermon where Pastor Giglio had had stated bad stuff.

And what had he what had he stated? Well, he had stated that homosexuality, homosexuality is a sin.

And. I have let's see, where was the where was the.

OK, we've got to say to the homosexuals the same thing that I say to you and that you would say to me, it's not easy to change, but it's possible change, by the way, you can't even tell young people that in California now, if you want to keep your license, he preached, he pointed his congregation gay and straight to, quote, the healing power of Jesus.

He calls entire congregation to repent and come to faith by Christ. And as Dr. Mueller puts it, that is the quintessential

Christian gospel that is undiluted biblical truth. Those words, the consensus of the church for 2000 years and the firm belief held by the vast majority of Christians around the world today.

He dared to speak the truth about homosexuality from a biblical perspective. And as a result, the, you know, the the left goes crazy and you can't have someone like this.

And, OK, there's everything right. I agree. There's everything right in discussing the fact that what this says is that we do have a dogma, we have a secular dogma in our society.

And I'm just sitting here going, I've been saying that for ever. Why is why is it that when we see examples of this, we are even surprised by this anymore?

We shouldn't be surprised by it at all. I find it interesting that the press found a way to dig and go back and find a sermon from 20 years ago from this man.

And yet a particular man named Jeremiah Wright, they couldn't find anything.

Well, that was a whole lot more. There are people then, you know, yeah, I know we're not looking for consistency here.

We're not looking for consistency. But what concerns me in all of this? First of all, we we really should not be surprised by this.

This is the way this this is the. God has withdrawn his hand of restraint and didn't

Jesus say something about, you know, the world has hated me, it's going to hate you and it's sort of like we don't want to.

We've got used to for a while not really believe in that or that happens someplace else.

Doesn't happen here. Doesn't happen here. And I just go, folks, we've been telling you this for a long, long time.

I just tweeted an article in San Francisco, they're talking about renaming the airport to Harvey Milk International Airport.

And how many I was saying minimally in the 90s, if not in the 80s. These folks do not want equal rights, they want

Uber rights. You cannot simply accept homosexuality, you must celebrate homosexuality, you must see it as a moral, ethical, cultural good.

Why? Well, as Christians, we know why. Because they're suppressing the knowledge of God, they are under the conviction of the

Holy Spirit and they want other people to pat them on the back and say what you're doing is good because they have to put out so much energy to keep telling themselves that.

We know why, that they demand that the rest of us celebrate this perversity.

We understand that, but that's what's going on. But I was really concerned.

What really concerned me and that I didn't hear almost any discussion about at all was when

Pastor Giglio withdrew his name. I'm not sure if that's the same as things being disinvited, but there are people who said you should never do that.

Make Obama withdraw the the invitation so that, you know, make him take the action, which would have happened.

It would have happened and it would have been covered over. You know, there is no media. There's almost almost no media left.

The mainstream media is not a media anymore. And you know what happens, folks, when you have a situation where the media becomes an extension of the ruling party in the government.

There's just one word for you, Pravda. Pravda is the

Russian word for truth, but we all know that Pravda became, you know, and that's what we have.

That's why I called, you know, Pravda Theological Seminary. You know, when Veritas continues to cover over the

Cantor stuff, well, you know, Pravda is a good word. Anyway, here's what really concerned me.

Here's what really concerned me. Due to a message of mine, this is Giglio, due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15 to 20 years ago, it is likely that my participation in the prayer

I would offer will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration. Well, he's right about that. Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past 15 years.

Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ.

That really bothers me. And I hope it bothers you, because what does that mean?

If we just set everything else aside, set all the cultural stuff aside, and I know there are people sitting there going right now, you shouldn't be talking about this.

We all need to be getting together. There are so few of us left. We all need to get together. We don't like you because you shoot the wounded and all the rest.

I hear, I can hear it through the walls. What does that sentence mean?

Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been, it's actually two sentences, I'm sorry. Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past 15 years.

Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ.

If you actually address, in the regular teaching and preaching ministry of the

Word of God, its positive law concerning sexuality, positive law,

Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians, Romans 13, all these texts that give us positive law on sexuality.

Tell us how we as human beings are to experience true joy and true fulfillment and true life.

If you preach on that, you're going to have to, have to, without question, address this issue because the

Bible does. You can't preach Romans 1 without dealing with this. You can't preach 1 Corinthians 6 without dealing with this.

You can't preach 1 Timothy 1 without dealing with this. You can't preach Matthew 19 without dealing with this because it is the foundation of what the

New Testament writers understood. It's what they all believed. They all believed what

Leviticus says. It's the foundation. It's what's there.

You can't deal with the New Testament in any other way. And we've listened to all the perverted eisegesis that's being offered and it's being offered by Steve Chalk now.

And, and, and it's, it's very, very common. It's all over the place, but we've dealt with it.

We've refuted it. We've demonstrated it. It's empty. It's a lie, but it's out there.

And we, you know, people say, you Christians, it's all you ever talk about. Well, when it's, you know, what was,

I, I should have brought it up. I still have it in my, in my scripts someplace, but I don't think it's, it comes up in Merck anymore, unfortunately.

Um, but there's this really, really, really good quote from, um, uh,

Martin Luther where he, he basically makes the statement someplace along the lines.

He says, uh, our faithfulness is tested and I can see

James Swan now looking this up. Did he really say it? We need to find out. Um, our faithfulness is tested primarily where the attack of the enemy comes against the faith.

It's real easy to be strong on, um, you know, some doctrine of sanctification when no, when there's no dispute going on about that, when it's not going to cost you anything.

But right now, the reason we have to talk about this is because the world is telling us you must deny

Christ's authority in the area of marriage. You must bow to the state. That's what our, that's what our, our society is saying.

You must bow to the state. We will tell you what to believe and we will accept the Christians who are willing to compromise.

We will accept the Christians who are willing to deny the Lordship of Christ in this area and install

Caesar as Lord there. This has happened before, folks. Remember? Hello? The state's done this many times before.

It's what Rome wanted. They didn't care if you bowed the knee to Jesus in other areas as long as you bowed the knee to Caesar too.

And that's what our society is saying now. This is the area. We have chosen the perversion of God's created order in human sexuality.

You must celebrate the denial of biblical truth in this area to be accepted in our society.

That's what we're telling you. Do it! Bow down! As we're being told.

So this is where the challenge is. That's why we're talking about it.

If it was in some other area, then we'd have to deal with that. But this is where the challenge is.

And so why, Pastor Giglio, in light of the tremendous increase in discussion of this very issue, the fact that Pastor Giglio must know that his parishioners, the members of his church, are facing these challenges.

And he does know this. He deals with the sex trafficking stuff. He knows this.

How could it not be a part of your preaching? How can you not be preparing? How can you skip the parts of scripture that are going to directly address this topic?

I don't understand it. And is it really what we want to say is that you can make much of Jesus Christ while making little of the law that he fulfilled in his life and honored in his sacrificial death by fulfilling its just demands?

Are you making much of Jesus Christ when you do not honor the law whose fulfillment demanded his incarnation in his sacrificial death?

I don't get that. I don't get it. I don't know how you can preach for 15 to 20 years and not address this subject.

Don't get it. Won't understand it. So I don't know the man.

Pray God's best for him. But I would never have accepted the invitation.

I would have explained why I could never do so. Once invited, well, that's irrelevant because I never would have accepted it.

But then to say, well, you know, we don't, that's not my priority. My priority is over here.

I think divides the Christian faith up in a way that is just simply dangerous.

It is really, really dangerous. Speaking of dangerous, as I said this morning, we saw the news about Steve Chalk and he's going to be on with Justin Brierley on premiere sometime today.

I may miss it. I don't know. I forgot. I don't know what time it's supposed to be on. Um, but he's going to be talking with Steve Chalk.

And you can go to christianimagazine .co .uk slash sexuality slash

Steve Chalk extended and Chalk is C -H -A -L -K -E dot A -S -P -X.

If you want to see his article on the Bible and homosexuality parts one and part two.

And, um, this, uh, just came out January 15th. I mentioned to you, uh, a book that I was reading that I finished a couple of weeks ago called

Torn. There is not a new, but it is becoming a predominant theme in the materials that are being promoted.

Um, that are being put out there seeking to, again, call you to doubt and fundamentally to abandon biblical teaching on the subject of human sexuality and the subject of homosexuality.

These are being promoted by people who call themselves Christians, either those who are not homosexuals or those who are.

Steve Chalk is not a homosexual, but, uh,

Justin Lee is and he wrote the book Torn. Fundamentally, the argument is this, um,

God loves us all. He wants us to be happy.

The greatest good is inclusion. If you exclude someone, you are not showing God's love.

And therefore, since we have been made in this fashion, then we need to be included in the family of God and our loving relationships honored.

Now, obviously this works very well for people who think primarily based upon emotion rather than, um, logic and rationality.

Uh, those people think that they're the, they have a heart and we don't, of course, they don't realize that very often people who think with their hearts end up creating a tremendous amount of pain and suffering because they don't think through what their actions are going to accomplish.

But this kind of argumentation really, really, really strikes at, um, modern people who have not been taught that thinking logically and rationally honors

God. It honors your being a created being made in the image of God.

Uh, it, um, is the way that you can avoid doing things that will bring pain and misery to others and yourself later on down the road.

Unintended consequences, you just don't think about consequences to your actions. Uh, this is, this is our, our world today.

Our, our brave new world of irrational, emotionally driven people to where offense is the greatest sin.

You dare not offend someone. That's the greatest sin is to offend.

Steve Chalk. Um, well, let me just read some of his words to you.

I feel both compelled and afraid to write this article compelled because in my understanding, the principles of justice, notice that reconciliation and inclusion, catch those words, justice, reconciliation, and inclusion sit at the very heart of Jesus's message.

Well, justice is the foundation of God's throne, by the way. Reconciliation, that which

Christ has provided by his death. Of course, that has to do with God's law, the brokenness of God's law, repentance, things like that.

And inclusion, well, inclusion would, is a good term.

And what it means is that the ground is leveled before the cross. And that there is no distinction between male and female, bond free,

Jew and Gentile. You're all one in Christ Jesus. But of course, those words are addressed to repentant people, to people who've actually agreed with God in regards to what sin is.

Unfortunately, justice, reconciliation, inclusion have been redefined within liberalism and within secularism, in ways that have nothing to do with what the

Bible actually teaches. I go on afraid because I recognize the Bible is understood by many to teach the practice of homosexuality in any circumstance, is a grotesque and sinful subversion, an objective disorder, or perhaps slightly more liberally, less than God's best.

Well, as less than God's best, can't even begin to understand that one.

Anyway, some will think that I have strayed from Scripture, that I am no longer an evangelical.

I would have said that years ago. I have formed my view, however, not out of any disregard for the

Bible's authority, but by way of grappling with it. This is another term that, again,

I now, decades later, know exactly why. I had to, by God's providence, go to Fuller Theological Seminary, so that I can speak liberalese and I can recognize liberalese.

You know, when we talked about alleged contradictions of the Bible, there were tensions in the text. And so when we talk about grappling with the

Bible, that's generally the terminology used by someone who is unwilling to submit to what the

Bible teaches and wants to bring in some other source of authority, which is exactly what happens here.

But by way of grappling with it and through prayerful reflection, seeking to take it seriously.

My prayer in writing is therefore to encourage a gracious and mature conversation around an extremely important pastoral and theological issue that impacts the lives of so many people.

In the UK, the government has announced it believes that extending marriage to same -sex couples will ensure the ancient institution is relevant for our century, and has set out its intention to bring forward new legislation to accommodate it over the coming months.

Marriage, however, predates both state and church. It is in neither of their ownership, all of which means that there are some extremely complex and controversial discussions to be had about same -sex marriage.

Any society will do well to reflect on before rushing to premature decisions. This article is not about those issues.

Firstly, they are domestic, whilst what I address here is of global importance.

Secondly, I'm worried that in the UK and elsewhere, the noise, the arguments around gay marriage will cloud and confuse the real question facing the church around the world, the nature of inclusion.

That's the real question? I would suggest that is not the real question, in any way, shape, or form.

And to make that the real question is to determine the outcome of your inquiry before you even start.

You don't need much prayerful reflection once you have made that. I am convinced that it is only as the

Christian community grapples with this that we will find wise answers, not only regarding gay marriage, but also to related questions around the church's wider attitude to gay people.

Notice the giving in the idea that there is such a thing. You know, the very idea that you would identify a populace based upon their sin is, once you've gone there, it's pretty much over with.

Some argue that any talk of rethinking a response to homosexuality is to compromise the secular preoccupations of the West. In my view, however, it is the task of all those worldwide to take the

Bible's text seriously and authoritatively, to grapple constantly. That's about, what, third, fourth time now with grapple?

Constantly with what it means to recognize our neighbor and to love them as we love ourselves. Promiscuity is always damaging and dehumanizing.

Casual and self -centered expressions of sexuality, homosexual or heterosexual never reflect God's faithfulness, grace, and self -giving love.

Only a permanent and stable relationship in which respect and faithfulness are given and received can offer the security in which well -being and love can thrive.

I would add just one part of that. Only a permanent and stable relationship, as defined by scripture, as defined by Jesus Christ, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife.

There is a permanent and stable relationship. There is a relationship in which there is respect, because there's complementarianism there.

You're not in love with a mirror image. That is the relationship in which security and well -being and love can thrive.

But that part isn't there because, well, Steve Chalk has abandoned that part. That's the point.

One tragic outworking of the church is historical rejection of faithful gay relationships. No such thing.

Biblically, no such thing. I mean, here is the conclusion of the quest at the very beginning.

Tragic outworking of the church's historical rejection of faithful gay relationships.

Oh, well, the church has also historically rejected faithful pedophile relationships and faithful incestuous relationships and faithful murderous relationships.

All of this is absurdity. It is a complete redefinition of the language.

It's upside down. One tragic outworking of the church's historical rejection of faithful gay relationships is our failure to provide homosexual people with any model of how to cope with their sexuality.

Does the term repentance mean something? Except for those who have the gift of or capacity for celibacy.

In this way, we have left people vulnerable and isolated. Oh, it's our fault. Yep, there you go. I mean, if you call for repentance, you identified something to sin, you're leaving it, you know.

I mean, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Well, we have left those who struggle with anger vulnerable and isolated because we've not provided for them a model of how they're to deal with their anger.

Oh, terrible church. When we refuse to make room for gay people to live in loving, stable relationships, we consign them to lives of loneliness, secrecy, fear, and even of deceit.

Where do we hear this? Matthew Shepard, remember? Oh, yeah. This is the new approach, folks.

We see this in politics right now. Right now in politics, one side is demonizing the other no matter what they do, right?

And so now we see it here in the culture wars. You see, if you say something's wrong, then you're mean.

You're refusing to make room for gay people to live in loving, stable relationships.

They aren't loving relationships, and they're not stable. Hello? Mr.

Chalk, it's one thing to be critical of a promiscuous lifestyle, but shouldn't the church consider nurturing positive models for permanent and monogamous homosexual relationships?

Well, why not? Then let's be consistent here. Then the church needs to consider nurturing positive models for permanent and monogamous.

Well, why monogamous? What about polyamorists,

Mr. Chalk? You're isolating them, you meanie. You are offending people, you bigot.

How dare you? What about bisexuals? They need a man and a woman.

That's at least three, isn't it? That's the way they were made. That's their sexuality.

How dare you be so biased and closed -minded toward them? And what about people with intergenerational love?

Now, come on now. I mean, I can point you to the

Guardian newspaper. January 3rd, 2013. Pedophilia bringing darkness to light.

I mean, this is filled with links to scholarly papers.

You just got to realize we're coming to understand. We're coming to understand that, you know, here.

Let me just read you a section. For good, though, broader societal change is needed. Adult sexual attraction to children is part of the continuum of human sexuality.

It's not something we can eliminate. There it is. It's in the Guardian. Ten years from now, this is going to be mainstream stuff.

We're going to have political leaders saying we need to decriminalize these things. This is the way these people are made.

Our society should be ashamed of how it's treated these people. They're going to have to pull all those law and order

SVUs, or they just rip on the pedophiles and apologize.

There's going to be law and order SVUs where they're apologizing for their bigotry, right?

Yeah, that's what's going to happen. Has to happen. Has to happen. So let's just be consistent here, right?

He says, in autumn 2012, I conducted a dedication blessing service following the civil partnership of two wonderful gay

Christians. Why? Not to challenge the traditional understanding of marriage. Far from it. But to extend to these people what

I would do to others, the love and support of our local church. You redefine marriage in the process.

You might not want to think that you did that, but you did. Our service also gave them the opportunity, surrounded by their friends and families, to publicly recognize their dependence on God and their need to be part of a supportive

Christ -centered community, to strengthen them in fulfilling their promise to one another. How about the promise to Christ to follow his headship?

How about the promise to bow the knee to Jesus Christ? Jesus said, a man shall leave his father and mother, not his father's or his mother's, shall cling to his wife, not to another man.

You may not like that. They may not want to bow to that. But Jesus also said, there's only one way to the

Father. And Jesus also said, it's necessary that I go to the cross. And Steve Chalk seemingly doesn't like that part either.

I don't know why anybody called him an evangelical in the first place, to be perfectly honest with you. But that happens over there in the

UK for some odd reason. It goes on from there.

Interestingly enough, fairly early on, he does deal with the key texts.

And I'm sort of running out of time, because there's still something else I need to get to here. But he does deal with the key texts.

But only, and I find this the Socratic methodology of giving a non -answer.

Here. For many, a central issue is the exegesis of the second Genesis creation story.

Did you catch that? The second Genesis creation story, which is the one that Jesus later refers to, as recorded in Matthew 19, 5.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, the two will become one flesh. Here's how he responds.

Was the author intending to enshrine the view that all lifelong sexual unions should be exclusively heterosexual because this is a creation ordinance?

Well, are we talking here just about Genesis? Are we talking about Jesus? Because that's how Jesus understood it.

And I would think Jesus would sort of be normative for our interpretation of Genesis, for Christians anyways, you know. But the answer to the question is, yes.

Or is this simply the normative illustration, whereas the critical truths of the story lie elsewhere?

If it is the former, then it is perhaps legitimate to refer to practicing homosexual sex, even within a lifelong relationship, as having fallen short of God's ideal, and to state that those who are not heterosexually oriented are in need of restoration.

But if it's the latter, then does the norm necessarily infer the ideal? Or is it like the norm of being right -handed, which never implies any failing of those who are born left -handed?

If so, then neither of the earlier negative definitions is appropriate, but instead cause a great deal of unnecessary pain and sometimes terrible tragedy.

Folks, that is a cultic abuse of Scripture. That's cultic.

That's cultic. That's not exegesis. Listen to the weasel words.

Is this simply the normative illustration? Where'd that come from? Critical truths of story lie elsewhere.

Eh? Where are you getting that from the text? Where are you getting that?

Well, Jesus took it rather obviously, didn't he? At the very least, that has to be understood.

Then, of course, he goes on with the other text, and maybe we'll take time to look at him. Maybe we'll need to do a radio -free

San Francisco and deal with all the rest of it. But it's the standard stuff. There's nothing new here.

There is... Really, there really isn't. I mean, you can put spins on it and things like that. But there's really nothing new to the liberal way of getting around the biblical teaching on homosexuality.

There just isn't. It's amazing.

It is amazing what we're seeing. If you are rooted and grounded in Christ and his word, you will be able to see this kind of stuff.

You will be able to respond to this kind of stuff. Someone on Twitter was just taking some...

Disagreeing with my talking about what goes on in the UK. Hey, you guys have been ahead of us in this for a long time. We're catching up, though.

We're running fast to catch up, sadly. And it is very much the case.

And by the way, why did you all send Piers Morgan over here? Anyways, you want him back?

Because we like to send him back. Because not only has he whacked down the

Constitution, but he also believes that the Bible needs an amendment too.

And of course, it's on the same thing. It's on the same thing. Get rid of the second and maybe add an amendment to the

Bible for the homosexual thing. Amazing stuff. Amazing stuff. Well, I mentioned on the promotion of the program today that we are going to be covering a wide variety of things.

And there is room. We need to have room here at the end. With only 14 minutes left for me to address this.

Last week, we began talking about the fact that, once again, evangelicalism, and for a lot of folks are going, man, that stuff you're talking about, that's vitally important.

This stuff isn't important. It's just your personal hobby horse. No, they actually happen to be directly related.

Directly related. Not because of the Islam stuff. Not because of the

Islam stuff. The Quran is stuff. It's quite clear, by the way, on the subject of homosexuality.

There really isn't any question about that. And I don't see too many folks jumping on the

Quran for its clarity of denunciation of homosexuality. But it is there.

I don't know how anybody gets around that. But I refer, of course, to the fact that Ergin Kanner has come back out into the public light.

And that, unfortunately, yet another major evangelical name, despite knowing, and I don't know what level of knowledge

John Ankerberg personally has, it's obvious that Norman Geisler and John Ankerberg, various names associated with Veritas Theological Seminary, and well -known names in the

Southern Baptist Convention are absolutely intent upon rehabilitating

Ergin Kanner and giving him a continued voice. It doesn't matter what the facts are.

And they have decided that we're just not going to care. This does go directly to the fact that evangelicalism, as a whole, continues to show signs of its, you know, if you don't take seriously what the

Bible says about who should stand behind a pulpit, then you're not going to take seriously what the Bible says about sexuality either.

That's all there is to it. And last time

I mentioned, you know, someone ought to go back and listen to back in 2003 when

Ergin and Ymir Kanner were on the Ankerberg Show. Well, Turret and Fan did that. They're on YouTube. And he ran some interesting stuff.

One thing is, well, I'll tell you, Ymir doesn't look anything like what Ymir used to look like. I mean, wow,

I've changed a lot, but he's changed even more than I have changed in that time period. But what he did find was very interesting in one particular episode, and I'm not sure why they break a button.

Maybe it's because they haven't applied or at that time had not applied for YouTube partner status or whatever.

But anyways, they're in short segments. There were a couple of things that I found very interesting.

Remember that Ergin had at one point said that Ramadan was 40 days long.

Well, at one point he talks about how Islam borrowed a lot of things from what he called

Catholicism. And he makes a connection between Lent and Ramadan. Here it is.

Let's listen to what Ergin says. You also have

Lent in Catholicism where you fast something. You have Ramadan in Islam. And so he's making this connection.

There's a little bit of a problem, of course. Ramadan is the ninth month of the calendar, and it was before Islam.

And it was already considered a holy month, and there was already pilgrimages.

And the reality is this stuff comes from the Jahiliyyah period. This comes from the period of Arab ignorance, as the

Muslims themselves describe it. The real issue for Islam is why there's so much paganism that was just brought directly in and then smoothed over by saying, well,

Abraham established that. The idea that Muhammad got this from the

Christians doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. But what was interesting was

Emir then made some comments. And I see a fundamental difference. Emir seems to be much more careful than Ergin is.

And I just have to wonder if some of the glances that Emir is seen in the video shooting

Ergin's direction are him sitting there going, dude, what are you talking about? I hope they don't ask me about that.

But anyway, here is something that Emir says.

I want to comment on that. And then immediately Ergin's follow -up is just a major historical faceplant.

And so let's listen to what Emir Kaner says. In the world of Islam, in academic world, you can see the influence as well.

You see Jesus in Chapter 3 of the Quran and Chapter 5 of the Quran. And in these passages, he performs miracles. And in one miracle, he takes some clay and molds it into a bird which flies away, which is obvious to anybody who's been part of Christianity, not because it's in the true

Gospels, because it was in the false Gospels after Jesus had died and all the false prophets had come along and he adopted that as authentic and removed the true

Gospels as that which is false. And here is Muhammad that is reintroduced in the 7th century.

That was rejected by Christians in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. And that which much of our pop culture, not just the

Da Vinci Code, but CBS when they ran the Jesus film and so forth, they too accept. So Islam will become more popular because of it.

Islam will become more popular because of it? I don't think so. I don't even see that.

But here's my problem with what was just said. I think that they're giving

Muhammad way, way too much. Way, way, way too much credit here.

And by the way, I did not have the phones up today. So I didn't realize that there's been someone sitting on hold this long.

I did not have the phones up. And so I did not leave room for calls. I'm sorry. I never mentioned the number and stuff like that.

So I apologize to Brian for that. I did not see that. Anyways, you know what?

Mrs. David Hewitt recognized this. That wasn't on super speed, but it was a little bit faster than normal.

Hey, you know, it takes time to queue this stuff up. I just got it back to its proper speed.

I apologize. You all are catching on to these things. But hey, Audio Notetakers, great program.

But I've got to have it fast so I can get through all this stuff. I can't sit here and listen to it in real time. I'd be in here forever. Anyway, my concern is they're giving

Muhammad way, way, way, way too much credit as if he knew the difference between what's in Luke or what's in the

Infancy Gospel of Thomas. He didn't. He had no direct access to these written documents.

So I do not think that Muhammad was going, oh, I know what we can do here. I'll promote the

Gnostic Gospels and I'll drag stuff in from the Gnostic Gospels. And that way

I can get rid of the real Gospels. I'll promote the false prophets over against. No, that's giving him way too much credit.

He didn't know. I see no evidence whatsoever, none, that the author of the

Quran knew the difference between what was found in Luke and what was found in the

Infancy Gospel of Thomas or the Arabic Infancy Gospel where Jesus speaks from his cradle.

He thinks this is all just Gospel. He doesn't know the difference. He doesn't know the difference between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John at all.

Where's the evidence of that? I would challenge any Muslim to show me some evidence somewhere that the author of the

Quran even knew these things. I don't think he did. I don't think he did at all. And I argue that fairly strongly in the upcoming book which

I spent the morning working on indexing on. So, I disagree with Emir that there's some...

The irony here is I'm actually defending Muhammad by pointing out his ignorance, which is sort of odd.

But I don't think that he was sitting there going, oh, I'm going to promote the Gnostic Gospels in opposition to the true Gospels.

He didn't know the difference. He didn't know the difference. But, Ergin has to follow up.

He has to follow up. You know, at least Emir was right about the source. He didn't mention what the source was.

It's the Infancy Gospel. Thomas, at least for the bird part, actually translated a portion of it in the book. But, here's

Ergin popping in and it's just, it's humorous if it wasn't so sad.

It's the use of the Gospel of Barnabas. Five centuries after any apostle's been on the planet, this pseudo -gospel teaches that Jesus emphatically states he's not

God. And this development, this cultic development of teaching becomes very popular for Muhammad.

It actually gives him sort of credence. Muhammad used the Gospel of Barnabas, huh?

Now, look, Ergin could be confusing something else with the

Gospel of Barnabas here. I don't know. Ergin likes to say that he gets his mouth in gear before his brain's in gear.

And some people might say, oh, you've never made a mistake. Oh, I have. I have.

But let's remember something. This is Ergin Canor we're talking about. And Ergin Canor doesn't just make a mistake. Ergin Canor has been documented to be a liar.

He has lied about his personal life. He's lied about when he came here. He's lied about what his father was doing with multiple wives.

He's lied about where he was born. He's lied about what languages he spoke. He's lied about the debates he's done. He's just lied through his teeth so many times you can't even keep track of all of them.

And so when you encounter him confusing the Shahada with the beginning of Surah Al -Fatihah and you find him talking about Ramadan being 40 days long and stuff like this, eventually, you know, most people, you give them the benefit of the doubt.

But you can't give liars the benefit of the doubt because they've exhausted the, you know, the kindness that you would extend to them.

They've exhausted that. They've used it up with what is clearly dishonesty. And so the

Gospel of Barnabas, folks, did not exist during Muhammad's days. He didn't know of it.

He wasn't exposed to it. He never heard anything about it. Because the Gospel of Barnabas is a medieval fraud.

It is a laughable fraud. I can, you can automatically tell an

Islamic apologist who is clueless historically and doesn't care that they're clueless historically if they cite anything about the

Gospel of Barnabas. Automatically, when Khalid Yassin says the Council of Nicaea got rid of the

Gospel of Barnabas in 354, okay? You know Khalid Yassin doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

He has no credibility whatsoever because the Gospel of Barnabas didn't exist back then.

And of course, the Council of Nicaea wasn't in 354. Both of which he actually said in his presentations.

The Gospel of Barnabas, if you've read it, is absolutely, positively one of the most funny, bad attempts at creating an ancient document you could ever see.

Has huge hundred thousand man armies battling out and it's just filled with anachronisms.

Just so many things that didn't even exist at that time mentioned in the text that it could not possibly be before the 13th century and probably after that.

It's a joke. Muhammad never heard of it. Muhammad didn't use it.

Muhammad makes no reference to it. And yet here you have Ergin Kanner, the greatest expert on Islam in the evangelical community, as some people would say, telling us about how

Muhammad was influenced by the Gospel of Barnabas when it had not yet been written.

Will that appear in the next series in the Ankerberg show? I don't know.

To be honest with you, it could. Because I don't get the feeling that Ergin Kanner listens to what people are saying.

It's strange, but that's the way it is. Thank you very much for listening to The Dividing Line today.

There's supposed to be music playing right now. There it is! I was wondering what happened to the clock.

I'm just totally into it. Oh, totally into it. I thought it was automatic. But anyway.

I was pointing at clocks going, Yo, I timed this perfectly, man!

But I'm not in control of those things. So anyway, we do this live. Did I mention this is live?

We don't edit it. So that's the sort of how it goes. Thanks for listening to The Dividing Line. Remember, on Thursday, a TuraTube fan joins me and we answer the questions on Sola Scriptura.

Join us then. Talk to you later. Bye -bye. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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