August 6, 2018 Show with Dr. James R. White & Dr. Michael L Brown on “Declaring the Truth With Love & Without Compromise to Advocates of Homosexuality in the Church”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this sixth day of August 2018.

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And before I introduce our guest today, whom I am very excited to introduce, I've got some phenomenal news.

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I just got a call today from the current president of Family Radio, Tom Evans, and Tom Evans wants to be interviewed on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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He picked us above all other radio programs to give the great news to the world, basically, that Family Radio has repented officially of the heresies of Harold Camping.

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They have abandoned all of those things that he embraced and proclaimed that are outside of confessional reform theology, and of course, even more importantly, outside of the scriptures.

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And Tom, God -willing, is going to be on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on Thursday the 23rd of August from 4 to 6 p .m.

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Eastern Time, and I hope you mark your calendars for that date so that you can be prepared with questions for Tom about the all -new

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Family Radio. And I am so honored and humbled and delighted that he has chosen Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to make this big announcement officially.

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But today we have two friends of mine on the program. I'm excited about today's show.

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I'm also excited about an event that is coming up in September in Jacksonville, Florida that I have helped to arrange.

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But today we are going to be interviewing Dr. James R. White, who is an author, apologist, debater, conference speaker, and co -founder and director of Alpha Omega Ministries and host of the

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Dividing Line program, and also Dr. Michael L. Brown, who is also an author, an apologist, a debater, a conference speaker, and president and professor of practical theology at Fire School of Ministry and host of the

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Line of Fire. And we are today going to be discussing declaring the truth with love and without compromise to advocates of homosexuality in the church, and we'll be announcing a debate that's coming up that I just mentioned or hinted at a few minutes ago.

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But it's my honor and privilege, first of all, to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. James R. White.

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Good to be with you. And Dr. Michael Brown is going to be joining us, God willing, in a little bit.

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His Dividing Line, I'm sorry, his Line of Fire. There's two lines in those shows.

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The Line of Fire broadcast is ending at 4 o 'clock, so he is going to be a little bit late joining us.

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But Dr. White, I'm so delighted also that we are both cooperating together again on an event, a major event, this one to be held,

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God willing, on September 8th, Saturday, September 8th at 630 p .m. at the

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Switzerland Community Church that involves both you and Dr. Brown and two professing

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Christians who are ministers, ordained ministers, who are also homosexual, and who promote homosexuality as something that is consistent with New Testament obedience.

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And I am really honored to once again be used of God to get one of these events launched this coming fall, or this

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September, anyway. Right. Yeah, well, obviously you've demonstrated yourself to be quite good at talking people into doing things they don't really want to do.

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Well, I can say, I can say that the two individuals, the two ministers who are professed

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Christians who believe that they can simultaneously live as homosexuals and be consistent with the

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New Testament, I can say that both men, I mean, I don't know them, I've never spent a great deal of time with them, even in my phone conversations or email exchanges, but they both seemed very eager to be involved in the debate, they both seemed from outside of the box of leftist totalitarianism, they didn't think, at least in their conversations with me, that voices like yours and mine and Dr.

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Brown's should be silenced, they didn't, while I was speaking with them or communicating with them, they didn't hurl any accusation of hatred or bigotry, they just seemed to think that they are misunderstood and then they want to be a part of the discussion in the public square about this.

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So I am, at least for now, I mean obviously we don't know what's going to happen during the live debate, but at least for now

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I am pleased that this doesn't appear that it's going to be some kind of a hate fest on their part,

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I know that it won't be a hate fest on your part or Dr. Brown's part, but it seems that what we see in the media are leftist totalitarians who just want us to disappear and go away.

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That does seem to be the major narrative that we're hearing and I think that is the ultimate goal,

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I hope and pray that there won't be too much pressure placed on these individuals to back out of doing this for that very reason, but we'll see.

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I mean, I don't know a lot about them as yet, I want to try to find some recorded material that's always helpful to me, it's one thing to read a few paragraphs or a position paper or something like that, but I've always found it to be much more helpful to listen to what somebody has to say and things like that, so I'm hoping to track some of that kind of information down over the next couple of weeks, we still have, you know, we're about a month out and I'm in the middle of, well the things

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I'm working on have absolutely positively nothing whatsoever to do with this subject unfortunately, so I'm a little bit on the stretched side, but that's nothing unusual, so we'll be certainly ready to go once we get there to Florida, where I assume in September it will still be rather humid.

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Yeah, well I hope not, but we'll see. And I believe we have just been joined by Dr. Michael L.

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Brown of the Fire School of Ministry and host of the Line of Fire. Are you there with us,

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Dr. Brown? I am here. Great. A couple of tries to get through, but we are here.

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Yeah, well I don't know what the deal is with this multiple guest line, but sometimes it can be finicky and I might as well tell you both up front that if you are dropped, it's not because I hung up on you for any reason, just keep calling back and you'll,

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God willing, eventually get back on the show. One thing that I did not mention during my brief introduction of my two guests today, in addition to everything

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I've already said about Dr. Michael L. Brown, he is author of at least three books on the subject we are addressing today.

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The first is A Queer Thing Happened to America and What a Long Strange Trip It's Been.

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He's also author of Can You Be Gay and Christian? Responding with Love and Truth to Questions about Homosexuality and Outlasting the

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Gay Revolution Where Homosexual Activism is Really Going and How to Turn the

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Tide. And I think that's the book where you seem to unconsciously be revealing that you're a post -millennialist, isn't it,

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Dr. Brown? No, it's where I'm telling what

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I've always told, which is that the Gospel's very powerful to change lives and that all authority belongs to Jesus, to the end of the age, to the end of the earth.

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My confidence is in Him more than anything else. Amen. And for those of you listening who already heard me introduce

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Dr. White, I did not mention that he is also a co -author of a book,

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The Same -Sex Controversy, and I do want to give the good news to our listeners that at least for a certain number of the listeners that write in with questions today, you are not only going to be winning a free copy of Dr.

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Brown's book, Can You Be Gay and Christian?, but you are also going to be getting a free copy of The Same -Sex

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Controversy by Dr. James R. White and Jeff Neal. So that is compliments of the publishers of each of those books,

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Charisma Media in the case of Dr. Brown's book, and Baker Publishing, Bethany House in the case of Dr.

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White's book. Well, first of all, let me ask Dr. Brown, to begin with, you've written three books on this subject.

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How are they different from one another, and why did you feel the need to write so many? Well, unfortunately, you could write a book every week now with the latest things going on.

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In fact, I'm constantly writing articles having to do with LGBT activism, but this is not a battle

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I was looking for. I was not looking to hurt people or upset people. I have enough battle fronts and enough people that hate me for different reasons for the gospel, and I don't come out of homosexuality myself, this is never part of my own testimony, but in 2004,

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Chris, I began to get burdened that this was the great issue, the unavoidable issue for the church in this generation, because I'm thinking you've got

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James Dobson, you got Chuck Colson, and you got Tony Perkins, you've got these ministries and organizations and their family and political and different things, and what do they need me for?

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This is not my area. But I realize this is something we can't avoid. So a queer thing happened to America, I wrote out on off over a seven -year period, and that is 700 pages, 1 ,500 endnotes, no major publisher would touch it.

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Three have subsequently apologized to me. We had to form a new publishing house called Equal Time Books to get the book out, and that goes through the whole history.

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That tells you the reality of gay activism, what's happening in our children's schools and our universities, how the psychological and psychiatric professions change, what's happening with the rewriting of the

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Bible, the attack on religious rights, it goes through everything, and where things are heading. To this day, people say,

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Mike, have you heard the latest thing? I said, I wrote about that seven years ago, it's all in the book. And then,

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Can You Be Gay and Christian deals with people, not issues in society, but people, and people struggling with unwanted same -sex attraction, and those who concluded, no, this is the way

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God made me, and as long as the relationship is loving, God's pleased with that. So this is theological, it's pastoral, and then

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Outlasting the Gay Revolution, we were talking with different publishers, some of them apologized to me for passing up the first book, and we're saying, maybe we need to update it a little bit, make a more concise version, but as I started to work on it,

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I thought, no, no, what I need to do is show what's going wrong in society. It's just 250 pages this time, but then in each case, what we can do to live differently in a way that will literally outlast the

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Gay Revolution, because God's principles are principles of life. So each book touches on something different.

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The first and the third have a little overlap between them, but they're three distinct works, and I've written since then hundreds of articles as well, because virtually every week, something's happening in the news, and the question is, how can we love

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Jesus, hold to the truth, and yet stand firm for righteousness at the same time in the midst of a confused society?

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And I think it might be wise for us to inform our listeners who may be unaware of this, but your title of A Queer Thing Happened to America, you are not intending to be nasty.

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That is a term that has now become a self -identifying term for those who are practicing or advocating homosexual activity.

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They now have adopted that term themselves. It's no longer just a pejorative term. It's something that they use in their own writings and their own rhetoric.

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Am I right? Oh yeah, of course. I never would have used it if it was anything offensive.

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In fact, in 2003, Associated Press said, you know, queer is hipster now.

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We had Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. When I would share that gay activist talk with, they thought it was a clever title.

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They laughed at it. The ones that had a problem were conservative Christians who thought it was offensive. If it was offensive,

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I wouldn't have used it. If the content of truth offends someone, so be it, but I'm not going to be offensive in a name -caller.

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No need to do that. Yes, so that was 2011 that I could write that freely, and all the more now where you have queer studies and college and universities, you know, this long past getting hung up over that word.

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Let's talk about the wrongness of what's behind it, but let's not get hung up over the word. Right, and Dr.

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White, you and Jeff Neal co -authored the book, The Same Sex Controversy, and I know, if my memory serves me right, this was a book primarily to critique and respond to the theological defenses of homosexuality by liberals or leftists or homosexual advocates.

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Am I right on that? Yeah, yeah, Jeff and I had done a radio program together live in the studio here in Munich with two homosexual advocates, one of whom, interestingly enough, we had gone to college with at Grand Canyon College, and he had become a chaplain for the

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Arizona State Legislature, and then in that, while in that position, had come out as homosexual.

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So we had done a drive -time radio program debate with these guys, and my acquisitions editor at Bethany House knew both

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Jeff and I really well. Jeff had worked for him at Green Christian Bookstore years and years and years and years ago, and so he had heard that and contacted us and said, sounds like there's a book here.

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And so our desire was to respond to the argumentation that was, at that time, at the turn of the century, which sounds like a long time ago, the primary formulations that were being used at that time.

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You know, a lot has happened since then. Matthew Vines has happened since then, Brownson has happened since then, but even back in 2000,

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I lamented the fact that there were far more books coming out presenting defenses of this type of material than certainly there were being written in response to it by any stretch of the imagination.

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Back then, the big book was Boswell's big volume, and that's sort of been eclipsed over the past couple of decades as well, so yeah, it wasn't like it was the front thing on my burner, either.

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It was not something that I was looking to get involved with, but both Michael and I are involved in doing apologetics, we both have to deal with various groups who, in one way or another, undercut the authority of Scripture or twist the

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Scriptures in one way or another, and so you hear this kind of stuff and you need to respond to it, and obviously it was becoming something where there were a lot of Christians who were starting to ask questions, well, how do you respond to what is said about, you know, obviously the

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West Wing defense, for example, in regards to Leviticus 18 and 20. And the

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Millennials listening need to know what the West Wing was. Yeah, it's sort of sad, isn't it, that we have to go back and explain those things, but about two or three years ago

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I did a series, a preaching series, at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and I may be the first person ever in the history of a

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Reformed Baptist Church to have actually played over the audio system, which is extremely unusual for us.

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I mean, we are a very, very, very conservative church, and that was the first time that, during a sermon, anything had ever been played over the speakers.

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I mean, that was amazing, and it was the section from the television program, the

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West Wing, where there had been this encounter between the president and this actress representing a famous radio personality at that time,

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Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and he had done the very smooth, very cool run -through of various things that are prohibited in the

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Holiness Code, basically Leviticus 19 through 20, but you know, there's similar laws to be found elsewhere in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, places like that, and just a very mocking way of saying that are being exceptionally hypocritical in focusing upon homosexuality when there's all these other things that they should be believing are wrong as well, but they don't.

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And it's extremely effective, remains extremely effective, and I'm sure that Michael would agree with this, and it's primarily because the vast majority of Christians are canonically challenged, they may have 27 books in the

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New Testament, but if we're really, really, really honest, for a lot of evangelicals, there is a deutero -canon in the sense of a lesser canonical status for the

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Old Testament books, they're just primarily story books. There are many, many Christians who are serving in church today that have never read all of Leviticus, never read all of Deuteronomy, and I've told the story more than once, that the whole reason that as a teenager

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I first read the Bible cover -to -cover for the first time was because I saw a jack -chick tract, which is ironic given that Jack Chick, before he died, identified me as the

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Antichrist, but a jack -chick tract. But a jack -chick tract where a guy dies and he goes to heaven, and he runs into Habakkuk, and they start up a conversation on the streets of gold, and Habakkuk says, so what did you think of my book?

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And the guy's like, uh, he doesn't know. So, you know, that night

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I read Habakkuk, just in case something bad happened, but I realized, A, I didn't have much understanding of what it was about, and B, whatever end is

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Def and I at? So, that's what, you know, that may not have been the best motivation for getting disciplined, but hey, it worked.

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And the fact of the matter is, a large portion of the evangelical community are just not familiar with those books.

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They don't realize how important they were as the background for the New Testament books as well, and so it's pretty easy to silence

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Christians by pointing these things out, because the vast majority of people, if they've ever read

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Leviticus, it was a quick run -through, and there is really little understanding of it. And so,

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I started off my Holiness Code series by playing that exchange, well, it really wasn't much of an exchange, that presentation from the

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West Wing, and said, this is why we need to know what God's law says, and we need to honor it, and so I think

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I did 38 sermons on that particular subject, available in Sermon Audio, if anyone's really interested.

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And there wasn't anything we ducked. We, we, we, I went through pretty thoroughly and found all the tough stuff, all the tough stuff, and dealt with it, and it was one of the hardest series that were done, no twist about it, but extremely helpful to me, and hopefully it's been helpful to others as well.

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So, anyways, back to the book. Those are the texts we were dealing with, Old Testament, New Testament, obviously,

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Romans 1, 1st Corinthians 6, 1st Timothy 1, Arsonicoites, all these texts we'll talk about over the next period together, and that's what we focused upon the book.

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But, it's very dated now, because we did quote from at least what was popular back then.

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If that book was to be redone now, and Jeff and I have talked about doing that, we would, you know, be very much focused upon Dr.

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Brownson's work, and Matthew Vines, not so much, because Vines has abandoned his initial viewpoint and adopted

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Brownson's stuff. So, I'm still hopeful that, and maybe after this debate,

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I'm still hopeful to get Dr. Brownson to debate. I think that would be extremely, extremely useful.

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And someone told me once, I never heard a follow -up on it, but someone told me once that he was actually willing to do that.

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So, maybe if this goes well and that can be made available, maybe that would be something that would bring that about.

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Let's be honest, though, the other side is not looking for debates very much. They have the public conversation.

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So, it's already on their side. They're not looking for this kind of thing very much.

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Yes, in fact, the woman who I originally contacted in Florida, who is the moderator for the

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Metropolitan Churches, the churches that advocate homosexual activity, and yet seem to have an appearance in many ways of evangelical churches, she was excited about this idea.

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She didn't even hesitate to say that, oh, I could definitely make this happen. And I definitely, right off the top of my head, know at least several, if not more, very capable people that I think would be perfect for what you're asking.

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And then, I never heard from her again. So, I can only think, and to give her the benefit of the doubt, by the way, she did suffer a personal loss.

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Her mom passed. So, that may have been something to do with it, but I cannot help but think that perhaps some people on that side, the advocacy of homosexual activity, persuaded her to not even interact with me anymore on this.

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But I was very happy to get a hold, by recommendation, from a major United Church of Christ congregation in Texas.

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I was able to get a hold of Reverend Patrick Rogers, and he is the pastor of the

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United Church of Christ in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and also Reverend Dwayne J.

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Robinson, who is the pastor of Called Out Believers in Christ Fellowship.

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And they both seem very eager to do this, and as I said at the outset, they do not seem to have a leftist totalitarian axe to grind.

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I mean, I don't know these men, but as far as every moment of conversation and interaction I've had with them, that neither one of them demonstrated that kind of an attitude.

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So, it would be really interesting to see if God actually does officially bring this to fruition.

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It's going to be interesting to see how this all develops. Well, I just hope we don't have the same result that I had in 2001 with Barry Lynn.

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Oh, yeah. Does Michael even know about that? Yeah, I don't know, Michael. Did you know about my problems with Barry Lynn after our debate in 2001?

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Michael? Actually, I did know. I know about a lot of your problems, because I get attacked for being your friend.

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And then some that proves we're both heretics. But no, if I knew it,

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I've forgotten it in light of the recent problems you've had with other people, because of other things you've said and done.

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Yes, yes, yes. Well, what happened was, and we did actually know each other back then, starting in 1995.

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But no, what happened was, the debate went so poorly for Barry Lynn.

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Though it is interesting, he's United Church of Christ as well, and he claimed equal authority in receiving

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Revelation with the Apostle Paul during the debate, which is very interesting. But if anyone has ever seen the cross -examination where I had to let him borrow my

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Bible in Romans 1, and he just, I mean, the wheels just fell off.

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I mean, he was used to being on CNN, he was used to getting softball questions, he was not used to being grilled by someone holding a

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Greek New Testament. He just did not do well at all, and was stumbling all over himself.

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Well, very shortly after the debate, he had his attorneys contact us and tell us that that debate would not be distributed.

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And when we said we were going to do so, then he prepared to go to the

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Ninth Circuit to sue us. And so back then it wasn't Alliance Defense, it was

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Alliance Defense Fund back then, not Alliance Defending Fund, but Alliance Defense Fund. ADF came to our aid, and we filed suit in Washington, because that's where you do copyright stuff.

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We know why he wanted the Ninth Circuit, that was pretty obvious. But this had taken place in New York, and so not only was the jurisdiction right as far as location, but it was also a copyright issue, which was also right.

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So we struck first, and the day before depositions were to start, he gave in for the sum of $1 for this distribution of the video.

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I was just going to say, the other thing before that even happened was, I arranged this event, and I made it very clear to Barry that this was going to be videotaped, that he would have equal rights to the masters of the video.

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He even saw the fact that it was being videotaped, and he had no problem with that until he realized how badly he performed.

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And then he had a mental meltdown at the pulpit when he was supposed to give his final summation.

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He actually said, I'm not going to waste my time with my final summation.

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I am going to just leave here now, because you people are bigots and hateful, nasty, horrible people.

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How dare you question anyone's Christianity, which is interesting. I wonder how he would respond to a neo -Nazi

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Aryan nation's Christian identity skinhead. I mean, if you're not supposed to question anybody's

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Christianity, well, what about that? He wasn't consistent, there's no question about that.

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That was one of my first experiences, and I think that was really, to be honest with you, the only experience

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I've had with anybody. But he was an ACLU attorney, so you sort of expect him to throw his weight around and do the type of stuff that he did.

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But yeah, that was a long time ago, and my things have changed, but the issues haven't.

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And Michael and I have been looking for an opportunity like this for a long time. I think, as most people know, we normally are debating each other, unfortunately, trying to set a standard as to how that is to be done between brothers and on the basis of Scripture.

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But we did get a chance to debate on the same side one other time on the

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Jewish Voice broadcast. What year was that? That was like 2011? When was that,

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Michael? Of course, I've got the date in my journal.

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But what had happened, and we knew each other pretty well then, but not nearly as well as we've known each other since.

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And I was asked to do this debate on Jewish Voice broadcast. John Byrne has had people pressing him about issues about God's unity and Jesus not being divine.

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And he said, Mike, let's just do this. We're going to do it on international television. Let's crush this thing once and for all, and you'll be up against two guys, and we need someone to join you.

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And I thought, okay, let's see. You're in Phoenix. Who do I know in Phoenix? Who do

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I know who's strong on Trinitarian issues? Who do I know that's, ah, a debater. Okay, we got it.

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So it worked out to be true. And all the time, I'm sure James, you hear this too, but all the time people come up to me and say,

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I love that debate you did with Dr. White on the deity of Jesus, and another one of those things that God used wonderfully.

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And we saw how wonderful it was to team up just our different approach and kind of finishing sentences for one another, that kind of thing, so for years now.

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We have been looking for an opportunity to find two people willing to do a joint debate, and Chris, when you proposed that we were going to do something,

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I thought, okay, great, but I'm a little skeptical because no one else has been able to find people, or I should say hardly anybody has been able to find people willing to do this, but you found people who profess full faith in Jesus and profess faith in the authority of Scripture and really want to do this debate, so I'm thrilled beyond words.

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This is incredible. Yeah, well, let's keep praying. Yeah, it is. Let's keep praying that neither back out.

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Yeah, well, it doesn't sound like they will, but I am, we haven't really laid out the parameters as far as time and stuff goes, but I hope that there will be opportunity for some direct interaction, not just presentations and things like that, because that's really where most people said to me in the debate we did with Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Good, it was in the cross -examination that it just seemed, you know, the

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Lord was working in such a way that I would make a point, and then

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Michael would come in from another direction and sort of close the door on getting around it from this direction, and then we'd reverse that on the next one.

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And it's not like we had sat around and prepared any of this. We really hadn't. We had had very minimal communication before we actually met at the studio.

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I remember it was really hot that day, but Arizona, so it's really hot now, too. And it was, we just really, really worked well together, and it's funny then that we have actually ended up doing,

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I think the only person that Michael has debated more often than me against someone is

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Rabbi Shmuley Botiak, and I think that's what you said before, right, Michael? Yeah, Rabbi Shmuley, yeah, we still have, there's probably over 20 debates we've done, so you and I have a little catching up to do, but yeah, we've done a number.

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And you know, Chris, the thing that, the cross -examination part is really so important, because one of these gentlemen, you go to his website, and it's all enthusiastic.

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It's gospel, and he's got a statement of faith, okay, good, good, good, and then he's got something, and here's what you need to know about gays, you're going to be surprised.

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And he gets into things really enthusiastically, and he's explaining what Leviticus 18 .22 really means, and if you read the

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Hebrew, and you know, the first question I want to ask him, are you 100 % sure about this?

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Are you really sure about this? Because it's such an outlandish position, and then, just to be clear, you're basically saying that every translation in world history is wrong, but you've got it right.

34:51

I mean, I've been amazed sometimes just doing radio dialogue with gay activists, or those, their allies, when

34:58

I press, are you sure about this? You're 100%, oh, oh, no, I can't say I'm sure. I even went to a local presentation years back in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a local gay pastor gave his presentation.

35:11

There were maybe 20 -something people there, and my heart went out to them. I thought, I want to be your enemy, I want to help you. I'm here as a friend, I'm not here as your enemy.

35:18

And this guy finished his presentation, he said, now look, you have to seek God about this, and really come to your own conclusions, and look at these texts for yourself, and as you said,

35:27

I realize you're not even sure yourself, which is quite striking, given the weight and the gravity of being wrong on these issues.

35:36

I'm not going to be able to, I just want to say that I'm going to have to leave you and James pretty soon.

35:43

This is my window to be on, so pretty soon. And I know the two of you will handle things just fine in my absence.

35:49

But again, if folks could really be praying, because it's not just a local event, that would be great.

35:56

I mean, we'd fly in just for that, to do it in Jacksonville, Florida. But the goal is to get a quality video out of this, that we can get out, livestream, whatever, to get this out as a tool for the body, and hopefully something that will rescue people who are trapped in lies.

36:14

And again, Chris, really appreciate your zeal in doing this, and the vision, and obviously

36:19

God helping to work this out. So it's the second Saturday of September, right? September 8th.

36:25

That's right. The date. And by the way, what you were just saying about the uncertainty that a homosexual advocate had,

36:32

I can't help but be immediately reminded of the arguments that many pro -abortionists have had, where they will say, no one knows when human life begins.

36:43

Well, if no one knows it, why would you be gambling that you could be murdering a child? That just, because of the fact that, that may not be the rhetoric today, but for a long time the argument was very often, no one knows, so it's okay to do this.

36:57

That doesn't even make sense, really. No, exactly, and that's a great approach there as well.

37:04

And, you know, especially if you have someone that affirms the authority of Scripture. Frank Turk and I, Dr.

37:11

Turk and I, did a local debate with two local ministers, and it turns out the two of us were white, the two of them were black, and it ended up being kind of, you know, we were racist bigots by our interpretation of Scripture.

37:24

And either you knew at a certain point that a card was going to be pulled that was going to be used against us that had nothing to do with what the

37:32

Bible said, because ultimately there's no possible way that you can use Scripture and argue that God blesses committed same -sex relationships.

37:41

And as I've often said in terms of Leviticus, that if something is detestable in God's sight, it doesn't become any less detestable if you do it over and over with the same person.

37:50

Right. You know, we know that there's the argument that love does no harm to its neighbor, and that, you know, for example,

37:58

Luke Timothy Johnson, respected New Testament scholar, Catholic, said, clearly the

38:03

Bible is against this, but I know what happened to my daughter. It's a lesbian, you know, and depressed, suicidal, whatever it was, and then found out that you could be a lesbian and a

38:12

Christian, now she and her partner are thriving in the Lord. And James Brownson has a family member, same deal, you know, and that he was once with one viewpoint, and his viewpoint changed based on that.

38:25

And you have to come back to Jesus saying, if you love son or daughter more than me, if you love father and daughter more than me, you're not worthy of me.

38:31

And true love is going to say difficult things and call people to difficult things, but then that's the place of blessing.

38:40

And with that, I'm going to turn things over to Chris and James, and once again,

38:46

God bless you guys. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Brown. And we have to go to our first break right now, and please take this time to write down a question for Dr.

38:56

James R. White at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

39:02

Don't go away, we'll be right back, God willing, after these messages. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

39:14

Christian perspective. Try World at no charge for 90 days, and get a free copy of R .C.

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I believe you'll also find World to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a depth that's simply not found in other media outlets.

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Armed with this coverage, World can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community. This trial includes biweekly issues of World Magazine, on -scene reporting from World Radio, and the fully shareable content of World Digital.

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Simply visit wmg .org forward slash iron sharpens to get your

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World Trial and Dr. Sproul's book all free. No obligation with no credit card required.

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Visit World News Group at wmg .org forward slash iron sharpens today.

40:21

My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

40:28

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

40:34

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

40:40

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

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Manhattan. You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc

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.nyc. They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

41:29

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled

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Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

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Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

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He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history.

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In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the Law Journal. If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state,

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I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

42:52

Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

42:58

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

43:12

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio.

43:18

www .wlie540am .com.

43:24

We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.

43:32

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

43:37

Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

43:43

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the remaining 90 minutes or so is

43:49

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We were joined earlier by Dr.

43:55

Michael L. Brown of the Line of Fire program, also of Fire School of Ministry.

44:02

He is going to be participating, God willing, in a debate on the same team as my guest,

44:07

Dr. White, with two professing Christians who are also advocates of homosexuality.

44:15

And the theme is going to be, Is Homosexuality Compatible or Consistent with New Testament Obedience?

44:23

Is Homosexuality Consistent with New Testament Obedience? And, God willing, that's going to be on Saturday, September 8th at the

44:29

Switzerland Community Church in St. John's, Florida, which is a suburb of Jacksonville.

44:35

And their website, if you want more information on that, is SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org

44:43

SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org And we want to thank Pastor Jake Korn of the

44:48

Switzerland Community Church for helping me arrange this event. And also, my friend, my dear old friend,

44:54

Richie Saxon, formerly the pastor of Beth Yeshua House of Jesus in West Savell, Long Island, who has been a friend of mine since the 1980s.

45:04

In fact, I met him as a very new Christian and young single man when

45:11

I was with a couple of single Christian brothers looking for this event for singles in Suffolk County, Long Island, in the mid -1980s.

45:21

We got lost and providentially wound up at Richie Saxon's parking lot at the Beth Yeshua House of Jesus, and we have remained friends ever since.

45:30

But if you want to ask a question about the thesis, is homosexuality compatible or consistent with New Testament Christianity or the

45:40

New Testament obedience, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

45:47

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

45:52

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

45:59

Before I go to any of our listener questions, this is an interesting debate on a number of levels, but one of the interesting factors, as you know,

46:13

Dr. White, is that you and Dr. Brown are in disagreement over the theology known as Calvinism or Reformed theology, the doctrines of sovereign grace.

46:23

And the area where I'm particularly speaking of is the area of total depravity.

46:30

I remember at one time I was very opposed.

46:36

I can remember having the knee -jerk reaction against any possibility of a person being born with the proclivity towards homosexuality until one day you said to me, well, why would that proclivity be different than the whole host of other proclivities that come with being totally depraved?

46:57

And I don't know, I mean, Dr. Brown isn't here with us right now, but knowing that he may have a different point of view on that, not having an identical understanding of total depravity as you do, if you could explain that whole situation.

47:13

Well, certainly in reading Michael's books on homosexuality,

47:19

I have not seen any fundamental difference as far as dealing with the reality of sin and the nature of sin.

47:30

There is a difference as far as the issue of free will in regards to salvation and things like that, but as he was just pointing out, you don't change the guiltiness of someone simply because you transfer that into a sexual area or a sexual desire or whatever else it might be.

47:54

And so, you know, it's interesting, when I listen to Michael debating other people, or especially debating that subject, he went into the

48:04

IHOP church and debated Brian Zond on the subject of the penal substitutionary atonement.

48:14

He defended penal substitutionary atonement against Brian Zond at IHOP. And in the process, made a statement at one point where he said, no,

48:25

I'm sure my friend James White would say I'm being inconsistent. I've heard him do that many times.

48:32

So I live in the background whispering Reformed theology to Michael.

48:39

But on this particular subject, I have not heard Michael ever say anything that would lean toward Pelagianism or anything like that at all.

48:50

He has a very strong understanding because the form of charismatic theology he was raised with, well, raised with after his conversion, was not the standard charismatic type stuff, but was a

49:07

Pentecostal holiness. So he has a very high view of moral law and the necessity of moral law and things like that.

49:16

So I would be very, very surprised. I just only today learned of the third book that he had done.

49:23

I must not be on the review list because I wasn't aware of the third one, but the first two,

49:30

I mean, I read the first one before it was even released, which was the huge one on Queer Thing Happened to America.

49:38

And I did get a preview copy of the second book. But there was nothing in either of those books that I would find inconsistent with where we're going to be standing.

49:50

So I don't see that there's going to be much of an issue along those lines in dealing with that because generally what we do is

50:02

Michael has a PhD in Semitic languages, so his focus is especially on Old Testament material.

50:09

And so I have more of the training in the New Testament area, though he certainly can read

50:15

Greek and things like that just like I can read Hebrew. But as far as strengths go, we'll probably be, you know, if we're wise, we'll have him addressing

50:24

Leviticus and Genesis and I'll be doing Romans and 1 Corinthians and 1

50:29

Timothy and relevant topics along those lines. So I don't expect there to be any issue there.

50:37

But I'm sure we would handle it appropriately were it to come up.

50:44

And we have some listeners waiting to have their questions asked. We have

50:50

Grady in Ashboro, North Carolina. And I'm sorry, Grady, but now I have the theme for Sanford and Son in my mind, and I'm probably never going to go away.

51:00

But, Grady, you have asked, are the people using the moniker gay

51:06

Christian doing this to gain entrance into the Christian community and to try to get us to accept their sin and lifestyles?

51:16

I guess that would be a broad -brushing question, but go ahead. My assumption, given the context and the time, is that we're talking about the

51:27

Revoice Conference. At least I'll answer in that context. Maybe, maybe not.

51:33

I don't know. But that's obviously the most current example that I could give of people that are utilizing that terminology and seeking some kind of ecclesiastical recognition of their orientation and roles of leadership and service and so on and so forth.

51:56

And many of these people have been in the Church for a long period of time, if by that we mean making profession of faith, being individuals who were raised in Christian families, whatever else it might be.

52:12

So you have to look at each one. I don't think there's necessarily a major...

52:18

And I don't think somebody browned and said, well, let's get a movement started where we try to sneak into Christian churches type of situation.

52:31

I don't think that's necessarily the thing. But there is, very plainly, on the part of many people, the acceptance of,

52:40

I think, a very worldly idea of sexual identity, personal identity based upon desires, based upon sinful desires, that has no place within a

52:53

Christian epistemology or Christian anthropology of man. And if some would like to have a real nice discussion of that, it would carry more weight than anything

53:03

I would say. I was just last night listening to a fairly recently posted video within the past couple of weeks from Dr.

53:13

Rosaria Butterfield, who... Have you had Rosaria on your program? I believe three times.

53:21

Okay. All right. Good. Rosaria is a wonderful lady. Yes. She is a former lesbian, professor of women's studies, tenured professor of women's studies.

53:36

I mean, she was as far to the left as you could go, and the Lord was wonderfully gracious to her in bringing about her conversion.

53:43

She's a married woman now with raising a family and just has great insights and far nicer than I could ever be.

53:54

And so Rosaria posted a video.

54:02

I actually linked it on my Twitter and Facebook pages just last night that really goes through what the real problems are with this kind of identity claim trying to find its place within true biblical

54:19

Christianity. And it just doesn't have the foundation within biblical revelation.

54:25

The problem is the vast majority of Christians in the United States are not really functioning with a biblical worldview or a functioning

54:33

Christian worldview. And they're limping along with what is basically a secular worldview with religions slathered on top.

54:43

Well, that doesn't work. That's not going to function too well. And I think that's what's allowing for this kind of thing.

54:50

I think there's also, let's be honest, I think there is a... I think some of us are just tired.

55:00

You know, most of us just want to live our lives. We have things we're trying to do, goals we're trying to reach.

55:08

And it does seem to me that people on the left in cultural issues, that's where they derive their meaning is from the promotion of those things.

55:18

That's not where I derive my meaning. And it's tiring to me over time to have to be responding to the same things over and over and over again.

55:27

And I think we of all people tend to want to find some type of peaceful way out of things a little bit more than the other side does.

55:38

And that's to their advantage as far as the final analysis goes. And I just think some of these churches that are giving in, it's just sort of like, you know, we just don't have the energy to keep fighting this.

55:52

And if you don't see why you need to keep fighting it, if you don't see how related

55:57

Christian theology is and Christian truth is, then yeah, you're eventually going to just give up.

56:03

And I've been saying for years, we're going to see a tsunami of apostasy on this issue. And the apostasy is going to go two different directions.

56:10

One you'd expect, and that is churches just giving in and accepting the narrative and coming up with new ways of interpreting

56:18

Scripture. And sadly, the other form of capitulation, interestingly enough, is on the extreme other side.

56:28

And that is where you would adopt such a hard rejection of these things that is not based upon any meaningful, firm foundation.

56:39

You don't want to think about this stuff. You don't want to read about this stuff. You don't want to actually respond to what's being said. And so you adopt an almost

56:47

King James -only, fundamentalist -style mindset on issues like this and just stop thinking about it, stop dealing with it.

56:58

And the problem is that that will often result in some rather nasty ways of responding to this.

57:06

So we can't give in to that either. So it's a challenging time. And thanks a lot,

57:12

Grady, for your question. Give me your full mailing address because you have just won not only a free copy of Dr.

57:18

White's book, The Same -Sex Controversy, co -authored with Jeff Neal, but also Dr. Brown's book,

57:25

Can You Be Gay and Christian? So those should be arriving at your doorstep within a week or so.

57:31

Compliments of the publishers, Bethany House and Baker for Dr. White's book and compliments of Charisma Media for Dr.

57:39

Brown's book and also compliments of CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. We'll be shipping those out to you.

57:46

And we have to go to our break right now. It's an elongated break. We apologize for this. But it is necessary to keep

57:53

Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio on the air. And we need to have our commercials aired so that you can patronize them and that the advertising dollars from these sponsors can continue to fuel the existence of the program.

58:08

And we also need to take this long break because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, requires of us an elongated break so that they can air their own commercials and public service announcements.

58:18

So take this time to not only write down questions for Dr. White and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

58:26

but also write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them. Don't go away,

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God willing, we'll be right back after this break with more of Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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That's liyfc .org. Hi, I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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and 4 .30 p .m. Eastern Time. Otherwise, order online at cvbbs .com. A couple of announcements before we return to Dr.

01:06:06

White. We have coming up this Wednesday, a friend of Dr.

01:06:13

White's, Tom Buck, is going to be on the program, and he is going to be giving his evaluation of the

01:06:20

ReVoice conference. And it was kind of letting the wind out of my sails when

01:06:26

I heard Dr. White on the dividing line say, everybody and his cousin is going to be talking about this.

01:06:32

So I guess it's going to be old news. But it's still going to be valuable,

01:06:38

I'm sure Dr. White would agree, coming from Tom Buck. And then we have coming up in November, on the 9th and the 10th, we have the

01:06:48

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quaker Town conference on Reformed Theology.

01:06:54

Not to be confused with the Reformed Town conference on Quaker Theology. This is the Quaker Town conference on Reformed Theology at Grace Bible Fellowship Church, Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, November 9th and the 10th on the theme,

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The Glory of the Cross. The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

01:07:13

And if you want to register, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org, and then click on Events and scroll down to Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:07:22

God willing, I will be there, Manning and Iron, Sharp, and Siren Exhibitor's Booth. So you can also register for one of those, an exhibitor's booth of your own, in addition to registering as an attendee of this conference.

01:07:33

Then coming up in January, January from the,

01:07:39

I believe it's the 17th through the 19th, I'm looking it up right now. Yes, it is

01:07:45

Thursday, January 17th, through Saturday, January 19th, the G3 conference is being held at the

01:07:51

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia. And they are also having a special Spanish -speaking edition on Wednesday, January 16th.

01:08:02

So tell your Spanish -speaking and bilingual friends about that. But the English -speaking conferences from the 17th through the 19th,

01:08:08

I will be there for the third year in a row, Manning and Iron, Sharp, and Siren Exhibitor's Booth. And the speakers this year include

01:08:15

John Piper, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Conrad M. Bayway, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, the ministry of John MacArthur, Josh Bice, who is the founder and director of the

01:08:28

G3 conference, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio, Stephen Nichols of the

01:08:33

Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and the list goes on and on and on.

01:08:40

It's a very long roster. If you'd like to register to attend, and if you'd like to register for your own exhibitor's booth, just as I will be,

01:08:46

Manning, God willing, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and keep in mind there will be between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people that they are expecting to attend this.

01:08:57

So registering for an exhibitor's booth would be a wise investment. Now the least favorite part of the show is when

01:09:05

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Click support, then click. Click to donate now, and if you are without a church home and you're having a problem finding one, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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01:10:20

James White, chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and today we are discussing declaring the truth with love and without compromise to advocates of homosexuality in the church.

01:10:33

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Before we go on to any listener questions, I thought it might be wise for me to clarify something that I mentioned before the break,

01:10:43

Dr. White. In posing a theory that people could be born because of our total depravity with an inclination or proclivity toward homosexuality, that is in no way, shape, or form intended to mean that this is excusable, that this is a seal of approval, that this makes it less sinful, that we should view sinners as victims rather than as sinners.

01:11:09

I mean, am I right on this? Of course, I'm sure you would agree with that. Well, it depends on whether you went to the

01:11:15

Revoice conference or not. You might want to run that one by Tom Buck on Wednesday, but that does seem to be a part of the mindset now, is that if God made me this way, then that means that while he may not allow me to do certain things, there's nothing with this lifestyle or this orientation or this definition, because he made me that way, and so I can find other ways to sort of skirt between the prohibitions here, and that seems to be what's happening.

01:12:02

And again, that's why I made reference to Dr. Butterfield's presentation on this issue of how we define ourselves, rather than having an external objective revelation that defines us and places us within the categories of God's creative purpose, now in our modern day, with the massive emphasis on human autonomy.

01:12:31

And I'm not talking about what we used to talk about, human autonomy, Calvinist -Arminians. No, this is the secular concept of human autonomy that we define ourselves.

01:12:43

That concept has so overtaken the thinking of evangelicals in their churches.

01:12:52

Another one of those parts of the worldview that they brought pre -conversion that has not been challenged by consistent ministry from the pulpit, and so it unfortunately becomes a part of the experience.

01:13:06

That has become so widely accepted, that concept of autonomy, that it gives rise to this idea that it's okay, that God did make me this way, and that's why they can have a discussion and a revoice of the queer treasure that could be brought into New Jerusalem.

01:13:28

And the idea is, well, everything's going to be redeemed, and since God made me this way, then everything's going to be redeemed, so there is a redeemed aspect of this.

01:13:36

And, you know, you transfer that terminology to almost any other area of life, and it falls flat, but because this is viewed as being absolutely definitional to who

01:13:51

I am, then this is the type of stuff that you hear taking place.

01:13:57

And so we have to think through what is being said so that we can...

01:14:03

It's one thing to reject it. It's one thing to go, no, no, no, I can't go there. But you have to know why you can't go there.

01:14:09

You have to know, you have to hear it, understand what's being said, and then think through, well, biblically, you know, how am

01:14:17

I defined? And that's what I'm concerned about, people getting tired and just simply adopting a rather shallow way of rejecting these things rather than really focusing upon what is being said.

01:14:30

And by the way, I thought it was very wise of you just in passing not to mention that I'm also one of the plenary speakers at G3, but that's okay because, you know, that's probably wise of you to do that.

01:14:43

More people will come if they don't know that I'm there than if they do. Did you hear the lips quivering even over the phone?

01:15:00

That's pretty good, I thought. What are you going to be speaking on? Well, Josh doesn't care.

01:15:11

I know the theme is missions, doing missions God's way, or something very similar.

01:15:16

I don't have it right in front of me right this second. Right, right. Generally, the role that I now have at G3 is sort of the generic debater guy.

01:15:31

And so obviously there is a desire to have a debate beforehand.

01:15:37

We just haven't specifically identified one. I would strongly recommend that you try to get a debate with that United Methodist homosexual advocate that you were critiquing on the dividing line very recently.

01:15:54

Well, yeah, that's an option. There have been some other names on other topics, so we'll see what is available.

01:16:04

But I'm actually going, I'm going to be at G3, and then I go straight from G3 to teach in Samara, Russia for a week.

01:16:14

We have so much in common. Yeah. Schedules constantly overlapping there.

01:16:22

Yeah, well I'll see you over there. The last guy that went over there and taught mentioned that it got to 40 below zero there.

01:16:32

So it's right on the Volga River in January in Russia. So this could be really, really interesting.

01:16:38

Then on the way back, I hope to stop in Munster, Germany, because the

01:16:45

Institute for New Testament Studies is there where the vast majority of New Testament textual criticism is done.

01:16:51

And so I'm doing a doctoral program on what's called

01:16:57

CBGM, coherence -based genealogical methods. And so that's sort of the epicenter of those things. But I also really, really, really want to be able to visit

01:17:06

Munster and to take some pictures of the three cages hanging from the church.

01:17:13

Do you know why there are three cages? The Anabaptists were tortured in there. Sort of.

01:17:20

Jan Leiden and Bernard, a guy named

01:17:25

Bernard, and one other fellow, they were tortured horribly before and killed before being put into the cages.

01:17:35

And then their bodies were hung up there for 50 years before they brought the cages down and removed what was left.

01:17:42

But then they put the cages back up. And what's fascinating is even when the steeple was damaged in World War II, when they rebuilt the steeple, they put the cages back up.

01:17:51

And as late as just a few years ago, there was a vote.

01:17:57

I mean, because it's Germany. I mean, you know, it's Munster. No one remembers any of this stuff anymore, right? Wrong.

01:18:03

Even the young people. Even the young people voted to put the cages back up there in Munster.

01:18:09

What statement are they trying to make with the cages today? Radicalism. Radicalism.

01:18:15

We don't want radicalism. And if you know anything about what happened in Munster, it is without a doubt one of the most fascinating stories in all of church history.

01:18:29

It really, really is. They were anarchists, weren't they, the Anabaptists in Munster? Well, they were communists with a king.

01:18:38

It was very strange. They weren't really anarchists. They set up a communist system with a king and polygamy, and, oh, they just absolutely lost their minds.

01:18:53

And Jan Matthias and Jan of Leiden, both of them, fascinating, fascinating characters.

01:19:01

I mean, Jan Matthias was at a wedding in 1534, and they had already taken over the city, and he goes into this trance, and then he wakes up and says, yes,

01:19:16

Lord, that will be done, and kisses everybody on the mouth and goes and puts on armor and gets 10 guys to go with him, and they go riding out of the city to attack the bishop's forces to free the world from their tyranny.

01:19:29

And, of course, he gets torn to pieces. But this is allegedly what

01:19:35

God told him to do. And, I mean, he had a direct pipeline. I mean, this guy and Joseph Smith, he had nothing.

01:19:41

Joseph Smith had nothing on this guy. It is just a fascinating, fascinating story.

01:19:47

And so I hope to get some pictures of those cages on the way back. That was a long way around to tell that story to mention that, yeah,

01:19:56

I will be a G3. Yes, I actually have a painting by Thomas Kinkade of those cages.

01:20:06

I'm just kidding. We have JB from Amarillo, Texas, who has a question.

01:20:20

I am operating under an assumption that all debates about social issues really boil down to a debate over the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture.

01:20:29

Given this debate will be with self -identified believers, will the debate be about what the

01:20:35

Bible teaches on homosexuality, or will it really be about the nature of Scripture itself? Where is it important to focus between these two options when dealing with believers versus non -believers?

01:20:47

That's JB in Amarillo, Texas. Well, like I said at the beginning,

01:20:53

I want to track down, if I possibly can, some sermons spoken at somebody else's church, whatever it was, to hear how these gentlemen flesh these things out.

01:21:08

But I have never been in a situation where it did not fundamentally end up coming down to whether you believe that Scripture is consistent with itself.

01:21:21

Because, obviously, my argument is going to be, always has been, that you apply the same rules of hermeneutics across the board, and so what you use to prove the deity of Christ, the resurrection, or anything else, is the same hermeneutical methodology that you use to address the issue of homosexuality and human sexuality as a whole.

01:21:46

And so, when you do that, you eventually back the proponent of homosexuality up against the proverbial wall, and at some point,

01:21:58

I mean, look, United Church of Christ, I don't know about the other church, but United Church of Christ has the most abysmal view of the inspiration of Scripture on the planet.

01:22:08

And that's just a given. We saw it with Mary Lynn. When you can sit there and say,

01:22:15

I can receive revelation just like Paul did, and Paul was over the top in the book of Galatians, and thereby dismiss the very canon of Scripture, that eventually is going to come out.

01:22:28

So, I mean, I don't know yet. We'll see. But my gut feeling is,

01:22:34

Michael and I are going to be very, very consistent in pressing that authority, and will that result in a differing perspective coming out over time?

01:22:48

It did with Mary Lynn. That's sort of the nature of these, that's why you do these debates, is it helps you to make people, to sort of force people to make clear what it is they're actually stating.

01:23:03

So, I have a feeling that's going to come out. Thank you, JB. Give us your full mailing address, because you've won a free copy of both

01:23:10

Dr. White's book and Dr. Brown's book on this issue, The Same -Sex Controversy by Dr.

01:23:16

White and Can You Be Gay and Christian by Dr. Brown. We have Jordan in Wisconsin, Rapids, Wisconsin.

01:23:23

Will there be cross -examination in the debate? How does that work with four people? Well, there is definitely going to be a cross -examination, but if you could answer his question about the four people.

01:23:36

I don't know. Well, you did it with the Unitarians, didn't you?

01:23:43

We did, but that was a television program. So, there needs to be a period of crossfire.

01:23:53

You know, exactly how we arrange that, I don't know yet. We probably need to communicate with them about that.

01:24:00

But, yeah, that's, to me, the most important part of a debate is that element of cross -examination.

01:24:07

I know when I first started doing debates that I didn't know that that was the most important part, but I came to understand that fairly early on within the first few years, the first few debates that we did.

01:24:24

So, certainly, when we ended up starting to do the programs or the debates there on Long Island, by that point, it was cross -examination that would always be where, for example, the first two years

01:24:42

Jerry Matitick's wheels fell off was during the cross -examination.

01:24:47

I mean, he's very good at making his presentations, but then the fact that all his books were packed away in boxes and he'd only had a

01:24:57

Diet Coke while driving there writing his notes on a yellow pad of notes, that ended up becoming very clear when he would not be able to respond to those particular assertions.

01:25:16

And that's really where it takes place, is right there. Well, thank you so much.

01:25:23

And you've also won a free copy, actually a free copy of both books, The Same -Sex

01:25:28

Controversy and Can You Be Gay and Christian? Please make sure we have your full mailing address and those will be shipped out to you.

01:25:35

Before we go to our final break, which is much briefer than the last one or much more brief, we have

01:25:41

Joey in Clifton, New Jersey. I forwarded Joey's question to you because it's kind of lengthy, but I thought during the break you could look it over and answer with some time spent looking at it.

01:25:56

We have, sadly but not surprisingly, the same -sex agenda has grown in popularity, both in secular society and in the church.

01:26:05

Earlier you mentioned that their arguments have also evolved and gave the example of the

01:26:12

West Wing. Well, that was quite a while ago. Can you please share what you have seen in the evolution of their arguments and where they stand?

01:26:20

We know God's truth is unchanging, and in that sense our counter -arguments are timeless, and yet there are nuances in arguments that we must be prepared to answer, and I hope you can enlighten us in that regard.

01:26:33

And we'll have you answer Joey's question when we return from our final break. If anybody wants to get in line and ask a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:26:44

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

01:26:51

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these final messages. My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

01:27:02

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

01:27:07

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

01:27:14

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

01:27:19

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.nyc. They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Listening to Christian radio can be a big gamble spiritually.

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And we thank Mike Gadosz for his faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with our final segment of today's interview with Dr.

01:35:04

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries on homosexuality. And as you know, Dr. White, before the break, we had a question from Joey in Clifton, New Jersey.

01:35:14

He was basically saying or asking, even though that we have a timeless Word of God that doesn't change, do we need to change nuances in our approach to dealing with the arguments of advocates of homosexuality in the 21st century?

01:35:30

Well, even back when we wrote our book back in 2000, we noted then the fact that some books that were being published back then would have multiple arguments, for example, in Romans 1, and the arguments themselves would contradict each other.

01:35:47

So as long as you had an argument, it didn't matter if you presented three or four others that were contradictory to what you had already had.

01:35:54

This was the kind of thinking that you found amongst the advocates of homosexuality. And yes, the arguments have changed.

01:36:02

As I mentioned when Michael was on, Boswell was the big scholarly volume back then, a homosexual author from Yale.

01:36:13

And that book's pretty much fallen out of use. It's been so refuted so many times from so many different sources that it's not really utilized that way any longer.

01:36:25

Instead, now you have Brownson's book from 2013, as I mentioned.

01:36:31

For example, Matthew Vines did his little bit of over -an -hour -long presentation that went viral.

01:36:40

That led to the foundation of the Reformation Project. And within a couple of years, Brownson comes out, and now if you listen to Vines, it's going to be a different set of arguments.

01:36:50

Now it's primarily, for the past two years, it has been the hermeneutic of love that we have to take as the highest good in God's activities, that which produces love.

01:37:08

And then you combine that with the concept of human autonomy, and you put it all together, and that's sort of how the argumentation is going.

01:37:15

Now, that was not what Boswell was doing. That really wasn't even what Matthew Vines was presenting only a few years ago.

01:37:23

So there is development, just like trying to keep up with Pope Francis. Who knows what he's going to come up with next.

01:37:32

I mean, that's a whole other subject in and of itself. It's fascinating to me right now to listen to Rome's apologists just contradicting each other left, right, and center as to what in the world to do with Francis and all of his interesting statements and everything else.

01:37:55

This all goes back to the fact that they claim to have an infallible interpreter, but they don't have an infallible interpreter for their infallible interpreter.

01:38:04

Well, their infallible interpreter is a loose cannon, and it's just plain as can be that he does not believe what his predecessors believed on many, many issues.

01:38:17

And so, yeah, it's sort of an enjoyable thing to watch on one hand.

01:38:25

You know, I haven't heard Jerry Madetik's comment on Pope Francis, but I can just imagine what that would be like.

01:38:33

But, you know, for years we were very confidently told about the certainty that these people have, because, well, we have the

01:38:43

Pope, and you can inquire of the Pope, and now they don't want to inquire of the Pope, and all of a sudden what the Pope says is personal opinion, and la, la, la, la, la.

01:38:52

So there is a similarity as to the swiftness with which, on a very, very, very utilitarian basis, you know, once they find an argument that seems to be working in this cultural context, they'll switch over to it real fast.

01:39:12

And right now it's the hermeneutic of love. So, yeah, it does keep changing. Joey, you've won a copy, a free copy of both books,

01:39:20

The Same -Sex Controversy and Can You Be Gay and Christian? So please make sure we have your full mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey.

01:39:26

We have Matthew in St. John's, Florida. I attend Switzerland Community Church and will be the moderator for the debate between Drs.

01:39:35

White and Brown and the pastors whose viewpoint they will be debating. My question is, how is this current debate on homosexuality in the church similar to the nature versus nurture debates of the early to mid -20th century?

01:39:51

How is it different? And he has one more thing to follow up with. Well, so it depends on how much these guys depend upon that particular form of argumentation.

01:40:03

I don't know yet exactly what their position is going to be and whether they have differences even between the two of them on the issue.

01:40:16

They're given that, from what you have said, they are both open about themselves being homosexuals.

01:40:27

That raises all sorts of issues that would not be present if they were just a quote -unquote ally but were themselves heterosexual.

01:40:39

Homosexuals are going to be considerably less desirous of viewing this as some kind of a, well, let's find a gay gene and then we can fix it type thing.

01:40:50

That's generally not how the homosexuals themselves view themselves as someone who needs to be quote -unquote fixed in that way as far as a genetic therapy or a shot or something like that.

01:41:05

So the allies tend to have a wider range of expression of how that works.

01:41:11

But no matter what anymore, there is going to be much more emphasis upon nature in the sense of this is a good thing that God has given to me.

01:41:26

If you really, really, really want to hear a very well -done, strong argument from a practicing homosexual that identifies homosexuality as a gift given by God, Michael did a debate with Harry Knox a number of years ago.

01:41:49

I forget how long ago it was now, but it's in this decade anyway. Yes, I did see that.

01:41:54

But I would probably say, yeah, and Harry Knox is a very good speaker and just a very strong emotionally based appeal to listen to.

01:42:08

Well, thank you very much. You've also won, oh yeah, I forgot he has one more question. Why has homosexuality made such deep strides into evangelical

01:42:18

Christianity recently? What has caused us to have to deal with this issue so frequently, recently compared to most of the 20th century and before then?

01:42:29

Well, that's a multifaceted thing. I mean, it is obviously one of the primary mechanisms being used by those who wish to disrupt

01:42:39

Western society, disrupt the family, bring down the

01:42:45

West, is to emphasize absolute sexual autonomy. Once you have abandoned and lost the view of God as creator, then we have to fill in as being sovereign over these things, and therefore you see the rise of that.

01:43:02

On the one hand, it is being used in culture, and so the

01:43:10

Church is way, way, way, way behind the curve in responding to this. Our responses have been very halting because, hey,

01:43:19

I'm old enough to remember a time you just didn't even talk about this kind of stuff in any type of meaningful context.

01:43:29

And so the other reason is that we didn't talk about it and therefore were generally unaware of the biblical passages.

01:43:41

I mean, I've admitted I graduated from seminary in 1989, and when we talk about the clobber passages today, when we talk about passages specifically relevant to the subject of homosexuality,

01:43:57

I graduated seminary without a clue where they were. And everybody else did, too.

01:44:02

It just was not something that you were thinking about or that you would memorize those texts or know what their context was, the background or anything else.

01:44:13

So we're, as is often the case, error has run around the block ten times before truth gets out of bed and puts on its sneakers.

01:44:23

And so we're behind the curve as far as providing a response and in many ways still haven't done so in a fully coherent fashion that people really understand.

01:44:39

And until a large portion of our true believing populace, whatever small portion of the populace that is, has at least some functional understanding of the

01:44:52

Mosaic Law and what the relationship between Deuteronomy 18 and 20 is and all the related stuff of the

01:45:00

West Wing and everything else, we're going to continue to shoot ourselves in the foot and not really provide a real strong response,

01:45:09

I'm afraid. And don't you think a lot of this just boils down to fear of the repercussions of standing up against the left and a fear of being viewed as hateful?

01:45:22

And even, and with no offense to Dr. Brown, an

01:45:28

Arminian mindset that even Reform people sometimes amazingly borrow that we are going to win more homosexuals to Christ if we kind of soften our approach to, our opposition to what they're doing.

01:45:44

Well, I suppose in some people's situations, you could look at any one of those.

01:45:49

I don't think that Reform folks are out of the crosshairs in analyzing why

01:45:59

Reform churches have been slow in responding or not overly in -depth in responding.

01:46:07

And of course, quote -unquote, historically, Reform denominations have collapsed.

01:46:13

But those denominations like PCUSA, you know, you remember the church that we held the

01:46:20

Barry Lynn debate at was PCUSA. They were trying to sort of fight a retreating action in their own denomination at that point.

01:46:29

But that was lost. And before that could happen, there had to be a fundamental degradation of the view of Scripture and the authority of Scripture.

01:46:42

And that's what you see in, that's what I would see it as. There are

01:46:49

Arminian churches that have stood just as firm as any others, but they have a high view of Scripture.

01:46:55

And as soon as you lose that, that's when it all comes tumbling down.

01:47:01

And if you read any of the books coming out by, you know, this United Methodist pastor that I played some of his comments on the last

01:47:09

Dividing Line, or a couple of years ago a book came out from a large what denomination was that?

01:47:16

It was a real conservative one. Mega Church up in, I think it was Michigan, as to why they had turned their perspective on the subject of gay marriage.

01:47:29

With all of them, the consistent element of all of it is a collapse on the issue of the authority of Scripture and the perspicuity of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture on this subject.

01:47:43

You have to have that happen. And that's really the key thing for me.

01:47:49

Thank you, Matthew. You have won a copy of each of the books we have been mentioning, The Same -Sex

01:47:55

Controversy by Dr. White and also Can You Be Gay and Christian by Dr. Brown. Make sure we have your full mailing address there in Florida so those can be shipped out to you by cvbbs .com.

01:48:06

And we thank the publishers Bethany House and Baker and also Charisma Media for sending us these books.

01:48:13

We have Ted, who says today he is in Kingman, Arizona, the home state of Dr.

01:48:22

White, although he resides in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I can guarantee you it's at least six degrees hotter there than it is here, which means he could be preaching on the subject of hell very easily.

01:48:37

Well, he says, I'm wondering if Dr. White saw Denny Burke's blog piece after the

01:48:42

Revoice conference concluded, and if so, what he thought of the piece. I saw a link to it.

01:48:49

I didn't read it. So that was sort of something I did want to take a look at, but I did not have the opportunity of doing so.

01:48:55

Well, perhaps we'll bring that up with Tom Buck. Perhaps we'll bring it up on Wednesday, God willing, when Tom Buck is on to discuss the

01:49:02

Revoice conference. We have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says,

01:49:10

I know that a lot of people constantly bring up the fact that homosexuality is being portrayed as the impardonable sin and the worst of sins, etc.,

01:49:22

but I am having more of a problem with the widespread approach in evangelicalism where it seems to be less of a sin than many, if not most, of the sins that involve sex and other serious scandalous issues.

01:49:40

And does Dr. White have a problem with this growing trend toward treating homosexuality in a gentler and kinder way, in a way that they would not treat heterosexual sin?

01:49:56

Well, you know, I can understand how someone might feel that.

01:50:02

I've not seen that specifically outside of within liberal denominations where you've collapsed and accepted the idea that this is actually a gift from God.

01:50:15

Obviously, the origin of that, if someone else has seen it, would be in the reality that someone has accepted the idea that this orientation is actually a gift of God, that it's part of God's purposes, and therefore, you know, you can, it's sort of, once you accept the idea that God makes people angry, then you're obviously going to start diminishing guilt that is based upon someone acting that out in their life, or makes people envious, and therefore, however that works.

01:50:52

And obviously, in our society, it is becoming widely accepted, and you can lose your job if you say anything other than this within the work environment, for example, or it doesn't even have to be the work environment anymore.

01:51:08

If your boss finds you on Facebook saying something Christian, you can still end up losing certain kinds of jobs as a result.

01:51:16

Then I would think that would be the primary origination, is just a fear of men, a fear of the cultural collapse on this subject, and the fact that our culture is now calling that which is evil good and good evil.

01:51:30

And when you know that it's going to cost you a lot, then it's really easy for you to adjust yourself in such a fashion that you will sort of give off that feeling that you're viewing this as less important than other things.

01:51:47

But let's be honest. Within our society, adultery, fornication, anything like that, that's not considered all that serious.

01:51:58

In fact, anymore, that's just what you expect. Serial divorce and all that kind of stuff, hey, that's just where Western society is today.

01:52:13

So it's all just getting lumped into one category, as far as I can see.

01:52:19

And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks something similar. He says, I see evangelicals more and more who say that they believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and believe in the same gospel that we do, claiming there can be such a thing as a gay

01:52:36

Christian as long as he remains chaste. This seems to be prevalent in Roman Catholicism, even amongst the more conservative

01:52:43

Catholics, who will allow priests to be ordained into the priesthood, even though they confess to be homosexual as long as they promise or vow to be chaste.

01:52:56

Do you see this as being as much of a problem as I see it? Well, yeah.

01:53:03

This is a subject that really I addressed prior to the REVOICE conference.

01:53:10

And the next step, which now that you've gotten people to accept the concept of orientation, well now the next step beyond that is to say, and the orientation itself is morally neutral, it may be a disordered desire, but it's just a desire for something that you shouldn't do, it's not that there's something wrong with the desire itself.

01:53:38

And that's the next step where people are accepting that idea, and hence allowing for a

01:53:45

Christian to be identified in that fashion, identified by a disordered desire, and it just defines who they are even in the relationship to Christ, and in the relationship to other believers and things like that.

01:54:00

And it is keeping a clear category difference there in recognizing that you can have, obviously a man who commits serial adultery against his wife, you could say it's a disordered desire, but that term probably should be best kept to utilize in a specific area of disordered against the order of creation.

01:54:37

And I guess you could still make the argument even then he's doing that against the order of creation, but the point is that the sexual desire of a man for a female is not in and of itself against creation.

01:54:49

It's not unnatural. Yeah, and when you use the term unnatural, just remember if you're ever talking with a homosexual advocate about this, they're going to talk to you about 1

01:55:01

Corinthians and long hair being against nature. So you have to be prepared to deal with the reality that there is a created order in Scripture, and that's different than a merely societal order.

01:55:17

And so homosexual advocates will always find some way of redefining katafousis in Romans chapter 1 against nature in some way that there is not a creative decree and there is not a created order.

01:55:34

There's not something that is natural. And so just keep that in mind.

01:55:40

But the unnatural nature of those desires is being put on another level, and it's being put off to where, well, you can desire to do this unnatural thing, and that can be the focus of even how you see beauty, which is what you had at the

01:56:00

Revoice Conference. But as long as you don't act upon it, then that orientation is not displeasing before God, because he made you that way.

01:56:09

So that's the next step that is being presented. We have time for one more question.

01:56:14

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania says, I heard that there were prominent homosexual ministry groups, and I'm not talking about advocates of homosexuality, but evangelical outreaches to homosexuals that would not support the same -sex controversy because they disagreed with your approach that even the proclivity towards this sin is sin itself.

01:56:38

Is this true, and do you care to comment on it? I have no idea.

01:56:44

I've never had anyone raise the issue. I would assume that there are undoubtedly groups out there.

01:56:52

I mean, I can guarantee you the Revoice Conference wasn't selling my book. And I would find it awfully strange that they did, and so I'd have to know what groups we're talking about, but I'm unaware of anyone publishing something saying, well, they're wrong about X, Y, or Z, and that that's the issue.

01:57:14

And that's the issue I was just talking about. I mean, that is the next step is to say, no, there really isn't anything particularly wrong about even the orientation itself.

01:57:23

That's the next step. Well, if you could just take a minute to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air.

01:57:32

Yeah, I am actually going to be at the G3 conference. So we'll just correct that little error right there.

01:57:48

But, no, obviously I hope people will pray that the actual debate does take place, that we won't have any problems getting it recorded or distributed or anything like that, and that it will be very, very clear once again in bringing

01:58:01

Scripture to bear, and that hopefully the men that we're debating will bring forth the best arguments and that we'll have true godly wisdom in being able to respond in a clear and forthright fashion that we'll then be able to encourage others to do the same thing.

01:58:18

Well, don't forget, folks, that the debate, God willing, between Dr.

01:58:24

White and Dr. Brown on the same team and two advocates of homosexuality who are ordained ministers that will be held on Saturday, God willing,

01:58:34

September 8th at 6 .30 p .m. at the Switzerland Community Church. That website is

01:58:39

SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org. SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org. We thank Jake Korn, one of the pastors there, for helping us arrange this.

01:58:47

Also, the night before, at the Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary's Jacksonville campus,

01:58:53

Dr. White and Dr. Brown will be discussing cross -denominational evangelism. And don't forget about the

01:59:00

G3 Conference, too, that we were just talking about. The G3Conference .com, G3Conference .com. That's in January of 2019.

01:59:08

I want to thank you so much, Dr. White, for being on the show today. If you could just hold on a second when we go off the air, I want to say a proper goodbye to you.

01:59:15

And I hope that you all who are listening always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater