Here is this month’s top 10 list of why Dave Hunt’s Berean Call should change its name to something else. The following quotations are all from the July issue of The Berean Call. I challenge you to be Berean. Look up the verses provided by The Berean Call, or search your Bibles and history to find out if the assertions made are true.
10. “Jews or Gentiles who believed on Christ, but not until they saw Him at the Second Coming, are not in the church but will dwell on earth eternally: in their natural bodies on the new earth with access to the new Jerusalem but not as its residents (Rv 21:24).”
9. “Jews saved at the Second Coming will eternally dwell in the promised land of Israel on the new earth (Gen 17:7; 1 Chr 16:14-18; Ezk 32:21-28; 39:27-29; Zec 12:10).”
8. “The sudden mass disappearance worldwide of 100 million (or maybe more) of earth’s inhabitants will cause a panic beyond anything we can imagine.”
7. “I believe that all of the babies and small children (of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc.) will also vanish, taken to heaven at the same time.”
6. “No matter how familiar with the Left Behind series, whoever ‘received not the love of the truth…believed not the truth…God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned…’ (2 Thes 2:10-12). I don’t think that necessarily means they have specifically rejected the gospel of Christ. It could also mean they have rejected the witness of creation and conscience.”
5. “I agree that Calvinists deserve credit for much of the Christianity of early America, for founding Christian universities, etc. But one cannot praise Calvinism by contrasting the spiritual condition of the church of that day with the apostasy in the church today without including the apostasy in the majority of today’s Calvinist churches.”
4. “The huge difference between the biblical God and the Calvinist God is clear. The biblical God punishes men for rejecting the salvation He provided for everyone, which all could have accepted by their free will- and punishes them for their sins, which are contrary to His will, none of which they had to commit but chose to do so.”
3. “But the Calvinist God condemns to hell those whom He could save if He so desired but for whom He sovereignly chose not even to have Christ die and from whom He deliberately withholds the salvation He pretends to offer them-and punishes them for not accepting.”
2.“Those whom God, by foreknowledge, knew would receive Christ were elected/predestined to certain blessings. The Bible does not teach that God causes some to believe and refuses to give saving faith to others.”
1. “It is not true that I teach that everything that happens has all been predetermined by God based upon His foreknowledge. That doesn’t even make sense. God wouldn’t need foreknowledge to predetermine everything. He would just predetermine it. But God has not predetermined everything that happens in our world. That is Calvinist doctrine. Its denial of man’s free will makes a holy God the author of all evil.”
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Talk About Scholarly Hubris
James White, , General Apologetics, Mormonism
Some will remember that I invested some time responding to Michael Heiser, the academic editor for Logos Bible Software. Years ago one of Michael Heiser’s supporters contacted us, promoting his views of Psalm 82. Rich Pierce had some brief interaction with him. In any case, since I had been asked a number of times about Heiser’s views, I took some
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Imputation Controversy #3
James White, , General Apologetics
We return to our review of Mark A. Seifrid’s Christ: our Righteousness. We had cited the following from page 176: In raising the foregoing criticism, we are touching upon problems which attend Protestant placement of justification within in an ‘order of salvation’ (ordo salutis). According to Paul, ‘justification’ has to do with Christ’s cross and resurrection for us “the whole
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The Sudden Clarity of Black Racism (Louis Farrakhan), Then a Response to Jonathan McLatchie on the Noetic Effect of Sin
James White, , Christian Worldview, Debate, Exegesis, General Apologetics, Hebrew Israelism, Post-Evangelicalism, Racialism, Reformed Baptist Issues, The Dividing Line
Started off looking at a clip showing sincere, clear, plain black supremacy straight from the teachings of Louis Farrakhan, a very well known racist who believes white people are demons. Eventually we transitioned into providing an exegetical response to Jonathan McLatchie’s assertion that there really is no “noetic effect of sin,” a claim he lays out in this article. The
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Pool of Siloam Discovered in Jerusalem
James White, , General Apologetics
Oddly enough, it was found right where…John said it was. How can that be, since John is not historical? Oh sorry, been reading too much Jesus Seminar stuff lately. Here’s the story. (Hat tip RW)
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A Mega Size Dividing Line: Matthew Vines, NT Wright, Yusuf Ismail, and More
James White, , Abortion, Christian Worldview, General Apologetics, Homosexuality, Islam, Pastoral Theology, The Dividing Line, Theology Matters
Going almost a full two hours today was pretty easy, given how much I needed to catch up on! Did nearly a full hour on Matthew Vines’ comments about me from a recent Google video, then played a clip from NT Wright on predestination and election, then I addressed my Muslim friends, and finished up going back to the issue
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Atheism; No Good Reason
Jeff Downs, , Atheism, Christian Worldview, General Apologetics, Reformed Apologetics
This morning we held our third Learning at Lebanon Seminar at Lebanon Presbyterian Church, Abbeville, SC. Dustin Segers was our guest speaker addressing the topic, “No Good Reason to be An Atheist.” The audio is now available by clicking here. Dustin also addressed the same topic back in 2006 at our No Other gods Conference. The audio (much different) is
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The Episode to Treat Insomnia
James White, , Church Fathers, Church History, Eastern Orthodoxy, Exegesis, General Apologetics, Islam, The Dividing Line, Theology Matters
Yeah, I know. I did warn everyone beforehand saying this would be a seminary-level program, and, well, it was. Just a little discussion of today’s journey and where I am before getting into Gregory’s confession of faith once again. For some reason I really felt like I need to provide a lot of background information today, so, I did. After