Alpha and Omega Ministries

Every time we open the phones we get such excellent questions! A huge thank you to everyone who joined the Zoom and called in today—all of your questions were truly great. Today we tackled tough questions like the canon of Scripture and its relationship to epistemology as well as how believers need to view politics, voting, etc. We got calls from Ireland and Hungary as well! Went in depth in our responses as well. Remember, Rich is out of town for a bit, so we will be back, Deo volente, next week.

After some comments on a variety of topics at the top of the program, we dove deep into the following citation from Basil the Great, "because the honor paid to the image passes on to the prototype." We looked at the original context and meaning, and then how it was plucked out of that context and used by John of Damascus, and how that then became central to the arguments of the iconophiles at Nicea II, and hence became the basis of "infallible dogma" for both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Not an entertaining program, to be sure, but hopefully a helpful one. Tomorrow we will be doing a Zoom call "open phones" program, so join us then!

Covered the waterfront today to be sure! Talked about Trump's healing meme, the Pope and the Muslims, and Joel Webbon playing footsie with Catholics on the Reformation, all because...the Jews!

Was joined by Aaron Shafovaloff of Mormonism Research Ministry (mrm.org) to discuss developments in Mormonism and to review a clip of a recent LDS discussion wherein the historic view of God is questioned by Blake Ostler, an ostensibly LDS philosopher and attorney, and others in the "New Mormonism" movement. If you have LDS friends and neighbors, you will want to listen to this one!

In light of the resurrection of a particularly bad parable by Jacob Hansen we went over the lengthy rebuttal of the story of the "boys in the pond" parable (Hansen made it girls in a lake), showing that it fails on every level to correspond to biblical truth. We also touched on a good bit of LDS theology as well today.

Spent the program responding to the craziness that has developed after the debate in Ogden, working through all the details. Good opportunity to discuss debates, integrity, proper use of sources, form of argumentation, etc. Also gave us a chance to discuss the rise of "Neo-Mormonism" in contrast with historic LDS orthodoxy.

Dr. White broadcasts from the road ahead of his debate in Ogden, Utah. He starts with a warning regarding extreme rhetoric surrounding the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint (LXX), before continuing the review of the Austin vs. Hansen cross-examination for debate prep.

Covered a few pressing topics today, from the cultural chaos of utterly unqualified Supreme Court justices to Phil Vischer's question about defining doctrines. Then we talked a bit about "Eucharistic miracles" and an odd little exchange on X about debating the topic, and finally we got just a minute into the cross-ex between Avery Austin and Jacob Hansen in their recent debate. Since I will be debating Jacob in a few days, this is good preparatory thinking.

First "real" program from the Mobile Command Center! Musings on secularism, the death of the West, and God's judgment.

Jumped into our new 5th wheel to test out all the work Rich has been doing putting together a rapidly deployable and usable mobile studio in the wonderful office space in our new unit. Went well! He has more tweaking to do, and I have a lot of pictures to put up yet, but we are started. Headed to Utah on Thursday, debate on Saturday with Shabir Ally. Covered a bunch of topics from the Apocrypha to the Qur'an to Phil Vischer! Hope to do another program on Thursday after six plus hours on the road.

Started off with a disgusting post from Michael Spangler attacking Corrie Ten Boom and the book, The Hiding Place. Just astonishing how Jew hatred rots the brain. Then we moved on to Dan McClellan's response piece, but spent most of today just discussing doing scholarship under the Lordship of Christ, and how this determines how you are going to interact with the text of Scripture. We will have to continue that response next week, hopefully from the Mobile Command Center!

Finished up the cross-examination from the Hansen v. Heschmeyer debate, covering a number of important topics, and then finished up responding to a claim regarding using "preferred pronouns" from 2019. Was going to get to responding to McClellan, but will do so on the next program!

We started off with a video clip that popped up right before the program of Joel Webbon seriously struggling to answer the question, "Does the Bible say Mary was a Jew?" Yeah, seriously. Then we moved to the Dustin Smith debate and the fact that the little Unitarian group is still working hard on spinning the debate. We played sections from the cross-examination and then dove into the text to examine his replies or his questions, depending. We went long on this one, out to 80 minutes for this edition!

After a brief reminder about upcoming debates and ministry, we listened to a brief video from Dan McClellan claiming there is no monotheism in the Bible, and then we walked through Jeremiah 10 to demonstrate that the great Bible scholar is in rather obvious error. Started to try to get back to the cross-ex in the Hansen/Heschmeyer debate, but saw a tweet about Joel Webbon that caught my eye, so we looked at that instead to finish out the program. Not sure when the next program will be, as I have the final inspection to go through on Thursday on my house project, and who knows when they will get that finished. We will let you know on the app or on X.

Dr. White dedicates the entire program to addressing the fallacious and heretical claims made by Texas Senate candidate James Talarico regarding transgenderism, abortion, and the Christian faith.

Continued listening to the Jacob Hansen/Joe Heschmeyer debate, this time starting Joe's examination of Jacob. Then transitioned into a review of the final major sermon of Joseph Smith, delivered only 11 days before his death in 1844, the "Sermon in the Grove" on the plurality of gods.

Today we looked at a few comments made by Trent Horn in the sola scriptura debate in Dallas, and then returned to the Hansen/Heschmeyer debate from Salt Lake. We analyze the cross-examination and point out problems on both sides! #TheDividingLine #JamesWhite #RomanCatholicism #Mormonism #Apologetics

We started listening to the cross-examination in the debate over the "Great Apostasy" that took place back in December between Jacob Hansen and Joe Heschmeyer. This is allowing us to delve into Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, Church History, and a lot more, in a really enjoyable, organic way. We will continue the review in the upcoming programs!

Today we dove into the debate I did with Dr. Dustin Smith in Dallas on the Trinity vs. Unitarianism, and in particular, our reasons for doing debates, etc. Then we looked at 1 Corinthians 8:6, which came up in the debate, and used it as an example of my main thesis: that the Unitarian has an over-riding presupposition that forces him into eisegesis when faced with evidence against his position. We will look at the Hansen/Heshmeyer cross-ex on the next episode!

Started doing some debate reviews on the program today. Mentioned a little bit about my debate with Dr. Smith, but will review more of that in a future program. Then we looked at some cross-examination from the Nortier/Flowers debate and spent some time discussing what it means to do "work" on a passage, the different level of "work," etc. Then I mentioned the surreal experience of listening to the Heschmeyer/Hansen debate and having to agree with both of them at key points. We will listen to some of the cross-examination on the next program.