Liberty's Tragic Political Solution

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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. Just before 5 o 'clock on Friday afternoon, I started getting the phone calls first from a reporter in Lynchburg.

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Since then, it's been AP, Washington Post, Christianity Today, etc., etc., etc.

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Following after the best in political traditions, Liberty University released a seven -sentence statement announcing its, in essence, demotion of Ergin Kanner on the fact he would no longer be president and dean of Liberty Theological Seminary, and the odd statement that he made, factual statements that are self -contradictory.

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That's a oxymoron in and of itself. It is political speak for saying he lied through his teeth, but they don't want to say that.

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That was released right at the end of the news cycle, specifically designed to minimize damage.

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Evidently, the folks at Liberty think first and foremost as politicians, certainly not as Christian leaders on these issues.

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Now, I very quickly encountered within one day individuals who were just clearly, utterly disconnected from the space -time continuum, who were speaking of the exoneration of Ergin Kanner in the fact that he had not been completely fired.

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This despite the fact that though they use ambivalent language, language that is unclear, language that is not appropriate for Christians to use when addressing matters of statements made by leaders behind pulpits, ignoring that, the fact that he wasn't fired means, well, he was exonerated, and everything that's been said about him is thereby false.

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Now, the people that were saying this, the Rogerses and Guthries of the world, had demonstrated an inability to deal with factual information in a meaningful fashion already.

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So it's sort of like, well, you know, you expect that. But when just a few moments ago, about half an hour ago now,

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I got back from running an errand and I find an email pointing me to Norman Geisler's Facebook page.

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Now, some people within close proximity to me right now will tell you I don't do a lot of with Facebook and other people do a lot with Facebook.

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And there's a big contrast. And I don't. I mean, I can log in now and see stuff. That's nice. But I just I'm not a

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Facebook person. But I went in and I went to Norman Geisler's wall,

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I guess it is called. And here is the statement posted about two hours ago. An extensive independent investigation.

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Oh, yeah, it was independent. Independent. OK, there's a little bit of a twist right there.

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This is done by Liberty, for crying out loud. That's not independent. An extensive independent investigation has exonerated

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Dr. Ergen Kanner of all the false charges made against him by extreme

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Muslims. Are we starting to use this, folks? Extreme Calvinists, extreme

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Muslims. It's just it's a it's a Geisler ism by extreme Muslims and others and has been retained as a professor at Liberty University.

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Nothing about his demotion. In spite of a few misstatements, which we all make and he has corrected.

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Nothing has diminished his testimony and orthodoxy is one of the great Christian voices of our time. I totally support him.

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Norman Geisler, it is it is difficult to read such words from someone that has commanded such respect in the past.

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But certainly beginning with Chosen but Free and now with this, Dr. Geisler has seemingly been on a one man mission to destroy his own credibility.

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This is absolutely amazing. It's amazing by what it says. It's amazing by what it doesn't say.

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It's dishonest. It is. It is grossly dishonest. Not a mention, not a word.

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Not a single syllable about the fact that Ergen Kanner is no longer president and dean of the seminar.

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Not a word. How can you how can you write such things knowing that you are completely twisting the facts?

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I don't understand it. I do not understand. I understand how secular people do this.

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I don't understand how Christians do this. Now, again, as I pointed out in the blog, you know, it was pretty amazing to me when

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Dr. Geisler could find free will and John 644 and things like that, that that makes you go, well, here's a man who's very traditionally driven.

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But this doesn't have anything to do with tradition. This has to do with cronyism. This has to do with the fact that Ergen Kanner teaches for his seminary.

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And so it's circle the wagons, show absolute loyalty, even at the abject destruction of logic and truth itself.

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Absolutely amazing. He has been exonerated of all the false charges.

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What about all the true charges? What about all the videotapes? What about all the audio tapes?

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What about the documentation from AP and from Turkish sources that document beyond question?

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No one has given an answer to any of this, demonstrating that Ergen Kanner was telling multiple contradictory stories at the same time.

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Not a word, not a syllable, not a sentence. In spite of a few misstatements.

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Folks, Christians should be people who use language properly. It is not a misstatement to say you came here in 1979, having learned

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English, watching the Dukes of Hazzard in Turkey, when you'd been in Ohio since 1969.

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That's not a misstatement, Dr. Geisser, it's a lie. And when you engage in this kind of political activity,

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I don't care what reasons you give for it, you destroy the credibility of Christian witness.

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In spite of a few misstatements, which we all make, and he has corrected. Where, Dr. Geisser, where, where has

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Dr. Kanner corrected any of these misstatements? Where, sir? He has done nothing of the kind.

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He has been silent. He has allowed this thing to blossom into a full -blown scandal and blight upon Liberty University and himself by his abject refusal to do exactly what you said he's done.

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How on earth can anyone make this kind of statement? It's absurd beyond belief.

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Nothing has diminished his testimony in orthodoxy as one of the great Christian voices of our time. I totally support him.

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Whether he really was born in Istanbul and lived in Ankara and Beirut and Cairo and whether he can or can't speak

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Arabic and pretend that he does and and whether he'd learned English from the Dukes of Hazzard in Turkey, even though it wasn't on until 1970, all of that doesn't matter.

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I totally support him. What an amazing attitude. God forgive us for putting this kind of face in front of a watching world.

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And the world is watching, not just the Muslims. Oh, can you imagine the Muslims just chuckling into their koofies at such absurd behavior, such utter disregard for truth?

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Can you blame any of them for saying, why should we listen to you people? Look at how you treated Kanner. What I've been saying from the beginning.

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And here we've got just amazing. Now, what did Liberty actually say?

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Well, after a thorough count the sentences, folks, there's seven of them, seven sentences.

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After a thorough and exhaustive review of Dr. Ergen Kanner's public statements. A committee consisting of four members of Liberty University's Board of Trustees, by the way, that means it's not independent.

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Independent would be outside of liberty. OK, do words have meaning anymore? Am I the only one who sits here and goes, what?

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How can how can you make stuff like this up? I don't get it. Liberty University's Board of Trustees has concluded that Dr.

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Ergen Kanner has made factual statements that are self -contradictory. Now, I stop right there. That's the first sentence.

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I know that this is a statement that was crafted to attempt to allow.

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Ergen Kanner to probably find employment in the future, my theory is he's been given a year to be looking.

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That's my theory. Now, I could be wrong. Maybe they're going to keep him around. I don't know. But it's a it's a this is a politically crafted.

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This isn't this is not a body of Christian elders who are following biblical parameters.

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There's nothing biblical in any of this. There's nothing from his church.

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There's nothing from Thomas Road. This is an organization that needs to be bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars a year protecting itself.

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That's what it is. And within the first sentence, we have absolute incoherence.

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Factual statements are self -contradictory. The only way I can even try to put a positive spin on that is that he made factual claims that were dishonest.

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They were self -contradictory. At one point, he says, I came here in 1969, lived in Ohio.

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At one point, he says, I came here in 1979, broke in English, all in the attempt to make his conversion sound so wonderful and so much better than it would have been because, well, you know, just someone who was raised as a nominal

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Muslim in a divorced family, his being saved doesn't matter. It so seems.

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Hope I remember to mention that a little bit later on. I had some experience that this past weekend with someone who was very upset about this very thing.

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But we're told factual statements are self -contradictory. That is the politically correct way of saying he lied through his teeth knowingly and purposefully for the purpose of advancing his own position and for embellishing his resume.

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That's what he did. The facts are clear. Nobody, absolutely nobody.

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Has been able to to muster even the slightest meaningful argument against the facts of this matter.

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This can't do it. Facts are facts. They can't get away from it. However, the committee found no evidence to suggest

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Dr. Kanner was not a Muslim who converted to Christianity as a teenager, but instead found discrepancies related to matters such as dates, names and places of residence.

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So. The committee. Decided what all the rest of us.

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Myself, Turret and Fan, Jason Smathers, everybody.

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Had already concluded. Yes. No, the argument has never been, despite a few.

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Defenders of Kanner, who just really rarely come in touch with reality, everybody knew that his father was a

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Muslim. The legal documents that were posted clearly made it obvious.

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That he had been exposed to Islam, that he was a Muslim, that was never the issue.

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Everybody knows it was never the issue. It was a pure canard. Mohammed Khan made the argument. Mohammed Khan was wrong.

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We've always said Mohammed Khan was wrong. There's no question of that.

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The documentation shows his father is a Muslim. He was raised in that milieu.

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But you see, there's a vast difference between being raised up to a certain point anyways.

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I mean, once the divorce took place and his father isn't nearly as much part of his life. But there's a vast difference between that and having an expertise in Islam and actually knowing enough about to actually address it.

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And that's why he had to make up a life in Turkey. He had to make up a devout

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Muslim upbringing that would give him the standing to write the books and and appear and do the speeches and the sermons and the talks that he's done.

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And that's been the issue. And evidently what Liberty is saying is, well, dates, names and places of residence.

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In other words, he didn't live in Turkey. Is that what they're saying? Sure would be nice. They'd come out and say it.

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Why don't they come out and say it? How dare they not come out and say if if Ergen Kanner has admitted to them in private that everything he said about living in Turkey and Ankara and the border of Iraq and the

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Andy Griffith Show and the Dukes of Hazzard and WWE wrestling, which he happens to be a great aficionado of, if all that stuff is a bunch of lies.

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Then the whole world needs to know it. And by hiding these things, all they're doing is keeping this going.

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But they admit there are discrepancies. Yeah, when liars lie, that results in discrepancies.

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But, folks, discrepancy is normally when I'm typing out a phone number and I transpose numbers.

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I misspell a word. I skip a line. Those are discrepancies. What Ergen Kanner was doing has nothing to do with discrepancies.

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The discrepancies are the result, factually, of dishonesty. That's what the discrepancies, that's where they come from.

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Dr. Kanner has cooperated with the board committee and has apologized for the discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review.

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Really? Who is he apologized to? Who is he apologized to?

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Liberty is not the ones. Well, certainly they deserve an apology if he gained the position he had based upon lying about his past.

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But there are a bunch of people that would need to receive an apology from Ergen Kanner, including people

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I don't think he'd ever be willing to apologize to, like the Muslims and every single church service and congregation he ever stood before and lied to.

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How about all those Marines sitting in front of him in uniform? How about apologizing to them?

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How about to every single student who went to Liberty University because he thought he was to be trained by someone who had actually engaged in 60, 100, how many debates that he claimed to have done?

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When he's done none, Dr. Kanner's current contractual term as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary expires on June 30th, 2010.

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Well, I've discovered since this came out that everybody's contracts expire on June 30th.

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Everybody, that's just how they do it at Liberty. Dr. Kanner will no longer serve as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.

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The university has offered and Dr. Kanner has accepted an employment contract for the 2010 -2011 academic year.

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Dr. Kanner will remain on the faculty of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary as a professor. There's the statement, seven sentences, seven sentences that leave unanswered the vast majority of questions.

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I mean, we can read into things, but since there is no specificity, then

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Liberty has purposefully and knowingly allowed this wound to fester.

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I asked 22 questions I sent and we have verification of receipt by registered mail.

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Those 22 questions to Liberty. Did they ask him? I don't know. They won't tell.

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When did Eric and Kanner live in Turkey? Dates, locations must be provided. If he didn't, it needs to be said that all of the stuff about Turkey, broken

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English, all those things were lies. He still has pictures on his

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Facebook page, even after the release of this statement that he says were taken in Turkey.

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Is that true or is it false? Answer the question. If you refuse to answer the question, then anything about apologies, confessions or restoration is utterly and completely bogus.

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There can be no restoration without confession. What Madrasa did he train at in Jihad?

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Where was he a member of the youth Jihad? When? For how long? Why is he claimed in public to have been born in Istanbul, Turkey, when he was born in Stockholm, Sweden?

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Why is he claimed to be 100 % Turkish when his mother is Swedish? Why is he plainly implied he could speak

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Arabic when his mother tongue is Swedish and he cannot, in fact, read or speak

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Arabic? How does he explain his presence in Ohio at the very latest of age four and possibly as early as two and a half, as indicated by legal documents?

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How does he explain his claim to have always lived in Muslim majority countries before coming to the United States? Sweden is not today and surely was not in the past.

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It was not in 1969, majority Muslim nation. These were lies. They need to be confessed as lies, not just to a committee at Liberty, but to the people to whom the lies were told.

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Is anyone else absolutely amazed at the attitude of a

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Christian institution that thinks it's acceptable to apologize to them in private for lies you told other people?

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Isn't that amazing? I just we have the issues of the date of his arrival.

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We have. The claims about his activities in high school, we have the claims about learning

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English in Brooklyn, we have all sorts of things, Ramadan, his ignorance of Islam, all of these things,

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Liberty, let me ask you a question. What classes will he be teaching? Will he be teaching classes on apologetics?

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Upon what basis? How can you ask your students to walk into a classroom with a man who gained his position by claiming to have engaged in debates with Muslims in mosques in Arabic?

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I'd like to I would like to listen to debates done by someone who debates Muslims in Arabic in mosques.

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That's impressive. But Arabic, Arabic, Arrogant Canada's never done that in Arabic.

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He's never done in English. And he never would, at least I hope he never would. The results would be a catastrophe.

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But are you going to send your student you're going to charge your students. To go into a classroom.

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And be taught by a man who refuses to be honest about these issues, seriously, I'm I'm left absolutely and totally amazed.

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Now, remember. Only a few days ago. We were chatting about a

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Liberty student. Who on her blog talked about the fact that for the first 20 minutes of the class, the summer class, he was taking with Arrogant Canada as her professor.

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What was he doing? He was talking about his innocence. So which is it going to be? His defenders, on the one hand.

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We'll say he's absolutely innocent, innocent, he's been exonerated, he's never done anything wrong, but on the other hand, they'll say, leave him alone because he's repented, repented of what?

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How can you repent if you're innocent? You don't repent of misstatements and you don't repent of discrepancies. You repent of lying and sin.

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All this abject abuse of the language. Is far beneath Christian people.

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Now, let me mention a few things and then we'll, we'll take your phone calls eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one dividing that line on Skype, but folks, we need to talk about the damage that has been done by arrogant counter.

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It's time to start talking about responsibility here. First of all, the damage to arrogant counter himself.

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Norman Geisler hurt arrogant counter a lot today. If you thought about that, he hurt him a lot.

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He has enabled him. He has abetted him in his myth -making and in his hiding from true repentance.

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He's helped him by giving him plausible deniability by, by taking his own credibility and using it so that arrogant counter can hide behind those statements.

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But arrogant counter has been damaged from the very first time after 9 11, he decided to start myth -making and he got away with it.

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He got away with it because Christians tend to be gullible people, especially Christians who want to be entertained, who want stories about terrorists and things like that.

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Oh, we buy that up. And because evidently there hasn't been anybody.

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Who was close enough to him or had a high enough view of ministry and pastoral leadership and ecclesiology to do the right things.

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He's been aided and abetted and no one has stood up and said, sir, there's something wrong here.

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One of the frightening things to me is that I have heard a lot about the internal operations of Liberty University and a lot of graduates have written to me, a lot of current students, former, uh, former faculty, all sorts of people.

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And I have been told by people who have been there that if you go into the man cave at Ergen Kanner's home, you will find that he is a massive devotee of the

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WWE. He has posters.

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He has memorabilia. He even has a ringside chair, you know, the type they bash over each other's heads.

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I remember WWE isn't real wrestling. It's the, you know, false, uh, uh, acting stuff where you've got the, what do you call it?

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What's that? Isn't it Pratt Falls? I don't know. Isn't that what they call them? I don't know. I've never, I've never abused my mind to watch one, but, uh, this individual suggested to me that we should really give serious consideration to understanding

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Ergen Kanner as living out his WWE fascination. Because in the

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WWE, see what you do is many of those people claim to have had, you know, these evil past lives and then they've become good and they alter their name just a little bit to represent their persona.

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And so isn't it interesting that E. Michael Butch Kanner becomes Ergen Mehmet Kanner after, after 9 -11.

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We have a damaged person here. We have a person, and this might explain as well why

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Ergen Kanner does not seem to think this is such a big deal. He's just, he's just doing what his heroes do.

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A little alteration of the name, a little making stuff up doesn't really matter. Come on, it's all for Jesus.

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We, we've got a damaged person there and I think the folks at Liberty should really give some serious consideration to whether you want someone who has that kind of a background as you, the professor of your, your students.

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I'd like to chime in here because it has occurred to me more than once along these lines that if you look at where Kanner's studies were, you look, it's war, it's studying jihad, it's studying the, the crusades, it's, it's digging into this stuff on a level and, and some have equated this to his schooling in Islamic theology.

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That's not Islamic theology, that's Islamic war. And then you tie that together with the jihad to Jesus speech.

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And I see a pattern here. I see a man who's living out, he's plugging himself into what he has been saturating himself in for years.

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Well, and if he's saturating himself, especially in things like the WWE, that makes sense too.

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But we have a damaged individual here. We now have a damaged institution. There are great folks at Liberty.

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But we have a damaged institution here. There's just no question about it. I mean, it is not at all a coincidence that right at the same time that this happens in regards to a politically motivated response, the

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Eric and Kanner situation that you have the Jerry Falwell Jr. Glenn Beck debacle where Falwell demonstrates that from his point of view, from his perspective, this nation can be saved apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Because he says to Glenn Beck, we can we can argue theology later. Right now we have a country to save. Well, since Mormonism doesn't have a gospel that is anywhere remotely connected to the

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Christian gospel, since Mormonism has a God nowhere nearly remotely connected to the biblical God, a

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Jesus who does not exist, then arguing theology, which is not what you're doing, you're actually proclaiming the gospel to the

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Mormons because they have a false one. Arguing theology is not secondary, it's primary. And hence, evidently, you can save the nation without the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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You can save the nation without changing hearts and minds. What an amazing, what an amazing statement that was.

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But now you have a damaged institution. And I obviously, if if I was a parent with young people looking at going to an institution and I was aware of this, wow, that's that's pretty straightforward, isn't it?

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But, you know, I really, really feel badly for the students at Liberty. I feel badly for that student that we read the blog of because it was so clear that she was getting a substandard education in a popular school.

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And I was, I'm especially distraught for the students who went to Liberty thinking that they were going to get a serious, and this one is especially touches touches me because I I know what it means to have a deep, lifelong, abiding love of God's truth and hence a desire to see it defended and proclaimed because that's what

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I do. And despite the best efforts of certain

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Southern Baptists to try to make sure I never get to do that again within certain contexts,

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I believe that I will have that opportunity to do that again in the future, Lord willing. And so when

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I think of the students who have been given misdirection, who upon investment of life savings and their youth discover they're only getting half the story from one who is not who he claimed to be.

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That's a tragedy. It's a tragedy. And I can't imagine what it's going to be like to be a student at Liberty Seminary right now, to walk into his class.

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If they they they just have to be hoping that the students will not listen to a program program like this or read websites and actually do any meaningful research themselves.

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Isn't that amazing? We hope our students do not do any meaningful research because if they apply meaningful standards of research and study, they are going to have to come to the conclusion that they're being taught by someone who should not be standing in front of them.

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Of course, we've all been talking about the fact that and as someone has just pointed out, there was an article that I saw over the weekend, which

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I had thought about doing something similar to it, but I was beaten to it, where I was going to go to the

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Liberty handbook, the student handbook, and go through what the parameters are for how

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Liberty students behave. And there is one thing that is very, very clear. Someone came up with the calculation that Ergen -Kenner owes

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Liberty $24 ,000 some odd dollars in student fines. They went through all of the lies and things like that.

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But the point is very clear. Any self -respecting student with any critical thinking capacity at Liberty University now knows one thing loud and clear from the chancellor's office, they will be held to a completely different standard than the staff will be.

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Because if any student had lied about their past in their application to become a student at Liberty University and it was discovered, they would be removed.

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Period. End of discussion. But not if you're the president of the seminary and not if you're popular and not if you're a good entertainer and can tell lots of jokes, then it's okay.

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Totally different standards between the students and the faculty. That means we've got real problems.

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Just got to get in here, don't you? I do. It's driving me absolutely crazy. I'm going to have Jamie start restraining your hands.

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There's also the factor, and I've brought this up on my screen here, the connecting the dots backwards for Liberty.

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And you go back to Elmertown's first statement on this. Yeah. All right. We see - I'm expecting my apology.

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Elmertown's at a point. There is some consistency here in maneuvering.

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And he actually says it right there that they're going to be held to a different standard than the students are.

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He says it outright. The other thing is, and in that, I believe yesterday on SRN News, we heard you referred to as a pastor.

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Yeah. First time. Better than being just a blogger. I mean, blogger obviously means -

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Townes and a number of the other defenders of Cantor have continually referred to those trying to call this out as bloggers, bloggers, bloggers.

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They want to paint these people, their critics, as pasty -faced pencil neck geeks sitting behind a keyboard who are nothing but teenagers.

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Well, I am much more pencil neck than that. Yeah. But the total disrespect behind this, many of these men are respected pastors who stand behind pulpits of their own.

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You mean they actually engage in exegesis. And the other side of the coin is somebody sitting on the other side of the glass from me is also a full -fledged apologist doing it for real.

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You look at what you did in Dearborn. You look at men like David Wood and Sam Shamoon and so many others.

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You proved outright, without question, all right, you do for real what he poses as.

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There's not been a question about that all along. That is something I've raised to each person who's called me and asked, why are you doing this?

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Real simple. I had to. When a man's running around pretending to do what I do, you have to address that.

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There's no question about that. But I want to talk about two more areas of damage and then, like I said, we'll take your phone calls,

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Skype calls, anything you want, 877 -753 -3341, dividing .line.

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Don't wait till the very end of the program. Damage to the church. Damage to the church.

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Many of the lies that were told by Ergin Kanner were told behind a pulpit. Evidently, this is one of the main differences.

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People on Twitter, I've had conversations there. One of the primary differences between myself and others and many of the defenders of Ergin Kanner is that we have absolutely, completely different standards as to what the church is and what the ministry of the word behind a pulpit is.

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If you've come to the conclusion that the pulpit can have it or not have it, doesn't matter, doesn't matter who stands behind it, doesn't matter whether it's entertainment.

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If you think liturgical dance is just as good as exegesis, whatever, then you're not going to have any concern whatsoever about what

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Ergin Kanner has done. He's just an entertainer. He's up there and he did some entertaining.

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Did you really think those stories he was telling were true? You see, the damage has been done to the church because whether we like it or not, when we put people in positions of high visibility and representation, once again, the world is looking and what they see is the gullibility of evangelicals.

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You people will believe anything. You people will believe anything. You won't check things out.

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You don't think critically. The very fact that people like Norman Geisler are running around going, he's been exonerated, again, you people are really gullible.

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I mean, folks, do you see the damage of something like Geisler's statement? Norman Geisler, great defender of the resurrection, the historicity of the resurrection.

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And yet when it comes to simple facts, absolutely documented facts, videotape, videotape of a man lying through his teeth, exonerated, don't you see the connection?

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Don't you see what the world sees there? If you can't see the facts right in front of your face about this, well, then why in the world should we think you can see the facts about ancient history?

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You see, the church, the apologetic outreach to the world and especially to the

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Muslims. Oh, it doesn't seem liberty could care less about that. They could care less about that.

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Shocking, absolutely shocking damage to the church damage to the apologetic outreach to Muslims.

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Oh, what an amazing, amazing, amazing thing we are seeing in this situation.

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So where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? Well, I personally am absolutely sick and tired of the whole thing.

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I will be perfectly honest with you. I am. I am tired of the whole thing.

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I am tired of the the irrational defenders of Eric Cantor.

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And man, there are some of them. The violent and vile defenders of Eric Cantor, those those those ones are really bad.

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I would love to just simply say I'm never going to say another word about this. The facts, the facts, everybody now knows that Eric Cantor, his claims are fraudulent.

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Just all there is to it. But that would be given up. That would be given in.

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That's exactly what they want. They want this to just simply die of its own and go away. I think what needs to be done is just as we put together that excellent blog article,

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Micah Burke did, Hassim, son of Ramallah, king of graphics, put together that excellent blog article that we need to make a freestanding page where you can just go to that page and here's everything you need to know about Harold Camping.

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We need to do the same thing with all the data on Eric Cantor and just simply say to the world, when you see

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Eric Cantor being invited to come to your church, you need to point this material out to your church and say until this man makes a full and open confession of the facts, answers the question, he has no place behind the pulpit of a

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Christian church or behind the podium of a

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Christian institution. This has come to the point where it's no longer we're no longer asking questions.

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We're simply asserting facts. Here are the facts. Here are the lies. Answer for them. If you refuse to answer, then you need to be marked off and have people need to have nothing to do with you.

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Those are the facts. That's what we need to do. There simply has to be something more than, well,

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I made misstatements. No, sir, that's not enough. We would never,

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I hope that Eric Cantor would never let his kids get away with what he is asking all of us to grant to him.

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Did you lie to me, son? No, sir. I gave you factual statements that are self -contradictory.

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Get the belt out. That's what needs to happen.

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But you see, we live in a day where there's such a weak ecclesiology, such a weak doctrine of the church, such a weak view of the church.

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It's like, oh, come on, let's just get past this. Let's just move on. Move on to what?

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Move on to where? If you want to move on, you have to move on with integrity.

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Where'd the integrity go? Those are the questions that we have to ask.

42:34

Fascinating. Not a single call on the Eric Cantor situation. Is that what you that's that what the screen is telling me?

42:40

I'm sorry. The second call has a comment along with this topic. Okay, well,

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I'll go there first. Then we'll then we'll go to the other one. Let's talk with Dabney.

42:56

Hi, Dabney. Hi, Dr. White. I do feel sorry for you through all this stuff, even doing a lot of work, putting this information out, and it seems like nobody's paying attention.

43:11

Oh, some people are. But it just seems to me that the good old boys network has demonstrated on a level

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I've never seen before, such a complete disregard for integrity in Christian ministry that I can't see how anybody can look at this and just not weep at the state of evangelicalism that is willing to put up with this and basically say, ah, shut up, just move on.

43:38

It's shocking. Yeah, and what blew me back is I was working last night. I work in a factory.

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And while I was working, I was listening to my iPod. And I heard you. I didn't

43:49

I suppose I didn't catch this when it first came out. But you talked with Hussein Wario. He called in.

43:55

You asked him about Hadid 926 or something like that. 926, yeah. Yeah. And I was blown away that this man kept on trying to get around your question.

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And he wouldn't just come out and just say, you can't find it with that information.

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You need more. Yes. And I'm pretty sure anybody with a working brain realized what was going on when you're talking to him.

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Well, anyone who at least is able to follow a logical line of argumentation and thinks following a logical line of argumentation is important.

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Unfortunately, in a postmodern world, there are a lot of people that just go, ah, so what? You know,

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I mean, does it really matter that we be truthful and consistent in this way?

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If the tables were turned, if this was a former Christian who is now a

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Muslim and he was exposed, he had made all sorts of claims about his what he was, the

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Christian that had now been thoroughly demonstrated to be utterly untrue. If such a person had been going around talking about how

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Bible 316 clearly demonstrates the errors of Christianity, think of what we would be thinking if we saw this, if we saw the

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Muslims protecting such a person, if we saw the Muslims coddling such a person and refusing to bring such a person to a responsible confession of their errors.

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And we saw we saw other alleged former Christians who are now Muslim saying it doesn't matter if he says

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Bible 316. I mean, that's no big deal. And we're saying, but wait a minute, there is no

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Bible 360. You can't. That doesn't actually mean anything. And we just go, oh, you're just being a radical

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Christian. We you know, you've you've been refuted. We'd be sitting here going, man, there's clear evidence of the falsehood of Islam.

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How can we turn around and do the same thing? And then look at the Muslims saying, oh, but you need to believe what we believe is true.

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Yeah, Mr. Wario couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't get it that that a minister would say this.

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I couldn't bloom out of the way that he kept on bringing that up. He's like, you're a minister of the gospel.

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How could you how can you say these things? See, Mr. Wario, the big problem here has been, well, you're you're aiding the

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Muslims. And I he just cannot understand the following statement. When you do not consistently stand for truth, you are not promoting the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter what that means.

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He doesn't understand that he feels it would be better to to allow for hypocrisy at this point than to, quote, unquote, give the

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Muslims something. OK, that's where he comes from. What can I say? I've exposed it and you move on from there.

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But the fact the matter is, I have had Muslims contact me who have said.

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You're a man of honor because you're one of the few people willing to take the slings and arrows from your own side.

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To be consistent on this matter, so will that lead to something? I don't know. It's in the

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Lord's hands. Yep. Thank you for for all that. I do. I do have one quick question, if you don't mind.

47:20

Yes. On double predestination. It's off the topic. Is double predestination historical

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Calvinism or is that synonymous with hyper

47:32

Calvinism? How do you view that? And what would you say to that?

47:39

Well, unfortunately, the term is you have to ask what a person means by double predestination.

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Actively, actively saves, passively reprobates. OK, I would that that language, which does not create an equative situation where actively predestines and then actively in the same method, the same way dams, but to passively reprobate based upon the sinfulness of the person, then

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I would say that's very consistent with John Calvin's own theology. So therefore, if you're asking what historically, at least from the time of the

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Reformation, that would be very consistent with Calvin's own statements within the institutes of the

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Christian religion and would not be hyper Calvinism. But you could call that double predestination, though, is that?

48:37

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you understand double predestination as the fact that God's decree includes the extension of grace as well as the righteous withholding of that extension of grace or reprobation and does not make that an equative thing.

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Sure. I don't have any problem with double predestination at that point at all. It is when you try to make it an equation to where equal ultimacy, that's where the problem comes in.

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That's where you end up in hyper Calvinism and things like that. Yes, most definitely. OK, all right. Thank you so much.

49:06

OK, thank you very much for your call. God bless. Bye -bye. All right, 877 -753 -3341, and let's talk with Ken up in Utah.

49:16

Hi, Ken. Hi, how's it going? Doing pretty good. Well, and if it's any consolation in this caner situation, one day you'll get to heaven and you can roll up your sleeves and compare scars with Spurgeon.

49:29

Well, you know, I'm not going to try to draw a parallel there, but I certainly do think that if you love the church, you're going to have to engage in some bare -knuckled defense of her at some point during your ministry or that you're going to have to live in a cave because every generation has these issues.

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And I know that I've been called a liar over and over again, but the only reason, the only reason

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I've engaged this is because I had to. It was a simple matter of personal integrity when someone is running around claiming to do what you do and therefore claiming to debate the very people you debate.

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I cannot look a Shabir Ali in the eye the next time we debate, and I do want to debate

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Shabir again, and say, well, I feared the face of men so much that I would not challenge someone on my side of the fence who was pretending to have debated you, quoting you improperly, et cetera.

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I can't do it. And so we'll go from there. But that wasn't what your question was about.

50:37

You know, I've come across a textual variant in the Pericate for Sunday's message, and it does impact the application of the text,

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Matthew 17, 14 through 21. And what I'm really interested in, if you've got some general insights on that particular variant,

50:56

I'd love to hear them. But I especially want to hear some suggestions on how

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I, as a pastor, can address this from the pulpit, at the same time not shaking the confidence of my people in their

51:10

English Bibles. Right. Well, Matthew 17, 21 contains what's called a parallel corruption.

51:19

If anyone has the Nessie Olin 27th edition available to them, they will see an italics

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P before the listing of the Greek for, but this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

51:34

There is a small variant in the second hand of Sinaiticus at that point. But anyways, what that is indicating is that there is a parallel to this,

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I would assume, in Luke. I don't have the reference in front of me.

51:56

I think it may be—no, I'm sorry, Mark chapter 9. Mark chapter 9. Right. Mark adds, and fasting.

52:02

Right. Well, but Mark has, but this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting, right? By prayer, and then

52:10

I think it was either Wallace or Metzger that says that and fasting is an addition, a later addition.

52:16

Okay. But it has the phrase, but this kind does not go out except by something, right? Right. Okay.

52:23

So, this particular section is not found in—the text itself is found in Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Theta, and some others, but it's not found in a wide variety of—I'm sorry,

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I'm reversing these things—it is not found in those sources, but it is found in a variety of others.

52:51

This is how I would attempt to explain it. When scribes were used to a particular story, and there was a difference between how the

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Gospels recorded it. In other words, generally, in most situations, Matthew, when he's telling the same story or narrating the same incident as Mark, will be much briefer than Mark is.

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Mark is a much shorter gospel because it doesn't have all the sayings in it, but when he's actually narrating an event, he tends to narrate it much more fully than Matthew does.

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So, later scribes, familiar with the fuller version, whether it was in Luke or Mark or even sometimes in Matthew, whatever it might be, when they encounter the shorter version, it was their tendency to try to harmonize them, because either purposefully, because it was like, oh, well,

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I know this story, and the guy who copied the text I'm copying just must have missed it because I know this story.

53:56

Maybe he'd memorized it from Mark, or maybe just inadvertently, because he had memorized it from Mark.

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He's just writing along, and since he knows it, he puts it in and just goes on from there, looking back at what he's copying and doesn't even realize he's inserted it because he was going by memory for a while.

54:11

That's a possibility as well. But either purposefully or not purposefully, it was the tendency of scribes to make

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke as similar to each other as possible, either because they had memorized sayings or because they just assumed that they should always include all the same information.

54:29

And so when you have a variant like this, as you have in Matthew 17, 21, and we know from whence the parallel comes, that's why it's called parallel corruption.

54:43

You see it especially if you have the Greek edition of the Nessean parallel synoptic text.

54:50

You'll almost always be able to find some scribe somewhere that tried to harmonize between the synoptics when one is telling the story more shortly.

55:01

Look, for example, at the fact that Luke gives a very short version of the Lord's Prayer in comparison to Matthew.

55:08

Well, later scribes are always trying to expand Luke out so he sounds like Matthew, sometimes purposefully, sometimes just because, oh, come on, man, this copy

55:18

I've got is terrible. I know what the Lord's Prayer is, and so they expand it out. Either direction gives you the exact same thing.

55:26

And that's what you have here, is you have a parallel that gives you a longer version, and scribes attempted either purposely or not purposely to harmonize those things when

55:39

Matthew gives the shorter version. So if I was preaching it, when I got to the end of 20, I would say, now

55:45

Mark provides the following in Mark 9, 29, and that led later scribes to feel that that either needed to be here in Matthew, or just because they had already memorized this in Mark, they insert it here as well.

56:01

But that explains why you have either brackets in your translation or a footnote down at the bottom of the page that says earliest manuscripts do not contain these things, etc.,

56:10

etc., and just be very straightforward in explaining the process by which the text came and the fact that those people copying it were familiar with these stories as they were told in the different gospels, and that led to this influence of parallel accounts upon each other.

56:31

And then I would probably go ahead and, since it's in the Markin account, and there's no reason to question that, deal with it as Mark included the text.

56:44

But I would do that having explained that you're now looking at it from Mark's perspective at that point, and that way people can understand the history of the text and the process by which the text came to us.

56:58

And better that they hear it from me first rather than Bart Ehrman. That's exactly right, that's exactly right, because that type of parallel thing is very easy to recognize, and I don't want to use the term common because that would sound like it happens in every single instance, but almost,

57:15

I would say outside of John 7, 753 through 811 and Mark 16, 9 through 20, almost every other sentence -long or verse -long variation is simply due to parallel influences between the synoptic gospels, almost every single one.

57:33

And so, you know, it's easy to explain to folks how that works, and so that's the direction

57:39

I go with it, okay? Thank you very much, you've been very generous with your time. Okay, thanks, Ken, thanks for calling. God bless.

57:44

Thank you. All right, well, there we go with today's dividing line.

57:54

I think it would have been a little bit different and maybe a little bit of a shorter discussion if it had not been for that amazing statement by Norman Geisler.

58:04

Shame on you, sir, shame on you. I'm sorry, but to ignore the mountain of evidence and to abet the man in continuing his silence by that kind of a statement, absolutely unbelievable, unbelievable.

58:20

Well, God's truth goes on and his call upon our lives goes on despite these things, and that means

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Lord Willen will be back on Thursday afternoon here on The Dividing Line to talk to you then. We'll see you then.

58:32

God bless. It's time to make some noise

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59:34

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59:39

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