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Alpha & Omega Ministries

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June 10, 2000

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00:06: Second Timothy 2 15 be diligent to present yourself approved to God a worker who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth
00:27: Alpha and Omega ministries presents the dividing line radio broadcast the Apostle Peter commanded all
00:33: Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence your host is dr.
00:41: James White director of Alpha and Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church if you'd like to talk with dr.
00:47: White you can call now by dialing 602 -274 -1360 that's 602 -274 -1360 or if you're out of the
00:55: Metro Phoenix dialing area it's 1 -888 -550 -1360 that's 1 -888 -550 -1360 and now with today's topic here's
01:06: James White and good afternoon welcome to the dividing line my name is James White and we are going to be revealing how a terrible horrible nasty man
01:16: I truly am today we're going to be looking at some of the nuclear bombs the flames the attacks that we actually receive on a regular basis with Alpha and Omega ministries mainly aimed at me
01:30: I guess there are some general shots at at everybody but I get to take the most of the lumps and today
01:37: I'd like to share with you some of the information that has come in just this week emails are the first two or emails that I received just this week from individuals and I'm going to be responding to them on the air and maybe that'll make some other folks think twice about sending me some of these things because I might just discuss what you have to say right there on the air
01:59: I don't know but we'll be taking some of your phone calls as well it's a 1 -888 -550 -1360 or 602 -274 -1360 if you're in the
02:08: Phoenix dialing area and I am joined in studio today by a fellow that I knew when he was still young and who knew me when
02:17: I was still young in fact Benny Diaz helped to record phone messages in our second bedroom before my children were born and I remember those remember
02:33: Alan Willis made those counters for our phone lines that 2662 RCC 2662
02:38: JWS and 2662 LDS I don't think we even had the two RCC yet because I remember yeah because you had to you were there when we when we passed out tracks to them when the
02:48: Pope visited the first time and that's when we put the RCC line together and we had those counters there were that were that were tacked on to a piece of wood that would count every time somebody would call one of those phone lines remember those
03:02: Alan was truly gifted he he was we'd sit there and watch the counter turn and just rejoice at all the people that would call for the hear the message oh and and we you know our website gets you know 400 hits a day now and we were so glad we get 20 phone calls in a month or something like that oh we had we had no idea but anyways
03:22: Benny is here with us with me today and he had no idea what I was gonna be talking about but the first two you'll find interesting because they're from Roman Catholics and if it weren't for you and if it weren't for us going to a a
03:34: Brannamite Church in a Brannamite was that down south in South Phoenix Brannamite Church and Alberto Rivera that's right
03:44: Alberto Rivera who has since departed this world was there that night and you were there when he looked me right in the face and told me
03:51: I was going to hell because I used the New American Standard Bible I remember it well well anyways I wouldn't be having all these wonderful lovely messages from Roman Catholics if it weren't for you
04:01: I did ask that my wife today I said Cindy what have I done well here's here's the first one that came in this week dear dr.
04:10: white I just finished reading your rebuttal of the Tim and Mark article now let me explain what this is
04:16: Tim the Tim and Mark article if you have access to the internet this is a an article on our website where I think about three years ago
04:24: I responded to a dialogue that Tim Staples wrote in some magazine I don't know where it was between a
04:31: Catholic and a Protestant on the mass and so Tim and Mark Tim was a Tim I think was the
04:39: Catholic and Mark was the process we'll find out here in a minute anyways I just finished reading your rebuttal of the
04:44: Tim and Mark article whether or not you wrote it is immaterial it is posted on your website so I address you well
04:51: I did write it I must say that by this article I have a hard time believing you are a
04:57: Christian you don't refute with love and compassion you utilize scorn derision and sarcasm and then there's a quote from my article quote when hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics go to mass
05:11: Sunday morning after a raucous Saturday night unrepentant and unconcerned about spiritual things are you seriously suggesting that this results in their murdering
05:20: Jesus and quote that's the only thing it's quoted I'll give you the context this just a moment but our correspondent continues did you forget the verse in Romans 2 1 that says to judge not lest you be establishing the criteria that God will judge you on is this the imitating of the life of Christ slandering prejudicial statements shame on you dr.
05:41: white what kind of Christian are you I have read many of your articles and in most of them you have resorted to attacks of this nature
05:48: I suppose you were thinking that Jesus attacked the moneylenders in the temple or attack the Pharisees and Sadducees their hypocrisy well are you claiming the divine right here under whose authority do you make that claim
06:01: I will pray for you that you are healed from this hatred that dominates you his mercy endures forever forgiven by him to John Curry well if anybody wants to look at this article it's at a omen org slash mark and Tim dot
06:17: HTM mark and Tim Marcus capitalized Tim is capitalized but everything else is small case a omen org mark and Tim dot
06:25: HTM and here's what I actually wrote and here's here's what this person is basing this accuser you're not a
06:32: Christian yeah you're Oh slanderous and prejudicial statements and attacks and everything you do is like that this is what this is what was written but Tim isn't ready to move on quite yet instead he introduces
06:44: Paul's words in first Corinthians 11 27 through 29 where Paul speaks the Lord's Supper he insists and then
06:51: I start quoting from mr. Staples st. Paul likewise emphasizes the real presence but Mark and that's our
06:58: Protestant is ready and here's the words I put into Mark's mouth it is very common Tim for Catholics to read back into scripture doctrines and concepts developed hundreds and sometimes more than a thousand years after the writing of the
07:10: New Testament and that is what you were doing here Paul speaks of the Lord's Supper a simple meal in which
07:16: Christians proclaim the Lord's death until he comes not an ornate sacrament in which they represent the one sufficient finished sacrifice of Christ on Calvary the words of the passage do not speak to Aristotelian categories of accidents and substance nor do they refer to such things as transubstantiation when you say real presence you need to realize that your idea of what that means continue to be a matter of substantial debate until the fourth ladder in Council in 1215 importing such context concepts back into the inspired text is a common error of Roman Catholicism then
07:52: I went back to what Tim Staples had written but Tim is insistent how can one be guilty of the body and blood of the
07:59: Lord if it's merely a symbol Staples had written this Greek phrase for being guilty of someone's body and blood and a cost est
08:07: I to sum it off sky to him a toss to career is a way of saying guilty of murder if the
08:15: Eucharist is merely a symbol of Christ not Christ himself this warning would be absurd so that's what
08:20: Tim Staples had said he had said that in that passage being guilty of the body and blood of Christ means to be guilty of murder and that's what
08:29: I'm responding to and here is what I said in response and this is what makes me a terrible horrible nasty person according to my correspondent
08:37: I wrote wait a minute Tim you are going way beyond the text here not only are you flying past the statement in verse 26 that we proclaim the
08:46: Lord's death not represent it it is a finished act in the past not something that is being represented as a propitiatory sacrifice in the mass but you have to import the entire concept of transubstantiation into a context that is utterly foreign press a meaning it does not have to have upon what basis do you insist that this has to mean guilty of murder and in the process skip a major problem how would unworthy participation in the
09:14: Roman mass qualify as murder under your terms when hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics go to mass
09:22: Sunday morning after a ruckus Saturday night unrepentant and unconcerned about spiritual things are you seriously suggesting that this results in their murdering
09:31: Jesus and quote that's what I had said I was responding to Tim Staples statement that this means to murder
09:38: Jesus if you partake unworthily so as many Roman Catholics admit and I've heard Roman Catholic apologists admit this there's a lot of nominal
09:46: Catholicism out there people go out on Saturday night and they cuss and they swear and they commit fornication and then they go to mass on Sunday morning and they think that by you know doing their genuflecting and doing their thing there somehow making themselves right with God if staples who then the result of that is their murdering
10:04: Jesus is that really what he meant to communicate that's all I said and yet we have an entire email saying them a terrible horrible non -christian divisive prejudicial oh man you name it you heard all the all the words there and that's what we we had to say did you want to say no
10:21: I should have said that one to you right well here's the next one this is a little bit longer this came in just this week and I I assume
10:35: I can't tell that this person attended the debate with Robertson Janice on Long Island I'm not
10:41: I'm not perfectly certain but I am a Catholic who is vehemently opposed to any other
10:46: Catholic giving James White another debate opportunity James White the best example of miss education craves for nothing more than publicity this is how he sells his fast food type books no man has ever hated truth as this white man and white is capitalized in case anyone's concerned about that I continue no man has ever twisted scripture as this man who has set himself up as the arbiter his own version of truth nobody has ever twisted scripture as much as I have you know that no one
11:17: I mean Marchione nobody in the history of the church I've I've hit new heights I continue the quotation unfortunately for him truth has no variables here is a man who is so consumed by the fact that he wants to be recognized as a
11:29: Protestant intellectual that he would do anything to achieve that goal for years he has been forcibly pushing himself towards that writing of course on the back of the
11:38: Catholic Church he bemoans others for poor argumentation for poor logic for not being scholarly for not thinking thoroughly unfortunately
11:46: James does not think deeply enough to know that he is not thinking deep enough think about that one a few times think deeply on it and you'll be able to figure that out
11:53: I continue the first question one has to ask ask James is how did you come to know what you know about God in the scriptures since he claims that he does not believe in tradition or in the
12:05: Magisterium does it not follow then that James is a self -taught man I stopped for just a moment to say no it does not this is a an example of the common errors made by Roman Catholics who a have never read my books and be just are absolutely intent upon never listening to what
12:22: I say in a debate on solo scriptura to reject the infallibility of the
12:28: Roman Magisterium is not to say that I have not learned things from other men it is to say that those other men are not infallible and that they are subordinate to the superior authority of Scripture anyways
12:41: I continue on everything he knows about God he originated and developed by himself alone without the aid of books or formal education well immediately anyone who has even taken a second to listen to what
12:53: I'm saying realizes that this person either has not or is desperately dishonest in their misrepresentation you cannot selectively continue on you cannot selectively rely on other people's ideas about God and at the same time claimed the
13:06: Bible is your sole authority this is a obvious obvious complete misrepresentation of solo scriptura
13:13: I could stop right here and simply dismiss such a person but since there are so many of these people who will not listen to what we have to say and who grossly misrepresent solo scriptura there are so many of them that many people just they hear it so often they start believing it's actually true so let's listen to the rest of the errors in by the way this man's name is innocent mole that's that's the name that is an actual name right rich it is an actual name innocent mole is the gentleman's name and he signed it so hey you sign the letter
13:40: I get to read it okay Protestants claim I continue on Protestants claim that salvation is
13:47: God's work alone Catholics would agree to this that is not the case Catholics would say that there is no salvation outside of grace but Catholics are synergists and in fact the entire debate that we just had on Long Island was between mistress and Janice who is a synergist that it's
14:03: God's grace is the foundation but God's grace saves no one outside of their actions and their will and their accomplished sacraments etc etc and myself a monergist who believes
14:16: God saves and God saves alone however by that statement Protestants mean that man cannot collaborate with God and he
14:23: God saving plan well if that means that God is that man is dead and sin we would agree with that I continue on they reject works as a denial of the sufficiency of God's power to save not bad have you not noticed that this is the only area of human concern where Protestants claim that man has no contribution to make this idea of faith alone in scripture alone when taken together shows the hypocrisy of Protestantism the truth is
14:48: Christ said in John 1613 when he comes the spirit of truth he will guide you to all truth what do
14:54: Protestants like James White with this promise I think he meant what do they do with this promise well
14:59: I believe it was fulfilled in the apostles very clearly in scripture continuing on the quotation a fundamentalist and they love that word they cannot differentiate between an
15:08: Arminian fundamentalist and a reformed individual such as myself nor will are they willing to do so a fundamentalist would have to conclude that by the above statement nothing apart from the spirit of truth is required to gain truth no that's not the case whatsoever the promise of the spirits coming to the apostles and guiding them into truth does not in any way shape or form invitiate the presence of scripture or the necessity of scripture why do they go to Bible colleges in search of truth listen to that why do they go to Bible colleges in search of truth as if the
15:37: Bible College becomes a source of revelation outside of scripture rather than the
15:43: Bible College being a place where you can learn to stay the scriptures even better why do they go to Bible colleges in search of truth why do biblical analysis why read books what are you looking for why even need the
15:57: Bible since teaching the truth is the work of the Holy Spirit alone I think everyone can see what the problem is here but this is very common so you need to know there are people who actually think this this way that sola scriptura means that all you need is you know you and the
16:10: Bible out in the woods by yourself there's no church there's no elders no anything like that there is I I cannot believe the ability of man to come up with ways of denying what sola scriptura is and twisting what it is it's absolutely incredible why do
16:23: Protestants think the Holy Spirit need help from Bible colleges or from pages of books of the types written by James White to accomplish to task it should be the task assigned to him well and the
16:36: Holy Spirit uses many means to teach his people he uses the elders in the church to preach and proclaim he uses godly men of old to do
16:48: I've learned many things from looking back at them that doesn't make them a rule of faith they don't want the oral infallible exactly right
16:55: Christ is able to save to the uttermost does he not think that the Holy Spirit is able to teach the truth to its utmost limit now there you have someone trying to parallel the presentation of truth in the church with the work of God the father that is entrusted to the son in John 638 to 39 where the son is entrusted the salvation of all the elect people and he is not to lose any of them obviously that parallel is not exactly solid and is not made in scripture itself do they not think that they deny the sufficiency the
17:30: Holy Spirit when they seek truth elsewhere we're not seeking truth elsewhere perhaps he is not thinking deep enough well maybe
17:37: I'm not but then again maybe someone else is not thinking deep enough here James White has
17:43: James White who has become an expert in all fields including biology physics and astronomy
17:49: I'm sorry used to claim that the Church of St.
17:54: Augustine is not the same as the present -day Catholic Church correction here if we're going to quote me the present -day
18:00: Roman Catholic Church and yes I would defend that debate against anyone continue on because the church in Augustine's day looked nothing like the
18:08: Catholic Church of today I would thoroughly agree with that it does not look like the Roman Catholic Church of today to borrow
18:15: James's pet phrase more scholarly Protestants admit that Augustine belonged to no other church in the same church identified as the
18:21: Catholic Church of today no scholarly process recognized that they use the term Catholic Church of the church they belong to but they would not have even understood what the term
18:31: Roman Catholic Church meant anyways I continue on to quote here again we see very shallow thinking on James White I think it's on the part of James White but very shallow thinking on James White if he had a mirror and looked into it he could perhaps answer the question is
18:47: James White of today the same James White of merely 40 years ago now this is interesting
18:53: Benny that she would be there I don't look like I used to remember I used to have hair I mean it was you know right here on top it didn't glow when there were lights coming down from above and I know
19:03: I think it's really unfair that you being a Hispanic gentleman continue to have hair on the top of your head and pretty much now it's not quite the same color that it was she kind of your son is laughing and laughing in the control room there
19:19: Benny I didn't know if you want to know that or not but anyways no and no the James White of today is not the
19:26: James White of 40 years ago cuz I'm not 40 years old yet so that's anyways if he thought deeply if I thought deeply
19:34: Benny he could say over the last 40 years I have changed while remaining the same person well you know paralleling mr.
19:42: mole paralleling Christ Church and its truth with an aging man who is not quite yet 40 years old anyways
19:49: I think that if you thought deeply on that might demonstrate that there's a problem here because you see my objections to the connection of the modern
19:59: Roman Catholic Church with the Church of Nicaea or the Church of Augustine is that no one in the days of Nicaea or in the days of Augustine believed and taught that you had to believe as a day feed a doctrine the immaculate conception of Mary the bodily assumption of Mary papal infallibility indulgences or the treasury of merit and we could go on from there to the idea of transubstantiation which
20:21: Augustine himself did not believe in transubstantiation the presence of Christ in the mass for him was very different than it is for modern
20:28: Roman Catholicism so if you want to say mr. mole that the church of that day in the church today are the same then you have to come up with this not development hypothesis but this evolution hypothesis where something that was once X can develop into non
20:42: X and that's the point that I've been trying to make and it would be nice if some of my opponents would actually deal with my arguments rather than with a very very poor misrepresentation thereof
20:53: I continue to my quote the same could be said of the Catholic Church which is forever one and has remained so for nearly 2 ,000 years that's a statement of faith that's not a statement of fact that's a way around dealing with facts the fact is that the
21:08: Catholic Church of Nicea or the Catholic Church of Augustine is not the Roman Catholic Church of today that's just simply a fact and you can't accept that fact because it goes against your ultimate source of faith and your ultimate source of authority which is the church itself in his debate with Bob St.
21:25: Genesis continue on he made what I consider the most childish analogy when you when used the misuse of printer manual by someone who does not know how to use the manual now actually that was not with Robertson Janice that's the analogy
21:39: I use with Tim Staples in our debate on solo scripture in November of 1996 and Fullerton so he's
21:44: I have no idea whether I mentioned this in the question answer period mistress and Janice a year ago but I don't think that I did be that as it may he's talking about the analogy
21:56: I've used many times and that is that a person who could be given the perfect printer manual that tells him everything to do with his printer if that person never reads the printer manual and they hook up their printer wrong and it doesn't work is that the printers manual fault no if that person were to read only two chapters of the printer manual and not all of it and still messed up is there mess up the printer manuals fault no the whole point of my analogy was that if we bring our own ignorance if we don't read the printer manual if we used a previous version this printer and bring our traditional understanding into the printer manual it's not the printers manual fault it's our fault we are misusing a sufficient source of information and so that is the illustration he's referring to here that he identifies as being childish his argument was that the
22:51: Bible like the manual is sufficient in and of itself and that a misuse the manual cannot be blamed on the Bible or manual at least at that point he got it right this is a silly argument which reflects defective thinking on his part
23:03: I guess I do a lot of that no reasonable person goes into a shop and spends money on a new computer or printer and goes home rejoicing because it's new equipment comes the manual what is normative either in in secular society is that you buy the equipment and if you cannot use the manual to get your system working properly you're going to have to call customer service quickly totally ignoring the one issue that the analogy is meant to represent and that is when
23:29: Roman Catholics say well but solo scriptura has resulted in all these different viewpoints that's not the scriptures fault that's our fault and mr.
23:38: mole won't hear that instead he's he's he doesn't care about what the manual has to say he only cares what customer service has to say
23:45: I continue on again in society today the availability of customer service is taken as a given the more service is taken as a given the more cautious buyers will go further than both the manual the customer service the customer service to as far as signing up for maintenance agreement no one ever buys from a company that does not have available customer service no matter how attractive or thorough their manual is similarly our
24:10: God is much wiser the church manual the Bible is available to all however when there is a serious question a serious question one needs to turn to the customer service the magisterium again the magisterium is the church's customer service team and if one needs maintenance agreement one is invited to become initiated into the church who guarantees to faithfully administer the sacraments to you and your household the church will readily baptize your children will marry you confirm you give you last rights and even bury you these are guaranteed in your service agreement with the church no one should ever belong to a church that boasts that it does not have a customer service a teaching authority more could be said about James White and his scholarship but I do not want to take more of your time etc etc etc although I despise giving
25:01: James opportunity to insult Christ as he attacks his church I would still want to see how much hatred he is able to pour out this time he continues to better himself in this arena area because he has no regard for the church or anyone else other than himself nothing stops him from stooping as low as he can get may
25:19: God bless your work innocent mole well there that's the kind of stuff that comes across the the website and rich pierce gets to read all of that stuff and he gets determined who to send it to but for some strange reason he decided to send it to me this time thank you very much rich I appreciate that I do not see all of it
25:39: I don't see all of it there's there's nasty grams I don't say but I see more than I get
25:45: Benny gets to see most the Roman Catholic nasty grams but so if you want to know who gets to read the
25:50: Roman Catholic nasty grams it's Benny and we send the Mormon nasty grams to Sean Hahn and some of the other nasty grams get sent to Simon and Mike Porter and so on and so forth so those the folks who end up seeing most of the nasty grams well here's an article that begins
26:07: Popelet James White moans and pleads for mercy Popelet let me spell that for you it's
26:15: P -O -P -E -L -E -T Popelet I had never seen that one before Popelet James White moans and pleads for mercy you know who this is from this is from a
26:23: King James only website oh yes I'm not even gonna give the address I'm not gonna give him free advertising Popelet James White I bet if you searched on AltaVista for Popelet you know
26:35: I mean that's not exactly a big hit that's right a good see if Google's comes up with Popelet there you go here's what it says
26:47: I have the best one for you it is the devilish moan of Jim White a Reformed Baptist amillennialist how in the world does he know that he's never talked to me anyways who has been soundly thumped by Tex Mars and Pete Ruckman why does attack the
27:01: King James Bible which is the majority report of the Reform movement on the Bible I would hasten to note however that there are a number of Reformed Church of America churches as well as the
27:09: Netherlands Reformed Church and the Reformed Episcopal Church old -lined Reformation Tigers who are 100 % and aggressively behind the
27:17: KJV add Theodore Liedis of the Missouri Synod S -E -N -O -D Lutheran Church and you have a real bundle of trouble for Jim White the
27:26: Bible basher the article of the following link and this is an article his link is four years old this is back before we even had a website this is the net 30
27:35: Texas dot net remember that is full of tricks by white and admittedly some ignorance on Tex Mars part by the way it's my response
27:43: Tex Mars on the King James page on our website but it shows how the snake pit of the
27:49: Reformed Church plays foul when they are cornered White has to be in real trouble with the
27:55: Reform movement KJV people so he attacks Mars and Ruckman why answer Ruckman and Mars turn everything into a rowdy rodeo
28:02: White can play the dignity routine and he looks like the wise man the Reformed Church theologians the
28:07: Reformed Episcopal doctors and Theodore Liedis would deal White a death blow in his own arena and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel
28:15: White is a wimp and I say that charitably of course two things White is a wimp is attached to a wave file that plays a a cartoon thing where Yosemite Sam is saying he's as strong as an ox and about as smart as one if you click on it but they
28:31: I guess he hasn't seen the debate I had with Theodore Liedis which is on our website and I'll tell you how to get hold of that but I just realized
28:38: I need to take a break we'll take your phone calls after this here on the dividing line Calvary Press dot com is where you can go to see more of Calvary Press's stuff including the
29:07: Potter's Freedom finally came out a few weeks ago Benny's holding a copy there and getting a lot of response that book and a lot of folks buying more than one copy because they want to give it away to somebody else for some strange reason isn't that interesting you know
29:22: Benny was mentioning during the break that a lot of times when he calls and you work in the computer industry and and a lot of times when you call those customer service lines guess what those people in the customer service line are doing they're looking in the manual you hear those papers rustling really quickly back there they're going back to the manual that's the problem
29:43: Rome Rome's customer service agents have lost the manual that's the there's the problem there there's a good response anyways let me finish this this article real quick from the
29:53: King James only page we'll take some calls I didn't get the last one I want to share with you from a Mormon perspective but I do see there is a
29:59: Mormon question so maybe we'll move into that but after all this stuff about me and stuff like that and the
30:05: King James only page you've got please note that both of the above links stress creeds written by uninspired men they almost totally ignore the
30:14: Word of God the word is not sufficient to all reformed churches that is why they are now dead as a coffin nail so you got to realize that for these folks for King James only folks they're they're desperately anti -credo they have no confession which is why they can sort of flip -flop around what they believe and they they're dead set against the reformed faith and so on and so forth amazing stuff well
30:42: I want to get eventually to the March 2000 apology a publication of the
30:49: Foundation for apologetic information research known as fair I'd like to offer some comments about some untruths that they have uttered concerning me but first we've got a bunch of folks online so let's start with Jim in Billings is that Missouri or Montana someone put mo up there someone who you know doesn't necessarily have all of their 50 -state zip code things memorized yet but anyways what can we do for you
31:20: Jim are you doing pretty good my question is this chance to speak at promise keepers would you do it and why no
31:28: I would not and I would not because of the fact primarily because the fact that just a few years ago and I don't have any information in front of me where I can give you the specific date or or whatever but a few years ago it is my understanding that the statement of faith and I did compare them
31:47: I did download the old statement of faith in the new statement of faith of promise keepers was in essence run by a group of Roman Catholic theologians and a change was made that reflected those
32:02: Roman Catholic theologians desire and in essence what happened was the statement of salvation by grace through faith alone was changed to a statement that is basically in line with the
32:15: ECT document that speaks of salvation by grace through faith in Christ the problem is if you do not use the phrase sola fide faith alone you need to understand that in Roman Catholicism Roman Catholics can say that we are saved by the grace of God alone through faith in Christ because that faith in Christ shows itself to the sacraments of the church and that grace is channeled through the sacraments of the church and so the whole reason for faith alone was to deny the issue of human works of merit deny the necessity of sacraments as the channels of grace etc etc and so by removing that I think you have in essence betrayed the
32:58: Reformation and besides that there are a whose theology
33:06: I would have to thoroughly disagree with and for example
33:11: I received an email a while back that's in when promise keepers met in Utah that invitations were sent out only in Utah not in other places but in Utah to the
33:21: LDS Ward chapels and of course if I was going to speak at a promise keepers event in Utah I'd have to very clearly speak on the errors of Mormonism and call call those folks to repentance and belief in Christ and so I will
33:35: I can't do that with with a I can't speak some place where I'm going to be limited as to what
33:42: I can say concerning the gospel itself so my answer would be no I could not sort of confused right now and I'm grieved at the same time because they have very well -known author of the doctrines of grace in fact he was general editor of the
33:57: Compromised Church the coming evangelical right John Armstrong yes he's speaking there well
34:03: I can't answer for him but I wrote to him and it just grieves me because you know exactly
34:10: I think is I agree wholeheartedly with what you say and it's he says it's not more of a political problem it's more of a spiritual situation why he's speaking and you know
34:21: I think it's great that he's speaking there but you know just the association with movement so well if he if he goes there and he speaks the truth and he addresses those issues then you know sort of like Luther speaking before Charles I guess if he went let me put this way if I were ever to speak of promise keepers they'd never have me back a second time okay you know you know if that's what he's gonna if he's gonna go there and say you folks have have gone off the the narrow way and he tells him that well
34:51: I suppose I could understand that but I doubt that anyone I doubt the promise keepers would ask somebody to come and speak when that person says well here are the issues that I have with you and this is what
35:04: I'm gonna say well if he all
35:11: I can say is if he uses the open platform to speak the truth and to call them to repentance then more power to him but I would never get that type of an invitation myself and my assumption in the question that you asked was that there were going to be conditions and and I couldn't
35:29: I couldn't agree to him so if he's gonna have an open platform and he's gonna use it to address those issues then
35:35: I would like to hear the tapes of that one and you know I'd love to see him then ask to address all the rest of them and see a complete change in the entire thing but I you know maybe
35:45: I'm just being too skeptical and that's a great book to the potter's freedom well great I'm glad you got only read two chapters before I gave it to my pastor he wanted to read it.
35:55: Oh, but the good stuff's in the last chapter. I know it is. Well, he's preaching on Romans 9 and I think that's good.
36:01: Excellent, excellent. Well, thanks for calling the day, Jim. Okay, well, thank you. Alright, God bless. Bye -bye. 602 -274 -1360, 1 -888 -550 -1360.
36:12: Let's talk with Galen in Waverly, Iowa. Right. That's Iowa.
36:18: Well, you know, I had to sort of guess because I can't assume that my board op's gonna get the...
36:24: I'm not gonna tell you what he's doing to me right now. But anyways, how are you doing up in Waverly, Iowa today,
36:29: Galen? Doing fine. How are things in Phoenix? It's beautiful down here today.
36:35: I think it's only about, what, about 96, 97 degrees, which for us is, you know, we've broken out the parkas, the long -sleeve shirts, the whole nine yards.
36:42: It's a cold front moved through and dropped us below 100 for a few days. But anyways, what's your question today,
36:49: Galen? Well, I'm interested in finding some apologetic material dealing with the
36:58: Mormon faith that focuses more on the historical, or the evidence for the
37:07: Book of Mormon. I hear a strong apologetic from your ministry.
37:14: I listened via the internet and have reviewed some of that material.
37:21: And most of your defense of the Christian faith vis -a -vis the Mormon faith is focused more on the inherent contradictions, internal inconsistencies, and differences in the doctrines.
37:34: But I have a vague recollection that one of the strong distinctions between the two in previous years was an analysis of the lack of archaeological proof and evidence for the historicity of the
37:56: Book of Mormon. I don't hear a lot about that today. I'm wondering if my recollection is poor, or if not, where can
38:04: I find that material, and why isn't that used more today in discussions with Mormons?
38:10: Well, I think the main reason is because it immediately entangles you in the huge amount of literature that has been produced over the past 15 years by a group called the
38:23: Foundation for Ancient Research in Mormon Studies, known as FARMS. And this is a group of primarily
38:29: Brigham Young University scholars. And they're cranking out books right and left that allegedly provide the very apologetic that Mormons have wanted in regards to the historicity of the
38:41: Book of Mormon. And in essence, I have said this more than once, and I will repeat this, we do have a tape by the way.
38:49: I think it's available through the web if you heard the discussion that took place on the radio up in Salt Lake City between myself,
38:58: Daniel Peterson, and William Hamblin, who are Brigham Young University professors. I think that's on straightgate .com,
39:04: which should be linked from our website, that particular one is. But we have the tape of it as well. In that particular encounter, you'll hear that topic come up.
39:13: And basically, I think the main reason that you don't hear a lot more discussion of it is because the
39:20: Mormon basically can now start throwing so much stuff at you that if you dealt with everything, you're saying, yes,
39:26: I do not believe that FARMS has produced any type of meaningful apologetic. But the fact that they can stack 14 books up in front of you and say, okay, deal with every single assertion made here, is basically why you don't hear as much about it.
39:40: They've been successful as far as that goes. Mainly because they quote each other, and there's such,
39:48: I don't know how to describe it, it's so obscure. I mean, for example, one of the things
39:55: I want to get into here is the assertion made in a publication that I have, let me quote it,
40:01: White has consistently refused invitations to debate LDS apologists and scholars in a live setting.
40:07: That's the assertion of the March 2000 Apologia. That's grossly untrue. We have tried to get
40:13: LDS scholars to debate these issues. I would love to debate, for example, William Hamblin of Brigham Young University on his assertion that he made, and you can hear this in the radio program we did up there in Salt Lake, his assertion that he made that there were swords as described in the
40:30: Book of Mormon in ancient America. That simply isn't true. Swords.
40:36: The Book of Mormon talks about swords, and if you just let the Book of Mormon define what kinds of swords it's talking about, it's obvious the
40:44: Book of Mormon is talking about the sword that a Roman soldier would have, that has a hilt and a blade and you can cut people's heads off and run them through with it and all the rest of this stuff, and yet,
40:55: BYU scholars are trying to connect those with wooden war clubs with rocks embedded in them.
41:01: I think if we were to, in a public setting, force these individuals to actually defend their statements, the ridiculousness of them would be self -evident, but that's not what's going on because they won't do that kind of debate, and most people who are experts in Mesoamerican archaeology, and I'm not one of them, but most people who are could care less about any of this type of stuff.
41:23: Hold on just one second Galen, I'm going to put you on hold, we're going to hold you through the break here, and we'll continue on with this because it will sort of transition us into my response to the
41:33: Apologia article, we'll be right back right after this. Welcome back to Dividing Line, don't have a lot of time left today, we're talking with Galen up in Waverly, Iowa, and we're talking about the issue of apologetic in regards to the
41:56: Book of Mormon, and I was explaining that over the past number of years there has been this tremendous increase in apologetic writings by LDS scholars in attempting to defend the
42:09: Book of Mormon, and quite honestly Galen, I'm one of many who do not have time to read the five or six books they're producing, and honestly when
42:18: I do take the time to read them they're not saying much different than what they've said before, they've just put a new spin on it, a new slant on it, whatever it might be, but there's so much of this stuff that the engaging that particular area, it's not that there isn't stuff out there, the tanners still have
42:32: I think excellent material that demonstrates very clearly, it cuts through all the garbage, and gets to the real issues in regards to the
42:40: Book of Mormon, but basically what you're hearing from Mormon apologists today is, yeah, well, unless you have a degree in Mesoamerican archaeology you can't intelligently address this anyways, and etc.
42:53: etc. So that may explain some of what you're hearing. Are they asserting that there is actually credible evidence for the existence of these
43:04: Nephites and Lamanites, these tribes? Yes, and in fact let me give you one example of it.
43:12: One of the more popular writings by Sorensen, who again is an
43:18: LDS scholar, part of his theory is that the entire story of the
43:23: Book of Mormon took place in such a small space, such a small geographical area, which
43:31: I think involves a tremendous rewriting of Joseph Smith's own understanding. I think Joseph Smith believed that the story of the
43:38: Book of Mormon took place all over the North American continent, but his theory is that it's so localized in one small section of Central America that it would be impossible for us to ever stumble across archaeological evidence because we'd have to stumble right into that one area.
43:58: So that is conceding that there is no evidence at this point. In essence, most of it is a concession that you don't need to have specific physical evidence, that there might be some things that in a wild interpretation could be said to have some relevance to the
44:13: Book of Mormon, and then their positive evidence they try to derive from chiastic structures, alleged parallels to Hebrewisms, and so on and so forth in the text of the
44:25: Book of Mormon itself. It becomes very complex, which is why a lot of people just simply don't get involved in dealing with it.
44:33: But you will find excellent resources from Gerald and Sandra Tanner. I think it's www .utlm
44:40: .org, I think is the website. I'm going off the top of my head there.
44:46: I could be wrong. Write it down. See if it works. Otherwise, just search for Utah Lighthouse Ministry, and you'll find their books on archaeology and the
44:53: Book of Mormon and things like that. And I think if you read them, you'll see why most folks just don't have time to be constantly dealing with the newest shovel of sand that's been thrown in the air by farms.
45:06: Okay, that is exactly what I was hoping to hear. Thank you very much. You're most welcome. God bless. Bye -bye.
45:13: 602 -274 -1360, 1 -888 -550 -1360. We have Jim in England online.
45:20: Jim, please try to hold on just a moment. I've mentioned this a couple of times, and I don't want to go flying completely past it.
45:28: I'm not going to be able to do what I wanted to do. I have a bunch of comments that I wanted to point out in rebuttal of the
45:34: Paula Ghia of March 2000. This is Volume 3, Issue 3 from the
45:40: Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research. But basically, right on the front page, see this, Benny? Right on the front page is a less than flattering picture of me, even though, yeah, isn't that nice?
45:49: Anti -Mormon author James White, who used the Patsy approach in his book, Letters to a
45:54: Mormon Elder. White has consistently refused invitations to debate LDS apologists and scholars in a live setting.
46:01: We have asked Daniel C. Peterson. We have asked William Hamblin. We have asked Fedness. We've asked,
46:07: I didn't even bring a list of the number of LDS scholars and LDS apologists that we have just in the past year, asked to engage in a debate on soteriology, in exegetical debate on soteriology, on our webpage.
46:20: Every single one of them turned us down. We would be more than willing to do public debates against people who have some ability to do so.
46:28: But here's what the writer of this issue is going to say. Well, but you won't debate me in public.
46:35: And the answer is, that's right, I won't. And there's a simple reason. And that is, I require a minimum of a degree in a subject that's relevant to the debate before I'll do the debate.
46:46: And the reason is, in public anyways, the reason is, I get people saying, you're picking on people, you're picking on the lightweights rather than going after the big people.
46:55: Now if you want to see the level of debatability of this individual, go to our webpage and go to the online debate resource center and read the debate between myself and Daryl Barksdale on the issue of election.
47:09: And I think you'll see exactly why it would be utterly impossible to do a public debate with this individual because I do not believe that he would be able to do so in such a way that would be overly meaningful.
47:22: Now in the article, and it doesn't tell us who wrote this, but I'm assuming it's Mr. Barksdale, he bemoans any situation where people use a quote -unquote fake
47:32: Mormon. So for example, a role play. What he doesn't like is that in Letters to a Mormon Elder, instead of using the many letters that I had from LDS individuals, instead of compromising their privacy,
47:47: I used a fictional elder. Even Dr. William Hamlin of Brigham Young University, after we did that radio program, said to me after the radio program,
47:55: I appreciate you're accurately representing what we believe. So no one has ever come up to me and said, oh well what you had the
48:03: Mormon missionaries say wasn't accurate. And yet that seems to be the objection here. And at the end of the article that was written here, we have something along the lines, here is a challenge for our anti -Mormon friends.
48:15: If you feel that your position is as strong and defensible as you continuously claim on your radio and television programs, then stop writing deceitful trash like Letters to a
48:24: Mormon Elder and deceptive radio and television discussions using blatant and obvious setups.
48:29: One can only wonder how Ms. Bodine, he was talking in this article about Ms. Bodine, would fare given an honest one -on -one with those from the
48:39: LDS scholarship and apologetics community. And interestingly enough, he then lists Dan Peterson, who
48:44: I did the radio program with, Stephen Robinson, who I would be more than happy to debate on the subject, is Mormonism Christian, Roger Keller, who
48:51: I have faced, he came from Mesa, Stan Barker, know him well, Richard Hopkins, been on his radio program, didn't mention
48:59: William Hamlin, with whom I have also dealt. It's interesting that I would be criticized and actually said to be consistently refused invitations to debate
49:08: LDS apologists and scholars in a live setting. I would like to ask Mr. Barksdale to show me one
49:16: LDS scholar and one LDS apologist other than himself who has any credibility, who's published, who has any ability in the biblical languages or anything like that, who has challenged me to debate in a public setting, and I've said no, and he can't do it, and he knows it.
49:31: So, there you have it folks, examples, and by the way, throughout this particular article here, you'll notice this early church father here, that is quoted, his name's
49:41: Ignatius, remember him, he's actually Ignatius, I was told that that was, when
49:46: I contacted Mr. Barksdale about that, he blamed his secretary for a consistent misspelling throughout the article. Blame the secretary.
49:53: Well, that's a nice way of doing it. Anyways, be that as it may, really, really quickly
49:59: Jim, you're on the air, but we've got about, we've got about 30 seconds. What have you got for me? Hi James, oh yeah, and thanks for last week, for the information.
50:09: There's one thing that me and Martin is doing a bit of a study on, the whole thing of the doctrines of grace, like Reformed Theology, versus those that would be middle of the road.
50:20: And there's one thought I had, if a person may be middle of the road, may be
50:25: Arminian, if a person is truly born again, if a person truly is in a godly life, where is it important?
50:33: You know what I mean? I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, am I? Well, if you're asking me if I believe that a person has to understand everything that the
50:41: Bible reveals about all of salvation, to be a born -again Christian initially, no, I don't believe that.
50:47: But I do believe that it is the desire of the heart of every redeemed person, to want to study his word, and come to know his word, and to honor him, by accurately and consistently believing his word.
50:58: And so that's why it's important. It's not that it's what saves you, it's important because it shows your love for God, and love for his truth.
51:06: And so I think that would be the important issue at that point, Jim. Thanks for your call today, all the way from England. Thanks for being with me today,
51:12: Benny. Appreciate having you here again. And we'll be back again next week, here, on The Dividing Line. God bless.
51:31: The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.
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