I started off today’s program with a brief recap of the debate from Newberg, and Dan Barker’s continued damage control campaign. Moved fairly quickly on to the comments of Chuck Smith and his co-hosts on the “Pastor’s Perspective” radio program, as found here. This just under five minute clip is a study in shallow eisegesis. It is incredible that these men who are leaders of such a large movement could be so simplistic in their traditionalism. Simply shocking. Then we took calls on a wide variety of issues.
Rich reminded me that I cut off the clip about thirty seconds too quickly (I wanted to get to our callers), so I skipped replying to the last statement made by the Calvary Chapel speakers, that being that Calvinism is “Christianity without Jesus.” Now, I realize these men have purposefully remained ignorant of the positions they lampoon and attack. There is a fear on their part regarding engaging in serious scholarly study of such issues. But that aside, it is amazing to hear someone spout off such an absurdity as if it has serious theological value. Christianity without Jesus? How about Christianity with a Jesus who can actually save? How about Christianity with a LORD not a wanna-be who tries and tries but normally fails? I would dearly love to have any one of these men on my program to walk through John 6 or John 8 or John 10 or John 17 to see whether they will allow Jesus to actually speak His truth or whether they will muzzle Him with their man-made traditions. These are the same men who misquoted Matthew 23:37 in this clip again (how many times have we heard Arminians twist that Scripture?), so they should be very careful about throwing around such accusations as they did in this clip.
