Douglas Wilson Presentation

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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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.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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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

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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a

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Thursday afternoon. I must confess, well, I should confess to many personality traits and flaws, but one that is particularly predominant is

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I have a very, very difficult time respecting people who do not show respect for themselves and for others by thinking logically and rationally.

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People who give themselves over to emotions, who give themselves over to patterns of behavior that are absolutely beyond what is in any way, shape, or form connected to truthfulness.

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Well, I have a hard time respecting those folks. I have a hard time interacting with those folks.

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And as I listened this morning on an early morning bike ride with my wife to the audio from the videos that were released yesterday of Douglas Wilson's speaking on design sexuality at the

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University of Indiana in Bloomington, I was repeatedly convicted about the feelings

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I had about the people that I was listening to because over and over again,

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I was listening to people who were behaving in ways that I stopped behaving in second grade and maybe earlier.

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In fact, some of their patterns of behavior I never behaved in at any point in my life.

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I never did that. I never did that. And I would never have shown disrespect for myself, let alone anybody else to behave in such a fashion.

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I just, I can't even begin to conceive of it. But I was listening to people who are so completely beyond rational thought that they will behave in the most hypocritical fashion.

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And we all see this. As Douglas Wilson himself said in the conversation, he said that the diversity crowd and the tolerance crowd, they have two absolute beliefs.

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The first is an absolute belief in free speech.

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I mean, you know, I'm looking at a freeze frame from one of the videos right now. I'm going to play this section.

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And here's this, there's this woman in the background and she sat there the whole time holding a sign up in the audience about the

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Bible being used a tool of hate and, you know, all the rest of this stuff. And there she sits. And I look at these folks.

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And as he said, he said they have two absolute, absolute commitment to freedom of speech wherever they are.

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There were people in that crowd that would shout out constantly, yell out constantly. And they don't care that they are interrupting what somebody else is putting on.

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And, oh, they would be so angry if someone did that to one of their speakers. Can you imagine, remember, a little while back, we responded to Matthew Vines.

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We responded to Matthew Vines. And how did we do that? Did we do it by shouting Matthew Vines down?

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Did we do it by showing up at the next place he's going to speak and sit there holding signs up and so people can't see them and, and yelling things out at him?

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And then, and then if we're dragged out, standing outside and making absolute idiots of ourselves?

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No, we, we played every word he said.

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And then we examined every word he said. And then we refuted every word he said.

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But that's not how these folks work. Oh, no, no. They have an absolute commitment to two things.

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Absolute free speech. And number two, shut up. They're hypocrites.

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They are absolute hypocrites on a level that is just, it's beyond comment.

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It was so frustrating to listen to this. And people would ask, let's be honest, really dumb questions.

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I mean, one guy, I loved it. I should have played this one. Because this guy gets up to ask

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Doug a question. And he says,

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I didn't really listen to what you had to say. And Doug Wilson's response is, um, should

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I listen carefully to your question then? And the guy simply lacked the intellectual equipment to even understand that Doug was pointing out his inconsistency.

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He could not even understand why him being inconsistent would be relevant at all. How do these people function in society?

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Maybe they don't. Maybe that's why they're at the University of Indiana. I mean, seriously, if you can't even understand that you are being a glowing hypocrite and someone points out your inconsistency and then you just go, but I'm asking you a question.

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Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hello. These are college students.

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How did they get into college? How did they get into a university? Could someone explain this to me? I couldn't do that back when

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I was that age. I couldn't have gotten into university and I could not even demonstrate basic rationality and reasoning.

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I couldn't do it. And yet today that seems to be how you get in.

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Can't think straight. Come on in. If you can think straight, we don't want you here. It was absolutely amazing.

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Absolutely amazing. Some people said, you should go through the whole

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Q &A. Well, look, let me just say, Doug did a great job.

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I think there is part of Doug's speech rhythm does not communicate as well in that context because he tends to hesitate, not stutter, but repeat himself in such a way that to those folks it sounds like they've got him.

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I think that's one thing to keep in mind, but he kept calm. He kept cool.

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He kept collected. He communicated a lot of great things. His talk was real good.

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And there were a number of times in the Q &A he really got to things, but there were a number of other times where I would have said a whole lot more than he did.

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And I don't, you know, all I can see is what's going on in the video. I can't see all the backstory.

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And so I'm not going to criticize him for a couple of times seemingly having had a real open door to make a real important statement, because I just don't have the background.

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But I thought he did a great job. He presented the gospel. And obviously there were a couple of times

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I would have said things differently. I would have, you know. But anyway, there are two sections that I want to address here.

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Just two questions, because if I started going through this, it was really frustrating for me today, because I got done with this ride.

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It's very hot in Phoenix right now. The humidity is shot up. Our monsoon's coming in.

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The really ugly part of the summer is getting ready to be on us here.

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And we got a little bit of a late start on the climb of South Mountain. You've got to be there.

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They don't open the park till 5. You've got to be ready to go right then and there, because once the sun hits you, what was that movie where the sun would hit this thing and everything would just disintegrate as soon as the sun came up?

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It's not quite that bad in Phoenix, but it's close. And so I get back to my car, my wife and I, and it's really, really, really hot.

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I've been listening to this, and I'm just... I don't know. I think it might have been good. I had my second fastest speed on this climb, because I think

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I was just like... The whole time. I turned the radio on to hear about the

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Supreme Court stuff, and I'm just like, oh, man, really? Seriously? It was rough.

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It would just bring all that back up, and I just can't. I really can't do that. But there were two portions.

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I could comment on so much of this stuff, but there were two things that just really caught my attention that I thought

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I would address here. Both involve female interrogators, people asking questions of Doug Wilson.

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The first was clearly a student. She's wearing a rainbow beanie, and clearly a student.

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Looks like she's about 24, something like that. And by the way, I'm looking at this video, and I misjudged.

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I was going off my memory. The young girl that asks the question looks like she's about 14, I'd say. I said 11 to 13.

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I'll change that. But she looks like she's about 14. Anyways, this is an older than the real young girl.

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At one point during his presentation, and this was the thing that just made me think of Romans chapter 1, because Romans chapter 1 tells us something about the impact of sin and the impact of rebellion against God.

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And a lot of people don't like to hear what Romans chapter 1 says. But Romans 121 says,

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Sin impacts all of man, including his reasoning, including his mind, his ability to think.

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And I could not help but to think of that over and over again as I heard people who had just been sitting in a presentation, and they heard absolutely nothing.

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They heard nothing. Even as they're listening, they're hearing nothing. Basic category errors.

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I mean, is this how they listen to lectures? Or are the lectures delivered in such a way as to actually pander this type of thinking?

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I don't know. I don't know. But be it as it may, so many of the questions were immediate windows into the minds of these individuals that they're not thinking rationally.

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They're not there to provide counter -argumentation. They're there to be entertained. This is all just fun and games.

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Besides, somebody else is probably paying for their quote -unquote education anyways. It was an amazing thing.

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So this, again, young woman in the sense of about 24 -ish, I would say, 22, 24, somewhere in there.

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I don't know. I claim no expertise in that. Gets up, and like I said, she's wearing her rainbow beanie.

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And she is clearly referring to a place where Doug Wilson at one point had been talking about the marriage issue.

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And he said, what are we going to do? I mean, if you're a bisexual, what if you're a bisexual?

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Are you going to demand that marriage be allowed to be of more than two people?

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Because if you're bisexual, you'd have to have three people, minimally. Because you want to be able to have sex with a male and a female.

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So if you want to have the blessing of the state upon married bisexuality, it would require three people.

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And the people in the audience are yelling and hooting and screaming, and you're stupid, and they don't get it.

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They cannot even follow a basic presentation like that.

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Total disconnect. Bisexuals are about, da -da, da -da, da -da. And his whole point was, once we open this door, then we have to, if you want real marriage freedom, then you have to allow the bisexuals to have three, and you have to have the polygamists to have more, and you've really got to start looking at pedophilia, because there are people who say that's a natural love for them.

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And he's making the obvious point that these people are not actually for marriage freedom, as they claim, that they are inconsistent.

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But see, for these folks, being inconsistent does not matter one bit. I just wanted to check and make sure.

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Now, this wasn't at their law school, right? No, it was not at their law school. Well, I don't know where it was.

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It could have been. It's just one of the lecture rooms. I don't know where it was. So that was the point he made.

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And so this poor thing gets up, and this, well, maximum volume, because it's pretty low, listen to the voice of the younger generations.

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All right. I can assure you that I listened very thoroughly. Okay, thank you. Please reciprocate.

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I was very curious about, I think it was directed towards trans people, in terms of people who do not have the ability to be reborn, when in fact

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Abraham and Sarah were, Abraham and Sarah, I mean, originally they were different people.

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And also, I think you may want to double check the definition of bisexuality, because by your definition, then

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Abraham, Sarah, and Haggai were all bisexuals, which I don't think it said anywhere that they were bisexuals, someone who doesn't necessarily want a polyamorous relationship.

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You just may want to double check that. Let me see. Okay. How do you even begin to respond to that?

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Were there two rational thoughts connected anywhere in there? I couldn't find them.

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And not only that, listen. Start with that. What are they clapping about?

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Every time these people, and they're clapping, and every time somebody shouts something out, and you just go,

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I don't even know what to say. A rational human being, listening to that, just looks at her and goes,

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What? Honey, do you have any idea what you just said? That did not make,

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I mean, that's literally, if I had it queued up, but I don't have it queued up, that's what you play the Billy Madison or whatever it was thing, where nothing you just said had made, all of us are dumber for having heard what you just said.

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Because, but she was trying her best. She didn't, clearly she was making reference to what

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Doug had said about the bisexuality part, but he, she didn't not only not understand a word he was saying, but could not coherently even begin to express a question that would have any connection with reality at all.

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And you're just left going, Why are people clapping? And all

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Doug can do, Doug recognized exactly what, at least the part of his presentation that had prompted this babble, and he reiterated what he had said, because he remembered that at that time, people were saying,

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No, no, no, no, no, no, and all the rest of the stuff. And he just had to reiterate, No, this is what I was trying to say, that if you're going to do that, you would require three.

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If you want to have the state's approval upon that kind of sexuality, then you'd have to have the person who then wants to marry a man and a woman because they're bisexual.

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And that would be three. This is a simple numerical thing. And still, even when he gives the response, you can hear people in the audience going,

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No, no, no, no, no, no. And you're just like, I don't know.

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So many of the questions. Later on, I didn't, since I was listening,

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I didn't get to see. And so I wasn't sure what was going on. What I heard was, there was some, there were a lot of very angry people there, but they were going to try to shut things down.

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And people are angry about it. And they're attacking the character of the dean of students or something.

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And so I guess they got to go a little bit longer. And I thought they were going to go outside and do something. I don't know if they went to the student union. I really don't know exactly what happened.

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But eventually, evidently one of the instructors. So I want to ask a scholar.

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I want to talk about scholarship here. So here's one of the instructors. Asking him, what translation of the

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Bible do you use? And it was clear from this woman's comments, she has no earthly idea what the original languages were, how to translate, anything like that.

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And these were the people they're learning from. This is the educational system in our land today.

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It's dead. It's gone. It's over with. It's amazing to listen to this stuff.

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But I remember exactly where I was. That's how my mind works. I could take you to within five meters of exactly where I was when

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I heard this next clip. I had seen this when

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I was... It was a little bit of a struggle for me to download the video files because they were marked private.

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And I had to do all this stuff to download the video files and rip them to MP3 so I could listen to the whole thing.

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So I'd actually seen this, but I was sort of distracted. So I really didn't get to concentrate on it until the ride this morning.

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And again, I'm glad that I was pretty much alone out there because there were considerably fewer people braving that mountain today once the sun was up for obvious reasons because it's really hot.

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Anyway, so it's good that there weren't a lot of people around because I literally yelled out, which, of course,

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I'm wearing headphones, so it doesn't seem very loud to me, but I'm certain to some poor startled lizard or rattlesnake.

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My wife had to dodge a rattlesnake today on the road. So to the various sundry rattlesnakes, lizards, and lots of coyotes and bunny rabbits, who are the food for the coyotes, and the snakes, yes, they're just movable food.

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Yeah, it's really all the movable food that's there. Anyway, to those who were startled when the strange -looking guy went by, and I was climbing up the

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Dobbins Outlook when I did this, yelling out, may God have mercy on his soul.

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That's why I yelled out, may God have mercy on his soul. And I'm talking about the father of this young girl.

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Like I said, the video is frozen up on my screen right in front of me right now. And he has brought his 14 -year -old daughter.

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He is a member of an open and affirming church. Now, Doug sort of dodged this one.

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And again, I don't know the context. I don't know. I'm not going to judge.

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But let me say what Doug Wilson didn't get to say there. He is an apostate.

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He's a member of an apostate church that denies the gospel of Jesus Christ and is a blight upon the body of Christ because false teachers bring great disrepute upon the gospel.

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Can I say that straight out to everybody? Those churches that are ashamed of Jesus' teaching and ashamed of the law of God and ashamed of the moral and ethical standards of the

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Bible are not Christian churches. Can I say that?

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While I still have time to? While I still have the freedom to? And so here's a man.

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He's responsible for raising his daughter in this apostate denomination. And then he has the gall to bring her down to the microphone and let her publicly express her heresy and ignorance of the

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Christian faith. And I feel sorry for her, but I say,

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God have mercy on his soul. God have mercy on his soul.

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Here is the section that I was referring to. Yes. Hi. We're here from First United Church here in Bloomington, which is an open and affirming church.

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I'm sorry. An open what? Open and affirming church. And it works wonderfully there.

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And I have a question for you, but my daughter has a question and I did not give her the question. She's voluntarily coming down and I don't know what she's going to ask.

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Okay. I wanted to know why when you say we and when you're saying that you're talking for all

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Christians, why do you think you have the right and the privilege of speaking for all

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Christians when that's just your side of the story? So there you go.

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Now, look, she's a pretty young thing. She's probably the product of public education.

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That means she thinks as a postmodernist. She has no idea that the Bible actually has a content and a message.

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She has no earthly idea at all that she has been completely deceived and that she is in essence saying, well, it's just, you know, what you've said, it's just all your opinion.

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So that's all there is to the Christian faith. It's just your opinion, my opinion. That's all anybody has, just opinions.

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That's all Christianity is, is opinions. She doesn't realize that she's fundamentally denying the

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Christian faith, denying the Lordship of Christ, denying the reality of what he... She doesn't have an understanding of that because she has been raised within that context.

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And of course, the mind -numb zombies in the audience, she could have said, purple french fries!

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And they're all going to go, yeah! And start standing up and waving their rainbow -colored beanies and flags and things like that.

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They didn't care a whit what she said. All they know is she's young and she just zinged him good.

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So there, you know, it's crowd mentality. That's what happens when you have crowds. And they start acting...

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Crowds automatically draw the IQ down by about 40 points. It's just gone.

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And so there you have it. When I heard that, and Doug's response...

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Well, let's go ahead and play Doug's response so you can have an idea. And the answer is, of course, that I agree with you. I don't pretend to speak for everyone who calls themselves

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Christian or identifies themselves... Yeah, I'll resign. I'm a story break.

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You have to keep your story. I don't want to be needlessly provocative, but let me try to answer the question as best

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I can. We evangelical, Bible -believing, Apostles' Creed -affirming

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Christians believe that we have to accept the Bible as God gave it to us, and we don't have the authority to adulterate it or water it down.

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In the world today, I grant you, and I'm not trying to pick a fight with people who are, let's say,

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United Christian Church, or we call ourselves Christian. I'm happy to interact with them on that basis, but I don't believe that they're sharing the same worldview that I do, because I believe in the

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Bible from soup to nuts, from A to Z, from Alpha to Omega, and I want to take the Bible as written, and I don't want to trim and shape the

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Bible in light of current contemporary worldviews that come from outside the church.

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So, I believe that there's great worldview discrepancies between professing Christians everywhere.

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I grant that. And I'm happy to acknowledge it. But when I'm talking about we Christians, I'm talking about people who believe the

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Bible, who believe that God has authority over us. We don't get to tinker with the Gospel. We don't get to tinker with the moral law.

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So, what I would have gotten in there, and again, I don't know the backstory. Don't take this as a criticism.

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I mean, obviously, I've criticized Doug Wilson before. We've debated, for crying out loud. But what

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I would have gotten in there would have been something along the lines of the

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Word of God has a consistent message. When you actually interpret it in the light of its original languages, its original context, it has a consistent message.

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And Jesus taught us that we would be held accountable for what the

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Word of God said. So the Word of God cannot simply be your opinion versus my opinion. And therefore, when we look at what the

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Word of God says concerning the matter of sexuality, it says what I've said this evening.

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Not anybody in that audience even tried to interact with what he actually said.

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Because they couldn't. I mean, they had the standard, yeah, well, what about Leviticus, and where in polyester, and having different kinds of animals, and all the standard stuff that just demonstrates beyond all refutation that the person asking the question has no clue what they're talking about.

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They read it on a website, they repeated it, and that's just all there is to it. But nobody tried to actually interact with what

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Doug Wilson said. It was just, we're angry that you would dare to disagree with us.

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We're angry that you would dare to disagree with us. And that's the mentality of this movement.

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That's the mentality of these anarchists. I mean, if they were allowed, if this is where our society is going, our society will collapse because there's no order, there's no reason, there's no rationality.

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These folks don't realize that society is based upon orderliness. Their food comes from outside of where, most of them aren't growing their own food.

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That means there has to be order, there has to be law. And they don't care. The government will take care of me.

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And they just don't get it. They don't realize that they live in a land where the only reason they have the freedoms is that other people have provided them to them.

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And it's just, it was troubling. Very, very troubling.

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To listen to this kind of stuff. And to realize that these folks are going to be, they're going to be the next generation.

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That's our leaders. You're listening to our leaders. And that is absolutely frightening to consider.

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It really, really is. Now there's one other thing I wanted to talk about, then we're going to take a brief break and shift gears.

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But on Lifesite News, there was an article yesterday.

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Government Anti -Bullying Phone App to Mobilize Children into Homosexual Activism, warns critic.

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And this of course is from our closest whacked out neighbors to the north, Canada, where anything insane,

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Canada is like a big U .S. university. Okay?

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Except it's all over. It's just, it's everywhere.

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And the whole thing itself was scary. I mean, they're basically wanting to get kids involved in spying on people.

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We really, really, really, really need to get people to read 1984 again. Big Brother is watching you.

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And Big Brother is watching you. Big Brother is here, for crying out loud. And we like it.

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We think it's cool. But that's not really what I was going to talk about. What I was going to talk about was just this section.

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Parents should be aware of the political propaganda behind this initiative. It has nothing to do with protecting children, even though it was being implemented under the guise of anti -bullying.

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On the contrary, it is a very strategic and dangerous agenda that seeks to deconstruct the traditional family unit. Simpson pointed to a 2008 article that appeared in the

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Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy that she says maps out the strategy used by B .C.

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homosexuals, British Columbia, homosexuals, and other sex activists to use schools as a springboard to transform the culture into accepting the homosexual lifestyle.

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Catherine McGregor, University of Victoria, wrote in the article titled, Norming and Reforming Challenging Heteronormativity in Educational Policy Discourses that the, quote, challenge for educators is to dismantle such heteronormative frames through anti -homophobic or anti -oppressive pedagogies and practices.

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For McGregor, the, quote, heteronormative social norms, end quote, that must be dismantled are defined as, quote, those practices and discourses that privilege heterosexuality both explicitly and implicitly in their day -to -day usage, normalizing processes which support heterosexuality as the elemental form of human association, as the very model of inter -gender relations, and the indivisible basis of all community, and as the means of reproduction without which society wouldn't exist, end quote.

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Do you hear that? You want to dismantle heteronormative frames through anti -homophobic or anti -oppressive pedagogies and practices.

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Heterosexuality is not normative. We've got to teach the young people in the educational system that heterosexuality is not normative.

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If it's not normal, what is it? Abnormal? So what's the new norm?

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Homosexuality? That ain't going to work when 97 % of the population ain't going there.

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So what do they do? The point is, folks, what they want to do is to have no norm at all.

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There's no normal. Everything goes.

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That's why when people say, Hey, gays get married, that doesn't have any impact upon you. Yes, it does.

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It destroys marriage. And it has in every European country in which it has become the norm.

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Because once you have that, then you have to open the door to everything else, and marriage just becomes any association between any number of people, meaning anything.

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But this is... Do you hear what I say? As the elemental heterosexuality, as the elemental form of human association, the very model of intergenerational relations, and the indivisible basis of all community, and as the means of reproduction without which society would exist.

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Hello? That is the only way to have babies. That's how it happens.

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Catherine McGregor, University of Victoria. That's how it happens. I mean, unless you're saying, and again, boy,

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I've read books warning about this, written a long time ago, unless what you want to do is...

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Remember all the sci -fi stuff where you get rid of that, and you just all test two babies? Is that what you're going for?

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Amazing! Absolutely, positively amazing! What would cause otherwise intelligent human beings to so twist the reality of their lives, twist the reality of their existence, than to start saying these things?

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I don't know. I wasn't going to take calls today, but we'll briefly take the one call, and then we're going to take a break, and then come back and totally shift gears a quarter after the hour.

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So we'll need to keep this brief, but let's go ahead and talk with Hugo.

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Hello, Hugo. Hi, Mr. White. Yeah, I just wanted to say, because I know you were talking about the

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Doug Wilson stuff earlier, that it's flabbergasting how much they just weren't tracking with what he was saying, and I'm just really surprised that he just kept helping together as long as he did.

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Anyway, my question for you... We Calvinists are pretty unflappable, so we just tend to keep going no matter what the audience is doing.

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Well, it's incredible, because I was losing it happily. I mean, that was a torturous watch. But my question goes to one of the questions that one of the audience members asked, the little girl from the church who embraced homosexuality.

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That's kind of a thing I'm running into nowadays, where you have a lot of people who call themselves

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Christians and say, we have a church that's very accepting, and Jesus taught this, etc.,

39:47

etc. What makes you think that your quote -unquote version of Christianity is the correct one?

39:52

And I have a hard time answering that question without being rude.

40:01

What do you mean, rude? I mean, in this society, affirming that Jesus actually said something and didn't contradict himself all the time is considered rude, so I don't think there's much you can do about that.

40:12

When someone makes a statement like that, I just look at them and say, well, you know, it seems what you're telling me is that I should not listen to everything

40:22

Jesus said and come up with a consistent understanding of what he said. Now, you'd want me to do that for you. You would not want me to interpret your words in contradiction to what clearly your intention is, but that's what you want me to do with Jesus.

40:35

You want me to interpret his words so that it has no particular meaning, and that it just becomes sort of a

40:41

Rorschach test where you can go, what does this look like? Well, it's an inkblot. That looks like a plane, or that looks like a bird.

40:48

That's what you want me to do with Jesus' words, but you would never allow me to do that with you. You want me to hear what you're saying.

40:55

You want me to interpret you in context. But evidently, the Bible, even though Jesus called it the

41:00

Word of God, the very speech of God, is not as consistent as you are. And so the fact of the matter is there are denominations and churches that no longer believe that the

41:11

Bible is the Word of God, and they don't believe that we should listen to everything that it has to say. And that's how they've come to their conclusions, but I refuse to go there.

41:19

I will not deny my having bowed the knee to Jesus Christ. I'm going to view the

41:24

Scriptures in the same way he did. He said the Scriptures cannot be broken, and so I am going to follow everything that they say, and they clearly indicate the following things, and then

41:33

I can present that and say, if your church doesn't believe those things, then it's because your church doesn't believe the

41:38

Bible anymore. And that's what Doug was saying by saying they have a completely different worldview. And the reality is that also means that they have a completely different worldview than Jesus, and that which is taught by the

41:48

Bible, and that belies their claim to actually be a Christian denomination in the first place. Yeah, it's just...

41:55

The thing is, I'm trying not to... I suppose that's where I'm failing, but I'm trying not to be as blatant as to say, well, you obviously don't take the

42:04

Bible seriously. You know, I try to make an argument as to why they would believe what they believe, like you said, explaining the worldview, et cetera, et cetera, but it ultimately comes down to how you...

42:15

Well, you go, just get them to say they don't take the Bible seriously. I mean, we haven't gotten to it yet, but I was going to get to it, but again,

42:24

I didn't today, but in the Harry Knox debate with Michael Brown, all Michael had to do was respond to every single point that he made, and the very first thing

42:33

Harry Knox did was throw the Bible under the bus. That was his immediate response, and the way you do that is by saying to someone, you know, they make some statement about what

42:45

Gia said about... Gia's never said anything about homosexuality. I say, well, you know, let me ask you something. When was the last time you read through the

42:51

Synoptic Gospels? The what? The Synoptic Gospels. You know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the ones that have the parallel accounts with each other.

42:59

Oh, I hadn't heard them heard that. You know, it's been a while. So do you really have a basis for saying that you've seriously given consideration to Jesus's ethical and moral teachings, his understanding of what the

43:10

Word of God was, and its relationship to the law? Because Jesus is the one who said that anyone who teaches anybody to break even the least of these commandments will be released into the kingdom of heaven, and that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill.

43:22

So since Jesus said these things, you've seriously thought through exactly what he meant by that in the context in which he said it, and in the context of Judaism of that day, right?

43:32

And if they've got a semi -honest bone in their body, which they may not, but if they do, they're going to have to go, well,

43:38

I'm not really a Bible scholar. So the point is, you really don't take the

43:44

Bible seriously, because if you really thought it was the Word of God, then you would give consideration to those things.

43:49

And so you're fulfilling exactly what I said, that you're reflecting your church's denominational stance, that you really don't take what the

43:55

Bible says seriously. But they're the ones that have said it. So, I mean, I think there is a way to go there, but probably not in a public context, where you've got people like this, where you've already had to drag half the audience out and lock them outside the doors, but they're pounding on the doors and making a racket outside.

44:13

This is more in a one -on -one type situation where you might actually be able to get someplace. But like I said, in a public context, trying to reason with people in a crowd, it just doesn't work.

44:25

That's why you have riot police, and they've got billy clubs, because that's about the only way you can reason in a crowd.

44:31

But one -on -one, a little bit of a different situation. Right. And as a young person, I just want to say that that is not at all reflective of how we all are.

44:40

Well, as I said on my blog, I do know young people who are serious, and they think clearly, and I keep trying to remind myself of them, because I'm going to tell you something.

44:54

Your generation, wow. You've got a good percentage.

45:00

Hugo, I hate to tell you that. Hey, we're going to have to take a break, Hugo, and we're going to be shifting gears, but thanks for your phone call today, man.

45:06

No problem. God bless, man. All right, God bless. Thanks a lot. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, well, you'll be able to see when we come back exactly what we're going to be doing.

45:15

We'll be back right after this. Hello, everyone.

45:26

This is Rich Pierce. In a day and age where the Gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program, the need for a no -nonsense presentation of the

45:35

Gospel has never been greater. I am convinced that a great many go to church every Sunday, yet they have never been confronted with their sin.

45:44

Alpha and Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the Gospel in a clear and concise manner, making no excuses.

45:50

Man is sinful, and God is holy. That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior, and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior.

45:59

We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well.

46:10

Support Alpha and Omega Ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

46:16

Thank you. Breaking news from the

46:22

White House and the issue, gay marriage. For a lot of people, you know, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.

46:30

I think same -sex couples should be able to get married. The NAACP has passed a resolution endorsing gay marriage as a civil right.

46:39

This comes two weeks after the President announced his support for same -sex marriage. Some came here today wondering what

46:44

I would have to say about the President of the United States. He lifted this nation by raising his hand.

46:52

I took the oath of office. He was sworn to uphold, protect, and defend not the

46:58

Bible, but the Constitution of the United States to make the democratic promise available for everybody regardless of their race, their creed, their color, or their sexual orientation.

47:13

My brothers and sisters, I salute the President for that. Because of this kind of hatred of people thinking that gays are somehow less than or that there's something innately wrong with them.

47:23

Even cute little boy actors who used to star in growing pains. He was on Piers Morgan the other day, and this is what little

47:28

Kirk Cameron said. Do you think homosexuality is a sin? I think that it's unnatural, detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.

47:37

It's unnatural to you, Kirk, because you're heterosexual. If it was unnatural for gay people, we wouldn't be gay. If you want to follow the

47:44

Jesus motto, man, don't go shaming people like that for who they are. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

47:57

Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened, and accused of discrimination.

48:06

It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.

48:12

How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2

48:22

Timothy 2 .15. Dr. James White and Pastor Jeffrey Neal have partnered to bring you their book, The Same -Sex

48:28

Controversy. If you are a Christian, this book is just one of the tools you'll need to be prepared to give a proper defense of the faith in the face of the unrighteous onslaught we face today.

48:36

The authors write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on this subject, explaining and defending the foundational biblical passages that deal with homosexuality, including

48:46

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and return to God's plan for His people.

48:55

The Same -Sex Controversy, Defending and Clarifying the Bible's Message about Homosexuality. Get your copy today from the bookstore at AOMN .org.

49:03

And don't forget to search for other resources like debates and past dividing lines dealing with this very provocative issue.

49:09

And remember, theology matters. Go ahead, get the new one.

49:34

Get the new one queued up. We've got to do this right. This is live. We've got a new one. Barry would shoot you if you didn't do the right one.

49:45

It's not here. You're telling me we can't do this because it's not there.

49:54

I mean, we did it before, right? Didn't we do this before? We did do this before.

50:02

Yes, you were. We did this once before, and everybody loved it, and I just figured that this is going to be great.

50:12

This is going to be easy, but it's not there. And Barry's not there either, huh?

50:21

Well, there's a face plant for you right there. Yeah, I know that I'm live, and I know that everyone's listening, and that this is clear demonstration that even after doing this for decades, we're not quite up to the professional level of this stuff.

50:40

But, hey, you know, I figure we're doing as well as Todd Friel anyways. But we have, and it debuted to great, positive reviews and everything, we have a new

50:58

Radio Free Damascus theme song. And Barry Ladin put all sorts of effort into it, but evidently it doesn't exist.

51:12

It has to because we've played it before, but it doesn't exist.

51:18

So I guess we're going to have to do our best to go ahead and just press on, despite the deep and obvious sorrow of many people in the audience that we don't really have the

51:33

Radio Free Damascus theme song to do Radio Free Damascus. So it's going to be hard for me, I'm going to have to admit.

51:39

This is going to be difficult, but we're going to do our best. And Barry, I'm sorry, man,

51:46

I figured, you know, but here we go. So just think in your mind about all those cool clips, you know, of Sons by the

51:58

Tons and Paul was just messing with them Philippians, and just run those through your mind again.

52:06

And you just want to stick them to them anyways, and all that stuff. And then we'll just...

52:13

No, that ain't it. No, that's the old one. You don't know where they put it.

52:19

They put it. You were not here. Okay, whatever you say. I mean, they didn't hook up a different computer.

52:27

This is the only computer that they used. So, you know, maybe it was on a jump drive back then or something, and they didn't bother to transfer it over.

52:36

But all I can say is the really cool Radio Free Damascus opening, which everybody loved, is missing in action.

52:45

It is maybe, you know, maybe people didn't like it. Maybe somebody snuck in and stole it or something like that.

52:54

So maybe the next time we'll check ahead of time, and we'll know that we've got everything ready to go, and maybe

53:04

Barry will rush down here and provide us... I don't know, and I don't care. That's not it, no.

53:13

Blame the Macs. Sorry. All those computers out there running this program... I should have found the sound. Well, what was the sound?

53:19

No, no, no, that's not it either. No, no, stop that. All the computers out there are Windows machines, folks.

53:25

Don't blame the Macs for that. All right, we're going to dive back into this anyways. But I'm not going to call this

53:34

Radio Free Damascus. I'm sorry, I can't, because we didn't play the theme song. We didn't, so it's not

53:39

Radio Free Damascus. But we will continue with our review of the debate, as sad as everyone in the channel.

53:51

Ralph just said, I just emailed you the intro. Well, that ain't going to do me much good, because I can do a lot of multitasking, but there's got to be limits.

54:07

I mean, it's pretty hard to be able to do that and to download stuff and all that all at the same time.

54:14

I mean, I'm an old guy. I mean, it's hard. So, anyway.

54:23

Where are we? Where am I? I don't know. I don't even know what's going on on my computer in front of me right now, which is not a good thing to try to bring these things up all at the same time.

54:41

And, you know, who knows. But, wait a minute, how would Ralph have... Ralph stole our

54:47

Radio Free Damascus opening? Now, how did that happen? I mean, that's pretty difficult to do.

54:56

But if you've got my computer up here... Is my computer up? Do you have my computer potted up?

55:04

Oh, it is. Oh, okay. Let me see here.

55:15

All right. Hold on a second here. We might be able to do this. I'm going to have to disconnect one computer.

55:24

And I wonder if this will reach... And you're getting on me? Hey, hey, at least I'm trying.

55:30

At least I got something here, man. Okay, I'm muting it here. Did you already plug in?

55:35

It's plugged in. You ready? Okay. Let's see if this works. Many of the

55:53

Christians believe that Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, he was God. But if you read the Bible, there is not a single unequivocal statement.

56:02

Not a single unambiguous statement. In the complete Bible, where Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, himself says that I am

56:09

God, obey his worship. And about this business of, every knee shall bow.

56:24

The question, Paul, well, look, Paul, what about this business here now? It says here that every knee shall bow to God. And you're saying here to the

56:31

Philippians that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. So Paul assures them, he says, look, don't get upset.

56:38

That was just something for them. Nah, just fool around with those Philippians. Because Jesus said it in so many ways that he's not

56:54

God, you just want to stick it to him no matter what. I said, you're not reading your

57:08

Bible. You don't read your Bible properly. Coming to you live from Turkey or Beirut.

57:46

I don't know what happened there. Not quite the same high quality as the, we're going to have to get the high quality one eventually.

57:59

But thank you, Ralph. And I think everyone should be very impressed that I managed to download that from email, get into iTunes, move the connector from one

58:10

Mac to the other Mac to play it in iTunes. And all of that for what reason?

58:15

None. I could have just gone on with my review. But hey, it's a live show.

58:21

That's just sort of how it works. Thank you, Ralph, for that. And if any of you ever wondered if this is a live program, well, you've got a lot of evidence now that in fact it is a live program.

58:37

The hardest part was I tried to bring up Gmail and it wanted my password. Have you ever tried to talk and enter?

58:45

Obviously, I don't use just some easy little password. It's in another tongue.

58:51

It's got random stuff in it. And it's long. And I entered it wrong the first time, of course, because, you know, anyway.

59:00

Well, thank you for that, Ralph. Now we can, what was I doing? I don't even remember what we were doing.

59:06

We were reviewing the debate that took place a couple of months ago, Down Under with Abdullah Kunda.

59:13

And we have gotten, if you have listened to the debate, to exactly one hour, 16 minutes, and 23 seconds into the debate.

59:25

And we've been sort of setting up to talk about a bunch of things we haven't actually gotten around to yet.

59:31

But if you actually string these together, we have been, we've looked rather carefully at Sura 5.

59:38

And we've, I've posted on the website, on my blog, links back to some of the materials that we posted to deal with my debate with Patrick Navas on the subject of, especially,

59:55

Ego Aimi, and the phrase, I am, in Jesus' teaching in the

01:00:01

Gospel of John. So we're going to pick up there and continue that for the next half hour.

01:00:08

So let's dive back in. Thank you for that. I'll now ask, and look, this isn't meant to be funny, so I apologize if it comes across that way.

01:00:19

But I'm generally looking for, I guess, a bit of a Catholic exegesis on this. It's very easy to get secular liberals and even

01:00:26

Protestants to comment. But I haven't heard a Catholic comment before. You quoted the

01:00:32

Gospel according to Matthew, where Jesus says that the Father has given him all things. Now, if we then look at the

01:00:41

Gospel according to Mark, Jesus quite clearly says there that he does not have knowledge of the hour.

01:00:48

Now... By the way, I would just point out that that's in Matthew as well.

01:00:55

In the sense that he's talking about the hour, and Jesus saying, not the

01:01:01

Father, nor the Son, not the angels, nor the Son, but only the

01:01:07

Father has this knowledge. And as we've pointed out so many times,

01:01:12

I don't think it came out in this conversation, but as we've pointed out so many times, I just wonder if Abdullah thinks that Jesus ever said anything like this, because it would utilize, it would put him in a position above the angels and using the terms

01:01:29

Father and Son in a way that Orthodox Islam denies Jesus ever would have done as a mere rasool.

01:01:35

But I don't think that really actually came out. For me, that implies a contradiction. And the questions that I would ask from that would be, did he mean most things, or did he mean power in Matthew, or did

01:01:47

Mark just get it wrong that he didn't actually say that? Because we do know that in the same, the parallel story in Matthew, it doesn't say that the

01:01:57

Son doesn't know, it doesn't say that the Son does know the hour, but it doesn't expressly say that he doesn't know either.

01:02:03

Okay, I think Abdullah was just confused at that point, because unless he was looking at some type of textual variant or something, because there are textual variants associated with it, though they're minor.

01:02:14

And so I don't know of any major translations that have an issue here. Unless I'm completely missing what he's saying,

01:02:21

I think that he's a little confused about Matthew and Mark's rendering of that particular statement.

01:02:27

So I'm interested to know, how does the Catholic reconcile these apparently contradictory statements, and what bearing do you think that has on a.

01:02:38

the value of the Gospels themselves as truth, and b. evidence for Jesus' divinity?

01:02:45

So it sounds like it's two -part, one based upon an alleged contradiction, which actually isn't there, because they both say the same thing.

01:02:55

And then the second being, well, if he said that, then that would indicate some theological problem in regards to Jesus' knowledge, an issue that we've brought up before.

01:03:10

I don't remember off the top of my head. I don't remember if that came up, actually, in our debate, that particular subject or not.

01:03:20

Maybe it did. I don't recall. But evidently that is the argument that's being made.

01:03:27

Well, certainly, since I believe the Gospels to be the Word of God, it will hopefully not surprise you to say that Mark got it wrong.

01:03:37

What do I think is happening? Here I would agree with the exegesis of Pope St.

01:03:43

Gregory the Great, who I think reigned around about 600 AD. Basically, the

01:03:49

Gospels, I would argue, frequently speak of what

01:03:54

Christ knows or is able to do through his human nature. In his divine nature, he knows all things.

01:04:05

But nonetheless, as a human, because of his desire to experience humanity and to unite himself to the ordinary role of humanity, he went through the process of learning things.

01:04:18

So, St. Luke's Gospel talks about him growing in knowledge and wisdom. So, what

01:04:24

St. Gregory argues, and what I would affirm, is there that Christ is saying,

01:04:31

I do not know this through my human nature, and there is no way that any mere creature could know, and therefore, you as the apostles should not be concerned with this.

01:04:42

And as an aside, I really wish that certain Christians who think that they can calculate the days of Christ would please get that message, that this is not something that it is for preachers to know.

01:04:56

But I don't think we can read from that that Christ as a person was denying that he knew the day and the hour.

01:05:05

Now, obviously I take a different perspective. I view this as the same incarnational limitation as you have in the glory of Christ, that there is a purpose why this particular issue, probably because it is determined by the

01:05:21

Father and is the object of the constant inquiry, unhealthy inquiry of man, is considered in that way, that this is due to the issue of the incarnation and self -limitation, not that, well, what he actually means there...

01:05:40

And my problem with that exegesis, and it's attributed to Pope Gregory the Great, and do forgive me for not finding

01:05:47

Pope Gregory the Great as an overly compelling exegetical resource, especially in light of his teachings on purgatory, or at least the beginnings of purgatory.

01:06:00

He didn't certainly have a fully developed doctrine of that that comes much later. But not exactly my primary source of exegetical insights would be that particular direction.

01:06:14

So you've already said that Christ had a human soul and that that was separated from the body at death.

01:06:25

I'll come back to that towards the end of this question. I just wanted to give that as a preface. Now, what you seem to be saying in that answer is that he also has two minds, or at least two attributes of knowledge.

01:06:37

He's got the human attribute of knowledge, which we would, I guess, understand to be the mind, you know, in simple terms.

01:06:44

And then he's also got the divine attribute of knowledge. Now, I guess, and we also know that God has a spirit, so therefore one would assume, after you've said that he has a human soul, that he has a divine spirit also.

01:06:55

So I guess what I would draw from that, if I was reading that on paper, would be that, in fact, in the person of Jesus there are also two separate independent persons.

01:07:08

And then we could say that, well, Trinity isn't really just three persons, it's kind of four.

01:07:14

And then we could add to that further to add on to a comment that you made where you said that the plan for salvation, i .e.

01:07:23

the second person of the Trinity taking on human form and suffering and dying, was

01:07:29

God's decision, the decision of the substance. Now, well, then I'd ask again, the terminology seems to be a little bit, you know, difficult for simple people like me to grasp, because when we're talking about the hypostasis being personalities, we're also now talking about the substance sort of having a personality as well.

01:07:50

Again, Abdullah struggles to make the proper distinctions and wants to divide the substance out as if the substance can make decisions separate from the persons and all sorts of things like this.

01:08:07

And I think at some point you just simply have to say, you know, I think if you applied these same standards to your own theology, is it the substance of Allah or the person of Allah that, for example, is the grounds of the decree that he has given forth that gives shape to the universe?

01:08:30

At some point you have to go, you know, don't you think you're sort of quote -unquote straining at gnats or you're trying to make distinctions where there's no reason to be making the distinctions that you're making?

01:08:44

You know, or does the Muslim just seem to say, oh, we don't talk about that in regards to Allah.

01:08:50

We don't talk about the personality of Allah in regards to the essence of Allah or things like that.

01:08:56

You know, I really don't know, but that really does make me wonder sometimes when you start asking these types of questions.

01:09:04

And honestly, there is a limitation as to how far you can go given

01:09:10

God's revelation before you run up against that wall that I've mentioned a number of times before.

01:09:17

It's one of the distinctions that I see anyways, and I'm open to being corrected, but it's a distinction that I see between Calvin and Jonathan Edwards.

01:09:26

And it kept Calvin from getting into some of the trouble that Jonathan Edwards got into. And that is that Calvin very clearly recognized that there is a limitation as to how far you can go in light of God's revelation.

01:09:42

And beyond that, you're entering into speculation. We have to allow God to say this far and no farther.

01:09:50

There is a, I think, a disrespectful attitude on the part of man when we say, well, you know, you've given us so much, and God certainly has, when you consider the

01:10:01

Carmen Christi in Colossians 1 and John 17 where you have inter -Trinitarian communication and things like that.

01:10:06

He's given us so much that we should just be able to ask anything and answer any question whatsoever.

01:10:14

And we have to say we as human beings have been given X amount of revelation, and we know that that is true.

01:10:22

But beyond that, God has the right to say this far and no farther. And I think that's sort of what we're getting into here.

01:10:32

And I guess that this inherently for me is the problem that, you know, we're getting very caught up in terms...

01:10:39

And by the way, I would just point out to Abdullah, this is not a question. Abdullah needs to work a little bit at this point on actually asking a question at this point if that's what they were supposed to be doing, unless this was just supposed to be some sort of going back and forth type thing, and just a little comment here, a little comment there.

01:10:55

If this was supposed to be a question, it ain't a question. ...terms and trying to define them, but by the time we define what is a person and what is a substance, we then jump back and have to do it again.

01:11:05

So I guess the question that I'm asking is, and obviously this will probably be the last one, does it not sort of indicate that the individual natures within Jesus were also independent persons if they don't share the basic attributes of what personhood is?

01:11:24

Okay, first of all, let me say, having debated you twice and having watched you debate others in describing yourself as a very simple person, you're selling yourself short.

01:11:33

But having said that, I'll have to give a very quick answer because I realise Rachel's about to bring me off, but I'll say this.

01:11:41

The traditional language certainly used by St Thomas is that he possesses two intellects, a human intellect and a divine intellect.

01:11:53

So there are two intellects through which the person knows, but what I would argue is there is only one person who actually knows.

01:12:01

So he has two intellects which are the source of his knowledge, but there is the one person and that one person who possesses the knowledge.

01:12:11

And that is why I would say that he is in fact rightly called one person, as you're probably aware there was in fact an early

01:12:18

Christological heresy called Nestorianism which essentially held two persons the divine and the human that were somehow loosely united.

01:12:30

But I would say two intellects through which knowledge comes, one person who in fact has the knowledge.

01:12:37

Does that answer your question? Oh, from your perspective. Oh, from your perspective.

01:12:47

And then it became quiet as evidently the sound file slowly moves along. Thank you.

01:12:54

And now we have a 10 -minute cross -examination of a bullet by Jason.

01:13:03

Let's get to perhaps what's our biggest disagreement. Firstly, I hope you believe

01:13:11

I did not do this intentionally, I did my best to understand correctly, but you nonetheless obviously think that I have misunderstood what the

01:13:18

Qur 'an says about the ideal. Could you please clarify and tell us what, in your opinion,

01:13:25

Surah Al -Ma 'idah, is that the answer correctly? Yeah. Or says about the ideal? So that's one verse of many.

01:13:33

I guess the first thing that people need to understand about the Qur 'an if they haven't read it before, they're not familiar with it, is that the Qur 'an is not in chronological order.

01:13:41

You know, we wouldn't be able to sort of subtitle chapters of the Qur 'an and say this is where God is talking about X or Y as we find in some very nice printings of the

01:13:51

Judeo -Christian scriptures. So when we have roughly five, six statements in the

01:13:58

Qur 'an that refer to the Judeo -Christian scriptures, we have to appreciate that the

01:14:04

Qur 'an explains itself. So we can... Now it's interesting to me, Abdullah really insists that we allow the

01:14:15

Qur 'an to interpret the Qur 'an. On what basis?

01:14:22

I mean, I say the Bible interprets the Bible. I say that the Bible provides its own context of interpretation.

01:14:28

I agree. In fact, that would probably be something Jason and I would disagree with because certainly from the Roman Catholic perspective, it is the broader category of sacred tradition that becomes the context.

01:14:36

So we would have a fundamental difference at that point. But when I say the Bible interprets the

01:14:41

Bible, I can then demonstrate that you can engage in meaningful contextual historical exegesis of the text of the scriptures.

01:14:49

And we have the information concerning what the backgrounds were and languages were and things like that.

01:14:56

I don't think that for major sections of the Qur 'an you actually have that. And I in fact would argue that it seems to me that the vast majority of what is taken as Qur 'anic exegesis is dependent upon external sources, specifically the use of the

01:15:14

Hadith. And the less trusting the

01:15:20

Islamic interpreter is of the Hadith, the less specific their interpretation of the

01:15:26

Qur 'an becomes. And the more dependent they are upon texts that talk about the unclear portions of the

01:15:31

Qur 'an. And well, maybe that's one of those unclear portions. You know, Allahualam, I'm not sure.

01:15:38

I see a fundamental difference in the nature of seeking to interpret the

01:15:46

Qur 'an as interpreting the Book of Romans. I would just invite somebody, look at Tafsir literature, especially the historic

01:15:57

Tafsir literature. Tafsir is interpretive commentary on the

01:16:03

Qur 'an. Tafsir literature. Look at the Tafsir literature on the Qur 'an and compare it to Douglas Moo's commentary on Romans.

01:16:15

Let's just use it as an example that someone could pick up. Look, you know,

01:16:21

I've said the same thing. It's interesting. It is an interesting comparison here.

01:16:26

I've said for a long time, Mormonism cannot produce a meaningful, critical commentary on the

01:16:32

Book of Romans. And hasn't, to my knowledge. I mean, maybe there's something new that's come out in the past couple of years, and I haven't kept track of it.

01:16:40

But I don't think it's possible. Because the worldview of Mormonism is so completely different than the worldview of the

01:16:46

Apostle Paul, you can't make that connection. And the nature of the text is just so completely different.

01:16:56

From that of the Qur 'an, that the commentary that is produced on the text of the

01:17:04

New Testament is going to be completely different than that which you find in the Tafsir literature in regards to the

01:17:09

Qur 'an. It just, it goes back to the very nature of it. Combine the statements into one teaching.

01:17:15

Now, the statements are not contradictory. That's the critical thing to understand. And again,

01:17:21

I would say to Abdullah, do you allow us to say that? When I demand that you allow the

01:17:30

New Testament to harmonize before you assert contradiction, that's what you're saying. Allow the

01:17:36

Qur 'an to harmonize before you say it's contradiction. And I try to allow that. I really do.

01:17:45

But it doesn't seem that the vast majority of my Muslim interlocutors will allow that.

01:17:53

They don't allow for the New Testament to harmonize, especially on the person of Jesus.

01:18:00

In fact, wasn't Abdullah just saying, well, why doesn't John say what Matthew, Mark, and Luke say?

01:18:06

Well, why doesn't Surah 4 say everything that Surah 5 says? Why isn't that the exact same argument?

01:18:17

That's a question that I would have. I gave the example of the story of the

01:18:23

Pharaoh of Moses, which is often quoted. Another one that's often quoted as an example of a contradiction in the

01:18:28

Qur 'an is where the Qur 'an refers to the creation occurring in six days in one account, and it then refers to a portion of creation taking four days, another portion of creation taking two days, and another portion taking two days.

01:18:42

Now, the point is we say, well, the base teaching is clear. The creation was six days.

01:18:50

We don't interpret that in the young earth creationist understanding, by the way. And again, that's from the

01:18:56

Qur 'an, because there's a statement which says that a day for your Lord is 50 ,000 years or more of your reckoning.

01:19:03

So the point is... Well, now, that's interesting to me, because, you know, we've got days as 1 ,000 years, 1 ,000 years as a day, so I guess you could just automatically make that kind of interpretation.

01:19:14

But you'll notice that that indicates the different kind of exegesis that is done between the

01:19:20

Bible and the Qur 'an, because when we look at that text, or at least serious exegesis look at that text, we look at it in the context it was used and make application there.

01:19:32

You don't just say, ah, well, here is a general principle to apply all the way across the Bible. That's what Harold Camping and company does, and that is generally recognized as a poor way of handling the

01:19:43

Scriptures. We have a base teaching, and then we have supplementary verses which complement and explain it.

01:19:50

And by the way, all of this just to get to Surah 5, which we covered, I don't know, three weeks ago or more.

01:19:57

We walked through Surah 5, especially 42 and following, really 44 and following, about the giving of the

01:20:05

Torah to Moses, then the giving of the angel to Jesus, and the command of the al -angel, the people of the Gospel, to judge by what is contained in the

01:20:12

Gospel. That is the issue. That is the substance of the issue. And it's interesting all the various and contradictory interpretations of Surah 5 that different Islamic apologists are coming up with as we point out that it has to have meaning.

01:20:30

When we have the base teaching with regards to the Christian Scriptures, the Judeo -Christian Scriptures, which is that they are corrupted, and that's referred to in multiple verses.

01:20:42

Now this is, you know, Abdullah believes this is a basic teaching, despite the fact that there were entire lines of thought in early

01:20:54

Islam that did not embrace that, and he knows that. He would say, well, but there were other early lines.

01:21:00

Yeah, but the point is, you can make an argument that that's not what the Quran is saying. And you can make an honest argument, and it's not just a

01:21:08

Christian argument. There were Islamic scholars who are widely respected who did not come to that conclusion.

01:21:18

And in fact, they would have argued that if you come to that conclusion, if what Allah has sent down can be perverted and changed, then what about the

01:21:29

Quran itself? And this is a very, very disputable issue.

01:21:37

And to make it a basic revelation, this is what the Quran teaches, therefore,

01:21:43

Surah 5 can't be saying what it's saying. Well, it still leaves us open here as to, okay, so you're saying we need to start off with the

01:21:54

Christian scriptures are corrupted. So what does Surah 5 actually mean?

01:22:01

What does Surah 5, 47 actually mean when it says to the people of the gospel, judge by what

01:22:08

Allah has revealed therein. Fihi, what does that mean? How can we do that?

01:22:14

How could the people in the days of Muhammad, when he first came out of the revelational trance and quoted these words, how could they have obeyed it if they no longer possess the gospel?

01:22:25

That's the question. And I think this is a perfectly fair question. We're not mishandling the text.

01:22:31

It's not something that's off on one side. This is one of the major arguments the Quran itself gives for the prophethood of Muhammad.

01:22:42

And so we're not just picking some odd thing. And I would think that there would be a united, clear exegesis from the leading

01:22:53

Islamic scholars and leading Islamic apologists as to what this text is actually all about.

01:23:00

But I don't really get the feeling that there is. There's verses that refer to the understanding being corrupted.

01:23:10

And then there's a single verse that refers to the written text being corrupted. That's the base teaching.

01:23:16

And then from there we have supplementary teaching. So the supplementary teachings are that the Quran has come to affirm what truth is contained within them and that Christians or Jews could then read what they still have.

01:23:30

Now, what truth they still contain in them, read what they still have. Where is that in Surah 5?

01:23:38

I mean, is that what between the hands means? Is that what the idiom means?

01:23:44

I'd like to see that proven. I'd like to see some evidence of that. Because what you now have, if that's the case, is what

01:23:53

Surah 547 is. Let the people of the Gospel judge by what

01:23:58

Allah has revealed therein, which has been corrupted, and which you can't really know what it originally said anymore.

01:24:06

So how could you judge by what's contained therein if what has been contained therein you can't know is actually inspired anymore?

01:24:17

Or something. That's... These are serious questions.

01:24:22

...to then be able to recognize what is the truth, basically. So, you know, when we have the majority of Mark's Gospel, which

01:24:30

I'm sure you would agree presents a very human Jesus...

01:24:35

Totally, completely, 1000 % disagree in the sense that it's being used there.

01:24:43

We believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John present a very human

01:24:49

Jesus. But we also believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John present a very divine Jesus.

01:24:54

That's the whole point. That's the whole point. The Jesus of Mark claims to be the

01:25:01

Son of Man who's seen in Daniel chapter 7. The Jesus of Mark forgives sins only God can forgive.

01:25:07

The Jesus of Mark says, Why do you call me good? Not because he's denying being good. So, the idea of, well,

01:25:16

Mark has this low Christology just shows a real ignorance of Mark.

01:25:22

We would say that, well, that's affirmed by the Qur 'an. Virgo is true. And so that's sort of what's happening.

01:25:29

Okay. If in fact... Now, again, this is what took me back.

01:25:35

I'll be perfectly honest with you. I've got a lot of respect for Abdullah Kunda, but it took me back that...

01:25:40

Look, you know, when someone asks me to... Well, could you tell me what's being said in Romans chapter 5, verse 1?

01:25:49

I'm going to tell them what Romans 5, verse 1 says. Now, I may have to provide some background issues and stuff, but I'm going to tell them what

01:25:55

Romans 5, verse 1 says. We didn't really get an interpretation of Surah 5 there. The Gospels that the

01:26:00

Christians have contain so much corruption. How could we, in fact, read them?

01:26:08

Because... Okay, again... Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it does seem at least to me that the

01:26:15

Qur 'an is saying to, you know, read what you have in your scriptures and affirm the truth of what you're saying.

01:26:23

How could he do that? How could we be expected to do that if, in fact, the scriptures we have contain all this corruption?

01:26:29

Yeah, it's a good question, and maybe I didn't emphasise it clearly enough. The Qur 'an does indeed say to read what's between your hands, but it says that the

01:26:36

Qur 'an is to protect the witness of them, and so what it's saying is use the Qur 'an as a yardstick.

01:26:41

So anything that's affirmed by the Qur 'an is true. Anything which is refuted by the Qur 'an is false.

01:26:47

Now, it doesn't say, read what's between your hands. Let me read it again. Let the people of the

01:26:52

Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein, and whoever does not judge by what

01:26:58

Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient. And we have revealed to you,

01:27:05

O Muhammad, the book and truth, confirming that which preceded it of the scripture, and as a criterion over it.

01:27:12

There's your muhaiman, there's your term there. That's where they go to say, well, this is the yardstick, but there's nothing about, well, read what's between your hands.

01:27:23

There are other places, but not in Surah 547, not in the key text, and it almost seemed like,

01:27:31

I don't know, maybe Jason can confirm one way or the other, but it almost seemed like neither one of them had the text open to Surah 547, because there's going to be things said about it that just don't really make any sense as to what it's really saying, but unfortunately we are out of time.

01:27:51

We're going to have to pick up right in the middle of that, which we will, and next time we'll actually have the real, high -quality, good -sounding opening to Radio Free Damascus.

01:28:03

We won't have to spend ten minutes trying to find it. The next time that we talk about this, which will be very, very soon, and probably next week

01:28:11

I'm going to try to work it out, have Michael Brown back on to talk about his new book, Kosher Jesus. We're going to need to do it next week, because I'm going to be gone a little bit after that.

01:28:20

So anyways, thanks for joining us on a jumbo edition of The Dividing Line today. We'll be back again next week on Tuesday.

01:28:26

See you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:29:20

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